In vain persons, be they male or female, there is a complacent self-
satisfaction in any momentary personal success, however little that
success may conduce to--nay, however much it may militate against--the
objects to which their vanity itself devotes its more permanent desires.
A vain woman may be very anxious to win A------, the magnificent, as a
partner for life; and yet feel a certain triumph when a glance of her eye
has made an evening's conquest of the pitiful B-------, although by that
achievement she incurs the imminent hazard of losing A------ altogether.
So, when Gustave Rameau quitted Isaura, his first feeling was that of
triumph. His eloquence had subdued her will; she had not finally
discarded him. But as he wandered abstractedly in the biting air, his
self-complacency was succeeded by mortification and discontent. He felt
that he had committed himself to promises which he was by no means
prepared to keep. True, the promises were vague in words; but in
substance they were perfectly clear--"to spare, nay, to aid all that
Isaura esteemed and reverenced." How was this possible to him? How
could he suddenly change the whole character of his writings?--how become
the defender of marriage and property, of church and religion?--how
proclaim himself so utter an apostate? If he did, how become a leader
of the fresh revolution? how escape being its victim? Cease to write
altogether?

But then how live? His pen was his sole subsistence, save 30 sous a-day
as a National Guard--30 sous a day to him, who, in order to be Sybarite
in tastes, was Spartan in doctrine. Nothing better just at that moment
than Spartan doctrine, "Live on black broth and fight the enemy." And
the journalists in vogue so thrived upon that patriotic sentiment, that
they were the last persons compelled to drink the black broth or to fight
the enemy.