“And then, under cover of names respected by the immense majority of Frenchmen (who will always be against the Government), you can crush Nathan; for although his work is far above the average, it confirms the bourgeois taste for literature without ideas.  And after that, you understand, it is no longer a question of Nathan and his book, but of France and the glory of France.  It is the duty of all honest and courageous pens to make strenuous opposition to these foreign importations.  And with that you flatter your readers.  Shrewd French mother-wit is not easily caught napping.  If publishers, by ways which you do not choose to specify, have stolen a success, the reading public very soon judges for itself, and corrects the mistakes made by some five hundred fools, who always rush to the fore.

“Say that the publisher who sold a first edition of the book is audacious indeed to issue a second, and express regret that so clever a man does not know the taste of the country better.  There is the gist of it.  Just a sprinkle of the salt of wit and a dash of vinegar to bring out the flavor, and Dauriat will be done to a turn.  But mind that you end with seeming to pity Nathan for a mistake, and speak of him as of a man from whom contemporary literature may look for great things if he renounces these ways.”

Lucien was amazed at this talk from Lousteau.  As the journalist spoke, the scales fell from his eyes; he beheld new truths of which he had never before caught so much as a glimpse.

“But all this that you are saying is quite true and just,” said he.

“If it were not, how could you make it tell against Nathan’s book?” asked Lousteau.  “That is the first manner of demolishing a book, my boy; it is the pickaxe style of criticism.  But there are plenty of other ways.  Your education will complete itself in time.  When you are absolutely obliged to speak of a man whom you do not like, for proprietors and editors are sometimes under compulsion, you bring out a neutral special article.  You put the title of the book at the head of it, and begin with general remarks, on the Greeks and the Romans if you like, and wind up with—­’and this brings us to Mr. So-and-so’s book, which will form the subject of a second article.’  The second article never appears, and in this way you snuff out the book between two promises.  But in this case you are writing down, not Nathan, but Dauriat; he needs the pickaxe style.  If the book is really good, the pickaxe does no harm; but it goes to the core of it if it is bad.  In the first case, no one but the publisher is any the worse; in the second, you do the public a service.  Both methods, moreover, are equally serviceable in political criticism.”

Etienne Lousteau’s cruel lesson opened up possibilities for Lucien’s imagination.  He understood this craft to admiration.

“Let us go to the office,” said Lousteau; “we shall find our friends there, and we will agree among ourselves to charge at Nathan; they will laugh, you will see.”