“Coralie’s engagement at the Gymnase begins in a few days,” said Lucien; “she might do something for Florine.”

“Not she!” said Lousteau.  “Coralie is not clever, but she is not quite simple enough to help herself to a rival.  We are in a mess with a vengeance.  And Finot is in such a hurry to buy back his sixth——­”

“Why?”

“It is a capital bit of business, my dear fellow.  There is a chance of selling the paper for three hundred thousand francs; Finot would have one-third, and his partners besides are going to pay him a commission, which he will share with des Lupeaulx.  So I propose to do another turn of ‘chantage.’”

“‘Chantage’ seems to mean your money or your life?”

“It is better than that,” said Lousteau; “it is your money or your character.  A short time ago the proprietor of a minor newspaper was refused credit.  The day before yesterday it was announced in his columns that a gold repeater set with diamonds belonging to a certain notability had found its way in a curious fashion into the hands of a private soldier in the Guards; the story promised to the readers might have come from the Arabian Nights.  The notability lost no time in asking that editor to dine with him; the editor was distinctly a gainer by the transaction, and contemporary history has lost an anecdote.  Whenever the press makes vehement onslaughts upon some one in power, you may be sure that there is some refusal to do a service behind it.  Blackmailing with regard to private life is the terror of the richest Englishman, and a great source of wealth to the press in England, which is infinitely more corrupt than ours.  We are children in comparison!  In England they will pay five or six thousand francs for a compromising letter to sell again.”

“Then how can you lay hold of Matifat?” asked Lucien.

“My dear boy, that low tradesman wrote the queerest letters to Florine; the spelling, style, and matter of them is ludicrous to the last degree.  We can strike him in the very midst of his Lares and Penates, where he feels himself safest, without so much as mentioning his name; and he cannot complain, for he lives in fear and terror of his wife.  Imagine his wrath when he sees the first number of a little serial entitled the Amours of a Druggist, and is given fair warning that his love-letters have fallen into the hands of certain journalists.  He talks about the ‘little god Cupid,’ he tells Florine that she enables him to cross the desert of life (which looks as if he took her for a camel), and spells ‘never’ with two v’s.  There is enough in that immensely funny correspondence to bring an influx of subscribers for a fortnight.  He will shake in his shoes lest an anonymous letter should supply his wife with the key to the riddle.  The question is whether Florine will consent to appear to persecute Matifat.  She has some principles, which is to say, some hopes, still left.  Perhaps she means to keep the letters and make something for herself out of them.  She is cunning, as befits my pupil.  But as soon as she finds out that a bailiff is no laughing matter, or Finot gives her a suitable present or hopes of an engagement, she will give me the letters, and I will sell them to Finot.  Finot will put the correspondence in his uncle’s hands, and Giroudeau will bring Matifat to terms.”