ng followed the princes in their various emigrations, had died for
them in the wilderness of la Vendee. Ireneus had been the inheritor of
that obstinate will which never deviates from the end it proposes to
itself, and of a chivalric worship of the Royal family, which to him
seemed by a law divine to be invested with the imprescriptible right to
govern France. Of the large fortune which formerly belonged to his
family, the revolution had left him but a dilapidated castle, a few
fields and forests, the revenue of which scarcely sufficed to support his
mother in comfort.

The condition of his fortune did not permit him to lead an idle life. His
birth made his profession certain. He entered Saint-Cyr, and left it with
the best possible recommendations. He could also appeal to the traditions
of his fathers services. Through the union of these two claims he was so
rapidly advanced that at twenty-eight he was already Captain of the
Lancers of the Guard, with an honorable name, a handsome person, some
intelligence and that elegance of manners inherent in the class to which
he belonged, and which to us is known as the aristocracy, the young
nobleman might without presumption anticipate a brilliant future. His
mother amid the silence of her provincial castle followed him step by
step, with pride, and her solitary dreams saw him the husband of a rich
heiress, Colonel and aide-de-camp of a prince, deputy and peer of France.
Who can tell how vague were the hopes entertained in relation to that
child in whom all her hopes were centered!

His mother was lost in this study and observation of castles in the air,
when the revolutions of July burst forth like a thunderbolt, and at one
blow overturned all her aerial edifices.

Ireneus was at Paris when this terrible contest, the result of which was
the overturning of a monarchy, began with the crushing of a throne. He
fought with the ardor inspired at once by his love of legitimacy and his
innate horror of the revolutionary flag. On the first day he had the
honor of resisting with his company a numerous body of insurgents, and
succeeded in protecting the post which had been confided to him. On the
second day, after a desperate contest, the danger of which served only to
magnify his courage, he fell from his horse with a ball through his
chest. His soldiers who were devoted to him bore him to a house where he
was kindly treated. A few hours after, a General who had seen him in the
battle