"You reserve to yourself a policy which
is foreign to all governments present and past and future. And, as you
scold me, Mr. Editor, is your own article ready?"
"No, but it is here"--tapping his forehead--"I have only to write it.
In an hour it will be done."
"With the corrections?" queried Karr slily.
"Yes, with the corrections."
"Ah! well, prove that to us; and we'll all go on dry bread and water
until a statue is raised to you. I am hungry."
Although Balzac's colleagues had a real respect and admiration for his
talent, they chaffed him unmercifully for his vanity. One Saturday,
Alphonse Karr, as a joke, crowned him with flowers; and Balzac, in all
good faith, complacently accepted the honour. Around him, the laughter
broke out fast and furious; and, at length, he joined in with volleys
that shook the room, while his face waxed purple beneath his
explosions. In his _Guepes_, Alphonse Karr subsequently recalled this
improvized coronation of the novelist.
Edited and composed in such desultory fashion, the _Chronicle's_
prosperity was short-lived, in spite of the lustre it temporarily
acquired from Balzac's name, and the publication in it of some of his
fiction.
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