ed persons, the men whose loftiness of view and wise
principles would have gained the confidence of the French nation and led
them to believe in the generosity of a novel and spirited policy--these
men, to repeat, were taken out of affairs, and public business was
allowed to fall into the hands of others, who found it to their interest
to push principles to their extreme consequences by way of proving their
devotion.

The families of Langeais and Navarreins remained about the Court,
condemned to perform the duties required by Court ceremonial amid the
reproaches and sneers of the Liberal party. They were accused of gorging
themselves with riches and honours, and all the while their family
estates were no larger than before, and liberal allowances from the
civil list were wholly expended in keeping up the state necessary for
any European government, even if it be a Republic.

In 1818, M. le Duc de Langeais commanded a division of the army, and the
Duchess held a post about one of the Princesses, in virtue of which she
was free to live in Paris and apart from her husband without scandal.
The Duke, moreover, besides his military duties, had a place at Court,
to which he came during his term of waiting, leaving his major-general
in command. The Duke and Duchess were leading lives entirely apart, the
world none the wiser. Their marriage of convention shared the fate
of nearly all family arrangements of the kind. Two more antipathetic
dispositions could not well have been found; they were brought together;
they jarred upon each other; there was soreness on either side; then
they were divided once for all. Then they went their separate ways,
with a due regard for appearances. The Duc de Langeais, by nature
as methodical as the Chevalier de Folard himself, gave himself up
methodically to his own tastes and amusements, and left his wife at
liberty to do as she pleased so soon as he felt sure of her character.
He recognised in her a spirit pre-eminently proud, a cold heart, a
profound submissiveness to the usages of the world, and a youthful
loyalty. Under the eyes of great relations, with the light of a prudish
and bigoted Court turned full upon the Duchess, his honour was safe.

So the Duke calmly did as the _grands seigneurs_ of the eighteenth
century did before him, and left a young wife of two-and-twenty to her
own devices. He had deeply offended that wife, and in her nature there
was one appalling characteristic--she woul