17. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 440-462

Part Two: A Great Man in Embryo, 37. Finot's finesses; 38. The fateful week

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Having burned his bridges, Lucien is left with friends only on the right. But even on that side, he attracts suspicion and jealousy, so he "clung to his one desire -- to get his ordinance, realizing that with his name restored he could make a fine marriage." Unfortunately, among his new enemies and former friends, Lousteau is aware of this ambition.

At the theater, Lucien runs into Finot, accompanied by Des Lupeaulx, who praises Lucien's ability to charm Mademoiselle des Touches ("who's already regarded as your future wife in social circles") as well as Mesdames d'Espard, de Bargeton and de Montcornet. But behind Lucien's back, Des Lupeaulx confides to Finot that the Marquise, Madame de Bargeton and Châtelet "have thrown him into the royalist party in order to eliminate him.... I'm in their confidence, and they detest the little fellow to an amazing extent." And Finot confides that his former friends are doing their part to demolish Lucien, who still has a contract with Lousteau and needs every penny he can earn, and that they "are engineering a flop for Coralie: he'll see his mistress hissed off the stage." Lucien doesn't suspect a thing.

And so comes what Balzac refers to as Lucien's "fateful week," his equivalent of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. Coralie is going to work at a new theater, the Gymnase, her old one having gone bankrupt. And to make sure she's well received, he humbles himself and goes to Camusot with the remaining notes from Fendant and Cavalier. In order to protect Coralie from humiliation, Camusot agrees to give Lucien four thousand five hundred francs for the notes, endorsed "for value received in silk stuffs." Lucien then goes to the claqueur Braulard and pays to have them applaud Coralie.

The evening before Coralie's performance, d'Arthez's book is published, and Martainville, the editor of Le Réveil, orders Lucien to write a review denouncing it, largely to get back at another member of the Cénacle, Léon Giraud, whose new journal is becoming a serious rival to theirs. It doesn't matter that d'Arthez in fact shares their royalist opinions: He is simply the most convenient target. Lucien refuses to write the article, but Merlin and Martainville pressure him to do it by threatening to join in the attempt of the Liberal papers to mock Coralie's performance. Lucien has no choice: He reads d'Arthez's book and finds it "one of the finest in modern literature..., but in the end he wrote a mocking article of the kind at which he was so skillful and laid hold of the book as children lay hold of a beautiful bird to pluck its feathers and torture it."

Sickened by what he has written, he takes the article to d'Arthez and confesses what he has been forced to do. D'Arthez is moved by Lucien's dilemma and by his loyalty to Coralie, reads the article, and proposes to rewrite it himself: "I can make your article more honourable both to you and to me. Besides, I alone am thoroughly aware of my shortcomings." But he is also harshly critical of Lucien's moral weakness: "Repentance is a virginity which our souls owe to God: a man who twice repents is therefore a reprehensible sycophant. I'm afraid you only look on penitence as a prelude to absolution."

Coralie, terrified by the prospect of failure, fails. The claqueurs Lucien has hired are ineffective against their opponents, and the reviews are terrible. Coralie falls ill and withdraws from the play, to be replaced by Florine, "who took over her part and made her reputation in it, for she saved the play." Lucien vows to her, "I shall be the Comte de Rubempré. I shall make a fortune and marry you!" But Coralie knows he's only being foolish, which he proves by going out that evening and losing two thousand francs at the gambling tables.

Finot reports to Lucien that his attack on d'Arthez's novel, though revised by the attackee himself, is causing "scandal and uproar": "People are saying that Marat was a saint compared with you. They're getting ready to attack you, and your book won't survive it." (Lucien has been going over the last proofs of his novel before publication.)

Coralie is "in bed, pale and ill," and Bérénice warns Lucien that she will die if he doesn't find a new part for her. He goes to a soirée at Mademoiselle des Touches, where Madame de Bargeton gives him good news: He is to go tomorrow to the Chancellery, where the King has signed the decree making him Comte de Rubempré. Unfortunately, this is not only a hoax engineered by Madame d'Espard, but an article he has written making fun of the King and the Keeper of the Seals has just appeared in Lousteau's newspaper. So when he arrives at the Chancellery, he is denounced by the Secretary-General and shown the decree which the Lord Chancellor has torn to pieces. Des Lupeaulx, who has accompanied him, tells Lucien, "You've compromised me, Mesdames d'Espard and de Bargeton, and Madame de Montcornet, who had answered for you, must be furious."

Stunned, Lucien is walking past a bookstore when he sees that his novel has been published, "underneath a strange and to him unknown title." He hadn't been told of its publication, "and the newspapers were saying nothing about it." And then Michel Chrestien and Léon Giraud approach him on the street, and Michel spits in his face. Lucien slaps his face and challenges him to a duel.

15. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 409-424

Part Two: A Great Man in Embryo, 32. The "viveurs"; 33. A fifth variety of publisher; 34. Blackmail

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Lucien falls in with "a society of young people, rich or poor, all of them idle, known as viveurs." They are reckless and spendthrift, wild, frenzied, with no thought for what tomorrow may bring. The prince of viveurs is Rastignac, who, Balzac tells us, finally wound up distinguishing himself in "a serious career." But for the moment he is a very bad influence on Lucien, though the chief bad influence is Blondet. Lucien "gave up hope of literary fame, believing it easier to come by success in politics." Coralie is hardly a stabilizing influence: "Lover and mistress piled up debts with alarming rapidity."

Like all poets, the great man in embryo showed a momentary concern for their disastrous situation, promised to work, forgot his promise and drowned his passing cares in debauchery.

He is also intriguing with Hector Merlin, who has been promised the editorship of the new conservative publication Le Réveil, against his old liberal friends.

Gradually, as horses, carriage, furniture, and the like are seized in lieu of payment for their debts, and more and more items go to the pawnshop, Lucien feels the need to do something. Only the tailor, the milliner and the dressmaker are still willing to supply them, and then only because "they trembled at the thought of displeasing a journalist capable of bringing their establishments into disrepute." So Lousteau suggests finding a publisher for The Archer of Charles the Ninth. He and Merlin dine with some publishers to talk up Lucien's book, and tell them has a stack of other manuscripts he can supply in addition to that one:

"You can guess, Lucien, that our publishers had eyes like saucers.... By the way, have you any saucers left?"
"They are under distraint," said Coralie.
"Point taken."

Lucien is "feeling quite gleeful at the thought of getting the most he could out of Lousteau before turning his back on the Liberals, whom he was planning to attack the more effectively for having studied them closely," but Lousteau is also getting a commission from the publishing firm of Fendant and Cavalier for bringing Lucien to them.

The publishers are interested in getting "the next Walter Scott," as in fact are all the Parisian publishers. Balzac satirizes this lack of imagination among publishers through them:

One of the major stupidities of Parisian commerce is that it hopes to achieve success by sticking to the same lines of enterprise as have paid off before, whereas success goes by contraries. In Paris, more than anywhere, success kills success.

Plus ça change.... How many publishers today are looking for the next John Grisham or Dan Brown? How many TV producers are working on the next "Lost" or "Glee"? How many summer movies are sequels or remakes of old TV shows? And like publishers today, Fendant and Cavalier are concerned with marketing: They want to change the title, The Archer of Charles the Ninth, because they don't think it will sell: "Cavalier would have to give a course of lectures on French history in order to sell a single copy in the provinces." But in the end, Lucien signs the contract, "provided the title suits me."

Meanwhile, Lousteau is having his own troubles with debts, his own mistress having been cut off by Matifat. He is talking about blackmail -- "an invention of the English press," which he explains to Lucien thus: "You embark on some sticky operation which a series of articles can bring to failure: a blackmailer is detailed to propose that you buy them off." It's not that different from the usual quid pro quo arrangements between reviewers and publishers or theater owners, except that a middleman is involved. And he tells Lucien that "Des Lupeaulx, whom you know, is perpetually busy carrying out negotiations of that sort with journalists." Lousteau is trying his own form of blackmail on Matifat, using the love letters Matifat wrote to Florine.

This piece of confidence sobered Lucien. His first thought was that he had exceedingly dangerous friends. Then he reflected that he must not fall out with them, for he might stand in need of their terrible power in case Madame d'Espard, Madame de Bargeton and Châtelet broke faith with him.

14. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 396-408

Part Two: A Great Man in Embryo, 31. Polite society

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Lucien's appearance, in the new finery selected for him by Coralie, at the salon of Madame de Montcornet arouses "a kind of repressed envy among the young men present, those who reigned supreme in the realm of fashion, including De Marsay. And both the Comtesse de Montcornet and Madame d'Espard "had Lucien between them and overwhelmed him with coquettish attentions." The latter informs him that Madame de Bargeton's husband has died, and she defends her cousin's dumping of Lucien thus: "Do you think she wanted to become Madame Chardon?" On the other hand, "The title 'Comtesse de Rubempré' was well worth the trouble of acquiring." And she dangles before him the possibility of become Comte de Rubempré.

Lucien no longer knew what to think. Initiated as he was in the perfidies of journalism, he knew nothing of those of society. And so, despite his perspicacity, he was due for some hard lessons. 

She tells him that Châtelet hasn't been as hurt by the Heron and Cuttle-bone satires as he thought -- the articles may even have done him some benefit with the government because "while the newspapers ridicule Châtelet, they leave the Ministry in peace." And the Comtesse wants to introduce Lucien to the "fabulously rich" Mademoiselle des Touches, who writes under the pen-name Camille Maupin. Lucien begins to realize that "There was as much difference between a woman of the style and quality of the Comtesse de Montcornet and Coralie as there was between Coralie and a woman of the streets."

