_"One person only during these last years ever succeeded in attracting the attention of the songstresses and ballet-girls of the Opera. And that was Gambetta. Ah! when he came to claim Monsieur Vaucorbeil's hospitality, it was useless to crouch behind the cherry-colored silk curtains of the manager's box, many glances were directed toward him, and many prowling curiosities were awakened in the vicinity of the manager's box. Little lassies of ten or twelve came and seized your hand, saying:_ _"'Please, monsieur, point out Monsieur Gambetta to me--he is here--I would so much like to see him.'_ _"And then Gambetta was pointed out to them during the entr'acte--after which, delighted, they went off caracoling and pirouetting behind the scenes:_ _"'You did not see Monsieur Gambetta, but I saw him!'_ _"This was popularity--and it must be confessed that only one man in France to-day receives such marks of it. This man is Gambetta._ _"Meanwhile Claretie's minister continues his walk through the corridors of the Opera house. He reaches the greenroom of the ballet at last and exclaims:_ _"'And that is all!'_ _"Alas, yes, your Excellency, that is all!--"_ _And everything is only a _"that is all,"_ in this world. If one should set himself carefully to weigh power or fame,--power, that force of which Girardin said, however: "I would give fifty years of glory for one hour of power,"--even if one tilted the scale, one would not find the weight very considerable._ _It would be necessary to have the resounding renown of a personality like that one who, if I am to believe Monsieur Halevy, alone enjoyed the privilege of revolutionizing the foyer of the ballet, in order to boast of having been someone, or of having accomplished something._ _A rather witty skeptic once said to a friend of his who had just been appointed minister:_ _"My dear fellow, permit me as a practical man to ask you not to engage in too many affairs. Events in this world are accomplished without much meddling. If you attempt to do something to-day, everyone will cry out: 'What! he is going to demolish everything!' If you do nothing, they will cry: 'What! he does not budge! If I were minister, which God forbid, I would say nothing--and let others act--I would do nothing--and let others talk.'"_ _Everybody, very fortunately--and all ministers do not reason like this jester. But the truth is that it is very difficult for an honest man in the midst of political entanglements as Vaudrey was, to realize his dream. When opportunities arise--those opportunities that march only at a snail's pace--one is not allowed to make use of them, they are snatched from one. They arrive, only to take wings again. And in those posts of daily combat, one has not only against one the enemies who attack one openly, which would be but a slight matter, a touch with a goad or a prick of the spur, at most--but one has to contend with friends who compromise, and servants who serve one badly._