knew Paris,
and would save him from being cheated, had secured this bijou of an
apartment for Alain, and concluded the bargain for the bagatelle of
L500. The Chevalier took the same advantageous occasion to purchase the
English well-bred hack and the neat coupe and horses which the Bordelais
was also necessitated to dispose of. These purchases made, the Marquis
had some five thousand francs (L200) left out of Louvier's premium of
L1,000. The Marquis, however, did not seem alarmed or dejected by the
sudden diminution of capital so expeditiously effected. The easy life
thus commenced seemed to him too natural to be fraught with danger;
and easy though it was, it was a very simple and modest sort of life
compared with that of many other men of his age to whom Enguerrand had
introduced him, though most of them had an income less than his, and
few, indeed, of them were his equals in dignity of birth. Could a
Marquis de Rochebriant, if he lived at Paris at all, give less than
three thousand francs a year for his apartment, or mount a more humble
establishment than that confined to a valet and a tiger, two horses for
his coupe and one for the saddle? "Impossible," said the Chevalier de
Finisterre, decidedly; and the Marquis bowed to so high an authority. He
thought within himself, "If I find in a few months that I am exceeding
my means, I can but dispose of my rooms and my horses, and return to
Rochebriant a richer man by far than I left it."

To say truth, the brilliant seductions of Paris had already produced
their effect, not only on the habits, but on the character and cast of
thought, which the young noble had brought with him from the feudal and
melancholy Bretagne.

Warmed by the kindness with which, once introduced by his popular
kinsmen, he was everywhere received, the reserve or shyness which is the
compromise between the haughtiness of self-esteem and the painful doubt
of appreciation by others rapidly melted away. He caught insensibly the
polished tone, at once so light and so cordial, of his new-made
friends. With all the efforts of the democrats to establish equality and
fraternity, it is among the aristocrats that equality and fraternity are
most to be found. All gentilshommes in the best society are equals;
and whether they embrace or fight each other, they embrace or fight
as brothers of the same family. But with the tone of manners Alain de
Rochebriant imbibed still more insensibly the lore of that philosoph