"What a dunce you are!" said the leading lady, addressing the box-office keeper, "that is Coralie's adorer."
The box-office keeper turned round immediately at this. "I will speak to the manager at once, sir," he said.
In all these small details Lucien saw the immense power wielded by the press. His vanity was gratified. The manager appeared to say that the Duc de Rhetore and Tullia the opera-dancer were in the stage-box, and they had consented to allow Lucien to join them.
"You have driven two people to distraction," remarked the young Duke, mentioning the names of the Baron du Chatelet and Mme. de Bargeton.
"Distraction? What will it be to-morrow?" said Lucien. "So far, my friends have been mere skirmishers, but I have given them red-hot shot to-night. To-morrow you will know why we are making game of 'Potelet.' The article is called 'Potelet from 1811 to 1821.' Chatelet will be a byword, a name for the type of courtiers who deny their benefactor and rally to the Bourbons. When I have done with him, I am going to Mme. de Montcornet's."
Lucien's talk was sparkling. He was eager that this great personage should see how gross a mistake Mesdames d'Espard and de Bargeton had made when they slighted Lucien de Rubempre. But he showed the tip of his ear when he asserted his right to bear the name of Rubempre, the Duc de Rhetore having purposely addressed him as Chardon.
"You should go over to the Royalists," said the Duke. "You have proved yourself a man of ability; now show your good sense. The one way of obtaining a patent of nobility and the right to bear the title of your mother's family, is by asking for it in return for services to be rendered to the Court. The Liberals will never make a count of you. The Restoration will get the better of the press, you see, in the long run, and the press is the only formidable power. They have borne with it too long as it is; the press is sure to be muzzled. Take advantage of the last moments of liberty to make yourself formidable, and you will have everything—intellect, nobility, and good looks; nothing will be out of your reach. So if you are a Liberal, let it be simply for the moment, so that you can make a better bargain for your Royalism."
With that the Duke entreated Lucien to accept an invitation to dinner, which the German Minister (of Florine's supper-party) was about to send. Lucien fell under the charm of the noble peer's arguments; the salons from which he had been exiled for ever, as he thought, but a few months ago, would shortly open their doors for him! He was delighted. He marveled at the power of the press; Intellect and the Press, these then were the real powers in society. Another thought shaped itself in his mind—Was Etienne Lousteau sorry that he had opened the gate of the temple to a newcomer? Even now he (Lucien) felt on his own account that it was strongly advisable to put difficulties in the way of eager and ambitious recruits from the provinces. If a poet should come to him as he had flung himself into Etienne's arms, he dared not think of the reception that he would give him.
The youthful Duke meanwhile saw that Lucien was deep in thought, and made a pretty good guess at the matter of his meditations. He himself had opened out wide horizons of public life before an ambitious poet, with a vacillating will, it is true, but not without aspirations; and the journalists had already shown the neophyte, from a pinnacle of the temple, all the kingdoms of the world of letters and its riches.
Lucien himself had no suspicion of a little plot that was being woven, nor did he imagine that M. de Rhetore had a hand in it. M. de Rhetore had spoken of Lucien's cleverness, and Mme. d'Espard's set had taken alarm. Mme. de Bargeton had commissioned the Duke to sound Lucien, and with that object in view, the noble youth had come to the Ambigu-Comique.