THE ILLUSTRIOUS GAUDISSART
Page: 9

him with unanswerable arguments, and, so to speak, sharpened the file
of the tongue which was about to operate upon the life of France.

The puppet amply rewarded the pains bestowed upon him. The heads of
the company boasted of the illustrious Gaudissart, showed him such
attention and proclaimed the great talents of this perambulating
prospectus so loudly in the sphere of exalted banking and commercial
diplomacy, that the financial managers of two newspapers (celebrated
at that time but since defunct) were seized with the idea of employing
him to get subscribers. The proprietors of the "Globe," an organ of
Saint-Simonism, and the "Movement," a republican journal, each invited
the illustrious Gaudissart to a conference, and proposed to give him
ten francs a head for every subscriber, provided he brought in a
thousand, but only five francs if he got no more than five hundred.
The cause of political journalism not interfering with the pre-
accepted cause of life insurance, the bargain was struck; although
Gaudissart demanded an indemnity from the Saint-Simonians for the
eight days he was forced to spend in studying the doctrines of their
apostle, asserting that a prodigious effort of memory and intellect
was necessary to get to the bottom of that "article" and to reason
upon it suitably. He asked nothing, however, from the republicans. In
the first place, he inclined in republican ideas,--the only ones,
according to guadissardian philosophy, which could bring about a
rational equality. Besides which he had already dipped into the
conspiracies of the French "carbonari"; he had been arrested, and
released for want of proof; and finally, as he called the newspaper
proprietors to observe, he had lately grown a mustache, and needed
only a hat of certain shape and a pair of spurs to represent, with due
propriety, the Republic.



CHAPTER II

For one whole week this commanding genius went every morning to be
Saint-Simonized at the office of the "Globe," and every afternoon he
betook himself to the life-insurance company, where he learned the
intricacies of financial diplomacy. His aptitude and his memory were