Labeille, much esteemed in clerical schools, and
which represents Austerlitz and Marengo as
victories gained by a certain Marquis de
Bonaparte, "general of the armies of the king."
The scholastic works whose use were enjoined
upon me were not such transparent traps for
blindfolding the intellect. But they had been
carefully selected, and were from the pens of
men who viewed the progress of our age with
fear and dislike, and who availed themselves of
modern discoveries to hamper and embarrass
the march of public opinion. The object of M.
de Vauxmesnil was no secret.

"A gentleman," he used to say, "should not
be ignorant of what is known to all the canaille
of the cities. For my own part, I value your
wonderful nineteenth century and its boasts,
your steam, gas, and electricity, at less than
a pinch of snuff. But Henri must not grow up
unacquainted with all these material phenomena
which it is the trick of the time to praise
and to study. I was a page to Louis the
Eighteenth, and we had something else to talk of
then, than your science and your improvements.
Gentlemen were gentlemen, in those days, my
good M. Kirby."

Fortunately for me, the marquis had a high
appreciation of the classics. The study of Horace
and Cicero was to his taste, and had been
sanctioned by the approval of the Grand Monarque,
and he therefore encouraged his youthful son to
devote much time to the dead languages. I say
fortunately for me, because in helping little Henri
through the Latin grammar, my way was clear
before me, and I had none of the perplexities
which beset me when natural science and history
were under discussion. Then, indeed, my pupil
often puzzled me by asking questions which it
was hardly possible to answer in accordance at
once with truth and with his parent's wishes.
Children, when even moderately intelligent, have
a restless curiosity and a talent for cross-
examination, worthy of a procureur impérial; and
Henri frequently perplexed me by pointed
inquiries which it was scarcely within my power
to answer or evade. The boy's nature was
singularly frank and noble; there was a true
chivalry in it, of which his father's disposition,
with all its superficial gloss and glitter,
possessed little or nothing. I felt assured that
Henri de Vauxmesnil had only to know what
was right, to act on that knowledge, without
reference to sacrifice of self or prejudices. And
I often thought with apprehension of the day
when the young heir, arrived at man's estate,
would find himself radically at variance with
his father on some social or political question.

For, it was impossible that Henri should be
always content to look at the broad noonday
world through a pair of mediævally-tinted
spectacles. Anything might open his eyes, any
accident might reveal to him the actual
condition of Europe, and enlist his sympathies
on the side most opposed to the stubborn
prejudices of his parent. As for myself, my position
sometimes caused me considerable uneasiness.
My own opinions were those which I shared
with the majority of my countrymen, of whatever
class, and were naturally heterodox in the eyes
of my employer. It would have been a gross
breach of duty had I imparted to my young
charge, facts and theories which his father
abhorred; but, on the other hand, my conscience
did not permit me to paint things in false colours
—to blacken white, or whiten black. I tried to be
neutral, to act a purely negative part, and for
some time I succeeded tolerably well, but the
effort was far from agreeable. Meanwhile, my
little pupil became fond of his English tutor,
and I had no cause to complain of want of
kindness from any member of the household.

The Marquise de Vauxmesnil had not, I fancy,
been consulted as to my engagement. She
was always gentle and polite, but I imagined
that she objected to me as a foreigner and a
Protestant: while her husband more than once
hinted that her desire had been that little Henri's
education should be conducted by a priest.

"But that," said the marquis, in his sprightly
way, "was out of the question. Certainly the
Church is to be supported, but it would bore
me frightfully to have a calotin under my roof,
though my wife, poor dear creature, believes
that every soutane covers an angel. No! I do
not wish the boy to grow up awkward and silly,
with a spice of cunning mixed with much
ignorance. I am of the counsel of M. de Voltaire,
himself a pupil of the Jesuits."

That was true. The marquis was an odd
mixture of the eighteenth-century philosopher,
and the political partisan of the Church. His
speeches in the senate were bitter and violent,
full of ultramontane feeling and spleen, but he
made no pretence of being devout or even
reverent when out of the tribune. He was an
active opponent of the existing government; was
often in Paris, where he used his whole influence
for the Legitimist party; was constantly in
correspondence with the exiled Bourbons, and always
busy in weaving some cobweb conspiracy to
annoy, if he could not overturn, the actual
authorities of his country.

Life at the château was dull enough. A very
few great people, who lived a long way off, would
sometimes drive solemnly along the poplar-
fringed roads, to dine at Rochaigue, to play old-
fashioned games at cards, and discuss new
events by the light of old politics. But there
were not many persons left in the department
who were considered worthy the honour of
admission to the formal saloons of the Vauxmesnil
family. Titled names, indeed, abounded in the
province, but some fatal flaw attached itself to
most of them. Such and such a count was
ineligible, as a Bonapartist son or grandson of one
of Napoleon's rough soldiers of fortune; this
baron was an Orleanist; that baron was a flatterer
of the imperial master of the Tuileries; while
the rest were hobereaux or French squireens, or
were descended from pitiful farmers of the
revenue, dishonest stewards, or wily notaries of
the old régime. So, except the old Prince de
Poutanec, the Duke and Duchess of Rohan-
Bournon, and four or five other families whose