he more narrowly from hour to hour. One of his own party,
who seconded him in these calculations of cold wrath, was the President
of the Tribunal, M. du Ronceret, a little country squire, who had vainly
endeavored to gain admittance among the Antiquities.

The d'Esgrignons' little fortune, carefully administered by Maitre
Chesnel, was barely sufficient for the worthy Marquis' needs; for though
he lived without the slightest ostentation, he also lived like a noble.
The governor found by his Lordship the Bishop for the hope of the house,
the young Comte Victurnien d'Esgrignon, was an elderly Oratorian who
must be paid a certain salary, although he lived with the family. The
wages of a cook, a waiting-woman for Mlle. Armande, an old valet for
M. le Marquis, and a couple of other servants, together with the daily
expenses of the household, and the cost of an education for which
nothing was spared, absorbed the whole family income, in spite of Mlle.
Armande's economies, in spite of Chesnel's careful management, and the
servants' affection. As yet, Chesnel had not been able to set about
repairs at the ruined castle; he was waiting till the leases fell in to
raise the rent of the farms, for rents had been rising lately, partly
on account of improved methods of agriculture, partly by the fall in
the value of money, of which the landlord would get the benefit at the
expiration of leases granted in 1809.

The Marquis himself knew nothing of the details of the management of
the house or of his property. He would have been thunderstruck if he had
been told of the excessive precautions needed "to make both ends of the
year meet in December," to use the housewife's saying, and he was so
near the end of his life, that every one shrank from opening his eyes.
The Marquis and his adherents believed that a House, to which no one at
Court or in the Government gave a thought, a House that was never
heard of beyond the gates of the town, save here and there in the same
department, was about to revive its ancient greatness, to shine forth in
all its glory. The d'Esgrignons' line should appear with renewed lustre
in the person of Victurnien, just as the despoiled nobles came into
their own again, and the handsome heir to a great estate would be in a
position to go to Court, enter the King's service, and marry (as other
d'Esgrignons had done before him) a Navarreins, a Cadignan, a d'Uxelles,
a Beausant, a Blamont-Chauvry; a wife, in short, who