ret soul had been slackened in Victurnien.
With such guardians as he had, such company as he kept, such a life
as he led, he had suddenly became an enervated voluptuary at that
turning-point in his life when a man most stands in need of the harsh
discipline of misfortune and adversity which formed a Prince Eugene, a
Frederick II., a Napoleon. Chesnel saw that Victurnien possessed that
uncontrollable appetite for enjoyments which should be the prerogative
of men endowed with giant powers; the men who feel the need of
counterbalancing their gigantic labors by pleasures which bring
one-sided mortals to the pit.

At times the good man stood aghast; then, again, some profound sally,
some sign of the lad's remarkable range of intellect, would reassure
him. He would say, as the Marquis said at the rumor of some escapade,
"Boys will be boys." Chesnel had spoken to the Chevalier, lamenting
the young lord's propensity for getting into debt; but the Chevalier
manipulated his pinch of snuff, and listened with a smile of amusement.

"My dear Chesnel, just explain to me what a national debt is," he
answered. "If France has debts, egad! why should not Victurnien have
debts? At this time and at all times princes have debts, every gentleman
has debts. Perhaps you would rather that Victurnien should bring you
his savings?--Do you know that our great Richelieu (not the Cardinal, a
pitiful fellow that put nobles to death, but the Marechal), do you know
what he did once when his grandson the Prince de Chinon, the last of
the line, let him see that he had not spent his pocket-money at the
University?"

"No, M. le Chevalier."

"Oh, well; he flung the purse out of the window to a sweeper in the
courtyard, and said to his grandson, 'Then they do not teach you to be a
prince here?'"

Chesnel bent his head and made no answer. But that night, as he lay
awake, he thought that such doctrines as these were fatal in times when
there was one law for everybody, and foresaw the first beginnings of the
ruin of the d'Esgrignons.

But for these explanations which depict one side of provincial life
in the time of the Empire and the Restoration, it would not be easy to
understand the opening scene of this history, an incident which took
place in the great salon one evening towards the end of October 1822.
The card-tables were forsaken, the Collection of Antiquities--elderly
nobles, elderly countesses, young marquises, and simple baronesses--had
se