ss. Don't neglect Clochegourde. My
mother-in-law is an acquaintance I advise you to cultivate. Her
salon will set the tone for the faubourg St. Germain. She has all the
traditions of the great world, and possesses an immense amount of social
knowledge; she knows the blazon of the oldest as well as the newest
family in Europe."

The count's good taste, or perhaps the advice of his domestic genius,
appeared under his altered circumstances. He was neither arrogant nor
offensively polite, nor pompous in any way, and the duchess was not
patronizing. Monsieur and Madame de Chessel gratefully accepted the
invitation to dinner on the following Thursday. I pleased the duchess,
and by her glance I knew she was examining a man of whom her daughter
had spoken to her. As we returned from vespers she questioned me about
my family, and asked if the Vandenesse now in diplomacy was my relative.
"He is my brother," I replied. On that she became almost affectionate.
She told me that my great-aunt, the old Marquise de Listomere, was a
Grandlieu. Her manners were as cordial as those of Monsieur de Mortsauf
the day he saw me for the first time; the haughty glance with which
these sovereigns of the earth make you measure the distance that lies
between you and them disappeared. I knew almost nothing of my family.
The duchess told me that my great-uncle, an old abbe whose very name I
did not know, was to be member of the privy council, that my brother was
already promoted, and also that by a provision of the Charter, of which
I had not yet heard, my father became once more Marquis de Vandenesse.

"I am but one thing, the serf of Clochegourde," I said in a low voice to
the countess.

The transformation scene of the Restoration was carried through with a
rapidity which bewildered the generation brought up under the imperial
regime. To me this revolution meant nothing. The least word or gesture
from Madame de Mortsauf were the sole events to which I attached
importance. I was ignorant of what the privy council was, and knew
as little of politics as of social life; my sole ambition was to love
Henriette better than Petrarch loved Laura. This indifference made the
duchess take me for a child. A large company assembled at Frapesle and
we were thirty at table. What intoxication it is for a young man unused
to the world to see the woman he loves more beautiful than all others
around her, the centre of admiring looks; to know that for him alone is
re