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Updated: May 24, 2025
"He is more than a friend," cried Canalis taking Ernest by the shoulder and leaning upon it like Alexander on Hephaestion, "we love each other as though we were brothers " Madame Latournelle cut short the poet's speech by pointing to Ernest and saying aloud to her husband, "Surely that is the gentleman we saw at church." "Why not?" said Charles Mignon, quickly, observing that Ernest reddened.
Now each one of you may be, like Monsieur Baudoyer, an administrative genius, a Chateaubriand of reports, a Bossouet of circulars, the Canalis of memorials, the gifted son of diplomatic despatches; but I tell you there is a fatal law which interferes with all administrative genius, I mean the law of promotion by average.
He remarked without blushing to the Duc de Chaulieu, who made no impression whatever when he was obliged to address the Chamber as minister of foreign affairs, "Your excellency was truly sublime!" Many men like Canalis are purged of their affectations by the administration of non-success in little doses.
Modeste, fully warned, recovered her impenetrable composure. Dumay's distrust was now thoroughly aroused, and he resolved to go the mayor's office early in the morning and ascertain if the architect had really been in Havre the previous day. Butscha, on the other hand, was equally determined to go to Paris and find out something about Canalis.
"Does Monsieur de La Briere know how to ride?" she asked, for the purpose of teasing him. "Not very well, but he gets along," answered the poet, cold as Gobenheim before the colonel's return. At a cross-road, which Monsieur Mignon made them take through a lovely valley to reach a height overlooking the Seine, Canalis let Modeste and the duke pass him, and then reined up to join the colonel.
The fault lay with the great lady who flattered him incessantly and spoiled him, as all women older than their adorers invariably spoil and flatter them; Canalis in his moral being was a sort of Narcissus.
The smile was like a stab to the distinguished provincial. Felix de Vandenesse assumed a charitable air. Montriveau looked Lucien through and through. "Madame," M. de Canalis answered with a bow, "I will obey you, in spite of the selfish instinct which prompts us to show a rival no favor; but you have accustomed us to miracles."
"Canalis," he said, "always reminds me of that brave man whom Frederic the Great called up and commended after a battle because his trumpet had never ceased tooting its one little tune."
"Is it from an unknown woman?" "Unknown? yes! a D'Este, in Havre; evidently a feigned name." Canalis passed the letter to La Briere. The little poem, with all its hidden enthusiasms, in short, poor Modeste's heart, was disdainfully handed over, with the gesture of a spoiled dandy.
Satisfied with himself and with the impression he was making on the prospective father-in-law, Canalis turned to Germain. "Serve the coffee in the salon," he said, inviting Monsieur de La Bastie to leave the dining-room. "I thank you for this visit, monsieur le comte," said La Briere; "it saves me from the embarrassment of presenting my friend to you in your own house.
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