es of more importance as men of a specialty, the supporters
of some 'system'; and they fancy they can transform a clique into
the public. One is a republican, another Saint-Simonian; this one
aristocrat, that one Catholic, others juste-milieu, middle ages, or
German, as they choose for their purpose. Now, though opinions do not
give talent, they always spoil what talent there is; and the poor fellow
whom you have just seen is a proof thereof. An artist's opinion ought to
be: Faith in his art, in his work; and his only way of success is toil
when nature has given him the sacred fire."

"Let us get away," said Bixiou. "Leon is beginning to moralize."

"But that man was sincere," said Gazonal, still stupefied.

"Perfectly sincere," replied Bixiou; "as sincere as the king of barbers
just now."

"He is mad!" repeated Gazonal.

"And he is not the first man driven man by Fourier's ideas," said
Bixiou. "You don't know anything about Paris. Ask it for a hundred
thousand francs to realize an idea that will be useful to humanity,--the
steam-engine for instance,--and you'll die, like Salomon de Caux, at
Bicetre; but if the money is wanted for some paradoxical absurdity,
Parisians will annihilate themselves and their fortune for it. It is the
same with systems as it is with material things. Utterly impracticable
newspapers have consumed millions within the last fifteen years. What
makes your lawsuit so hard to win, is that you have right on your side,
and on that of the prefect there are (so you suppose) secret motives."

"Do you think that a man of intellect having once understood the nature
of Paris could live elsewhere?" said Leon to his cousin.

"Suppose we take Gazonal to old Mere Fontaine?" said Bixiou, making a
sign to the driver of a citadine to draw up; "it will be a step from the
real to the fantastic. Driver, Vieille rue du Temple."

And all three were presently rolling in the direction of the Marais.

"What are you taking me to see now?" asked Gazonal.

"The proof of what Bixiou told you," replied Leon; "we shall show you
a woman who makes twenty thousand francs a year by working a fantastic
idea."

"A fortune-teller," said Bixiou, interpreting the look of the Southerner
as a question. "Madame Fontaine is thought, by those who seek to pry
into the future, to be wiser in her wisdom than Mademoiselle Lenormand."

"She must be very rich," remarked Gazonal.

"She was the victim of her own idea, as long as lotte