Les Marguerites

Les Marguerites is Lucien de Rubempré’s collection of sonnets and the most tangible test of his hopes for literary recognition. Dauriat first judges it admirable but commercially unpromising, then buys it for three thousand francs when Lucien has become a more consequential figure in the press. The sale brings immediate elation and a chance to help his family, but not publication: Dauriat retains control of the book while postponing its appearance, making the collection a measure of how literary value in Lucien’s Paris depends not only on writing but also on money, timing, and influence.

The collection and its first rejection

Lucien presents Les Marguerites to Dauriat, a bookseller who admits that he relies on a man of taste to judge poetry rather than claiming expertise himself. That reader has praised the sonnets, and Dauriat joins in the praise: he calls them magnificent, says their workmanship does not show, and recognizes Lucien’s command of rhyme as a strength of the new school. His refusal therefore does not rest on a claim that the poems are poor. He distinguishes aesthetic promise from commercial prospects: the book is good, he says, but not a sufficiently large undertaking to justify the expense of manufacturing a successful book.

Dauriat also casts the collection as a familiar first-book phenomenon. In his view, young writers are attached to their early verses when they leave college and later outgrow them; Lucien’s volume, he predicts, will stand alone rather than inaugurate a continuing poetic career. The prediction turns the collection into a test of whether an individual work can persuade a commercial gatekeeper to invest in poetry without the promise of a larger enterprise behind it.

Lucien asks for the manuscript back. He leaves with Étienne Lousteau, carrying the roll without looking closely at its string and showing neither visible dismay nor anger. His composure contrasts with the importance of the refusal: Dauriat has read the work but will not risk the money needed to promote it. At this stage, Les Marguerites remains Lucien’s property and an unrealized literary hope.

Sale, payment, and a new confidence

The later transaction reverses the first encounter. Dauriat produces an elegant portfolio, places three one-thousand-franc notes on a plate, and offers them to Lucien. The sum is unexpected; Lucien feels an unfamiliar happiness and, though he restrains himself, wants to sing and leap. The payment momentarily appears to confirm his belief in his own genius. The change in Dauriat’s behavior is as significant as the money: the bookseller, who had earlier dismissed the collection as too small an operation, now approaches its author with courtly deference.

Dauriat treats the purchase as a transfer of the book to him and asks for assurance that Lucien will not attack his publications. Lucien agrees that Les Marguerites is Dauriat’s, but refuses to promise silence: his pen, he says, belongs to his friends as their pens belong to him. Dauriat replies that his authors are his friends too and asks to be warned of attacks so he can forestall them. The exchange exposes a tension within the sale. Dauriat buys the work, but also seeks to manage the risks posed by Lucien’s independent journalism.

Dauriat leaves the three thousand francs without taking a receipt, and refuses the one Lucien offers. He takes the manuscript and says that Lucien can come to the Galeries de Bois to sign the treaty he will prepare. He also invites Lucien and Coralie to a dinner for journalists. The transaction thus joins book ownership to the social world of publishing and the press, while the promised formal agreement remains to be signed.

Money, family, and the rewards of print

The payment gives Lucien a chance to send money home. Remembering his mother, his sister Ève Séchard, and David Séchard, he has Bérénice exchange a note and hurries to send five hundred francs to his mother. The urgency is practical: he fears that if he delays, he may not be able to provide that amount. For Lucien and Coralie, the remittance feels like an act of familial generosity; Coralie praises him as a model son and brother and responds with affection.

The sale also coincides with another first: Lucien has read his printed article and tasted the author’s distinct pleasure in seeing work in print. He rereads it and feels its force more fully. Printing, the narration observes, makes both beauties and faults visible, as performance does for a play; a mistake becomes as conspicuous as a fine thought. Lucien’s exhilaration shifts his attention away from Raoul Nathan and toward the prospect of wealth and success. Against the remembered poverty of his family, the money from Dauriat seems almost miraculous. Les Marguerites is therefore not simply a manuscript sold: its price enters a larger transformation in which print and payment seem to convert literary promise into public consequence.

Delayed publication and control of the book

The apparent victory does not bring the collection before readers. As Lucien’s expenses mount, Dauriat repeatedly gives reasons for delaying its passage to press. Other books are already in preparation, including competing poetry collections, and he tells Lucien to trust his skill as a bookseller. Lucien’s needs grow more pressing; he turns to Finot for advances on articles, while his companions’ jokes and champagne at supper briefly drown out his financial scruples. The contrast between the money already paid for the poems and the absence of the published book leaves Lucien dependent on other sources of income.

The postponed publication acquires added significance as Lucien’s position changes. He expects support from the royalist press and hopes that ministerial largesse will help settle his accounts and relieve Coralie’s concealed distress. He has promised to dedicate Les Marguerites to Marquise d'Espard, who appears flattered by the distinction. The dedication links the collection to patronage and social ambition, while its continued absence from the press prevents that literary gesture from becoming a public book.

When Lucien later confronts Dauriat, he finds the bookseller surrounded by his enemies and meets a silence from the assembled company. Dauriat insists that he bought the entire property and will publish the collection when he chooses, once Lucien’s position can ensure its success. Lucien argues that the contract obliges Dauriat to publish, but Dauriat maintains that a court could not force him to undertake what he considers a bad business decision. He offers a way out: Lucien can repay the three thousand francs, recover the work, and take it to a royalist bookseller. The ownership of Les Marguerites has become both a legal dispute and a source of leverage.

Lucien leaves more wounded by Dauriat’s measured manner than by the bookseller’s earlier show of authority. He understands that the collection may remain unpublished until he has the support of a powerful circle or has become formidable in his own right. The book’s fate thus tracks the unstable exchange between literary work and public standing: Dauriat has paid for the poems, but Lucien’s growing dependence on the machinery of publishing and journalism determines whether they will reach readers. At the point of this confrontation, Les Marguerites remains an acquired but still withheld work.