Lost Illusions (Penguin Classics) (45 page)

‘But the staff must meet somewhere to edit the newspaper,’ he said.

‘Probably. But the editing’s not my concern,’ said the captain of the Imperial Guard, and he went on checking his wrappers and repeating his eternal
Hrrum! Hrrum!
At this moment, as good or bad luck would have it, Finot arrived to inform Giroudeau of his fictitious abdication and recommend him to look after his interests.

‘No beating about the bush with this gentleman. He’s on the newspaper,’ said Finot to his uncle as he took and clasped Lucien’s hand.

‘Ah! Monsieur is on the paper!’ cried Giroudeau, surprised at his nephew’s gesture. ‘Well, Monsieur, so you had no difficulty in getting on to it.’

‘I want to fix things up so that you won’t get bamboozled by Etienne,’ said Finot with a sly look at Lucien. – ‘This gentleman will have three francs a column for everything he writes, including theatre reviews.’

‘You’ve never made such terms with anyone else,’ said Giroudeau, glancing at Lucien with astonishment.

‘He’ll have the four boulevard theatres, and you’ll take care he isn’t done out of his boxes and that his theatre tickets come to him. All the same,’ he added, turning to Lucien, ‘I advise you to have them sent direct to you. – This gentleman is undertaking to write, in addition to his reviews, ten articles of
Varieties
of about two columns each for fifty francs a month for a year. Does that suit you?’

‘Yes,’ said Lucien, whose hand was being forced by his new circumstances.

‘Uncle,’ said Finot to the cashier. ‘Draw up the contract and we’ll sign it when we go down.’

‘Who is this gentleman?’ asked Giroudeau, rising and removing his black silk bonnet.

‘Monsieur Lucien de Rubempré, who wrote the article on
L’Alcalde
.’

‘Young man,’ cried the old soldier, tapping Lucien on the forehead, ‘You’ve got a gold-mine there. I’m not a literary man, but I read your article and liked it. I ask you! What gaiety! So I said: “That will bring us subscribers!” And subscribers came. We sold fifty numbers.’

‘Is my contract with Etienne Lousteau copied in duplicate and ready to sign?’ Finot asked his uncle.

‘Yes,’ Giroudeau replied.

‘Put yesterday’s date on the contract I’m signing with this gentleman, so that Lousteau will be bound by its terms.’ Finot took his new colleague by the arm with a semblance of friendliness which beguiled the poet. He led him to the stairs and said:

‘In this way you have a settled position. I’ll introduce you myself to the members of my staff. And this evening Lousteau will get you known at the theatres. You can earn a hundred and fifty francs a month on our little paper which Lousteau is going to run; so try and get on with him. The rogue will bear me a grudge for having tied his hands with regard to you, but you have talent, and I don’t want you to be exposed to the whims of an editor. Between ourselves, you can bring me up to two sheets a month for my weekly Review, and I’ll pay you two hundred francs for them. Don’t tell anyone about this arrangement: I should be open to vengeance from all those whose self-esteem is wounded at the sight of a newcomer’s good fortune. Make four articles of your two sheets, sign two of them with your own name and two with a pen-name so that you won’t appear to be taking the bread out of other people’s mouths. You owe your position to Blondet and Vignon who see a future before you. And so don’t blot your copy-book. Above all, don’t trust your friends. As for you and me, let’s keep on terms of good understanding. Serve me, and I’ll serve you. You have forty francs’ worth of theatre boxes and tickets to sell, and sixty francs’ worth of books to flog. That and your writing will give you four hundred and fifty francs a month. If you use your wits you can get at least two hundred francs more from what the publishers will pay you for articles and prospectuses. But you’ll stand by me, won’t you? I can count on you?’

Lucien clasped Finot’s hand in a spasm of unprecedented joy.

‘Don’t let’s appear to have come to an understanding,’ Finot whispered to him as he pushed open the door of a
garret on the fifth floor of the building, situated at the end of a long corridor.

Lucien then perceived Lousteau, Félicien Vernou, Hector Merlin and two other contributors whom he did not know, all sitting on chairs or arm-chairs round a table covered with green baize in front of a good fire, smoking and laughing. The table was loaded with paper, and on it was a real, full inkpot, also some quills which though of poor quality were good enough for the staff. It became plain to the new journalist that it was there the great work was carried out.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Finot, ‘the purpose of this meeting is to install our friend Lousteau in my lieu and stead as editor of the newspaper I am obliged to relinquish. But although my opinions are undergoing a necessary transformation so that I can take over the editorship of the Review of whose destinies you are aware, my convictions remain the same and we are still friends. I belong entirely to you, just as you will belong to me. Circumstances vary, principles don’t change. Principles are the pivot on which the pointers of the political barometer turn.’

