h those who thought it their duty to follow the Princes. I
held that while the King was in France, his nobles should rally round
him.--Ah! well, no one gives us a thought; a Henry IV. would have
written before now to the d'Esgrignons, 'Come to me, my friends; we
have won the day!'--After all, we are something better than the
Troisvilles, yet here are two Troisvilles made peers of France; and
another, I hear, represents the nobles in the Chamber." (He took the
upper electoral colleges for assemblies of his own order.) "Really,
they think no more of us than if we did not exist. I was waiting for
the Princes to make their journey through this part of the world; but
as the Princes do not come to us, we must go to the Princes."

"I am enchanted to learn that you think of introducing our dear
Victurnien into society," the Chevalier put in adroitly. "He ought not
to bury his talents in a hole like this town. The best fortune that he
can look for here is to come across some Norman girl" (mimicking the
accent), "country-bred, stupid, and rich. What could he make of
her?--his wife? Oh! good Lord!"

"I sincerely hope that he will defer his marriage until he has
obtained some great office or appointment under the Crown," returned
the gray-haired Marquis. "Still, there are serious difficulties in the
way."

And these were the only difficulties which the Marquis saw at the
outset of his son's career.

"My son, the Comte d'Esgrignon, cannot make his appearance at court
like a tatterdemalion," he continued after a pause, marked by a sigh;
"he must be equipped. Alas! for these two hundred years we have had no
retainers. Ah! Chevalier, this demolition from top to bottom always
brings me back to the first hammer stroke delivered by M. de Mirabeau.
The one thing needful nowadays is money; that is all that the
Revolution has done that I can see. The King does not ask you whether
you are a descendant of the Valois or a conquerer of Gaul; he asks
whether you pay a thousand francs in tailles which nobles never used
to pay. So I cannot well send the Count to court without a matter of
twenty thousand crowns----"

"Yes," assented the Chevalier, "with that trifling sum he could cut a
brave figure."

"Well," said Mlle. Armande, "I have asked Chesnel to come to-night.
Would you believe it, Chevalier, ever since the day when Chesnel
proposed that I should marry that miserable du Croisier----"

"Ah! that was truly unworthy, mademoiselle!" cri