Madame d'Espard continues to butter up Lucien, praising his intelligence and his ability to adapt to "Parisian manners, and claiming that Madame de Bargeton had all along "wanted to obtain from the King an ordinance which would allow you to bear the name and title de Rubempré. She wanted to bury the Chardon." She points out a man named Des Lupeaulx, whose family name was originally Chardin, but who now is in line to become the Comte de Lupeaulx. All Lucien needs to do is what Emile Blondet has done:  "He's got into newspaper which supports the Government: all the powers that be approve of him; he can consort with the Liberals without danger since he has orthodox opinions." But if he stays with the left and with Coralie, she says, "You'll find yourself loaded with debts and sated with pleasure in a few years' time."

But when Lucien questions if what she says is true, she takes offense, "throwing Lucien a cold and haughty look which brought him down to earth again." The Comtesse, however, remains cordial and invites him to her next soirée, which Madame de Bargeton will attend.

When they leave the table, he is joined by Rastignac and Blondet. The latter tells Rastignac that Lucien has fallen in with Lousteau, whom he regards as stupid and mercenary. "As a Rubempré, Lucien is bound to have aristocratic leanings; as a journalist, he is bound to side with the Government, otherwise he'll never either be Rubempré or come to be a secretary-general." When Lucien tells them that he doesn't play whist, Rastignac offers to teach him. He also talks to Des Lupeaulx, whom he had met earlier at Madame du Val-Noble's, and reflects on how well he is getting along in society. But after he leaves, the others talk about him:

"What a fatuous man!" said Des Lupeaulx to the Marquise, when Lucien had taken his leave of her.
"He'll go rotten before he's ripe," de Marsay said to the Marquise with a smile. "You must have hidden reasons for turning his head like this." 

Coralie has come to wait for him, and she joins in the chorus urging him to go over to the government's side: "You can make yourself useful, become a peer of France and marry a rich woman." She tells him that a new royalist newspaper is being started, and urges him to join up with it, "but say nothing to Etienne or his friends -- they're quite capable of playing a nasty trick on you."

A week later, he goes to Madame de Montcornet's and sees Madame de Bargeton again. "She had become more what she would always have been if she had not lived in the provinces: a great lady." And he finds himself torn between "the beautiful, loving and voluptuous Coralie and the dry, haughty and cruel Louise." But he chooses the former, to Madame de Bargeton's anger. He does, however, contemplate a "quick romance" with the rich and beautiful Mademoiselle des Touches.

He then joins Madame de Bargeton and Madame d'Espard to talk about the ordinance which would make him a de Rubempré. The Marquise says that he must "put himself in a position to be protected without embarrassing those who protect him." He agrees to do so.

Thrilled by the glamour of aristocracy, the poet felt unspeakable mortification at hearing himself called Chardon when he saw that the salons only admitted men who bore high-sounding names with titles to set them off.

And at the end, Rastignac has taught him to play whist.

12. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 355-384

Part Two: A Great Man in Embryo, 25. The battle begins; 26. Dauriat pays a call; 27. A study in the art of recantation; 28. Journalistic grandeurs and servitudes

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Furious at having his book of sonnets turned down by Dauriat, Lucien seeks revenge and finds it when Lousteau hands him a copy of Nathan's book and tells him to demolish it with a review. Lucien, who admires the book and likes Nathan, is at first reluctant until Lousteau explains: A second edition of the book is about to be issued by Dauriat. If the review is sufficiently scathing, Dauriat will lose money on the publication. (Nathan will not be financially harmed: He has already received whatever Dauriat has paid him for the rights to the book.)  Lousteau tells him the way to attack the book is "By making every quality a defect," and explains that he should start "by saying it's a fine work." That way he'll disarm the reader who "will regard your criticism as conscientious." Then he should shift the focus of the review to the larger topic of French literary history, and show that Nathan is "an imitator with only a semblance of talent." By setting it against the past, and by "standing out for ideas and style against imagery and verbiage, continuing the Voltairian school and opposing the Anglo-German school," he can "pulverize Nathan whose work, though it contains traits of superior beauty, gives freedom of the city to a literature devoid of ideas."

Lucien sets to the task and in three days produces what Hector Merlin calls "a masterpiece." He also writes another, lighter piece, which demonstrates his versatility. "'Dauriat will be thunderstruck by the article we've just been listening to,' said Lousteau to Lucien. 'You see now, my boy, what a newspaper can do!'" He also tells Lucien that the attack on Châtelet has been successful: "Madame de Bargeton is now definitely known in society as the Cuttle-bone and Châtelet is no longer called anything but Baron Heron." But Nathan has got word of Lucien's  review, and is worried about the harm it might do him.

The next day, Lucien is having lunch with Coralie when Dauriat arrives at her home. Coralie instructs Bérénice to keep him waiting, and when they finally admit the publisher he is ready to pay three thousand francs for Lucien's book as long as Lucien never attacks another of his publications. Lucien replies, "I can't pledge my pen. It belongs to my friends, just as theirs belongs to me." They agree instead that Lucien will give Dauriat fair warning of any future attacks, so he can "forestall them." And Dauriat admits, "Last week I wouldn't have given a fig for your sonnets, but your position today turns them into something rich and rare."

