Qui peut tout dire, arrive à tout faire

“Qui peut tout dire, arrive à tout faire” is a maxim attributed to Napoleon that Daniel d’Arthez invokes when Lucien considers entering journalism. Its promise is intoxicating: in the literary republic, the journalist can exercise authority over other people’s work. Yet Lucien’s encounters with publishers and editors reveal the limit hidden inside the boast: words can shape reputations and theatrical fortunes, but the institutions that carry them to readers can also redirect them.

The Maxim and Its Warning

When Lucien repeatedly speaks of joining the newspapers, his friends urge him to resist. Daniel d’Arthez frames the choice as a danger to the person they know and love: journalism would expose Lucien to a continual contest between pleasure and work, and he doubts that Lucien could endure that struggle. The journalist’s attraction, in his account, is not merely a livelihood but the chance to wield power over “the works of thought”—to pronounce on them with authority.

D’Arthez describes that authority as becoming a “proconsul in the republic of letters,” then cites the maxim. The phrase turns speech into action: to say everything is presented as the route to being able to do everything. In this context, the prospect is less a neutral celebration of eloquence than a warning about how quickly the power to judge can become a temptation to dominate.

The Gatekeepers of Print

Lucien’s attempts to bring his writing into circulation expose the distance between speaking boldly and controlling what reaches an audience. At the bookshop of Vidal and Porchon, he offers his historical novel, The Archer of Charles IX. Vidal explains that the firm acts as a bookseller-commissionnaire rather than a publishing house, and that its own publishing ventures are undertaken with established names. It buys serious works such as histories and summaries. Lucien argues that his novel is serious because it portrays the conflict between Catholics supporting absolute government and Protestants seeking a republic, but his conviction alone cannot open the commercial gate.

The same imbalance appears when Lucien is brought to Dauriat, the formidable bookseller and publisher. Dauriat initially addresses him with open impertinence, asking whom he has the honor of speaking to, while Lousteau intervenes to make the introduction. Later, Dauriat hands Lucien back the manuscript of The Daisies; his manner has softened, but Lucien leaves with the roll in hand. In both encounters, authorship depends on more than the ability to state a case: access, recognition, and the decisions of those who control publication shape what a writer can accomplish.

Speech Put to the Test

Once Lucien writes for the press, the maxim’s promise acquires a practical and unsettling form. After a performance at the Ambigu-Comique, he writes a deliberately harsh review, eager to test whether he can, as he has been told, ruin a good play and make a bad one succeed. But when he reads the newspaper the next day, the piece has been softened overnight. Its analysis remains, yet its conclusion now favors the play and is likely to help fill the theater’s coffers. Lucien discovers that his words can be powerful, but they are not wholly his once they enter the newspaper’s machinery.

He responds by trying to establish his influence through further writing. He prepares a review balancing the opinions expressed about Nathan’s book, then produces a Variétés article for the small newspaper. Lousteau, who has seen the general rehearsal of a vaudeville, collects Lucien’s already-written piece for the issue. After Lucien reads one of these lively articles about Parisian particulars, Lousteau embraces him and calls him the newspapers’ providence. The praise marks a sharp contrast with the earlier gatekeeping: Lucien’s facility now serves the paper, even as his attempt to control a review has shown how editorial intervention can constrain it.

Power, Compromise, and Irony

The maxim’s force lies in its double meaning. For Lucien, journalism offers a route from literary aspiration to public power; for d’Arthez, that same attraction threatens to overwhelm the habits and loyalties that sustain serious work. Fulgence makes the danger more personal: Lucien’s brilliance and speed, he fears, could lead him to deliver a witty blow even if it made a friend weep. The press’s power is therefore not only the power to affect a play or a reputation, but also the power to make cruelty seem like professional skill.

Lucien’s experience qualifies the maxim without simply disproving it. A journalist may aspire to say anything and thereby act upon public opinion, but publication is mediated by commercial interests and editorial choices. His review is altered; his later articles win Lousteau’s admiration. Between those outcomes, speech appears as both an instrument of influence and a commodity handled by others. The phrase remains a compact expression of journalism’s allure, while the scenes around it expose the cost and limits of turning verbal command into real control.