the King's bedesman in The Antiquary, to the edge of the
sea, when the old baronet and his daughter were caught by the high tide.

Du Croisier caught a glimpse of his revenge in the anomalous education
given to the lad. He hoped, to quote the expressive words of the author
quoted above, "to drown the lamb in its mother's milk." _This_ was the
hope which had produced his taciturn resignation and brought that savage
smile on his lips.

The young Comte Victurnien was taught to believe in his own supremacy as
soon as an idea could enter his head. All the great nobles of the realm
were his peers, his one superior was the King, and the rest of mankind
were his inferiors, people with whom he had nothing in common, towards
whom he had no duties. They were defeated and conquered enemies, whom he
need not take into account for a moment; their opinions could not affect
a noble, and they all owed him respect. Unluckily, with the rigorous
logic of youth, which leads children and young people to proceed to
extremes whether good or bad, Victurnien pushed these conclusions
to their utmost consequences. His own external advantages, moreover,
confirmed him in his beliefs. He had been extraordinarily beautiful as a
child; he became as accomplished a young man as any father could wish.

He was of average height, but well proportioned, slender, and almost
delicate-looking, but muscular. He had the brilliant blue eyes of the
d'Esgrignons, the finely-moulded aquiline nose, the perfect oval of
the face, the auburn hair, the white skin, and the graceful gait of his
family; he had their delicate extremities, their long taper fingers with
the inward curve, and that peculiar distinction of shapeliness of the
wrist and instep, that supple felicity of line, which is as sure a sign
of race in men as in horses. Adroit and alert in all bodily exercises,
and an excellent shot, he handled arms like a St. George, he was a
paladin on horseback. In short, he gratified the pride which parents
take in their children's appearance; a pride founded, for that matter,
on a just idea of the enormous influence exercised by physical beauty.
Personal beauty has this in common with noble birth; it cannot be
acquired afterwards; it is everywhere recognized, and often is more
valued than either brains or money; beauty has only to appear and
triumph; nobody asks more of beauty than that it should simply exist.

Fate had endowed Victurnien, over and above the privileges