Charles’s absence gave Duroy increased importance in the editorial department of the Vie Francaise . He signed several leaders besides his “Echoes,” for the governor insisted on everyone assuming the responsibility of his “copy.” He became engaged in several newspaper controversies, in which he acquitted himself creditably, and his constant relations with different statesmen were gradually preparing him to become in his turn a clever and perspicuous political editor. There was only one cloud on his horizon. It came from a little freelance newspaper, which continually assailed him, or rather in him assailed the chief writer of “Echoes” in the Vie Francaise , the chief of “Monsieur Walter’s startlers,” as it was put by the anonymous writer of the Plume . Day by day cutting paragraphs, insinuations of every kind, appeared in it.
One day Jacques Rival said to Duroy: “You are very patient.”
Duroy replied: “What can I do, there is no direct attack?”
But one afternoon, as he entered the editor’s room, Boisrenard held out the current number of the Plume , saying: “Here’s another spiteful dig at you.”
“Ah! what about?”
“Oh! a mere nothing—the arrest of a Madame Aubert by the police.”
George took the paper, and read, under the heading, “Duroy’s Latest”:
“The illustrious reporter of the Vie Francaise today informs us that Madame Aubert, whose arrest by a police agent belonging to the odious brigade des mœurs we announced, exists only in our imagination. Now