fully over his
interests. The poor father must do without Josephin, and hope to
replace him with a young lad.

"Remember that you are a Carol, my boy," he said; "remember that you
come of an unalloyed descent, and that your scutcheon bears the motto
Cil est nostre; with such arms you may hold your head high everywhere,
and aspire to queens. Render grace to your father, as I to mine. We
owe it to the honor of our ancestors, kept stainless until now, that
we can look all men in the face, and need bend the knee to none save a
mistress, the King, and God. This is the greatest of your privileges."

Chesnel, good man, was breakfasting with the family. He took no part
in counsels based on heraldry, nor in the inditing of letters
addressed to divers mighty personages of the day; but he had spent the
night in writing to an old friend of his, one of the oldest
established notaries of Paris. Without this letter it is not possible
to understand Chesnel's real and assumed fatherhood. It almost recalls
Daedalus' address to Icarus; for where, save in old mythology, can you
look for comparisons worthy of this man of antique mould?

"MY DEAR AND ESTIMABLE SORBIER,--I remember with no little
pleasure that I made my first campaign in our honorable profession
under your father, and that you had a liking for me, poor little
clerk that I was. And now I appeal to old memories of the days
when we worked in the same office, old pleasant memories for our
hearts, to ask you to do me the one service that I have ever asked
of you in the course of our long lives, crossed as they have been
by political catastrophes, to which, perhaps, I owe it that I have
the honor to be your colleague. And now I ask this service of you,
my friend, and my white hairs will be brought with sorrow to the
grave if you should refuse my entreaty. It is no question of
myself or of mine, Sorbier, for I lost poor Mme. Chesnel, and I
have no child of my own. Something more to me than my own family
(if I had one) is involved--it is the Marquis d'Esgrignon's only
son. I have had the honor to be the Marquis' land steward ever
since I left the office to which his father sent me at his own
expense, with the idea of providing for me. The house which
nurtured me has passed through all the troubles of the Revolution.
I have managed to save some of their property; but what is it,
after all, in comparison with the wealth that they have lost