ap
on his head, and defined its pear-shaped outline. His forehead, much
wrinkled by life in the open air and by constant anxieties, was flat and
expressionless. His aquiline nose redeemed the face somewhat; but the
sole indication of any strength of character lay in the bushy eyebrows
which retained their blackness, and in the brilliant coloring of his
skin. These signs were in some respects not misleading, for the worthy
gentlemen, though simple and very gentle, was Catholic and monarchical
in faith, and no consideration on earth could make him change his views.
Nevertheless he would have let himself be arrested without an effort
at defence, and would have gone to the scaffold quietly. His annuity of
three thousand francs kept him from emigrating. He therefore obeyed the
government _de facto_ without ceasing to love the royal family and to
pray for their return, though he would firmly have refused to compromise
himself by any effort in their favor. He belonged to that class of
royalists who ceaselessly remembered that they were beaten and robbed;
and who remained thenceforth dumb, economical, rancorous, without
energy; incapable of abjuring the past, but equally incapable of
sacrifice; waiting to greet triumphant royalty; true to religion and
true to the priesthood, but firmly resolved to bear in silence
the shocks of fate. Such an attitude cannot be considered that of
maintaining opinions, it becomes sheer obstinacy. Action is the essence
of party. Without intelligence, but loyal, miserly as a peasant yet
noble in demeanor, bold in his wishes but discreet in word and
action, turning all things to profit, willing even to be made mayor of
Cinq-Cygne, Monsieur d'Hauteserre was an admirable representative of
those honorable gentlemen on whose brow God Himself has written the
word _mites_,--Frenchmen who burrowed in their country homes and let the
storms of the Revolution pass above their heads; who came once more to
the surface under the Restoration, rich with their hidden savings,
proud of their discreet attachment to the monarchy, and who, after 1830,
recovered their estates.

Monsieur d'Hauteserre's costume, expressive envelope of his distinctive
character, described to the eye both the man and his period. He always
wore one of those nut-colored great-coats with small collars which the
Duc d'Orleans made the fashion after his return from England, and which
were, during the Revolution, a sort of compromise between the h