A burst of laughter came from the assembled staff.

‘Who taught you that sort of language?’ asked Lousteau.

‘Blondet,’ Finot replied.

‘Wind, rain, storm, set fair,’ said Merlin. ‘We’ll go together through all of them.’

‘Anyway,’ Finot continued. ‘Don’t let’s get muddled up with metaphors: anyone who has a few articles to bring me will find Finot again. – This gentleman,’ he said, introducing Lucien, ‘is one of you. I have settled things with him, Lousteau.’

Each one complimented Finot on his rise in status and his new destinies. ‘There you are, astride of us and the other people,’ said one of the journalists whom Lucien did not know. ‘You’re becoming a Janus!’

‘Let’s hope he doesn’t become a Janot,’ said Vernou.
¹

‘You’ll let us attack our
bêtes noires?
’

‘As much as you like!’ said Finot.

‘Indeed,’ said Lousteau, ‘the paper can’t go back on itself. Monsieur Châtelet has got annoyed, and we’re not going to leave him in peace for a week.’

‘What happened?’ asked Lucien.

‘He came to demand satisfaction,’ said Vernou. ‘The ex-fop of Imperial days found old Giroudeau here, and he, in the coolest possible manner, indicated that Philippe Bridau had written the article, and Philippe requested the baron to choose his time and weapons. The matter went no further. We are busy drawing up an apology to the baron for tomorrow’s number: every sentence in it is a dagger-thrust.’

‘Get your teeth into him, he’ll come along to me,’ said Finot. ‘I shall seem to be doing him a service by pacifying you, he’s a Government man, and we shall get our hooks on something – an assistant professor’s post or a tobacconist’s licence. It’s lucky for us he took offence. Which of you would like to write an article on Nathan for my new paper?’

‘Give it to Lucien,’ said Lousteau. ‘Hector and Vernou will be writing articles in their respective papers…’

‘Good-bye, gentlemen,’ said Finot with a laugh. ‘We’ll meet again face to face on the battlefield!’

Lucien received a few compliments on his admission to the redoubtable corps of journalists, and Lousteau presented him as a man on whom they could count.

‘Lucien invites you one and all, gentlemen, to supper with his mistress, the fair Coralie.’

‘Coralie is going to the Gymnase,’ said Lucien to Etienne.

‘Well then, gentlemen, it’s agreed that we push Coralie, is it not? Put a few lines in all your papers about her new engagement and praise her for her talent. You can credit the Gymnase with tact and cleverness. Can we credit it with intelligence also?’

‘Yes, that too,’ Merlin replied. ‘It’s putting on a play Frédéric is writing with Scribe.’

‘Oh! Then we’ll say that the manager of the Gymnase is the most foresighted and perspicacious of speculators,’ said Vernou.

‘By the way, don’t write your articles on Nathan’s book before we have put our heads together,’ said Lousteau. ‘I’ll
tell you why. We want to be useful to our new comrade. Lucien has two books to publish: a collection of sonnets and a novel. The power of the paragraph must make him a great poet within three months! We’ll use his
Marguerites
in order to decry Odes, Ballads and Meditations, in fact all Romantic poetry.’

‘It would be a joke if the sonnets were worthless,’ said Vernou. ‘What is your opinion of your sonnets, Lucien?’

‘Yes, how do you like them yourself?’ asked one of the unnamed journalists.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Lousteau. ‘On my word, they are good.’

‘Well, I’m glad of that,’ said Vernou. ‘I’ll use them to trip up the sacristy poets. I’m tired of them.’

‘If Dauriat doesn’t accept the
Marguerites
this evening, we’ll bombard him with articles against Nathan.’

‘But what will Nathan say?’ cried Lucien.

The five journalists burst out laughing.

‘He’ll be delighted,’ said Vernou. ‘You’ll see how we shall arrange matters.’

‘So this gentleman is going in with us!’ said one of the contributors unknown to Lucien.

‘Yes, yes, Frédéric. No tricks. – You see, Lucien,’ said Etienne to the neophyte, ‘how we are treating you: you won’t draw back when occasion demands. We all like Nathan, but we’re going to attack him. Now let’s carve up the empire of Alexander. Frédéric, would you like the Théâtre Français and the Odéon?’

