dower and gone forth to be captains or bishops;
some had made a marriage at court; one cadet of the house became an
admiral, a duke, and a peer of France, and died without issue. Never
would the Marquis d'Esgrignon of the elder branch accept the title of
duke.

"I hold my marquisate as His Majesty holds the realm of France, and on
the same conditions," he told the Constable de Luynes, a very paltry
fellow in his eyes at that time.

You may be sure that d'Esgrignons lost their heads on the scaffold
during the troubles. The old blood showed itself proud and high even in
1789. The Marquis of that day would not emigrate; he was answerable for
his March. The reverence in which he was held by the countryside saved
his head; but the hatred of the genuine sans-culottes was strong enough
to compel him to pretend to fly, and for a while he lived in hiding.
Then, in the name of the Sovereign People, the d'Esgrignon lands were
dishonored by the District, and the woods sold by the Nation in spite
of the personal protest made by the Marquis, then turned forty. Mlle.
d'Esgrignon, his half-sister, saved some portions of the fief, thanks to
the young steward of the family, who claimed on her behalf the partage
de presuccession, which is to say, the right of a relative to a portion
of the emigre's lands. To Mlle. d'Esgrignon, therefore, the Republic
made over the castle itself and a few farms. Chesnel [Choisnel], the
faithful steward, was obliged to buy in his own name the church, the
parsonage house, the castle gardens, and other places to which his
patron was attached--the Marquis advancing the money.

The slow, swift years of the Terror went by, and the Marquis, whose
character had won the respect of the whole country, decided that he and
his sister ought to return to the castle and improve the property which
Maitre Chesnel--for he was now a notary--had contrived to save for them
out of the wreck. Alas! was not the plundered and dismantled castle all
too vast for a lord of the manor shorn of all his ancient rights; too
large for the landowner whose woods had been sold piecemeal, until he
could scarce draw nine thousand francs of income from the pickings of
his old estates?

It was in the month of October 1800 that Chesnel brought the Marquis
back to the old feudal castle, and saw with deep emotion, almost beyond
his control, his patron standing in the midst of the empty courtyard,
gazing round upon the moat, now filled up with ru