If only he could have left his eyes behind, in one moment they would have seen his hopes destroyed for ever. They would have seen Captain Thornton instantly desert the polar regions by the table, and making for Cissy's stool, clasp white muslin and blue ornaments and golden hair to his breast, whispering softly into the little ear nestling against his shoulder: "My darling! I have been longing to be near you again." Little else, but enough, while poor Tom was in the outside darkness, seeking for his guide-driven out, alas! for ever from the garden he thought was Eden by the banishing and all-powerful sword of the other's love. However, Tom came back in a minute, unconscious, and the captain, who had left his darling, came and studied the guide-book, feeling like an "Exile of Siberia" again. "May I go to the match to-morrow?" asked Cissy. "By all means, I should think," said Captain Thornton. Tom was silent. The seat with Cissy on it would be charming, but the thoughts of the one with the chaperoning other caused his silence. "Tom, I can go?" said Cissy, appealingly; "and old Miss Hall, who is coming to breakfast to-morrow, will do for a chaperone." Old Miss Hall! Poor Tom! He saw the captain twirl his moustaches, smiling, and so only answered, "I should think you may," without following that gentleman's example. "Oh, how nice it will be," said Cissy. "And Tom, you will tell me which side is 'in,' and who are 'back stops,' and who are doing nothing, won't you? Captain Thornton, you must undertake Miss Hall. She is deaf, and requires patient attention. You decidedly want patience, so I hope she will do you good." And Cissy, with a comical glance up at him, seized the spaniel, and began to inflict feminine torture upon it, perhaps to test that patience à l'instant. Tom thought the plan of arrangements and his rôle charming, but then-he wished he might get it! There are often variations on original programmes, and Tom feared an opposition committee might change his part. The rest of the evening was devoted to whist; and Uncle Michael with Tom, and the captain's incessant blunders, and Cissy's merry laughter thereat, contributed to make the game a lively one. Tom missed again the pressure given to that little hand over the "good nights;" only there was a dulness in his heart as he went upstairs. 391 THE FRENCH ARISTOCRACY.* LAMBERT - JEAN - STANISLAS, Baron of Saint-Genin, lord of the Grande Balme, proprietor of the Hôtel Saint-Genin at Lyons, was, at thirty years of age, the most consummate sportsman, the most intrepid drinker, the best liver, and the most joyous companion-in one word, the most accomplished gentleman of his province. He never read, and did not even think, every day, but he entertained only the most correct opinions in matters of politics and faith. His preceptor, the Abbé Grimblot, had taught him the history of France in a purely Bourbonic point of view. Kind-hearted, generous, brave, and disinterested, he still believed himself, by virtue of his nobility, superior in something to nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand of his fellow-creatures, and that, although the Saint-Genins had been both ignorant and useless members of society ever since the thirteenth century. The lady of Saint-Genin, mother to Lambert, a Canigot by birth, ruled over the château with undisputed sway. She was very tall, very stupid, very ignorant, and yet a very serious parvenue, by far too proud of her estates, of her carriage, of her livery, of her plate, of her linen, of her bunch of keys, and of her white hair, which she wore in the fashion of barrels of an organ. Her voice was loud, and her commands admitted no questioning. The domestics trembled in her presence. To see her was enough to feel that the three martlets of the Saint-Genins figured even upon the counterpane of her bed. The queen-mother, whilst she incessantly blamed the do-nothing kind of life of her son, and boasted of her economies and good management, had, in reality, by her excessive ignorance, done more than three generations, in raising money, mortgaging lands, felling timber, and otherwise depreciating the value of the Grande Balme property. Lambert had just sufficient common sense to be aware that this fine property was going to ruin, but he held his parent in far too great respect to venture a remark. He thought that if twelve hundred francs a year remained out of the catastrophe, he and his dog Mirza could live upon it. Luckily for Lambert, he was allied by his father to three great houses of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the Lanroses, the Haut-Monts, and the Mablys. They also knew the condition to which the Megæra of Grande Balme had brought things, as indeed did all Lyons, where the family had many friends and some relatives, and at Lyons, as at Paris, all had come to the same conclusion, that there was no way of saving Grande Balme but by Lambert doing as his father had done before him-marry a plebeian damsel