Entrée de Lucien dans le journalisme

Lucien’s entry into journalism is both a job appointment and a staged initiation. Finot secures him paid work, theater access, and side income, while the newsroom’s comic ceremony makes the press appear less like a calling than a trade whose rules are set by money, favors, and allegiance. Two months later, a mock baptism celebrates Lucien’s rapid transformation even as the departure of several morally serious observers exposes the cost of that transformation.

The appointment and its terms

Finot arrives to announce his own false abdication and advise Giroudeau to protect his interests. Discovering Lucien, he takes his hand and tells his uncle not to treat him with diplomatic reserve: Lucien is already part of the newspaper. The introduction is not merely a recommendation. Finot says that he intends to prevent Étienne Lousteau from taking advantage of the newcomer, and offers Lucien three francs per column for all his writing, including theater reports.

The arrangement also gives Lucien responsibility for four boulevard theaters, with Giroudeau charged with ensuring that his theater boxes are not taken from him and that his tickets reach him. Finot advises Lucien to have them sent to his own address. In addition to his regular criticism, Lucien must write ten Varieties articles, each about two columns long, for fifty francs a month over one year. Lucien accepts because circumstances leave him little room to refuse; Giroudeau is visibly surprised that Finot has offered terms he has not made to others.

A position built from favors

Finot orders the contract dated the previous day so that Lousteau will be bound by the existing terms. As he leads Lucien downstairs, he promises to introduce him to the other writers and says Lousteau will establish him at the theaters that evening. He estimates that the small newspaper can bring Lucien 150 francs a month, and tells him to maintain a good relationship with its incoming editor. Finot presents his intervention as protection for a talented newcomer against an editor’s caprice, but also makes clear that he expects Lucien’s loyalty in return.

There are further, confidential opportunities. Finot invites Lucien to submit as many as two sheets a month to Revue de Finot for 200 francs, warning him not to disclose the arrangement because other writers might resent a newcomer’s fortune. Lucien is to divide the material into four articles, sign two in his own name and two under a pseudonym, so that he does not appear to take other writers’ work. Finot says Lucien owes his position to Émile Blondet and Claude Vignon, who see promise in him, and advises him not to squander that promise or trust his friends too readily. His compact is bluntly reciprocal: Lucien is to serve Finot, and Finot will serve him.

Finot adds practical sources of income: theater boxes and tickets worth forty francs to sell, books worth sixty francs to review, and the newspaper work itself. Together, he calculates, these will yield 450 francs a month; with wit, Lucien may obtain at least another 200 from booksellers for articles and prospectuses. The offer makes journalism look like a portfolio of assignments and favors rather than a single salaried post. Lucien clasps Finot’s hand in overwhelming joy, while Finot tells him not to let anyone see that they have made a deal.

The newsroom changes hands

Finot takes Lucien into a fifth-floor garret at the end of a long corridor. There, Lucien finds Lousteau, Félicien Vernou, Hector Merlin, and other writers gathered around a green-covered table. They sit on chairs and armchairs before a good fire, smoking and laughing; papers cover the table, along with an inkstand full of ink and rather poor pens. To the new journalist, this room is where the newspaper’s great work is made. Its makeshift equipment contrasts with the professional importance attached to the business being conducted there.

Finot announces that Lousteau will replace him as editor of the newspaper because Finot must leave to edit Revue de Finot. He claims that although his opinions must undergo a necessary transformation for the new position, his convictions remain unchanged: circumstances vary, but principles are fixed. The writers respond with laughter, and Merlin jokes about weather that could bring wind, rain, storms, or fair skies. The exchange punctures Finot’s solemn language. His political principles sound less like a stable creed than a flexible instrument for moving between editorial positions.

Finot presents Lucien to the assembled writers as one of their own and confirms that he has contracted with him. The appointment thus has two faces: privately, it rests on carefully negotiated rates, concealed arrangements, and Finot’s leverage over Lousteau; publicly, it is acknowledged by the group whose recognition gives Lucien a place in the trade.

The mock baptism

At a later gathering, Lousteau calls attention to how quickly Lucien has changed from provincial to journalist. Dauriat answers that Lucien was born a journalist. Finot then proposes that the company formally baptize their host, declaring that they have encouraged his beginnings and that, in two months, he has proved himself through his articles. The ceremony turns professional advancement into a collective joke: a new identity is bestowed not by a literary institution but by the people who have watched Lucien learn the newspaper business.

At Bixiou’s suggestion, a crown of roses is assembled from old artificial flowers kept in Coralie’s boxes. Bérénice fetches them, and the drunken guests grotesquely adorn themselves with the flowers. Finot plays high priest, pours a few drops of champagne over Lucien’s blond head, and pronounces the baptism in the name of the press stamp duty, security deposit, and fine. The mock sacrament joins the language of ritual to the costs and penalties of newspaper work; Merlin immediately adds the practical hope that articles will be paid without deductions for blank space. The rite is festive, but its terms remain commercial.

Celebration and estrangement

The ceremony also makes a division within Lucien’s circle visible. As the journalists cheer, Lucien notices Michel Chrestien, Joseph Bridau, and Fulgence Ridal looking saddened. They take their hats and leave amid a roar of imprecations. Merlin calls them strange Christians, and Lousteau says that Fulgence had been a good fellow before the others corrupted him with morality. The scene does not explain their full judgment, but their sadness and departure sharply contrast with the writers’ laughter and drunken play.

The episode therefore gives Lucien two forms of recognition at once. Finot converts his promise into contracts, access, and expected service; the newsroom converts his success into a public, irreverent initiation. Yet the ceremony’s comedy does not erase what the departing men register: entry into journalism brings Lucien into a community, while also marking distance from those who regard its compromises with suspicion.