Monsieur de Camors -- Volume 1

neglect of his early education had not corrupted in his veins those germs of weakness which, as his father declared, his mother's milk had deposi

he long familiarity with the best works, powerful intellects, and great souls of the ancients-all these perhaps may not

e task he set himself was more difficult than he had imagined; that the truth to which he would devote himself-but which he must first draw from the bottom of its well-did not stand upon many compliments. But he failed no prepar

a solid foundation of learning, which sometimes awakened surprise when discovered under the elegant frivolity of the gay turfman. Bu

flew before and eluded him, taking, like an unpleas

t one could not see any power that was to raise the ruins. Over the confused wrecks and remains of the Past, the powerful intellectual life of the Present-Progress-the collision of ideas-the flame of French wit, criticism and the sciences- threw a brill

eloped in complications; for it seemed that all essential notions of h

engage from this bubbling chaos one pure religious moral, one positive social idea, one fixed political creed, were an enterprise worthy of the most sincere. This sho

Camors was born under a particularly unfortunate star, for he found in his surroundings-in his own family even-on

ar their name. The grandfather of Louis, the Comte Herve de Camors, had, on his return from the emigration, bought back a small part of the hereditary demesne.

ne, Eleanore-Jeanne and Louise-Elizabeth, his other heirs. Eleanore-Jeanne and Louise-Elizabeth accepted with apparent willingness the act that benefited their brother at their expense-notwithstanding which they never forgave him. But Robert-Sosthene, who, in his position as representative o

his father, and from that hou

exists which does not contain some true principle; which does not respond to some legitimate aspiration of human society. At th

ituted with a sort of philosophic perfection; her own mistress each day and each hour; delegating few of her powers, and yielding none; living, not without laws, but without rulers; a

ting diverse interests-and often hostile ones-between the governors and the governed. They claim for all that political system which, without doubt, ho

in their age their heroes and their martyrs; but they have had, on the other hand

equivocal origin of his convictions, plac

rms with his father; but he entertained for him, in secret; an enthusiastic admiration

e young man, had but an additional attraction. Without his father's knowledge, he

nst his enemies as against his own party, to wh

olemn, dogmatic tone. "The men of 'ninety-three did not wear the

e future should mar

the people is not

who demands great holo

forty-eight, they wo

e accorded them in history, which redresses many contemporary injustices-he added a reproach which he could not reconcile with the strange regrets of his uncle. He reproached them with not having more boldly separated the New Republic, in its management and minor details, from the memories of the old one. Far from agreeing wit

couraged, and made the error of holding the cause responsible for the violence of its lesser apostles, and that he adopted the fatal

octrines which he believed he detected under these democratic theories. Another thing in the habitual language of his uncle also shocked and repelled him-the profession of an absolute atheism. He had within him, in default of a formal creed, a fund of general belief and respect

the dilemma from which no Ger

worthy of being loved. Nevertheless, his wife did not love him. Their views on many essential points differed widely. M. de la Roche-Jugan was one of those who had served the Government of the Restoration with an unshaken but hopeless devotion. In his youth he had been attached to the person and to the ministry of the Duc de Richelieu; and he had preserved the memory of that illustrious man-of the eleva

past with the inexorable liberty of thought of the present. Like his colaborers in this work, he experienced only a mortal sadness und

made her God subserve her passions, as D

who denied Bossuet; consequently she believed that religion was saved in France. Louis de Camors, admitted to this choice circle by title both of relative a

ght a middle course, possessing the force and cohesion of a party; but he sought in vain. It seemed to him that the whole world of politics and religion

whom the sad changes of his life sho

ofited by her father's death to make a rich misalliance. She married the Baron Tonnelier, whose father, alth

very day by successful speculation. In his youth he h

was a simple deputy, he had a twinge of democracy now and then; but after he was invested with

uld be storms, or thunder-clouds in the heavens-that the world was not perfectly happy and tranquil, while he himself was so. When his nephew was old enough to comprehend him, Baron Tonnelier was no longer peer of Franc

a book; of suppressing everything, in short, except himself. In his view, France had

and had he met her in a clump of woods, he would have strangled her. We regret to add that he had the habit of terming "old duffers" such ministers as he suspected of liberal views,

nroom of the opera. He had two daughters, recently married, before whom he repeated the most piquant witticisms of Voltaire, and the most improper s

ample of the collateral branches of his family, to defy equally all p

to everything because he abased everything to himself; and, finally, flattering himself for despising all duties, which he had all his life prided himse

sometimes brought them together at meal-time. He would then listen with cool mockery to the enthusiastic or despondent speeches of the youth. He nev

idle pleasures of his position. Abandoning himself wholly to these, he threw into them all the seductions of hi

not prevent his being loved by women and re

ast had the excuse of a serious foundation, was servilely copied by the youth around him, who never knew any greater distress t

that the young man assumed. Upon falling into the common ditch, he, perhaps, had one advantage over his fellows: he did not make his

leep easily: indiffer

sion-a motive for

ors was yet