the man that is roused to fighting-fury by a personal attack usually
subsides very promptly. The more phlegmatic race, who take these
things quietly, lay their account with the oblivion which speedily
overtakes the spiteful article. These are the truly courageous men of
letters; and if the weaklings seem at first to be the strong men, they
cannot hold out for any length of time.

During that first fortnight, while the fury was upon him, Lucien
poured a perfect hailstorm of articles into the Royalist papers, in
which he shared the responsibilities of criticism with Hector Merlin.
He was always in the breach, pounding away with all his might in the
_Reveil_, backed up by Martainville, the only one among his associates
who stood by him without an afterthought. Martainville was not in the
secret of certain understandings made and ratified amid after-dinner
jokes, or at Dauriat's in the Wooden Galleries, or behind the scenes
at the Vaudeville, when journalists of either side met on neutral
ground.

When Lucien went to the greenroom of the Vaudeville, he met with no
welcome; the men of his own party held out a hand to shake, the others
cut him; and all the while Hector Merlin and Theodore Gaillard
fraternized unblushingly with Finot, Lousteau, and Vernou, and the
rest of the journalists who were known for "good fellows."

The greenroom of the Vaudeville in those days was a hotbed of gossip,
as well as a neutral ground where men of every shade of opinion could
meet; so much so that the President of a court of law, after reproving
a learned brother in a certain council chamber for "sweeping the
greenroom with his gown," met the subject of his strictures, gown to
gown, in the greenroom of the Vaudeville. Lousteau, in time, shook
hands again with Nathan; Finot came thither almost every evening; and
Lucien, whenever he could spare the time, went to the Vaudeville to
watch the enemies, who showed no sign of relenting towards the
unfortunate boy.

In the time of the Restoration party hatred was far more bitter than
in our day. Intensity of feeling is diminished in our high-pressure
age. The critic cuts a book to pieces and shakes hands with the author
afterwards, and the victim must keep on good terms with his
slaughterer, or run the gantlet of innumerable jokes at his expense.
If he refuses, he is unsociable, eaten up with self-love, he is sulky
and rancorous, he bears malice, he is a bad bed-fellow. To-day let an
author rece