Some of these satellites perceive the ingratitude of their great man; others feel that they are simply made tools of; many weary of the life; very few remain contented with that sweet equality of feeling and sentiment which is the only reward that should be looked for in an intimacy with a superior man,--a reward that contented Ali when Mohammed raised him to himself.
Many of these men, misled by vanity, think themselves quite as capable as their patron.

Pure devotion, such as Modeste conceived it, without money and without price, and more especially without hope, is rare.
Nevertheless there are Mennevals to be found, more perhaps in Paris than elsewhere, men who value a life in the background with its peaceful toil; these are the wandering Benedictines of our social world, which offers them no other monastery.

These brave, meek hearts live, by their actions and in their hidden lives, the poetry that poets utter.

They are poets themselves in soul, in tenderness, in their lonely vigils and meditations,--as truly poets as others of the name on paper, who fatten in the fields of literature at so much a verse; like Lord Byron, like all who live, alas, by ink, the Hippocrene water of to-day, for want of a better.
Attracted by the fame of Canalis, also by the prospect of political interest, and advised thereto by Madame d'Espard, who acted in the matter for the Duchesse de Chaulieu, a young lawyer of the court of Claims became secretary and confidential friend of the poet, who welcomed and petted him very much as a broker caresses his first dabbler in the funds.

The beginning of this companionship bore a very fair resemblance to friendship.