ictly speaking, combine with it family celebrity, for
he boasted that his grandfather was a cousin of that brave General
Dorsenne whom Napoleon could only replace at the head of his guard by
Friant. All can be told in a word. Although the heirs of the hero of the
Empire had never recognized the relationship, Julien believed in it, and
when he said, in reply to compliments on his books, "At my age my
grand-uncle, the Colonel of the Guard, did greater things," he was
sincere in his belief. But it was unnecessary to mention it, for,
situated as he was, Countess Steno would gladly have accepted him as a
son-in-law. As for gaining the love of the young girl, with his handsome
face, intelligent and refined, and his elegant form, which he had
retained intact in spite of his thirty-seven years, he might have done
so. Nothing, however, was farther from his thoughts than such a project,
for, as he ascended the steps of the staircase of the palace formerly
occupied by Urban VII, he continued, in very different terms, his
monologue, a species of involuntary "copy" which is written instinctively
in the brain of the man of letters when he is particularly fond of
literature.

At times it assumes a written form, and it is the most marked of
professional distortions, the most unintelligible to the illiterate, who
think waveringly and who do not, happily for them, suffer the continual
servitude to precision of word and to too conscientious thought.

"Yes; poor, charming Alba!" he repeated to himself. "How unfortunate that
the marriage with Countess Gorka's brother could not have been arranged
four months ago. Connection with the family of her mother's lover would
be tolerably immoral! But she would at least have had less chance of ever
knowing it; and the convenient combination by which the mother has caused
her to form a friendship with that wife in order the better to blind the
two, would have bordered a little more on propriety. To-day Alba would be
Lady Ardrahan, leading a prosaic English life, instead of being united to
some imbecile whom they will find for her here or elsewhere. She will
then deceive him as her mother deceived the late Steno--with me, perhaps,
in remembrance of our pure intimacy of to-day. That would be too sad! Do
not let us think of it! It is the future, of the existence of which we
are ignorant, while we do know that the present exists and that it has
all rights. I owe to the Contessina my best impressions of Ro