Another event, which was correctly or incorrectly traced to Leroy’s silently working influence, was the sudden meteoric blaze of Paul Zouche into fame. How it happened, no one knew;--and _why_ it happened was still more of a mystery, because by all its own tenets and traditions the social world ought to have set itself dead against the ‘Psalm of Revolution,’--the title of the book of poems which created such an amazing stir. But somehow, it got whispered about that the King had attempted to ‘patronise’ the poet, and that the poet had very indignantly resented the offered Royal condescension. Whereat, by degrees, there arose in society circles a murmur of wonder at the poet’s ‘pluck,’ wonder that deepened into admiration, with incessant demand for his book,--and admiration soon expanded, with the aid of the book, into a complete “craze.” Zouche’s name was on every lip; invitations to great houses reached him every week;--his poems began to sell by thousands; yet with all this, the obstinacy of his erratic nature asserted itself as usual, undiminished, and Zouche withdrew from the shower of praise like a snail into its shell,--answered none of the flattering requests for ‘the pleasure of his company,’ and handed whatever money he made by his poems over to the funds of the Revolutionary Committee, only accepting as much out of it as would pay for his clothes, food, lodging, and--drink! But the more he turned his back on Fame, the more hotly it pursued him;--his very churlishness was talked about as something remarkable and admirable,--and when it was suggested that he was fonder of strong liquor than was altogether seemly, people smiled and nodded at each other pleasantly, tapped their foreheads meaningly and murmured: ‘Genius! Genius!’ as though that were a quality allied of divine necessity to alcoholism.