Coralie chooses Lucien de Rubempré rather than Camusot in a confrontation that changes an affair into an acknowledged commitment. She embraces Lucien in front of Camusot, names her love as real, and says she would prefer poverty with the young poet to millions with the older merchant. Yet Camusot does not withdraw his material support: he leaves Coralie the furnished home and asks to remain a visitor. Her choice is emotionally decisive, but its practical consequences remain unresolved.

The Suspicion Behind the Boots

The scene begins in the wake of a theatrical success. Camusot credits Lucien with the triumph, and Coralie insists that without his article L’Alcade dans l’embarras would have fallen and she would still be performing on the boulevard. Her gratitude becomes physically unmistakable when she leaps to Lucien’s neck in front of Camusot. The embrace makes visible what Camusot has been trying to confirm.

Camusot’s attention fixes on Lucien’s boots. Their distinctive yellow thread, set against the polished black leather, recalls a pair he had noticed beside Coralie’s fireplace during his earlier speculation about a man’s unexplained presence in her rooms. The lining bears the address of the famous bootmaker Gay, on rue de La Michodière. Camusot asks about the boots, then presses Lucien to remove one, proposing that Bérénice fetch the hooks needed to put it back on. The seemingly trivial request is an attempt to turn a suspicion into proof.

Coralie stops the test and states the truth Camusot is circling: the boots are indeed the same, Lucien had spent the night there, and she is deceiving Camusot. She presents no excuse or denial. Instead, she insists that he either leave her or accept her as she is. When Camusot sees that Lucien is not laughing and asks whether her declaration can be true, Lucien answers that he loves her. Coralie immediately throws herself into his arms again. The two embraces bookend the disclosure: what Camusot first reads as evidence becomes, through their open declaration, a relationship neither will conceal from him.

Coralie’s Choice and Camusot’s Response

Coralie frames her decision in stark alternatives. She may be, as she puts it, a disreputable woman who has fallen for Lucien in a moment, or a wretched creature who has at last felt the true love all women seek. Whatever judgment Camusot makes of her, she refuses to bargain away the relationship. She tells him she loves Lucien for his beauty rather than his wit, and would choose hardship with him over wealth with Camusot. Her declaration makes love a choice with an immediate economic cost, not simply a private sentiment.

Camusot’s response is less a clean departure than a painful retreat. He says he will believe only what Coralie wants him to believe and admits that he is wrong. When she tells him to take back everything he has given her, he refuses. The furnishings alone are worth sixty thousand francs, but he cannot bear the thought of Coralie living in poverty and acknowledges that he could not live without her. He asks to retain the right to visit and to help her.

Lucien is moved by Camusot’s tenderness, though Coralie is not. She permits the visits, saying she would rather care for Camusot without deceiving him. The permission does not restore their former arrangement; it gives Camusot a place near Coralie while leaving her choice of Lucien intact. His apparent acceptance also carries a calculation. He hopes the uncertainties and temptations of Parisian life will eventually bring Lucien to betray her, allowing Camusot to regain his former position. His wish to remain a friend is therefore both an expression of attachment and a means of watching the new couple.

The Cost of the New Household

Once Camusot has left, Coralie’s mood turns to exhilaration. She celebrates the end of Lucien’s attic lodging in the Latin Quarter and imagines that they will no longer be separated. To preserve appearances, she proposes that he take a small apartment on rue Charlot, while remaining with her. Her dancing Spanish step gives bodily force to the future she is trying to make real: passion has displaced concealment, and she treats their shared life as imminent.

Lucien’s response exposes the gap between that emotional certainty and their material circumstances. He says he could earn five hundred francs a month by working hard, but the figure does not erase the burden he suddenly recognizes. Seeing himself saddled with a woman, an actress, and a household, he feels cold with apprehension. Coralie has chosen him, and Camusot has left her resources in place, yet Lucien does not experience the choice as costless triumph. The scene ends with love declared and a domestic arrangement proposed, but with their future still dependent on Lucien’s ability to provide and on Camusot’s continued presence at its edge.

The Reversal of the Triangle

The encounter reverses the roles the three have occupied. Camusot arrives at the truth by scrutinizing an object—the boots—and trying to make Lucien expose himself physically. Coralie instead removes the ambiguity herself, openly confirming both the night spent together and her deception. Lucien’s brief declaration completes that reversal: the suspicion becomes mutual acknowledgment, and Camusot, rather than forcing a confession or reclaiming his gifts, becomes the rejected benefactor who continues to support the woman he loves.

That reversal does not settle the conflict. Coralie’s decision is unequivocal, but the proposed household rests partly on Camusot’s money and partly on Lucien’s hoped-for earnings. Camusot’s generosity preserves Coralie’s immediate security while his hope of Lucien’s future infidelity keeps the rivalry alive. The event therefore joins an intimate choice to the material arrangements that can sustain, complicate, or threaten it: Coralie leaves no doubt whom she loves, but neither lover can yet make the consequences of that choice disappear.