in triumph, and filled me with as much presumption as previously it had
inspired me with bashfulness and boorish reserve. I was, moreover, as
delighted at being able at last to express my thoughts with ease as a
young falcon fresh from the nest trying its wings for the first time.
Consequently, I became as talkative as I had been silent. The others
were too indulgent to my prattle. I had not sense enough to see that
they were merely listening to me as they would to a spoilt child.
I thought myself a man, and what is more, a remarkable man. I grew
arrogant and superlatively ridiculous.

My uncle, the chevalier, who had not taken any part in my education, and
who only smiled with fatherly good-nature at the first steps I took in
my new career, was the first to notice the false direction in which I
was advancing. He found it unbecoming that I should raise my voice
as loudly as his own, and mentioned the matter to Edmee. With great
sweetness she warned me of this, and, lest I should feel annoyed at her
speaking of it, told me that I was quite right in my argument, but that
her father was now too old to be converted to new ideas, and that I
ought to sacrifice my enthusiastic affirmations to his patriarchal
dignity. I promised not to repeat the offence; and I did not keep my
word.

The fact is, the chevalier was imbued with many prejudices. Considering
the days in which he lived, he had received a very good education for a
country nobleman; but the century had moved more rapidly than he. Edmee,
ardent and romantic; the abbe, full of sentiment and systems, had moved
even more rapidly than the century; and if the vast gulf which lay
between them and the patriarch was scarcely perceptible, this was owing
to the respect which they rightly felt for him, and to the love he had
for his daughter. I rushed forward at full speed, as you may imagine,
into Edmee's ideas, but I had not, like herself, sufficient delicacy of
feeling to maintain a becoming reticence. The violence of my character
found an outlet in politics and philosophy, and I tasted unspeakable
pleasure in those heated disputes which at that time in France, not
only at all public meetings but also in the bosoms of families, were
preluding the tempests of the Revolution. I doubt if there was a single
house, from palace to hovel, which had not its orator--rugged, fiery,
absolute, and ready to descend into the parliamentary arena. I was the
orator of the chateau of Sainte-S