« Les partis sont ingrats envers leurs vedettes »

« Les partis sont ingrats envers leurs vedettes » is a maxim about the expendability of public figures in political life. In Lucien de Rubempré’s case, it names the danger of becoming conspicuous on the wrong side: once he changes political and literary allegiance, party hostility and the press’s appetite for attack turn his visibility into a liability.

The Maxim and Its Political Setting

The narrator places the saying within a contrast between an earlier age of fierce factional hatred and a present in which conflict has, supposedly, softened. In the present, critics may destroy an author’s book and then expect cordiality or even friendship; refusing that reconciliation risks being branded unsociable, resentful, or vain. The earlier period is described as more openly dangerous: Royalists and Liberals, like Romantics and Classicists, carried their antagonisms into the theater, where hostile looks and provocations could spark a quarrel. The maxim belongs to this harsher political landscape, where a public figure’s prominence does not secure a party’s lasting loyalty.

Lucien’s Reversal and Its Cost

Lucien had begun as an ardent Liberal and Voltairian but became a fervent Royalist and Romantic. That reversal placed him under the weight of hostility directed at Martinville, whom the passage describes as the person most hated by the Liberals and the only person who defended and loved Lucien. The small newspapers exploited their association, pairing the two men in attacks. Their supposed solidarity—whether genuine or not—made them targets, while Félicien Vernou wrote venomous articles, despairing at Lucien’s success in fashionable society and still believing in his expected rise.

The press sharpened the charge of betrayal into a theatrical insult: Lucien became the “little Judas,” Martinville the “great Judas.” Martinville was accused, rightly or wrongly, of having delivered the bridge at Pecq to foreign armies. Lucien answered des Lupeaulx with a joke that he had delivered the bridge to the donkeys. The exchange shows how political denunciation could turn public reputation into ridicule, while the maxim’s warning extends beyond formal party discipline: the same circle that had helped shape Lucien could now use every means to bring him down.

Fame, Ambition, and Abandonment

The passage connects political vulnerability to Lucien’s conspicuous but insecure luxury. His display rested on hopes rather than secure means, yet his former friends resented his carriage and the splendor of his rooms on the rue de Vendôme. They sensed that a young, handsome, witty man whom they had helped corrupt might “arrive at everything,” and sought to overthrow him. In this setting, the maxim is more than a general complaint about party ingratitude: it identifies the instability of celebrity when alliances shift, envy gathers, and the people who once fostered a rising figure decide that his success threatens them.