theorist of a Liberal monarchy left as heir to his name his
fortune and his fame, Fulgence-Adolphe Bussart d'Esparvieu, senator
under the Second Empire, who added largely to his patrimony by buying
land over which the Avenue de l'Imperatice was destined ultimately to
pass, and who made a remarkable speech in favour of the temporal power
of the popes.

Fulgence had three sons. The eldest, Marc-Alexandre, entering the army,
made a splendid career for himself: he was a good speaker. The second,
Gaetan, showing no particular aptitude for anything, lived mostly in the
country, where he hunted, bred horses, and devoted himself to music and
painting. The third son, Rene, destined from his childhood for the law,
resigned his deputyship to avoid complicity in the Ferry decrees against
the religious orders; and later, perceiving the revival under the
presidency of Monsieur Fallieres of the days of Decius and Diocletian,
put his knowledge and zeal at the service of the persecuted Church.

From the Concordat of 1801 down to the closing years of the Second
Empire all the d'Esparvieus attended mass for the sake of example.
Though sceptics in their inmost hearts, they looked upon religion as an
instrument of government.

Mark and Rene were the first of their race to show any sign of sincere
devotion. The General, when still a colonel, had dedicated his regiment
to the Sacred Heart, and he practised his faith with a fervour
remarkable even in a soldier, though we all know that piety, daughter of
Heaven, has marked out the hearts of the generals of the Third Republic
as her chosen dwelling-place on earth.

Faith has its vicissitudes. Under the old order the masses were
believers, not so the aristocracy or the educated middle class. Under
the First Empire the army from top to bottom was entirely irreligious.
To-day the masses believe nothing. The middle classes wish to believe,
and succeed at times, as did Marc and Rene d'Esparvieu. Their brother
Gaetan, on the contrary, the country gentleman, failed to attain to
faith. He was an agnostic, a term commonly employed by the modish to
avoid the odious one of freethinker. And he openly declared himself an
agnostic, contrary to the admirable custom which deems it better to
withhold the avowal.

In the century in which we live there are so many modes of belief and of
unbelief that future historians will have difficulty in finding their
way about. But are we any more successful in disentan