Vuillet was Aristide's bugbear.

Never a week passed but these two journalists exchanged the greatest insults.

In the provinces, where a periphrastic style is still cultivated, polemics are clothed in high-sounding phrases.

Aristide called his adversary "brother Judas," or "slave of Saint-Anthony." Vuillet gallantly retorted by terming the Republican "a monster glutted with blood whose ignoble purveyor was the guillotine." In order to sound his brother, Aristide, who did not dare to appear openly uneasy, contented himself with asking: "Did you read my article yesterday?
What do you think of it ?" Eugene lightly shrugged his shoulders.

"You're a simpleton, brother," was his sole reply.
"Then you think Vuillet right ?" cried the journalist, turning pale; "you believe in Vuillet's triumph ?" "I!--Vuillet----" He was certainly about to add, "Vuillet is as big a fool as you are." But, observing his brother's distorted face anxiously extended towards him, he experienced sudden mistrust.