ask you to explain?"

"I believe that if you were not in disgrace with the court, and had not
been overshadowed by that cloud for years past, a _lettre de cachet_
would have sent me to some fortress indefinitely."

"It is possible," said the uncle, with great calmness. "For the honor of
the family, I could even resolve to incommode you to that extent. Pray
excuse me!"

"I perceive that, happily for me, the Reception of the day before
yesterday was, as usual, a cold one," observed the nephew.

"I would not say happily, my friend," returned the uncle, with refined
politeness; "I would not be sure of that. A good opportunity for
consideration, surrounded by the advantages of solitude, might influence
your destiny to far greater advantage than you influence it for
yourself. But it is useless to discuss the question. I am, as you say,
at a disadvantage. These little instruments of correction, these gentle
aids to the power and honor of families, these slight favors that might
so incommode you, are only to be obtained now by interest and
importunity. They are sought by so many, and they are granted
(comparatively) to so few! It used not to be so, but France in all such
things is changed for the worse. Our not remote ancestors held the right
of life and death over the surrounding vulgar. From this room, many such
dogs have been taken out to be hanged; in the next room (my bedroom),
one fellow, to our knowledge, was poniarded on the spot for professing
some insolent delicacy respecting his daughter--_his_ daughter! We have
lost many privileges; a new philosophy has become the mode; and the
assertion of our station, in these days, might (I do not go so far as to
say would, but might) cause us real inconvenience. All very bad, very
bad!"

The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff and shook his head; as
elegantly despondent as he could becomingly be, of a country still
containing himself, that great means of regeneration.

"We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and in the modern
time also," said the nephew, gloomily, "that I believe our name to be
more detested than any name in France."

"Let us hope so," said the uncle. "Detestation of the high is the
involuntary homage of the low."

"There is not," pursued the nephew, in his former tone, "a face I can
look at, in all this country round about us, which looks at me with any
deference on it but the dark deference of fear and slavery."

"A complimen