It is curious to notice how his impecuniosity reduced him to regard
every goal of his ambition as having merely a cash value. Speaking of
his election to the Academie Francaise, which he reckoned to be near,
he explained to Eve that it would mean six thousand francs a year to
him, since he would be a member of the Dictionary committee; and then
there was the Perpetual Secretaryship, which, falling to him
naturally, would raise his emoluments to more than double that amount.
Emboldened by these calculations--a trifle previous--he confided to
Eve his desire to start on a trip to Naples, Rome, Constantinople, and
Alexandria, unless she should veto the proposal. In that case, his
desire would be hers. Four thousand francs was what the journey would
cost. Would she authorize him to spend so much? At present she was the
arbitress of his actions. As the trip was abandoned, we are obliged to
suppose that Eve was not favourable to it.
Mention has already been made of the novelist's initiative in the
beginnings of the Men of Letters Society, and of his scheme for a
petition to the King. In its details, what he wished to see adopted
was on the same lines as those followed now by the Nobel Prize
distribution--at any rate as regards literature.
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