quarrelling with and insulting De Chaulieu, who had not
strength to cope with him. When they left the academy, the feud
continued in all its vigor, and was fostered by a thousand little
circumstances arising out of the state of the times, till a separation
ensued in consequence of an aunt of Antoine de Chaulieu's undertaking
the expense of sending him to Paris to study the law, and of maintaining
him there during the necessary period.

With the progress of events came some degree of reaction in favor of
birth and nobility, and then Antoine, who had passed for the bar, began
to hold up his head and endeavored to push his fortunes; but fate seemed
against him. He felt certain that if he possessed any gift in the world
it was that of eloquence, but he could get no cause to plead; and his
aunt dying inopportunely, first his resources failed, and then his
health. He had no sooner returned to his home, than, to complicate his
difficulties completely, he fell in love with Mademoiselle Natalie de
Bellefonds, who had just returned from Paris, where she had been
completing her education. To expatiate on the perfections of Mademoiselle
Natalie would be a waste of ink and paper; it is sufficient to say that
she really was a very charming girl, with a fortune which, though not
large, would have been a most desirable acquisition to De Chaulieu, who
had nothing. Neither was the fair Natalie indisposed to listen to his
addresses; but her father could not be expected to countenance the suit
of a gentleman, however well born, who had not a ten-sous piece in the
world, and whose prospects were a blank.

While the ambitious and lovesick young barrister was thus pining in
unwelcome obscurity, his old acquaintance, Jacques Rollet, had been
acquiring an undesirable notoriety. There was nothing really bad in
Jacques' disposition, but having been bred up a democrat, with a hatred
of the nobility, he could not easily accommodate his rough humor to treat
them with civility when it was no longer safe to insult them. The
liberties he allowed himself whenever circumstances brought him into
contact with the higher classes of society, had led him into many
scrapes, out of which his father's money had one way or another released
him; but that source of safety had now failed. Old Rollet, having been
too busy with the affairs of the nation to attend to his business, had
died insolvent, leaving his son with nothing but his own wits to help him
out of fu