On Wednesday, 21 August 1850, the streets in the fashion-
able area of the Faubourg du Roule were filled with traffic
and a large crowd of people, to the considerable annoyance
of Achille Fould, Minister of Finance. ¹ It was a dull, overcast morning;
the Minister was on his way to an important meeting; and no Minister
should ever be held up in the course of his duties — not even by a
funeral procession.

Achille Fould had been the first name of weight from the world of
high finance to lend support to the new President, and as a result the
weekly soirées of his elder brother Bénédict had become a focus of
political life where affairs of state could be discussed on a full stomach
and in the company of that handful of people who make up the élite
of Parisian society. After dinner that evening, Achille found himself
standing next to the famous "Prince of Critics", Jules Janin, who some
said was the model for a cynical character in Balzac's Un Grand Homme
de Province à Paris. At the time, Janin had been less than pleased with
the compliment, and when he reviewed the novel in the Revue de Paris,
he dismissed it as a slanderous attack on his 'noble and cherished
profession' — by which he meant journalism: Balzac was a vulgar man
obsessed with sex, money and the seamy side of life, and self-respecting
people should have nothing to do with him. But that was eleven years
before. ²

'Ah!' said the Minister. 'You're a journalist and a. writer, M. Janin.
You'll be able to tell me about that funeral I saw with such a large
crowd behind it. I am told it was a writer of novels, a man of letters
like yourself. . . .'

'That, Monsieur', replied Janin, to the astonishment of those who
heard him, 'was quite simply one of the greatest men, one of the most,
penetrating geniuses and most brilliant minds of our time'; and he

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