close of the
reign of Louis XV, leaving a great local reputation for holiness.

Mme. de Combray was of a "haughty and imperious nature; her soul was
strong and full of energy; she knew how to brave danger and public
opinion; the boldest projects did not frighten her, and her ambition was
unbounded." Such is the picture that one of her most irreconcilable
enemies has drawn of her, and we shall see that the principal traits
were faithfully described. But to complete the resemblance one must
first of all plead an extenuating circumstance: Madame de Combray was a
fanatical royalist. Even that, however, would not make her story
intelligible, if one did not make allowance for the Calvary that the
faithful royalists travelled through so many years, each station of
which was marked by disillusions and failures. Since the war on the
nobles had begun in 1789, all their efforts at resistance, disdainful at
first, stubborn later on, blundering always, had been pitifully
abortive. Their rebuffs could no longer be counted, and there was some
justification in that for the scornful hatred on the part of the new
order towards a caste which for so many centuries had believed
themselves to be possessed of all the talents. Many of them, it is true,
had resigned themselves to defeat, but the _Intransigeants_ continued to
struggle obstinately; and to say truth, this tenacious attachment to the
ghost of monarchy was not without grandeur.

From the very beginning of the Revolution the Marquise de Combray had
numbered herself among the unchangeable royalists. Her husband, a
timorous and quiet man, who employed in reading the hours that he did
not consecrate to sleep, had long since abandoned to her the direction
of the household and the management of his fortune. Widowhood had but
strengthened the authority of the Marquise, who reigned over a little
world of small farmers, peasants and servants, more timid, perhaps, than
devoted.

She exacted complete obedience from her children. The eldest son, called
the Chevalier de Bonnoeil, after a property near the Chateau of
Donnay, in the environs of Falaise, supported the maternal yoke
patiently; he was an officer in the Royal Dragoons at the time of the
Revolution. His younger brother, Timoleon de Combray, was of a less
docile nature. On leaving the military school, as his father was just
dead he solicited from M. de Vergennes a mission in an uncivilised
country and set sail for Morocco. Timoleon w