ng left the beautiful old
Gothic-cathedralled town some distance behind, was speeding along the
high-road, did he, for the first time, feel himself sufficiently alone
to face his thoughts. With a great rush of vision he seemed to see the
whole world of mankind rising against him--in its centre the form and
face of a scornful courtier--_the_ Repentigny, withering his pretensions
by one contemptuous glance, to the applause of the Oeil de Boeuf. He saw
the look of Madame l'Etiquette, the ribaldry of acquaintances at
Versailles, the studious oblivion of the Princess de Poix, d'Estaing,
Bellecour, and even Grancey; the mess-table derisive over the career of
the pseudo-noble; Major Collinot striking his name from the list of the
company; his arrest by Guardsmen disgusted at having to touch him; the
stony visages of the court-martial; the Bastille; the oar and chain of
the galleys. Truly they made no pleasant fate. Behind these, a white
figure, veiled in a mist of tears, at whose face he dared not
look--deceived by her knight, contaminated by his disgrace, her vision
of honour shattered, heart-broken, desolate, forbidden to him for ever
by the law which changeth not, of outraged caste.

"Alas! that it all should lead to such an end," he murmured.

By evening he was in Paris, and mechanically went to his old lodgings
where he tried to compose himself. A supper was brought which he left
unnoticed on the table. From time to time he would rise and walk about
the room, feverishly revolving events and fears.

"And these people," he exclaimed, "will dare to say that I am of a lower
nature than they. In what am I not noble? in what not their equal? Have
they not, for an entire year, approved of me, deferred to me, imitated
me? What is this miserable _noblesse_? Have I not seen that it is the
greatest boors that have the most claim to it. If it consists in
antiquity, where are the ancient gentry?--a remnant of pauper ploughmen
rotting on their driblets of land. If it lies in title, what is so
divine in the rewarded panderers to some unclean King? If it is
genealogy and parchments, with what mutual truth do they not sneer away,
and tell their tales upon, each other's lying pedigrees? In what sense
am I less well-made, less brave, nay, less truthful, than that cringing
rout at Versailles? Yes, all of you! the unbreakable word of my old
father encloses more real nobility than the entirety of your asinine
struts and proclamations? We sha