nd unwisely. An indefinable flaw of character,
often seen in young men, but impossible to explain, led him to will
one thing and do another. In spite of an active mind, which showed
itself in unexpected ways, the senses had but to assert themselves,
and the darkened brain seemed to exist no longer. He might have
astonished wise men; he was capable of setting fools agape. His
desires, like a sudden squall of bad weather, overclouded all the
clear and lucid spaces of his brain in a moment; and then, after the
dissipations which he could not resist, he sank, utterly exhausted in
body, heart, and mind, into a collapsed condition bordering upon
imbecility. Such a character will drag a man down into the mire if he
is left to himself, or bring him to the highest heights of political
power if he has some stern friend to keep him in hand. Neither
Chesnel, nor the lad's father, nor Aunt Armande had fathomed the
depths of a nature so nearly akin on many sides to the poetic
temperament, yet smitten with a terrible weakness at its core.

By the time the old town lay several miles away, Victurnien felt not
the slightest regret; he thought no more about the father, who had
loved ten generations in his son, nor of the aunt, and her almost
insane devotion. He was looking forward to Paris with vehement
ill-starred longings; in thought he had lived in that fairyland, it
had been the background of his brightest dreams. He imagined that he
would be first in Paris, as he had been in the town and the department
where his father's name was potent; but it was vanity, not pride, that
filled his soul, and in his dreams his pleasures were to be magnified
by all the greatness of Paris. The distance was soon crossed. The
traveling coach, like his own thoughts, left the narrow horizon of the
province for the vast world of the great city, without a break in the
journey. He stayed in the Rue de Richelieu, in a handsome hotel close
to the boulevard, and hastened to take possession of Paris as a
famished horse rushes into a meadow.

He was not long in finding out the difference between country and
town, and was rather surprised than abashed by the change. His mental
quickness soon discovered how small an entity he was in the midst of
this all-comprehending Babylon; how insane it would be to attempt to
stem the torrent of new ideas and new ways. A single incident was
enough. He delivered his father's letter of introduction to the Duc de
Lenoncourt,