“Any one would think that the question interested you,” exclaimed Finot.
“And how about our sonnets,” said Michel Chrestien; “is that the way they will win us the fame of a second Petrarch?”
“Laura already counts for something in his fame,” said Dauriat, a pun [Laure (l’or)] received with acclamations.
“Faciamus experimentum in anima vili,” retorted Lucien with a smile.
“And woe unto him whom reviewers shall spare, flinging him crowns at his first appearance, for he shall be shelved like the saints in their shrines, and no man shall pay him the slightest attention,” said Vernou.
“People will say, ‘Look elsewhere, simpleton; you have had your due already,’ as Champcenetz said to the Marquis de Genlis, who was looking too fondly at his wife,” added Blondet.
“Success is the ruin of a man in France,” said Finot. “We are so jealous of one another that we try to forget, and to make others forget, the triumphs of yesterday.”
“Contradiction is the life of literature, in fact,” said Claude Vignon.
“In art as in nature, there are two principles everywhere at strife,” exclaimed Fulgence; “and victory for either means death.”
“So it is with politics,” added Michel Chrestien.