of those who had
served the Government of the Restoration with an unshaken but hopeless
devotion. In his youth he had been attached to the person and to the
ministry of the Duc de Richelieu; and he had preserved the memory of that
illustrious man--of the elevated moderation of his sentiments--of the
warmth of his patriotism and of his constancy. He saw the pitfalls ahead,
pointed them out to his prince--displeased him by so doing, but still
followed his fortunes. Once more retired to private life with but small
means, he guarded his political principles rather like a religion than a
hope. His hopes, his vivacity, his love of right--all these he turned
toward God.

His piety, as enlightened as profound, ranked him among the choicest
spirits who then endeavored to reconcile the national faith of the past
with the inexorable liberty of thought of the present. Like his
colaborers in this work, he experienced only a mortal sadness under which
he sank. True, his wife contributed no little to hasten his end by the
intemperance of her zeal and the acrimony of her bigotry.

She had little heart and great pride, and made her God subserve her
passions, as Dardennes made liberty subserve his malice.

No sooner had she become a widow than she purified her salons.
Thenceforth figured there only parishioners more orthodox than their
bishops, French priests who denied Bossuet; consequently she believed
that religion was saved in France. Louis de Camors, admitted to this
choice circle by title both of relative and convert, found there the
devotion of Louis XI and the charity of Catherine de Medicis; and he
there lost very soon the little faith that remained to him.

He asked himself sadly whether there was no middle ground between Terror
and Inquisition; whether in this world one must be a fanatic or nothing.
He sought a middle course, possessing the force and cohesion of a party;
but he sought in vain. It seemed to him that the whole world of politics
and religion rushed to extremes; and that what was not extreme was inert
and indifferent--dragging out, day by day, an existence without faith and
without principle.

Thus at least appeared to him those whom the sad changes of his life
showed him as types of modern politics.

His younger aunt, Louise-Elizabeth, who enjoyed to the full all the
pleasures of modern life, had already profited by her father's death to
make a rich misalliance. She married the Baron Tonnelier, whose fathe