When Dauriat has left, Coralie tells Lucien that this would never have happened if had listened to his "little friends" in the Cénacle and stayed out of journalism. He is a little shocked when she refers to them as "a rare lot of simpletons," but he relishes the income he has received and sends off five hundred francs of it to his mother. And he and Coralie go off to dine with Madame du Val-Noble, where he meets "a whole world of artists and financiers," Rastignac among them, who give him "a wonderful welcome." They then go to the Opera. "Thus Lucien reappeared in triumph in the place where, some months ago, he had had so heavy a fall." He gets some "insolent stares" from some of the men who had mocked him earlier, but when Rastignac pays a visit to Madame d'Espard's box, he sees the Marquise and Madame de Bargeton "eyeing Coralie through their opera-glasses."

Was Lucien arousing some regret in Madame de Bargeton's heart? His mind was preoccupied with this thought: at the sight of the Corinna of Angoulême a desire for vengeance stirred his heart as on the day when, in the Champs-Élysée, she and her cousin had treated him with contempt.

Several days later, Blondet  brings Lucien an invitation to the salon of Madame la Comtesse de Montcornet, at the behest of Châtelet, who wants to make peace with the newspaper. Blondet has also "promised to reconcile Laura and Petrarch, that is to say Madame de Bargeton and Lucien." Lucien is triumphant: "I have them at my feet!" And sets out to write "an article on the Cuttle-Fish and the Heron." As for the visit to Madame de Montcornet's salon, he tells Coralie not to worry: "It's a question, not of love, but of revenge, and I intend it to be complete."

Meanwhile, Nathan has been hurt by the article -- for which Lucien has been paid an unprecedented hundred francs -- and Lousteau is worried that he might take revenge on Lucien: "Nathan's a journalist, he has friends, he could play a nasty trick on you at your first publication." He proposes that Lucien write another article praising Nathan. And when Lucien expresses astonishment that, after having attacked Nathan, they now want him to completely reverse his opinion, "Emile Blondet, Hector Merlin, Etienne Lousteau and Félicien Vernou all cut him short with a burst of laughter." And Blondet tells him, "My dear boy, in literature, every idea has its front and reverse side, and no one can presume to state which side is which." And as Lousteau had done for the first article, Blondet outlines the second, in which Lucien will argue that we are in an age of progress, which Nathan's book demonstrates: "Demolish your previous argument by showing that we're in advance on the eighteenth century."

The first article didn't have Lucien's name on it. It was signed with a C. The second will be signed with an L. And then, Blondet proposes, Lucien will write a third article signed with his own name, critiquing the articles by C and L and proclaiming that "Nathan's work is the finest the period has produced. That's as good as saying nothing at all -- they say it about every book. Your week will have earned you four hundred francs as well as the pleasure of having told the truth somewhere or other. People of sense will agree with C or L or Rubempré, perhaps with all three!" And Coralie likens what Lucien is doing to acting: "Do as I do: make faces at them for their money, and let's live happily."

So Lucien takes to the project, goes to sign the contract with Dauriat "ceding all rights in the manuscript -- without seeing the drawbacks of this," and writes "the terrible article against Châtelet and Madame de Bargeton which he had promised Blondet."

The fact of commanding notice in Paris, having realized its immensity and the difficult of making an impression there, put Lucien in a state of elation which went to his head. 

Two days later, he arrives at the Ambigu theater to review a play and discovers there are no tickets for him. He complains to the stage-manager who says the tickets had been sent to the newspaper and there's nothing he can do for him, but the leading lady recognizes him as "Coralie's lover" and Lucien finds himself sharing a box with the Duc de Rhétoré, whom he had met earlier at Florine's, and the dancer Tullia. The duke tells him that he has "brought two people to despair," meaning Châtelet and Madame de Bargeton, but "when the duke maliciously called him Chardon, he gave himself away by attempting to establish his right to bear the name of Rubempré." The duke advises him to become a royalist and get "a royal ordinance restoring the title and name of your maternal ancestors." He also invites Lucien to dinner.

Lucien did not suspect that a little conspiracy was being woven against him by those who were at that moment suffering from the newspaper attacks, or that Monsieur de Rhétoré had a finger in the pie.... During Florine's supper, the duke had sized up Lucien's character: now he had captured him by playing on his vanity and was practising his diplomatic ability on him.

Lucien writes a scathing review of the play, which appears in the same paper as the article about Madame de Bargeton and Châtelet, but the review has been edited so that "while his witty analysis of it remained intact, a favourable verdict emerged from it." He is furious, but Lousteau explains that the paper has a subscription deal with the theater: "We have to show a great deal of indulgence." When he protests that the theater didn't have a ticket for him, Lousteau promises to show the manager the original article and explain that he had toned it down. Lucien will get plenty of tickets from now on, including someone to whom he can scalp the extras. Lucien is mollified, but still somewhat scandalized at the chicanery involved.

11. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 343-355

Part Two: A Great Man in Embryo, 23. The arcana of journalism; 24. Re-enter Dauriat

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Lucien signs a contract with the newspaper that is drafted by Finot and back-dated so that when Lousteau takes over the newspaper he can't change or back out of it. Giroudeau, who had previously blocked Lucien's efforts to get beyond the front door, is astonished: "You've never made such terms with anyone else," he tells Finot. But when he learns Lucien's name and realizes that he is the author of the much talked-about review, he proclaims, "You've got a gold-mine there." Finot tells Lucien, "You owe your position to Blondet and Vignon who see a future before you. And so don't blot your copy-book. Above all, don't trust your friends."

And so Lucien is admitted to the back rooms on the fifth floor of the building, where he sees Lousteau, Vernou, Merlin, and two other contributors he doesn't know yet. Lousteau tells him that they're planning more attacks on Châtelet who, after the first one appeared, had arrived at the offices demanding "satisfaction." Giroudeau handled him by saying the article had been written by Philippe Bridau, who was prepared to duel with him. Châtelet backed down. Vernou says, "We are busy drawing up an apology to the baron for tomorrow's number: every sentence in it is a dagger-thrust."

They proceed to plan out the editorial direction of the paper under its new editor, Lousteau. Among other things, they decide that if Dauriat doesn't accept Lucien's sonnets for publication, they'll mount an attack on his best writer, Nathan:  "We all like Nathan, but we're going to attack him," says Lousteau. They divvy up the theaters among themselves, and then plan other attacks, including some invented stories known as "canards." When Lucien is puzzled by the term, Merlin explains that a canard "is a story which looks as if it were true but which is invented to ginger up 'News in Brief' when it's a bit colourless." He attributes the use of canards to Benjamin Franklin, who fooled the Encyclopaedists with some made-up stories.

Riding in the carriage later with Coralie, Lucien praises his fellow contributors as "very decent fellows" and bathes in visions of success: "Here I am, a journalist sure of being able to earn six hundred francs a month if I work like a Trojan; also I shall get my two books accepted and write others, for my friends are going to organize a success for me!" Coralie advises him not to be too nice: "Be hard on people -- that's the way to get on." And once again they meet Madame d'Espard and Madame de Bargeton, this time accompanied by Châtelet, in the Bois de Boulogne. "Madame de Bargeton gave Lucien a seductive glance which could well be taken for a salutation."

Camusot is still smitten with Coralie, and proposes to buy her six thousand francs in Government stock if she would continue to be his mistress, and assures her he would ignore her relationship with Lucien. She turns him down, so "Camusot decided to wait for indigence to give him back the woman whom indigence had delivered over to him once before."

Lucien and Lousteau go to see Dauriat about his book, which Dauriat praises, but declines to publish. Instead, he wants Lucien to write articles for him: "you'll get more money from me in the next six months for the articles I shall ask from you than you would for your unsaleable poetry."

"But what about my reputation as a writer?" cried Lucien.

Dauriat and Lousteau burst out laughing. 

"God save us!" said Lousteau. "The man still has his illusions." 

When Lucien takes the manuscript from Dauriat, he checks the pen-mark under the string and sees that it is still aligned: Dauriat hasn't read his manuscript. When he asks Dauriat which sonnet he particularly liked, Dauriat lies to him. "The poet made an abrupt exit into the Galleries in order not to explode: he was furious."

9. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 294-328

Part Two: A Great Man in Embryo, 16. Coralie; 17. How a news-sheet is edited; 18. The supper; 19. An actress's apartments

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Coralie, smitten with Lucien, looks out at him from behind the curtain, as Camusot and his father-in-law, Cardot, who is keeping another actress, return to their box. As for Lucien, "the demon of lust whispered shocking thoughts in his ear." He quickly forgets any scruples he may have had about Lousteau's bedding Matifat's mistress. Lousteau, witnessing what's going on, eggs Lucien on: Coralie, Lousteau tells him, is 18, and her mother sold her to a man named de Marsay three years ago. She loathed de Marsay, and puts up with Camusot "because he doesn't pester her. So you are her first love." He also warns Lucien that the play will be a failure if he doesn't return Coralie's affections because, distracted by Lucien, she's blowing her lines.

Lucien, dazzled by the prospect of a fling with Coralie, tells Lousteau "more things are happening to me in one evening than ever did in the first eighteen years of my life." And he tells about his affair with Madame de Bargeton and how Châtelet helped break it up. Lousteau decides that he'll write some nasty gossip about Châtelet for the paper and that Lucien should review the play. The paper's short on copy and needs it. Lucien agrees.

Du Bruel comes to ask Lucien to tell Coralie he'll go to her place with her after supper. He agrees, and Coralie "from that moment acted with wonderful verve." At the curtain call, Coralie is wildly acclaimed and when Camusot throws a bouquet of flowers at her, she picks it up and holds it out toward Lucien.

