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Updated: June 26, 2025
Chrestien, at the service of the first that hires him, can do nothing with the publishers; Bianchon is quite out of it; d'Arthez's booksellers only deal in scientific and technical books they have no connection with publishers of new literature; and as for Horace and Fulgence Ridal and Bridau, their work lies miles away from the booksellers.
"And what would become of European federation?" asked d'Arthez. "Ah! true," replied Michel Chrestien. "Our duty to Humanity comes first; to one man afterwards." "I came here with a heart full of gratitude to you all," said Lucien. "You have changed my alloy into golden coin." "Gratitude! For what do you take us?" asked Bianchon. "We had the pleasure," added Fulgence.
We will organize a success; you shall be a great man, and still remain our Lucien." "You must despise me very much, if you think that I should perish while you escape," said the poet. "O Lord, forgive him; it is a child!" cried Michel Chrestien.
The little group of friends present at the funeral with those five great men will never forget that touching scene. As you walk in the trim cemetery you will see a grave purchased in perpetuity, a grass-covered mound with a dark wooden cross above it, and the name in large red letters MICHEL CHRESTIEN. There is no other monument like it.
Yet the gay bohemian of intellectual life, the great statesman who might have changed the face of the world, fell as a private soldier in the cloister of Saint-Merri; some shopkeeper's bullet struck down one of the noblest creatures that ever trod French soil, and Michel Chrestien died for other doctrines than his own.
With what lucidity had Michel Chrestien read into that soul, that heart, illumined by the fires of love! Thus the princess acquired, in d'Arthez's eyes, another charm; a halo of poesy surrounded her. As the dinner proceeded, Daniel called to mind the various confidences of his friend, his despair, his hopes, the noble poems of a true sentiment sung to his ear alone, in honor of this woman.
"And how about our sonnets," said Michel Chrestien; "is that the way they will win us the fame of a second Petrarch?" "Faciamus experimentum in anima vili," retorted Lucien with a smile. "And woe unto him whom reviewers shall spare, flinging him crowns at his first appearance, for he shall be shelved like the saints in their shrines, and no man shall pay him the slightest attention," said Vernou.
D'Arthez replied that he knew a great deal more than they could tell him about her through their poor friend, Michel Chrestien, who adored her secretly for four years, and had well-nigh gone mad about her. "I have often accompanied him," said Daniel, "to the opera. He would make me run through the streets as far as her horses that he might see the princess through the window of her coupe."
He stood in his place; he would not take a step, a piece of recklessness which the others took for deliberate calculation. They thought the poet an uncommonly cool hand. Michel Chrestien came as far as his limit; both fired twice and at the same time, for either party was considered to be equally insulted. Michel's first bullet grazed Lucien's chin; Lucien's passed ten feet above Chrestien's head.
Whether it was the Englishman Walter Map, the Norman Robert de Borron, or the Frenchman Chrestien de Troyes, to whom this flash of illumination came, has never been proved will pretty certainly now never be proved.
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