of wealth. The good people of Lyons were the first to be successful in their researches. A pretty and wealthy young orphan, only daughter of a manufacturer, had been left in charge of M. Fafiaux, an aged librarian, spare, ugly, and badly dressed, but renowned for his varied abilities and wide charity. The young lady had only one fault, and that was just the one that it was proposed to cure-her name was Valentine Barbot. If M. Fafiaux, on his side, had a weakness, it was that his niece and ward, the pretty Valentine, the richest heiress of Lyons, should become the greatest lady of Bellecour-the fashionable quarter of the town-or châtelaine of some noble castle in the province. When the first overtures were made to him, his desiccated heart moistened at the idea that Valentine Barbot, daughter of a manufacturer, and niece to a bookseller, might one day subscribe herself Baroness of Saint-Genin. He might have preferred an alliance where the property was less involved, and the intended husband a little more refined, and of greater personal merits, but again he flattered himself that Valentine was rich enough to pay off the encumbrances of the Grande Balme, pretty enough to keep a husband within bounds, and sufficiently intelligent and educated to improve so neglected a youth as Lambert. * La Vielle Roche. Le Mari Imprévu. Par Edmond About. Paris: Hachette et Cie. Matters were accordingly soon arranged with the dowager, when the latter lady was brought forward. "We shall be flattered, much flattered, my dear lady," M. Fafiaux said, "if Heaven permit that this union shall take place. Marriages are written in heaven. But it will be requisite that we should know if the young people are agreeable." "Oh, I answer for my son; he adores the pretty Valentine. When he saw her at the last procession of the Fête Dieu, he squeezed my arm, till I thought I should have screamed. 'Why, mamma,' he exclaimed, 'she is an angel!"" "Yes, dear lady, an angel, and a rather cunning one, too. But if our excellent baron has seen her, she has not yet seen him. I can indeed certify that, except her confessor and myself, she has never looked a man in the face." "And the photograph of Lambert ?" "Oh, I left it in her way. She soon found it out, and, blushing, said, 'Uncle, if this gentleman is simply one of your friends, I think he is good looking. But if, by chance, you have other ideas in connexion with him, I should like to see him in person.'" "Really a very clever remark for such a little person! Monsieur Fafiaux, you have really done too much. Not content with hoarding up millions for the dear little person, you have given her half your talent." "As to myself, my dear lady, I have no talent save for charity. But Valentine is by nature very intelligent, as all her convent friends can testify." "It is really too much, M. Fafiaux. We are only poor gentlefolk of the times of the Turks and the Romans. Would you believe it that for ages the Saint-Genins signed their behests with the pommels of their swords?" "Ah, and I dare say did not make such imprudent use of their signatures as in the present day. But how shall we bring the parties together?" "You must come and see me at the Grande Balme, and bring the young person with you." "But might not that be compromising?" "Not at all. There shall be no one there save ourselves, and the Abbé of Bréaux." These preliminaries settled, the old man prepared Valentine for the visit. " If I were sure," he said to her, "that the brilliancy of the future would not dazzle you, that you would remain humble and modest as heretofore, I should apprise you that you may be in a few months hence a baroness!" Valentine embraced her dear old uncle. He had never been so dear to her. She did not care to leave him. She had been so happy in her convent! M. Fafiaux gave her a fortnight to consider, when half a minute would have sufficed amply. The fortnight over, he communicated to Madame de Saint-Genin that he would be at Grande Balme with his niece by the 15th of October. The dowager had, in the mean time, altered her plans, and she at once broke the subject with M. Fafiaux. "It was understood between ourselves as the contracting powers," she remarked, "that we should be alone, but I cannot be sure of myself just at that season of the year. Suppose any of my husband's relatives, the Marquis of Lanrose, for example, should arrive, I could not show him the door?" The marquis had served with distinction under Louis Philippe; M. Fafiaux could not dream of his being shown the door. "Not that I know that he will come," continued the lady; "but his son, Count de Lanrose, is a bosom friend of Lambert's, and he and our dear little cousin, the Count of Mably, are generally at the Grande Balme in the shooting season. Then there is Mademoiselle de SaintGenin, Lambert's own aunt, and the Chevalier de Grissac-who knows?