_"This was popularity--and it must be confessed that only one man in
France to-day receives such marks of it. This man is Gambetta._

_"Meanwhile Claretie's minister continues his walk through the corridors
of the Opéra house. He reaches the greenroom of the ballet at last and
exclaims:_

_"'And that is all!'_

_"Alas, yes, your Excellency, that is all!--"_

_And everything is only a _"that is all,"_ in this world. If one should
set himself carefully to weigh power or fame,--power, that force of
which Girardin said, however: "I would give fifty years of glory for one
hour of power,"--even if one tilted the scale, one would not find the
weight very considerable._

_It would be necessary to have the resounding renown of a personality
like that one who, if I am to believe Monsieur Halévy, alone enjoyed the
privilege of revolutionizing the foyer of the ballet, in order to boast
of having been someone, or of having accomplished something._

_A rather witty skeptic once said to a friend of his who had just been
appointed minister:_

_"My dear fellow, permit me as a practical man to ask you not to engage
in too many affairs. Events in this world are accomplished without much
meddling. If you attempt to do something to-day, everyone will cry out:
'What! he is going to demolish everything!' If you do nothing, they will