ually governed, by the
Gentilhomme Campagnard, the Baron de Vaudrey--a retired colonel of
cuirassiers, whose services under the empire do not prevent his stanch
adherence, under the citizen monarchy of July, to the legitimate and
exiled sovereigns of France. His nephew, the Marquis of Chateaugiron,
less addicted to the fallen Bourbons, arrives, at the opening of the
tale, at his family mansion in Chateaugiron-le-Bourg, with certain
electioneering projects, highly displeasing to the baron, who resolves
vigorously to oppose them, and accordingly gives the whole weight of his
influence to a neighbouring iron-master, M. Grandperrin, also a
candidate. The iron-master has married a second wife, a heartless
vindictive woman, and former mistress of the marquis. She plays an
important part in the clever plot, which, although complicated, is
perfectly clear. To sketch at any length even the principal of the
numerous characters in the amusing comedy, would lead us much too far;
we can barely afford to glance at a few of them. On the foremost
line--after the Gentilhomme Campagnard himself, a fine, generous-hearted
veteran, an excellent compound of the soldier and the nobleman,
possessed of great good sense and shrewdness, and altogether one of
those personages of whom, whether real or imaginary, one reads with
pleasure--stands Madame Bonvalot, or _de_ Bonvalot, as she best loves to
be styled, the _parvenue_ widow of a Bordeaux wine merchant. Her
beautiful and amiable daughter, an excellent model of a virtuous French
lady, gracefully and delicately drawn, is married to the Marquis of
Chateaugiron. The mother, an affected, frivolous, rouged, bejewelled
dowager of fifty, who, through ambition to figure at the Tuileries, has
extorted from her noble son-in-law a promise that he will adhere to the
new order of things, is followed from Paris by one Pichot, ex-clerk to a
notary, also a former lover of Madame Grandperrin, and self-styled
Viscount de Langerac. This fortune-hunter has managed to worm himself
into the intimacy of the marquis, and to kindle, in the too-susceptible
breast of Madame Bouvalot, a tender flame, which he diligently fans.
Then we have a young country-lawyer, Froidevaux, an honest, independent
fellow, and desperate sportsman, who gives advice gratis, thinks more of
partridges than parchments, prefers a day's shooting to a profitable
lawsuit, and is consequently as poor as he is popular, and, to all
appearance, has very