d the Hotel
d'Esgrignon; they committed no indiscretions of any kind; they had
their ideas, true or false, good or bad, noble or trivial, but there
was nothing to laugh at in all this. If the Liberals meant to make the
nobles ridiculous, they were obliged to fasten on the political
actions of their opponents; while the intermediate party, composed of
officials and others who paid court to the higher powers, kept the
nobles informed of all that was done and said in the Liberal camp, and
much of it was abundantly laughable. Du Croisier's adherents smarted
under a sense of inferiority, which increased their thirst for
revenge.

In 1822, du Croisier put himself at the head of the manufacturing
interest of the province, as the Marquis d'Esgrignon headed the
noblesse. Each represented his party. But du Croisier, instead of
giving himself out frankly for a man of the extreme Left, ostensibly
adopted the opinions formulated at a later date by the 221 deputies.

By taking up this position, he could keep in touch with the
magistrates and local officials and the capitalists of the department.
Du Croisier's salon, a power at least equal to the salon d'Esgrignon,
larger numerically, as well as younger and more energetic, made itself
felt all over the countryside; the Collection of Antiquities, on the
other hand, remained inert, a passive appendage, as it were, of a
central authority which was often embarrassed by its own partisans;
for not merely did they encourage the Government in a mistaken policy,
but some of its most fatal blunders were made in consequence of the
pressure brought to bear upon it by the Conservative party.

The Liberals, so far, had never contrived to carry their candidate.
The department declined to obey their command knowing that du
Croisier, if elected, would take his place on the Left Centre benches,
and as far as possible to the Left. Du Croisier was in correspondence
with the Brothers Keller, the bankers, the oldest of whom shone
conspicuous among "the nineteen deputies of the Left," that phalanx
made famous by the efforts of the entire Liberal press. This same M.
Keller, moreover, was related by marriage to the Comte de Gondreville,
a Constitutional peer who remained in favor with Louis XVIII. For
these reasons, the Constitutional Opposition (as distinct from the
Liberal party) was always prepared to vote at the last moment, not for
the candidate whom they professed to support, but for du Croisier, if