es. If a day of reckoning
did thrust itself upon them it was but a question of asking for another
pension in addition to those they already held, or of obtaining at a
nominal price a grant of crown domains, to be sold again for hundreds
of thousands of francs. Truly there was but one thing that could match
the flaunting wastefulness of the reigning favourites at court, and
that was the hard condition, the intolerable poverty, of the despised
commonalty.

Nevertheless, whilst the greater part of the old nobility of France
came unmistakably under one or other of these extreme descriptions,
there were to be found, in the country districts, some who were free
alike from such boundless extravagance and such abject poverty. Of
this small and exceptional class the Marquis de Beaujardin was a
striking example. His naturally calm and unexcitable temperament had
been still further disciplined by early habits of self-command, first
as a scholar and subsequently as a soldier. Slow to apprehend the
bearings of questions, he seldom failed, if he had time for
consideration and reflection, to arrive at a right conclusion, and then
he could be not only just but generous. Thus he had long since arrived
at a fair judgment of the state of things in France, and keeping aloof
from the court and its intrigues, added as little as might be to the
terrible burdens which the laws of the land and the existing state of
society inevitably laid upon the poorer classes around him. Had he
followed his own inclination, he would from choice have kept as small
an establishment at Beaujardin as Madame de Valricour did from
necessity, but the marchioness was far too frivolous and fond of the
world to give up what she could fairly claim as suitable to their
exalted position. This was not unreasonable, and to this, within
limits, the marquis did not demur; so the establishment at Beaujardin
was kept up in a style fairly befitting their rank, but without
needless ostentation.

Perhaps the marchioness, with her childish silliness of character,
might not have found it so easy to prevail over her husband's firmness
and good sense in such a matter, had she not been supported and
counselled by the Baroness de Valricour, of whom, to own the truth, the
marquis always stood in awe. Nobody knew this better than the clever
and strong-minded lady herself; for the last twenty years, indeed, she
had decided most questions that arose at the Chateau de Beaujardin,