y
which young idlers in pursuit of pleasure teach to each other. Probably
in all civilized and luxurious capitals that philosophy is very much
the same among the same class of idlers at the same age; probably it
flourishes in Pekin not less than at Paris. If Paris has the credit,
or discredit, of it more than any other capital, it is because in Paris
more than in any other capital it charms the eye by grace and amuses
the ear by wit. A philosophy which takes the things of this life very
easily; which has a smile and a shrug of the shoulders for any
pretender to the Heroic; which subdivides the wealth of passion into the
pocket-money of caprices, is always in or out of love ankle-deep, never
venturing a plunge; which, light of heart as of tongue, turns "the
solemn plausibilities" of earth into subjects for epigrams and bons
mots,--jests at loyalty to kings and turns up its nose at enthusiasm
for commonwealths, abjures all grave studies and shuns all profound
emotions. We have crowds of such philosophers in London; but there they
are less noticed, because the agreeable attributes of the sect are there
dimmed and obfuscated. It is not a philosophy that flowers richly in
the reek of fogs and in the teeth of east winds; it wants for full
development the light atmosphere of Paris. Now this philosophy began
rapidly to exercise its charms upon Alain de Rochebriant. Even in the
society of professed Legitimists, he felt that faith had deserted the
Legitimist creed or taken refuge only as a companion of religion in
the hearts of high-born women and a small minority of priests. His
chivalrous loyalty still struggled to keep its ground, but its
roots were very much loosened. He saw--for his natural intellect was
keen--that the cause of the Bourbon was hopeless, at least for the
present, because it had ceased, at least for the present, to be a cause.
His political creed thus shaken, with it was shaken also that adherence
to the past which had stifled his ambition of a future. That ambition
began to breathe and to stir, though he owned it not to others, though,
as yet, he scarce distinguished its whispers, much less directed its
movements towards any definite object. Meanwhile, all that he knew of
his ambition was the new-born desire for social success.

We see him, then, under the quick operation of this change in sentiments
and habits, reclined on the fauteuil before his fireside, and listening
to his college friend, of whom we have