artists, men of letters, new-fledged to fame, who rejected both
ancients and moderns, and strove to make themselves a great reputation
by accomplishing little or nothing.

The conduct of Madame Schontz, a triumph of tactics, ought to reveal
to you her superiority. In the first place, these ten or a dozen young
fellows amused Arthur; they supplied him with witty sayings and clever
opinions on all sorts of topics, and did not put in doubt the fidelity
of the mistress; moreover, they proclaimed her a woman who was
eminently intelligent. These living advertisements, these
perambulating articles, soon set up Madame Schontz as the most
agreeable woman to be found in the borderland which separates the
thirteenth arrondissement from the twelve others. Her rivals--Suzanne
Gaillard, who, in 1838, had won the advantage over her of becoming a
wife married in legitimate marriage, Fanny Beaupre, Mariette, Antonia
--spread calumnies that were more than droll about the beauty of those
young men and the complacent good-nature with which Monsieur de
Rochefide welcomed them. Madame Schontz, who could distance, as she
said, by three /blagues/ the wit of those ladies, said to them one
night at a supper given by Nathan to Florine, after recounting her
fortune and her success, "Do as much yourselves!"--a speech which
remained in their memory.

It was during this period that Madame Schontz made Arthur sell his
race-horses, through a series of considerations which she no doubt
derived from the critical mind of Claude Vignon, one of her
/habitues/.

"I can conceive," she said one night, after lashing the horses for
some time with her lively wit, "that princes and rich men should set