h a grave countenance to his revered parent's
lecture, and refrained from giving him a good deal of information in
reply. As, for instance, that young men no longer went into the army
or the navy as they used to do; that if a man had a mind to be a second
lieutenant in a cavalry regiment without passing through a special
training in the Ecoles, he must first serve in the Pages; that sons of
the greatest houses went exactly like commoners to Saint-Cyr and the
Ecole polytechnique, and took their chances of being beaten by base
blood. If he had enlightened his relatives on these points, funds might
not have been forthcoming for a stay in Paris; so he allowed his father
and Aunt Armande to believe that he would be permitted a seat in the
King's carriages, that he must support his dignity at court as the
d'Esgrignon of the time, and rub shoulders with great lords of the
realm.

It grieved the Marquis that he could send but one servant with his son;
but he gave him his own valet Josephin, a man who can be trusted to take
care of his young master, and to watch faithfully over his interests.
The poor father must do without Josephin, and hope to replace him with a
young lad.

"Remember that you are a Carol, my boy," he said; "remember that you
come of an unalloyed descent, and that your scutcheon bears the motto
Cil est nostre; with such arms you may hold your head high everywhere,
and aspire to queens. Render grace to your father, as I to mine. We owe
it to the honor of our ancestors, kept stainless until now, that we
can look all men in the face, and need bend the knee to none save a
mistress, the King, and God. This is the greatest of your privileges."

Chesnel, good man, was breakfasting with the family. He took no part in
counsels based on heraldry, nor in the inditing of letters addressed
to divers mighty personages of the day; but he had spent the night in
writing to an old friend of his, one of the oldest established notaries
of Paris. Without this letter it is not possible to understand Chesnel's
real and assumed fatherhood. It almost recalls Daedalus' address to
Icarus; for where, save in old mythology, can you look for comparisons
worthy of this man of antique mould?

"MY DEAR AND ESTIMABLE SORBIER,--I remember with no little
pleasure that I made my first campaign in our honorable profession
under your father, and that you had a liking for me, poor little
clerk that I was. And now I appeal to old memor