Ten days saw a great change in the opinions at the Chalet as to the three suitors for Mademoiselle de La Bastie’s hand.  This change, which was much to the disadvantage of Canalis, came about through considerations of a nature which ought to make the holders of any kind of fame pause, and reflect.  No one can deny, if we remember the passion with which people seek for autographs, that public curiosity is greatly excited by celebrity.  Evidently most provincials never form an exact idea in their own minds of how illustrious Parisians put on their cravats, walk on the boulevards, stand gaping at nothing, or eat a cutlet; because, no sooner do they perceive a man clothed in the sunbeams of fashion or resplendent with some dignity that is more or less fugitive (though always envied), than they cry out, “Look at that!” “How queer!” and other depreciatory exclamations.  In a word, the mysterious charm that attaches to every kind of fame, even that which is most justly due, never lasts.  It is, and especially with superficial people who are envious or sarcastic, a sensation which passes off with the rapidity of lightning, and never returns.  It would seem as though fame, like the sun, hot and luminous at a distance, is cold as the summit of an alp when you approach it.  Perhaps man is only really great to his peers; perhaps the defects inherent in his constitution disappear sooner to the eyes of his equals than to those of vulgar admirers.  A poet, if he would please in ordinary life, must put on the fictitious graces of those who are able to make their insignificances forgotten by charming manners and complying speeches.  The poet of the faubourg Saint-Germain, who did not choose to bow before this social dictum, was made before long to feel that an insulting provincial indifference had succeeded to the dazed fascination of the earlier evenings.  The prodigality of his wit and wisdom had produced upon these worthy souls somewhat the effect which a shopful of glass-ware produces on the eye; in other words, the fire and brilliancy of Canalis’s eloquence soon wearied people who, to use their own words, “cared more for the solid.”

Forced after a while to behave like an ordinary man, the poet found an unexpected stumbling-block on ground where La Briere had already won the suffrage of the worthy people who at first had thought him sulky.  They felt the need of compensating themselves for Canalis’s reputation by preferring his friend.  The best of men are influenced by such feelings as these.  The simple and straightforward young fellow jarred no one’s self-love; coming to know him better they discovered his heart, his modesty, his silent and sure discretion, and his excellent bearing.  The Duc d’Herouville considered him, as a political element, far above Canalis.  The poet, ill-balanced, ambitious, and restless as Tasso, loved luxury, grandeur, and ran into debt; while the young lawyer, whose character was equable and well-balanced, lived soberly, was useful without proclaiming it, awaited rewards without begging for them, and laid by his money.