Florine's apartment is beautifully furnished, which explains to Lucien why Lousteau can put up with the disorder of his own quarters. While they're gathering there, a dancer from the opera, Tullia, rushes in to tell Finot that the opera has agreed to provide a hundred subscriptions and the boxes he wants, which puts him in a bind because he had been planning to run a scathing piece on the company if it didn't meet his demands. So Lucien and Lousteau get to work and knock out their copy to replace it. Lucien's is a clever paean to the play, especially to Coralie and, to a slightly lesser degree, to Florine. Balzac tells us that the review "started a revolution in journalism by the revelation it gave of a new and original style." Meanwhile, Lousteau's attack on Châtelet compares him to a heron trying to swallow a cuttle-bone, i.e., Madame de Bargeton. The effect it had in the Faubourg Saint-Germain "was one of the thousand and one causes for further severity of the laws passed against the Press." Finot announces, after Lucien reads his piece to the others, that he's now a member of the staff of the newspaper.

At supper, Coralie instructs Florine to get Camusot so drunk that he'll have to spend the night in Florine's flat. And Lucien congratulates himself on having made friends with Lousteau, "without suspecting that Lousteau already feared him as a dangerous rival." And Claude Vignon, a guest at the supper, delivers a scathing attack on the press and its power:

Napoleon gave the explanation of this phenomenon -- moral or immoral, whichever you like -- in a superb aphorism...:  In corporate crimes no one is implicated. A newspaper can behave in the most atrocious manner and no one on the staff considers that his own hands are soiled.... We shall see the newspapers, which originally were run by men of honour, fall subsequently into the hands of the greatest mediocrities possession the patience and india-rubber faint-heartedness lacking in men of fine genius, or into the  hands of grocers with money enough to buy the products of the pen.... But we shall all write for them, like the people who work at a quicksilver mine knowing that they'll die of it. 

And he prophesies pointedly about Lucien that newspaper work will "dry up his brains, corrupt his soul" and "let him die of hunger if he's thirsty, and of thirst if he's hungry." To which Balzac comments, "Thus it happened, by the blessing of chance, that no information was lacking to Lucien about the precipice over which he was to fall." D'Arthez had warned him of the same thing, and even Lousteau had depicted "literature and journalism in their true light." But Lucien is intoxicated by the wit of the company and heedless of any warnings: "he felt a terrible itch to dominate this world of potentates and believed he had the power to overcome them."

With Florine's help, Camusot drinks himself literally under the table, and Lucien and Coralie escape together. But he has drunk too much himself and after being "disgustingly sick" in the stairwell of Coralie's house, is put to bed by Coralie and her housekeeper, Bérénice.  When he wakes about noon the next day, she gets in bed with him. He goes back to sleep about five o'clock in the afternoon, but is awakened by the arrival of Camusot. In a scene out of a French farce, he hides behind a curtain but leaves his boots behind. Coralie pretends that they are boots she's been trying on for a trouser role, and Camusot falls for it. When they go off to dinner, Bérénice releases Lucien from his hiding place.

Lucien admires Coralie's beautifully appointed apartment, and Bérénice brings him food. Then he naps until Coralie comes back from the theater and spends another night with her. The next day they go out in a carriage Camusot has bought for Coralie:

In one of the lanes of the Bois de Boulogne their coupé encountered the barouche of Mesdames d'Espard and de Bargeton who gazed at Lucien with astonishment: he darted at them the contemptuous glance of a poet who foresees the fame in store for him and intends to exploit his power. 

It is "one of the sweetest moments in his life, and perhaps decided his destiny." The desire for revenge makes him forsake the disciplined life prescribed by the Cénacle. At dinner with many of the same people who had been at the post-theater supper, Lucien displays a new self-confidence: "he sparkled with wit and became the Lucien de Rubempré who for a few months was to be a shining light in the literary and artistic world." But he also begins to make an enemy of Hector Merlin, "the most dangerous of all the journalists present at the dinner." And at the gaming table he loses all of his money, though Coralie replaces it.

5. Lost Illusions, by Honoré de Balzac, pp. 151-192

Part Two: A Great Man in Embryo, 1. First-fruits

_____

In fiction, traditionally it's a wealthy man who lures a poor young girl to the city, where he abandons her. In Lost Illusions, Balzac switches the sexes (although Lucien continues to think of himself as the seducer). This is the chapter in which the title begins to be fulfilled.

The first of Lucien's illusions to be swept away concerns money: He hasn't even reached Paris before he has spent on the road "almost the whole sum which was supposed to last him for a year in Paris." They arrive just before daybreak at the Hôtel du Gailliard-Bois in the rue de l'Echelle, where Madame de Bargeton tells him to take a room above her suite.

Lucien sleeps until four, but Madame de Bargeton is awakened two hours earlier by du Châtelet, who has tracked her down. He talks sense into her, telling her that fleeing Angoulême with a young man after her husband has fought a duel defending her honor is not the way to impress Madame d'Espard or the rest of Parisian society: "If anyone here knew you made the journey in the same carriage, you would be blacklisted by the very people you want to see." Moreover, even if she tries to keep it secret, there are plenty of people from Angoulême in Paris who will know the story. He offers to find suitable lodging for her.

