(if I had one) is involved--it is the Marquis d'Esgrignon's only
son. I have had the honor to be the Marquis' land steward ever

since I left the office to which his father sent me at his own
expense, with the idea of providing for me. The house which

nurtured me has passed through all the troubles of the Revolution.
I have managed to save some of their property; but what is it,

after all, in comparison with the wealth that they have lost? I
cannot tell you, Sorbier, how deeply I am attached to the great

house, which has been all but swallowed up under my eyes by the
abyss of time. M. le Marquis was proscribed, and his lands

confiscated, he was getting on in years, he had no child.
Misfortunes upon misfortunes! Then M. le Marquis married, and his

wife died when the young Count was born, and to-day this noble,
dear, and precious child is all the life of the d'Esgrignon

family; the fate of the house hangs upon him. He has got into debt
here with amusing himself. What else should he do in the provinces

with an allowance of a miserable hundred louis? Yes, my friend, a
hundred louis, the great house has come to this.

"In this extremity his father thinks it necessary to send the
Count to Paris to ask for the King's favor at court. Paris is a

very dangerous place for a lad; if he is to keep steady there, he
must have the grain of sense which makes notaries of us. Besides,

I should be heartbroken to think of the poor boy living amid such
hardships as we have known.--Do you remember the pleasure with

which we spent a day and a night there waiting to see The Marriage
of Figaro? Oh, blind that we were!--We were happy and poor, but a

noble cannot be happy in poverty. A noble in want--it is a thing
against nature! Ah! Sorbier, when one has known the satisfaction

of propping one of the grandest genealogical trees in the kingdom
in its fall, it is so natural to interest oneself in it and to

grow fond of it, and love it and water it and look to see it
blossom. So you will not be surprised at so many precautions on my

part; you will not wonder when I beg the help of your lights, so
that all may go well with our young man.

"Keep yourself informed of his movements and doings, of the
company which he keeps, and watch over his connections with women.

M. le Chevalier says that an opera dancer often costs less than a
court lady. Obtain information on that point and let me know. If

you are too busy, perhaps Mme. Sorbier might know what becomes of
the young man, and where he goes. The idea of playing the part of

guardian angel to such a noble and charming boy might have
attractions for her. God will remember her for accepting the

sacred trust. Perhaps when you see M. le Comte Victurnien, her
heart may tremble at the thought of all the dangers awaiting him

in Paris; he is very young, and handsome; clever, and at the same
time disposed to trust others. If he forms a connection with some

designing woman, Mme. Sorbier could counsel him better than you
yourself could do. The old man-servant who is with him can tell

you many things; sound Josephin, I have told him to go to you in
delicate matters.

"But why should I say more? We once were clerks together, and a
pair of scamps; remember our escapades, and be a little bit young

again, my old friend, in your dealings with him. The sixty
thousand francs will be remitted to you in the shape of a bill on

the Treasury by a gentlemen who is going to Paris," and so forth.
If the old couple to whom this epistle was addressed had followed out

Chesnel's instructions, they would have been compelled to take three
private detectives into their pay. And yet there was ample wisdom

shown in Chesnel's choice of a depositary. A banker pays money to any
one accredited to him so long as the money lasts; whereas, Victurnien

was obliged, every time that he was in want of money, to make a
personal visit to the notary, who was quite sure to use the right of

remonstrance.
Victurnien heard that he was to be allowed two thousand francs every

month, and thought that he betrayed his joy. He knew nothing of Paris.
He fancied that he could keep up princely state on such a sum.

Next day he started on his journey. All the benedictions of the
Collection of Antiquities went with him; he was kissed by the

dowagers; good wishes were heaped on his head; his old father, his
aunt, and Chesnel went with him out of the town, tears filling the

eyes of all three. The sudden departure supplied material for
conversation for several evenings; and what was more, it stirred the

rancorous minds of the salon du Croisier to the depths. The forage-
contractor, the president, and others who had vowed to ruin the

d'Esgrignons, saw their prey escaping out of their hands. They had
based their schemes of revenge on a young man's follies, and now he

was beyond their reach.
The tendency in human nature, which often gives a bigot a rake for a

daughter, and makes a frivolous woman the mother of a narrow pietist;
that rule of contraries, which, in all probability, is the "resultant"

of the law of similarities, drew Victurnien to Paris by a desire to
which he must sooner or later have yielded. Brought up as he had been

in the old-fashionedprovincial house, among the quiet, gentle faces
that smiled upon him, among sober servants attached to the family, and

surroundings tinged with a general color of age, the boy had only seen
friends worthy of respect. All of those about him, with the exception

of the Chevalier, had example of venerable age, were elderly men and
women, sedate of manner, decorous and sententious of speech. He had

been petted by those women in gray gowns and embroidered mittens
described by Blondet. The antiquated splendors of his father's house

were as little calculated as possible to suggest frivolous thoughts;
and lastly, he had been educated by a sincerely religious abbe,

possessed of all the charm of old age, which has dwelt in two
centuries, and brings to the Present its gifts of the dried roses of

experience, the faded flowers of the old customs of its youth.
Everything should have combined to fashion Victurnien to serious

habits; his whole surroundings from childhood bade him continue the
glory of a historic name, by taking his life as something noble and

great; and yet Victurnien listened to dangerous promptings.
For him, his noble birth was a stepping-stone which raised him above

other men. He felt that the idol of Noblesse, before which they burned
incense at home, was hollow; he had come to be one of the commonest as

well as one of the worst types from a social point of view--a
consistent egoist. The aristocratic cult of the EGO simply taught him

to follow his own fancies; he had been idolized by those who had the
care of him in childhood, and adored by the companions who shared in

his boyish escapades, and so he had formed a habit of looking and
judging everything as it affected his own pleasure; he took it as a

matter of course when good souls saved him from the consequences of
his follies, a piece of mistaken kindness which could only lead to his

ruin. Victurnien's early training, noble and pious though it was, had
isolated him too much. He was out of the current of the life of the

time, for the life of a provincial town is certainly not in the main
current of the age; Victurnien's true destiny lifted him above it. He

had learned to think of an action, not as it affected others, nor
relatively, but absolutely from his own point of view. Like despots,

he made the law to suit the circumstance, a system which works in the
lives of prodigal sons the same confusion which fancy brings into art.

Victurnien was quick-sighted, he saw clearly and without illusion, but
he acted on impulse, and unwisely. An indefinable flaw of character,

often seen in young men, but impossible to explain, led him to will
one thing and do another. In spite of an active mind, which showed

itself in unexpected ways, the senses had but to assert themselves,
and the darkened brain seemed to exist no longer. He might have

astonished wise men; he was capable of setting fools agape. His
desires, like a sudden squall of bad weather, overclouded all the

clear and lucid spaces of his brain in a moment; and then, after the
dissipations which he could not resist, he sank, utterly exhausted in

body, heart, and mind, into a collapsed condition bordering upon
imbecility. Such a character will drag a man down into the mire if he

is left to himself, or bring him to the highest heights of political
power if he has some stern friend to keep him in hand. Neither

Chesnel, nor the lad's father, nor Aunt Armande had fathomed the
depths of a nature so nearly akin on many sides to the poetic