of good
looks and noble birth, with a high spirit, a wonderful aptitude of
comprehension, and a good memory. His education, therefore, had been
complete. He knew a good deal more than is usually known by young
provincial nobles, who develop into highly-distinguished sportsmen,
owners of land, and consumers of tobacco; and are apt to treat
art, sciences, letters, poetry, or anything offensively above their
intellects, cavalierly enough. Such gifts of nature and education surely
would one day realize the Marquis d'Esgrignon's ambitions; he already
saw his son a Marshal of France if Victurnien's tastes were for the
army; an ambassador if diplomacy held any attractions for him; a cabinet
minister if that career seemed good in his eyes; every place in the
state belonged to Victurnien. And, most gratifying thought of all for a
father, the young Count would have made his way in the world by his own
merits even if he had not been a d'Esgrignon.

All through his happy childhood and golden youth, Victurnien had never
met with opposition to his wishes. He had been the king of the house; no
one curbed the little prince's will; and naturally he grew up
insolent and audacious, selfish as a prince, self-willed as the most
high-spirited cardinal of the Middle Ages,--defects of character which
any one might guess from his qualities, essentially those of the noble.

The Chevalier was a man of the good old times when the Gray Musketeers
were the terror of the Paris theatres, when they horsewhipped the watch
and drubbed servers of writs, and played a host of page's pranks, at
which Majesty was wont to smile so long as they were amusing. This
charming deceiver and hero of the ruelles had no small share in bringing
about the disasters which afterwards befell. The amiable old gentleman,
with nobody to understand him, was not a little pleased to find a
budding Faublas, who looked the part to admiration, and put him in mind
of his own young days. So, making no allowance for the difference of
the times, he sowed the maxims of a roue of the Encyclopaedic period
broadcast in the boy's mind. He told wicked anecdotes of the reign of
His Majesty Louis XV.; he glorified the manners and customs of the
year 1750; he told of the orgies in petites maisons, the follies of
courtesans, the capital tricks played on creditors, the manners, in
short, which furnished forth Dancourt's comedies and Beaumarchais'
epigrams. And unfortunately, the corruption lurkin