ork their fleshy
clappers to bring down the house in applause. Lucien gave the rest of
the money to Coralie (he did not tell her how he had come by it), and
allayed her anxieties and the fears of Berenice, who was sorely
troubled over their daily expenses.

Martainville came several times to hear Coralie rehearse, and he knew
more of the stage than most men of his time; several Royalist writers
had promised favorable articles; Lucien had not a suspicion of the
impending disaster.

A fatal event occurred on the evening before Coralie's _debut_.
D'Arthez's book had appeared; and the editor of Merlin's paper,
considering Lucien to be the best qualified man on the staff, gave him
the book to review. He owed his unlucky reputation to those articles
on Nathan's work. There were several men in the office at the time,
for all the staff had been summoned; Martainville was explaining that
the party warfare with the Liberals must be waged on certain lines.
Nathan, Merlin, all the contributors, in fact, were talking of Leon
Giraud's paper, and remarking that its influence was the more
pernicious because the language was guarded, cool, moderate. People
were beginning to speak of the circle in the Rue des Quatre-Vents as a
second Convention. It had been decided that the Royalist papers were
to wage a systematic war of extermination against these dangerous
opponents, who, indeed, at a later day, were destined to sow the
doctrines that drove the Bourbons into exile; but that was only after
the most brilliant of Royalist writers had joined them for the sake of
a mean revenge.

D'Arthez's absolutist opinions were not known; it was taken for
granted that he shared the views of his clique, he fell under the same
anathema, and he was to be the first victim. His book was to be
honored with "a slashing article," to use the consecrated formula.
Lucien refused to write the article. Great was the commotion among the
leading Royalist writers thus met in conclave. Lucien was told plainly
that a renegade could not do as he pleased; if it did not suit his
views to take the side of the Monarchy and Religion, he could go back
to the other camp. Merlin and Martainville took him aside and begged
him, as his friends, to remember that he would simply hand Coralie
over to the tender mercies of the Liberal papers, for she would find
no champions on the Royalist and Ministerial side. Her acting was
certain to provoke a hot battle, and the kind of discuss