some lurking regard for royalty yet lingered.
These fellows neither knew nor cared for the ancient noblesse of the
country, and one evening a patrol of them stopped my father as he was
taking his evening walk along the ramparts. He would scarcely deign to
notice the insolent 'Qui va la!' of the sentry, a summons _he_ at least
thought superfluous in a town which had known his ancestry for eight or
nine generations. At the repetition of the cry, accompanied by something
that sounded ominous, in the sharp click of a gun-lock, he replied,
haughtily, 'Je suis le Marquis de Saint-Trone.'

"'There are no more marquises in France!' was the savage answer.

"My father smiled contemptuously, and briefly said, 'Saint-Trone.'

"'We have no saints either,' cried another.

"'Be it so, my friend,' said he, with mingled pity and disgust. 'I
suppose some designation may at least be left to me, and that I may call
myself Trone.'

"'We are done with thrones long ago,' shouted they in chorus, 'and we'll
finish you also.'

"Ay, and they kept their word, too. They shot him that same evening, on
very little other charge than his own name! If I have retained the old
sound of my name, I have given it a more plebeian spelling, which is,
perhaps, just as much of an alteration as any man need submit to for a
period that will pass away so soon."

"How so, Eugene? you fancy the republic will not endure in France. What,
then, can replace it?"

"Any thing, every thing; for the future all is possible. We have
annihilated legitimacy, it is true, just as the Indians destroy a
forest, by burning the trees, but the roots remain, and if the soil is
incapable of sending up the giant stems as before, it is equally unable
to furnish a new and different culture. Monarchy is just as firmly
rooted in a Frenchman's heart, but he will have neither patience for its
tedious growth, nor can he submit to restore what has cost him so dearly
to destroy. The consequences will, therefore, be a long and continued
struggle between parties, each imposing upon the nation the form of
government that pleases it in turn. Meanwhile, you and I, and others
like us, must serve whatever is uppermost--the cleverest fellow he who
sees the coming change, and prepares to take advantage of it."

"Then are you a royalist?" asked I.

"A royalist! what! stand by a monarch who deserted his aristocracy, and
forgot his own order; defend a throne that he had reduced to the
condition o