universal
suffrage is hopeless!"

Amedee was not at that time so disenchanted with political matters as he
became later, and he asked himself with an uneasy feeling whether this
model candidate, who was perhaps about to give himself sacrilgious
indigestion, and who showed his profession of faith as a cutler shows
his knives, was not simply a quack.

Arthur Papillon did not give him time to devote himself to such
unpleasant reflections, but said to him, in a frank, protecting tone:

"And you, my boy, let us see, where do you stand? You have been very
successful, have you not? The other evening at the house of Madame
la Comtesse Fontaine, you know--the widow of one of Louis Philippe's
ministers and daughter of Marshal Lefievre--Jocquelet recited your
'Sebastopol' with enormous success. What a voice that Jocquelet has!
We have not his like at the Paris bar. Fortunate poet! I have seen your
book lying about in the boudoir of more than one beautiful woman. Well,
I hope that you will leave the Cafe de Seville and not linger with
all these badly combed fellows. You must go into society; it is
indispensable to a man of letters, and I will present you whenever you
wish."

For the time being Amedee's ardor was a little dampened concerning the
Bohemians with whom he enjoyed so short a favor, and who had also in
many ways shocked his delicacy. He was not desirous to be called "thou"
by Pere Lebuffle.

But to go into society! His education had been so modest! Should he
know how to appear, how to conduct himself properly? He asked this of
Papillon. Our poet was proud, he feared ridicule, and would not consent
to play an inferior role anywhere; and then his success just then was
entirely platonic. He was still very poor and lived in the Faubourg
St.-Jacques. Massif ought to pay him in a few days five hundred francs
for the second edition of his book; but what is a handful of napoleons?

"It is enough," said the advocate, who thought of his friend's
dress. "It is all that is necessary to buy fine linen, and a well cut
dress-coat, that is the essential thing. Good form consists, above all
things, in keeping silent. With your fine and yielding nature you will
become at once a gentleman; better still, you are not a bad-looking
fellow; you have an interesting pallor. I am convinced that you will
please. It is now the beginning of July, and Paris is almost empty, but
Madame la Comtesse Fontaine does not go away until the vacations, a