decisive argument of the
Archbishop of Reims, Adalberon, in sustaining the claims of Hugues Capet
to the throne, was: 'You will have in him a father. No one, up to the
present time, has invoked in vain his patronage [_patrocinium_].'"

Quite apart from these valid, historical reasons, the British "love of a
lord" is by no means confined to Great Britain. The Parisians, also,
have a certain fondness for titles and distinctions of all sorts. For
the English aristocracy they profess a genuine admiration, as affording
the best example of the success of a certain _elite_ in affecting the
social conscience. They quote approvingly John Bright when he admits
that his folk--trades-people and commoners--are quite willing to have
their public affairs managed by a superior class, specially trained,
enjoying an independent and commanding social station. Their titles and
their pride of ancestry give them robes and plumes, and a troop follows
its officers more readily when they are gorgeously uniformed. Only, it
is required that this privilege shall not be abused; no favor to
mediocrities, no nepotism. Victor Hugo was more proud of his title of
_vicomte Hugo_ than of his greatest work, and Balzac's obstinacy in
clinging to his particle of _de_ has lately been shown to have been
completely unfounded. To Sainte-Beuve, who infuriated him by constantly
speaking of him as _M. Honore Balzac_, he wrote: "My name is on my
register of birth, as M. Fitz-James's is on his." So it is, but without
any _de_. In 1836, at the period of the legal process to which one of
his works, _Le Lys dans la vallee_, gave rise, he wrote: "If my name is
that of an _old Gaulish family_, it is not my fault; but my name, De
Balzac, is my name patronymic, an advantage which is not enjoyed by many
aristocratic families who called themselves Odet before they called
themselves Chatillon, Riquet before Caraman, Duplessis before Richelieu,
and which are none the less great families.... If my name resounds well
in some ears, if it is envied by some who are not content with their
own, I cannot therefore renounce it.... My father ... found in the
_Tresor des Chartres_ the concession of land made in the fifth century
by the De Balzacs to establish a monastery in the environs of the little
town of Balzac (department of La Charente), a copy of which, he told me,
was, by their action, enregistered by the Parliament of Paris." It
appears that there are existing no Merovingian recor