When Lucien awakens and presents himself, she is further convinced that du Châtelet is right. She sees that Lucien "was handsome, but his clothes were ridiculous.... The contrast between Lucien and Châtelet was too blatant for Louise not the be struck by it." She tells him that they can't live together, or even let it be known that they arrived in Paris together. It's for his own good, she insists: "Your future depends on my position, and I must do nothing to prejudice it." He is stunned and hurt, but she assures him that he only needs to spend his nights apart from her: "you can spend the day in my flat without anyone taking exception."

A note arrives from du Châtelet to tell her he has found a flat in the rue Neuve-du-Luxembourg, not far from the hotel. He also invites her to join him at the theater the following evening, and to bring Lucien. And fortunately for her, Madame d'Espard has been touched by a scandal involving her husband, who has "withdrawn from society for no apparent cause" (a note tells us that Balzac tells the story in The Petition of Lunacy). She "felt that she needed the approval of society; therefore she was happy to be able to replace [her husband] in this circumstance by befriending his relations" -- i.e. Madame de Bargeton.

Lucien strolls the boulevards and the rue de la Paix and discovers how out of fashion he is. And that evening at the theater he has a similar revelation about Madame de Bargeton: He becomes "aware that Madame de Bargeton's toilette, though passably ambitious, was behind the times" and that her hairstyle, which "he had found so seductive at Angoulême struck him as being in deplorable taste compared with the delicate inventiveness which lent distinction to the other women present." And she notices that he makes "a prodigiously ridiculous appearance in comparison with the young men in the dress circle." After du Châtelet leaves Lucien at his hotel, he says to her, "That poor lad is incredibly boring." She defends Lucien, "though she did it less for Lucien's sake than for her own."

The next day, she goes to see Madame d'Espard, and sends him a note that she is going to the opera that evening and that Madame d'Espard has invited him to join them. "'Louise does love me then! My fears are absurd,' thought Lucien. 'She is introducing me to her cousin this very evening.'" But a walk in the Tuileries reinforces his awareness that none of his clothes are suitable:

Lucien broke out in a cold sweat at the thought that, the same evening, he was to appear in these clothes before the Marquise d'Espard, a kinswoman of a First Gentleman of the Royal Bedchamber, a woman whose salon was frequented by all sorts of exceptionally illustrious people.

He becomes more painfully aware of the expensiveness of his ambitions, especially after dining in a restaurant where the bill "relieved him of the fifty francs which he had thought would carry hm a long way in Paris. His dinner had cost him as much as a month's existence in Angoulême." But he goes to a tailor and spends two hundred francs more getting outfitted in what he assumes to be the latest style. But the newness and showiness of his clothing betrays him anyway: When he arrives at the Opera, he looks to the ticket taker "like a best man at a wedding," and his claim to be a guest of Madame d'Espard is challenged. Even Madame de Bargeton doesn't recognize him at first, although when she does she compliments him: "You have made good use of your time," she whispers to him.

Ironically, she is the one who at first comes off poorly by comparison with Madame d'Espard in Lucien's eyes.

Lucien, drawing two-fold enlightenment from the beau monde in this pompous assembly and the eminent Marquise, at last saw Anaïs de Nègrepelisse for what she was and as she was seen by the people of Paris: a tall, desiccated woman with freckled skin, faded complexion and strikingly red hair; angular, affected, pretentious, provincial of speech and above all badly dressed! ... Both the dress and the woman in it lacked grace and bloom: the mottled velvet went with a mottled complexion.

But Madame de Bargeton has already realized how unfashionable she looks and has resolved to do something about it, with Madame d'Espard's help.

Meanwhile, Madame d'Espard has noticed that people are looking at them, and she takes a good look at Lucien for the first time and notices that he is "oddly dressed." And when du Châtelet enters, Lucien points him out, causing Madame d'Espard to give "an astonished smile which plainly asked 'Where was this young man brought up?'" The disdain in her expression humiliates Madame de Bargeton -- "the most mortifying sensation for a Frenchwoman and one she does not forgive her lover for inflicting on her."

Madame d'Espard points out Eugène de Rastignac and Madame de Nucingen in another box, explaining that her husband is "a contractor, a banker, a business man, a large-scale broker, a man who imposes himself on Paris society through his wealth -- and they say he has no scruples about the means he uses to increase it." Lucien wonders how the de Rastignacs, "whose income, as we know in Angoulême, is less than three thousand francs, manage to maintain their son in Paris?" Madame d'Espard makes a comment that Lucien doesn't understand, but implies that Rastignac is a skilled social climber. Madame de Bargeton is increasingly concerned about her association with Lucien, and things only get worse when four socially eminent men visit Madame d'Espard's box.

