When, then, society--faithful to the principle of the division of labor--intrusts a work of art or of science to one of its members, allowing him to abandon ordinary labor, it owes him an indemnity for all which it prevents him from producing industrially; but it owes him nothing more.

If he should demand more, society should, by refusing his services, annihilate his pretensions.

Forced, then, in order to live, to devote himself to labor repugnant to his nature, the man of genius would feel his weakness, and would live the most distasteful of lives.
They tell of a celebrated singer who demanded of the Empress of Russia (Catherine II) twenty thousand roubles for his services: "That is more than I give my field-marshals," said Catherine.

"Your majesty," replied the other, "has only to make singers of her field-marshals." If France (more powerful than Catherine II) should say to Mademoiselle Rachel, "You must act for one hundred louis, or else spin cotton;" to M.Duprez, "You must sing for two thousand four hundred francs, or else work in the vineyard,"-- do you think that the actress Rachel, and the singer Duprez, would abandon the stage?
If they did, they would be the first to repent it.
Mademoiselle Rachel receives, they say, sixty thousand francs annually from the Comedie-Francaise.

For a talent like hers, it is a slight fee.
Why not one hundred thousand francs, two hundred thousand francs?
Why! not a civil list?
What meanness! Are we really guilty of chaffering with an artist like Mademoiselle Rachel?
It is said, in reply, that the managers of the theatre cannot give more without incurring a loss; that they admit the superior talent of their young associate; but that, in fixing her salary, they have been compelled to take the account of the company's receipts and expenses into consideration also.
That is just, but it only confirms what I have said; namely, that an artist's talent may be infinite, but that its mercenary claims are necessarily limited,--on the one hand, by its usefulness to the society which rewards it; on the other, by the resources of this society: in other words, that the demand of the seller is balanced by the right of the buyer.
Mademoiselle Rachel, they say, brings to the treasury of the Theatre-Francais more than sixty thousand francs.