which he could not reconcile with the strange regrets of his
uncle. He reproached them with not having more boldly separated the New
Republic, in its management and minor details, from the memories of the
old one. Far from agreeing with his uncle that a revival of the horrors
of 'ninety-three would have assured the triumph of the New Republic, he
believed it had sunk under the bloody shadow of its predecessor. He
believed that, owing to this boasted Terror, France had been for
centuries the only country in which the dangers of liberty outweighed its
benefits.

It is useless to dwell longer on the relations of Louis de Camors with
his uncle Dardennes. It is enough that he was doubtful and discouraged,
and made the error of holding the cause responsible for the violence of
its lesser apostles, and that he adopted the fatal error, too common in
France at that period, of confounding progress with discord, liberty with
license, and revolution with terrorism!

The natural result of irritation and disenchantment on this ardent spirit
was to swing it rapidly around to the opposite pole of opinion. After
all, Camors argued, his birth, his name, his family ties all pointed out
his true course, which was to combat the cruel and despotic doctrines
which he believed he detected under these democratic theories. Another
thing in the habitual language of his uncle also shocked and repelled
him--the profession of an absolute atheism. He had within him, in default
of a formal creed, a fund of general belief and respect for holy
things--that kind of religious sensibility which was shocked by impious
cynicism. Further he could not comprehend then, or ever afterward, how
principles alone, without faith in some higher sanction, could sustain
themselves by their own strength in the human conscience.

God--or no principles! This was the dilemma from which no German
philosophy could rescue him.

This reaction in his mind drew him closer to those other branches of his
family which he had hitherto neglected. His two aunts, living at Paris,
had been compelled, in consequence of their small fortunes, to make some
sacrifices to enter into the blessed state of matrimony. The elder,
Eleanore-Jeanne, had married, during her father's life, the Comte de la
Roche-Jugan--a man long past fifty, but still well worthy of being loved.
Nevertheless, his wife did not love him. Their views on many essential
points differed widely. M. de la Roche-Jugan was one