‘If these gentlemen agree,’ said Frédéric.

They all nodded assent, but Lucien saw gleams of envy in their eyes.

‘I shall keep the Opera, the Italians and the Opéra-Comique,’ said Vernou.

‘Right. Hector will take the Vaudeville theatre,’ said Lousteau.

‘Don’t I get any theatres then?’ exclaimed the other contributor unknown to Lucien.

‘Let’s see now,’ said Lousteau. ‘Hector will leave you the Variétés and Lucien the Porte-Saint-Martin. – Let him have the Porte-Saint-Martin,’ he said to Lucien. ‘He’s mad on
Fanny Beaupré. You can take the Cirque-Olympique in exchange. I shall take Bobino, the Funambules and Madame Saqui. What have we for tomorrow’s number?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing!’

‘Gentlemen, be at your brightest for my first number. Baron Châtelet and his cuttle-bone won’t last a week. The author of
The Solitary
is worn threadbare.’

‘Sosthenes-Demosthenes isn’t funny any longer,’ said Vernou. ‘He’s common property now.’

‘Oh! We need some new Aunt Sallies,’ said Frédéric.

‘Gentlemen,’ cried Lousteau, ‘how about ridiculing the virtuous men of the Right? Suppose we said that Monsieur de Bonald has smelly feet?’

‘Let’s start a series of portraits of the Government orators,’ said Hector Merlin.

‘You do that, my boy,’ said Lousteau. ‘You know them. They belong to your party. You can satisfy some of the grudges they bear against one another. Get your claws into Beugnot, Syrieys de Mayrinhac and others. If the articles can be written in advance, we shan’t get stuck for copy.’

‘How about inventing a few refusals of burial licences in more or less aggravating circumstances?’ asked Hector.

‘No, don’t let’s follow in the footsteps of the great constitutional dailies which have their “clergy files” full of
canards
,’ Vernou retorted.

‘Canards?
’ Lucien enquired.

‘What we call a
canard
,’ Hector replied, ‘is a story which looks as if it were true but which is invented to ginger up ‘News in Brief’ when it’s a bit colourless. It was one of Franklin’s lucky finds: he invented lightning-conductors, republican government and
canards
. As a journalist he so easily took in the Encyclopaedists by his
canards
from overseas that in his
Philosophical History of the Indies
Raynal proffered two of them as authenticated facts.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Vernou. ‘What are the two
canards?
’

‘The story of the Englishman who sold a negress who had
saved his life, but first he got her with child in order to make more money out of the sale. Also the sublime speech of a pregnant girl conducting her own defence and winning her case. When Franklin came to Paris he confessed to these
canards
in Necker’s salon, to the great confusion of the French
philosophes
. And that’s how the New World twice corrupted the old one.’

‘A newspaper,’ said Lousteau, ‘accepts as truth anything that is plausible. We start from that assumption.’

‘Criminal justice proceeds on just the same lines,’ said Vernou.

‘Well well. We meet here this evening at nine,’ said Merlin.

Each of them got up, shook hands, and the meeting was closed with manifestations of the most touching familiarity.

‘What did you do to Finot,’ Etienne asked Lucien as they went downstairs, ‘for him to make a deal with you? You’re the only man with whom he’s made a binding agreement.’

‘I did nothing,’ said Lucien. ‘He proposed it himself.’

‘In any case, I’m delighted that you’ve come to an agreement. It puts both of us in a stronger position.’

On the ground-floor, Etienne and Lucien came upon Finot who drew Lousteau aside into the official editorial office.

‘Sign your contract so that the new editor will believe that the matter was settled yesterday,’ said Giroudeau, presenting two stamped documents to Lucien.

As he read through this contract, Lucien overheard a fairly sharp discussion between Etienne and Finot about the products in kind accruing to the newspaper. Etienne wanted his share in these imposts levied by Giroudeau. No doubt a compromise was reached by Finot and Lousteau, for the two friends left the building in complete agreement.

‘Eight o’clock, at the Wooden Galleries, in Dauriat’s office,’ said Etienne to Lucien.

A young man turned up and applied for a post on the newspaper with the same timid and anxious air that Lucien had formerly had. Lucien felt a secret pleasure as he saw Giroudeau practising on this neophyte the same pleasantries which the old soldier had used to deceive him; self-interest enabled
him perfectly to understand the necessity for these stratagems, which set impassable barriers between beginners and the attic to which only the elect had access.