ey defend,
against their party, against us all? They are at war with a country that
distrusts their motives and detests and envies their advantages ... and
they amuse themselves by irritating the country by their aggressive
hostility and blustering idleness. By thus displaying their ill manners
and want of sense, it seems as if they wished to justify all the
accusations of their enemies and gain what they really deserve, a worse
reputation than they already bear. They are accused of being ignorant
... they are illiterate! They are accused of being impudent ... They are
insolent! They are accused of being beasts ... They show themselves to
be brutes! And yet not much is exacted of them, because they are known
to be degenerate. Only half what is required from others is expected
from them. They are not asked for heroism or talent, or genius: they are
only expected to behave with dignity, they cannot even assume it! They
are not asked to add to the lustre of their names, they are only
entreated to respect them--and they drag them in the mire! Ah, these
people make me die of shame and indignation.

It is from this nursery of worthless, idle young fops that I, Irene de
Chateaudun, will be forced to choose a husband. No, never will I suffer
the millions that Providence has bestowed upon me to be squandered upon
ballet-dancers and the scum of Paris! If it be absolutely necessary that
my fortune should be enjoyed by women, I will bestow it upon a convent,
where I will retire for the rest of my life; but I certainly would
prefer becoming the wife of a poor, obscure, but noble-minded student,
thirsting for glory and ambitious of making illustrious his plebeian
name, seeking among the dust of ages for the secret of fame ... than to
marry one of the degenerate scions of an old family, who crawl around
crushed by the weight of their formidable name; these little burlesque
noblemen who retain nothing of their high position but pride and vanity;
who can neither think, act, work nor suffer for their country; these
disabled knights who wage war against bailiffs and make their names
notorious in the police offices and tap-rooms of the Boulevard.

It is glorious to feel flowing in one's veins noble, heroic blood, to be
intoxicated with youthful pride when studying the history of one's
country, to see one's school-mates forced to commit to memory as a duty,
the brilliant record of the heroic deeds of our ancestors! To enter upon
a smooth p