-even the Duchess of Haut-Mont." "The Duchess of Haut-Mont! Her presence in the château would be a great honour to us, my dear lady. Not that I wish to modify our little programme, but we are not such savages as to dread meeting two or three distinguished personages." Madame de Saint-Genin had carried her object. She summoned the ban and arrière-ban of the Lanroses, the Mablys, the Grissacs, and all other relatives to Grande Balme, in order to dazzle M. Fafiaux, win over Valentine, compromise them both, render a retreat impossible, and save the fortunes of the Saint-Genins. On the 15th uncle and niece set foot for the first time in the château, on the 16th the old aunt from Narbonne arrived, three more made their appearance at dinner, and before the end of the week there were thirty visitors; all the family were there save and except the handsome Gontran de Mably, who was detained by circumstances over which he had no control-he had remained, it was whispered, in the hands of his cre ditors. M. Fafiaux felt perfectly convinced that he had fallen into a trap, but what could he do?-beat a retreat was impossible, and then, again, every one was so kind and attentive, that not to have met their civilities half way would have been the height of ingratitude. So he did what others would have done under similar circumstances-he resigned himself to his fate. There were horses for rides and drives; there was game in the cover, and fish in the ponds; there was a piano to dance to in the even ing, or cards for those who liked them better. The only thing that was wanting was gaiety. All were alike haughty, proud, and poor. Manners VOL. LVIII. 2 D and smiles were all stereotyped upon the same model of a fanciful superiority. If they were poor, it was owing to the revolutionary overthrow of the rights of the eldest; if they were idle, it was because the country did not appreciate their hereditary and transcendent abilities. All alike looked upon France as a country gone astray, and were waiting patiently for it to return to the right path-legitimacy and priest-rule-that they should be once more at the head of affairs. They belonged, in fact, to "La Vielle Roche," and were proof against the encroachments even of the elements. The general of these unarmed Vendeans was the little Chevalier de Grissae, an old garde du corps renowned for his duels at the time when the Café de Valois was at war with the Café Lemblin. The relatives from Lyons, Grenoble, Aix, Narbonne, and Paris presented some variety of types, but all were subjected to the same imperious discipline, "noblesse oblige." Whatever they might do, nothing was permitted to derogate from their titles of gentlemen and ladies. The aunt from Narbonne was so round, so smiling, so kindly, that she produced the same effect as an eider-down cushion. She especially dealt in expletives, and would say, for example: "Do me the favour to dress that poor, good, dear, little lamp!" The Countess of Champsaison was, on the contrary, provided with a bony armour that showed itself on all sides in threatening angles. The old Marquis de Lanrose was a Parisian of the Jockey Club, and there was as much difference between him and the boisterous Lambert as there is between Gladiateur and a coach-horse. He was amiable, intelligent, and always young, although advanced in years, for the marquis had served under the "usurper" at Leipsic, and fought with the Swiss Guard in July, 1830. He had emigrated to England with his king, and had imbibed his love of "sport" in that foggy island, becoming on his return one of the leading authorities on the Parisian "turf." In 1840 he had become a member of the Chamber of Deputies, sitting on the extreme right. His leisure intervals were filled up with painting, penning an opera or two, or a romance, gambling, and fighting. He belonged, indeed, to "la plus fine race Française," was robust in constitution, cool yet pliable, at once as elastic and sharp as the best Damascus blade, and as polite as M. de Coislin himself. M. de Lanrose had, further, the rare chance of disarming the envious. According to M. About, the Parisians are pitiless towards all who have pretensions to a noble origin. Fortune, talent, beauty, power, cannot save the hereditary peer from envy and hatred. Ridicule or contempt can, indeed, we are assured, alone render the French aristocracy tolerable. M. de Lanrose was saved by every one thinking he had reason to pity him in the person of his first wife. In 1850 he had, however, married a Mademoiselle Eliane de Batéjins, poor but proud, candid and honourable-a young person of unimpeachable morals and conduct. She had previously refused Gontran de Mably, young and handsome, but a spendthrift, the latter an unpardonable fault in Eliane's eyes. This young person, who had been fed with boiled chesnuts in the early part of her career, waited till she obtained possession of the name and person, the hôtel, the garden, the gallery, the opera-box, the carriages, and artistic and intelligent luxury of the Marquis of Lanrose. It was impossible, when this titled couple from the Fau |