e criticisms are savage upon any
writer who takes four alexandrines to express one idea. Of all the poets
of our day only three, Hugo, Theophile Gautier, and De Vigny, have been
able to win the double glory of poet and prose-writer, like Racine and
Voltaire, Moliere, and Rabelais,--a rare distinction in the literature
of France, which ought to give a man a right to the crowning title of
poet.

So then, the bard of the faubourg Saint-Germain was doing a wise thing
in trying to house his little chariot under the protecting roof of the
present government. When he became president of the court of Claims at
the foreign office, he stood in need of a secretary,--a friend who could
take his place in various ways; cook up his interests with publishers,
see to his glory in the newspapers, help him if need be in politics,--in
short, a cat's paw and satellite. In Paris many men of celebrity in art,
science, and literature have one or more train-bearers, captains of
the guard, chamberlains as it were, who live in the sunshine of their
presence,--aides-de-camp entrusted with delicate missions, allowing
themselves to be compromised if necessary; workers round the pedestal
of the idol; not exactly his servants, nor yet his equals; bold in
his defence, first in the breach, covering all retreats, busy with his
business, and devoted to him just so long as their illusions last,
or until the moment when they have got all they wanted. Some of these
satellites perceive the ingratitude of their great man; others feel that
they are simply made tools of; many weary of the life; very few remain
contented with that sweet equality of feeling and sentiment which is
the only reward that should be looked for in an intimacy with a superior
man,--a reward that contented Ali when Mohammed raised him to himself.

Many of these men, misled by vanity, think themselves quite as capable
as their patron. Pure devotion, such as Modeste conceived it, without
money and without price, and more especially without hope, is rare.
Nevertheless there are Mennevals to be found, more perhaps in Paris
than elsewhere, men who value a life in the background with its peaceful
toil; these are the wandering Benedictines of our social world, which
offers them no other monastery. These brave, meek hearts live, by their
actions and in their hidden lives, the poetry that poets utter. They
are poets themselves in soul, in tenderness, in their lonely vigils and
meditations,--as tru