d heroes those courageous orators of the Right,
who from the very beginning attempted, with M. de Polignac, to protest
against the charter granted by Louis XVIII. This they regarded as
an ill-advised edict extorted from the Crown by the necessity of the
moment, only to be annulled later on. And, therefore, so far from
co-operating with the King to bring about a new condition of things, the
Marquis d'Esgrignon stood aloof, an upholder of the straitest sect of
the Right in politics, until such time as his vast fortune should
be restored to him. Nor did he so much as admit the thought of the
indemnity which filled the minds of the Villele ministry, and formed a
part of a design of strengthening the Crown by putting an end to those
fatal distinctions of ownership which still lingered on in spite of
legislation.

The miracles of the Restoration of 1814, the still greater miracle
of Napoleon's return in 1815, the portents of a second flight of the
Bourbons, and a second reinstatement (that almost fabulous phase of
contemporary history), all these things took the Marquis by surprise at
the age of sixty-seven. At that time of life, the most high-spirited
men of their age were not so much vanquished as worn out in the
struggle with the Revolution; their activity, in their remote provincial
retreats, had turned into a passionately held and immovable conviction;
and almost all of them were shut in by the enervating, easy round of
daily life in the country. Could worse luck befall a political party
than this--to be represented by old men at a time when its ideas are
already stigmatized as old-fashioned?

When the legitimate sovereign appeared to be firmly seated on the throne
again in 1818, the Marquis asked himself what a man of seventy should
do at court; and what duties, what office he could discharge there?
The noble and high-minded d'Esgrignon was fain to be content with the
triumph of the Monarchy and Religion, while he waited for the results
of that unhoped-for, indecisive victory, which proved to be simply
an armistice. He continued as before, lord-paramount of his salon, so
felicitously named the Collection of Antiquities.

But when the victors of 1793 became the vanquished in their turn, the
nickname given at first in jest began to be used in bitter earnest.
The town was no more free than other country towns from the hatreds
and jealousies bred of party spirit. Du Croisier, contrary to all
expectation, married the old