Henri de Marsay is an arbiter of style who "was liked, but he was feared," so that "One can imagine what a poor impression Lucien, starched, stilted, stiff and raw like the clothes he was wearing, made in such company." Félix de Vandenesse is pleasanter and warmer. General Montriveau is one of the leaders of Paris society, and Monsieur de Canalis is a young poet "on the threshold of glory." When she saw them, "Madame de Bargeton no longer wondered why the Marquise was paying little attention to Lucien." In fact, she begins to pity him and ventures to introduce him first to Canalis, as a fellow poet. Meanwhile, de Marsay is studying both Lucien and Madame de Bargeton "with a smile as if they were a pair of curious animals.... Félix de Vandenesse gave him a kindly look, Montriveau an appraising glance which went right through him." Finally, Madame d'Espard invites Canalis to dine with her on Monday with Lucien. And de Marsay says, "if you sponsor Monsieur for his intelligence, I will sponsor him for his good looks."

But this moment of promise ends when du Châtelet enters, using a prior acquaintance with Montriveau as a way to get an introduction to Madame d'Espard. Du Châtelet gives Lucien "one of those curt, cold nods with which one man disparages another." His "sardonic expression" causes de Marsay to whisper to Montriveau, "Ask him who is that curious young man dressed like a tailor's dummy." Lucien realizes that he is outclassed intellectually and "sensed that his appearance was that of a man who had dressed up for the first time in his life."

Madame de Bargeton hasn't quite yet tuned into the situation, and when de Marsay mentions Rastignac, and wonders if he knows Lucien, she says that it's hard not to believe "that the name of the great man of whom we are so proud has not reached his ears: his sister recently heard Monsieur de Rubempré reciting some beautiful poetry to us." But during the next act of the opera, the people in the other boxes are "the scene of animated conversation about Madame de Bargeton and Lucien." And she ponders how much more graciously Madame d'Arsac received du Châtelet than Lucien. The title of the novel begins to be explicated:

Losing his illusions about Madame de Bargeton while Madame de Bargeton was losing hers about him, the unhappy youth ... was fascinated by Madame d'Espard and fell in love with her immediately.... in short, this queenly person made the same impression on the poet as Madame de Bargeton had made on him in Angoulême. 

Moreover, Madame de Bargeton notices: "'He has never looked at me like that,' she thought. 'Good heavens, Châtelet was right!' It was then that she realized her mistake in loving him."

At the next intermission, de Marsay reveals the truth to Madame d'Espard about Lucien: that his name is Chardon, not Rubempré, and that his father was an apothecary. Rastignac has been making fun of Madame de Bargeton as well, with jokes about "that species of mummy whom the Marquise called her cousin and her precautions in taking a pharmacist about with her -- no doubt in order that he might keep her artificially alive with drugs." And behind her fan, Madame d'Espard talks to Madame de Bargeton and confirms the reports she has heard. Her loyalties lie with Madame de Bargeton, as a kinswoman, so she says, "I do not care to have my box filled with wags who are delighted to find me hobnobbing with an apothecary's son. Believe me, the best thing we can do is to leave together this very instant." Which they do, while Lucien's attention is directed toward the performance on stage. In the carriage, she persuades Madame de Bargeton to drop him, and announces that her door will be closed to Lucien.

Lucien's eyes are opened by their desertion and by du Châtelet's attempts to avoid him at the next intermission. He stays for the end of the opera, however, and watching the society people in the boxes thinks, "That is the society I have to tame." The next day, he goes to a more fashionable tailor and orders more clothes, but when he tries to visit Madame de Bargeton he is repeatedly told she is out or is not seeing anyone. He receives a letter from her saying that Madame d'Espard has taken ill and will not be able to honor the dinner invitation; Madame de Bargeton says that she will be keeping her company and can't see him. But he sees them together in a carriage on the Champs-Élysées, Madame de Bargeton having undergone a transformation in style under Madame d'Espard's tutelage. Rastignac and de Marsay, on horseback, accompany them, but when he bows to the women, "Madame de Bargeton pretended not to see him and the Marquise eyed him through her lorgnette, ignoring his salute."

The unhappy poet was seized with a mortal chill when he saw de Marsay staring at him through his monocle: the Parisian lion then let it fall in so singular a fashion that it seemed like the drop of the guillotine blade to Lucien.

He is, however, able to trap du Châtelet, leaving Madame de Bargeton's flat, into talking to him. Du Châtelet tells him the truth: that Rastignac had revealed his background and that de Marsay had provoked the flight of the ladies from the box. And he advises, "You are a man of genius: see if you can't avenge yourself. Society disdains you: disdain society." He tells him to send Madame de Bargeton's letters back to her. She will regard it as the action of a gentleman, and, "Later on, if you need her, she will not be hostile."

After settling up with the tailor, he has three hundred sixty francs left, out of the two thousand he brought with him. He finds a room in the Latin quarter, which David had recommended as being cheap. And in his anger he writes a letter to Madame de Bargeton, "bombastic but full of that sombre dignity which an artist of twenty-one tends to overdo." Among other things, he says, "Yes, Madame, thanks to you, I have nothing left. But the world was made out of nothing." He remembers the apartment David created for him in Angoulême, and weeps, "for he was alone in Paris, friendless and unprotected." A few days later, he writes to his sister, telling her what has happened, but vowing to stay on in Paris and to sell his novel and his book of verses.