“To the hero of the day,” he said, “to the young poet who combines the gift of the prosateur with the charm and poetic faculty of Petrarch in that sonnet-form which Boileau declares to be so difficult.”
Cheers.
The colonel rose next. “Gentlemen, to the Royalist! for the hero of this evening had the courage to fight for sound principles!”
“Bravo!” cried the prefect, leading the applause.
Then Petit-Claud called upon all Lucien’s schoolfellows there present. “To the pride of the grammar-school of Angoulême! to the venerable headmaster so dear to us all, to whom the acknowledgment for some part of our triumph is due!”
The old headmaster dried his eyes; he had not expected this toast. Lucien rose to his feet, the whole room was suddenly silent, and the poet’s face grew white. In that pause the old headmaster, who sat on his left, crowned him with a laurel wreath. A round of applause followed, and when Lucien spoke it was with tears in his eyes and a sob in his throat.
“He is drunk,” remarked the attorney-general-designate to his neighbor, Petit-Claud.
“My dear fellow-countrymen, my dear comrades,” Lucien said at last, “I could wish that all France might witness this scene; for thus men rise to their full stature, and in such ways as these our land demands great deeds and noble work of us. And when I think of the little that I have done, and of this great honor shown to me to-day, I can only feel confused and impose upon the future the task of justifying your reception of me. The recollection of this moment will give me renewed strength for efforts to come. Permit me to indicate for your homage my earliest muse and protectress, and to associate her name with that of my birthplace; so—to the Comtesse du Châtelet and the noble town of Angoulême!”
“He came out of that pretty well!” said the public prosecutor, nodding approval; “our speeches were all prepared, and his was improvised.”
At ten o’clock the party began to break up, and little knots of guests went home together. David Séchard heard the unwonted music.