at that turning-point in his life when a man most stands in need of
the harsh discipline of misfortune and adversity which formed a Prince

Eugene, a Frederick II., a Napoleon. Chesnel saw that Victurnien
possessed that uncontrollable appetite for enjoyments which should be

the prerogative of men endowed with giant powers; the men who feel the
need of counterbalancing their gigantic labors by pleasures which

bring one-sided mortals to the pit.
At times the good man stood aghast; then, again, some profound sally,

some sign of the lad's remarkable range of intellect, would reassure
him. He would say, as the Marquis said at the rumor of some escapade,

"Boys will be boys." Chesnel had spoken to the Chevalier, lamenting
the young lord's propensity for getting into debt; but the Chevalier

manipulated his pinch of snuff, and listened with a smile of
amusement.

"My dear Chesnel, just explain to me what a national debt is," he
answered. "If France has debts, egad! why should not Victurnien have

debts? At this time and at all times princes have debts, every
gentleman has debts. Perhaps you would rather that Victurnien should

bring you his savings?--Do you know that our great Richelieu (not the
Cardinal, a pitiful fellow that put nobles to death, but the

Marechal), do you know what he did once when his grandson the Prince
de Chinon, the last of the line, let him see that he had not spent his

pocket-money at the University?"
"No, M. le Chevalier."

"Oh, well; he flung the purse out of the window to a sweeper in the
courtyard, and said to his grandson, 'Then they do not teach you to be

a prince here?' "
Chesnel bent his head and made no answer. But that night, as he lay

awake, he thought that such doctrines as these were fatal in times
when there was one law for everybody, and foresaw the first beginnings

of the ruin of the d'Esgrignons.
But for these explanations which depict one side of provincial life in

the time of the Empire and the Restoration, it would not be easy to
understand the opening scene of this history, an incident which took

place in the great salon one evening towards the end of October 1822.
The card-tables were forsaken, the Collection of Antiquities--elderly

nobles, elderly countesses, young marquises, and simple baronesses--
had settled their losses and winnings. The master of the house was

pacing up and down the room, while Mlle. Armande was putting out the
candles on the card-tables. He was not taking exercise alone, the

Chevalier was with him, and the two wrecks of the eighteenth century
were talking of Victurnien. The Chevalier had undertaken to broach the

subject with the Marquis.
"Yes, Marquis," he was saying, "your son is wasting his time and his

youth; you ought to send him to court."
"I have always thought," said the Marquis, "that if my great age

prevents me from going to court--where, between ourselves, I do not
know what I should do among all these new people whom his Majesty

receives, and all that is going on there--that if I could not go
myself, I could at least send my son to present our homage to His

Majesty. The King surely would do something for the Count--give him a
company, for instance, or a place in the Household, a chance, in

short, for the boy to win his spurs. My uncle the Archbishop suffered
a cruel martyrdom; I have fought for the cause without deserting the

camp with those who thought it their duty to follow the Princes. I
held that while the King was in France, his nobles should rally round

him.--Ah! well, no one gives us a thought; a Henry IV. would have
written before now to the d'Esgrignons, 'Come to me, my friends; we

have won the day!'--After all, we are something better than the
Troisvilles, yet here are two Troisvilles made peers of France; and

another, I hear, represents the nobles in the Chamber." (He took the
upper electoral colleges for assemblies of his own order.) "Really,

they think no more of us than if we did not exist. I was waiting for
the Princes to make their journey through this part of the world; but

as the Princes do not come to us, we must go to the Princes."
"I am enchanted to learn that you think of introducing our dear

Victurnien into society," the Chevalier put in adroitly. "He ought not
to bury his talents in a hole like this town. The best fortune that he

can look for here is to come across some Norman girl" (mimicking the
accent), "country-bred, stupid, and rich. What could he make of

her?--his wife? Oh! good Lord!"
"I sincerely hope that he will defer his marriage until he has

obtained some great office or appointment under the Crown," returned
the gray-haired Marquis. "Still, there are serious difficulties in the

way."
And these were the only difficulties which the Marquis saw at the

outset of his son's career.
"My son, the Comte d'Esgrignon, cannot make his appearance at court

like a tatterdemalion," he continued after a pause, marked by a sigh;
"he must be equipped. Alas! for these two hundred years we have had no

retainers. Ah! Chevalier, this demolition from top to bottom always
brings me back to the first hammer stroke delivered by M. de Mirabeau.

The one thing needful nowadays is money; that is all that the
Revolution has done that I can see. The King does not ask you whether

you are a descendant of the Valois or a conquerer of Gaul; he asks
whether you pay a thousand francs in tailles which nobles never used

to pay. So I cannot well send the Count to court without a matter of
twenty thousand crowns----"

"Yes," assented the Chevalier, "with that trifling sum he could cut a
brave figure."

"Well," said Mlle. Armande, "I have asked Chesnel to come to-night.
Would you believe it, Chevalier, ever since the day when Chesnel

proposed that I should marry that miserable du Croisier----"
"Ah! that was truly unworthy, mademoiselle!" cried the Chevalier.

"Unpardonable!" said the Marquis.
"Well, since then my brother has never brought himself to ask anything

whatsoever of Chesnel," continued Mlle. Armande.
"Of your old household servant? Why, Marquis, you would do Chesnel

honor--an honor which he would gratefully remember till his latest
breath."

"No," said the Marquis, "the thing is beneath one's dignity, it seems
to me."

"There is not much question of dignity; it is a matter of necessity,"
said the Chevalier, with the trace of a shrug.

"Never," said the Marquis, riposting with a gesture which decided the
Chevalier to risk a great stroke to open his old friend's eyes.

"Very well," he said, "since you do not know it, I will tell you
myself that Chesnel has let your son have something already, something

like----"
"My son is incapable of accepting anything whatever from Chesnel," the

Marquis broke in, drawing himself up as he spoke. "He might have come
to YOU to ask you for twenty-five louis----"

"Something like a hundred thousand livres," said the Chevalier,
finishing his sentence.

"The Comte d'Esgrignon owes a hundred thousand livres to a Chesnel!"
cried the Marquis, with every sign of deep pain. "Oh! if he were not

an only son, he should set out to-night for Mexico with a captain's
commission. A man may be in debt to money-lenders, they charge a heavy

interest, and you are quits; that is right enough; but CHESNEL! a man
to whom one is attached!----"

"Yes, our adorable Victurnien has run through a hundred thousand
livres, dear Marquis," resumed the Chevalier, flicking a trace of

snuff from his waistcoat; "it is not much, I know. I myself at his
age---- But, after all, let us let old memories be, Marquis. The Count

is living in the provinces; all things taken into consideration, it is
not so much amiss. He will not go far; these irregularities are common

in men who do great things afterwards----"
"And he is sleepingupstairs, without a word of this to his father,"

exclaimed the Marquis.
"Sleeping innocently as a child who has merely got five or six little