Restoration wrought both sides to the highest pitch of
exasperation.

Nearly every house in the upper town of Angouleme is inhabited by noble,
or at any rate by old burgher, families, who live independently on their
incomes--a sort of autochthonous nation who suffer no aliens to come
among them. Possibly, after two hundred years of unbroken residence, and
it may be an intermarriage or two with one of the primordial houses, a
family from some neighboring district may be adopted, but in the eyes of
the aboriginal race they are still newcomers of yesterday.

Prefects, receivers-general, and various administrations that have come
and gone during the last forty years, have tried to tame the ancient
families perched aloft like wary ravens on their crag; the said families
were always willing to accept invitations to dinners and dances; but as
to admitting the strangers to their own houses, they were inexorable.
Ready to scoff and disparage, jealous and niggardly, marrying only among
themselves, the families formed a serried phalanx to keep out intruders.
Of modern luxury they had no notion; and as for sending a boy to Paris,
it was sending him, they thought to certain ruin. Such sagacity will
give a sufficient idea of the old-world manners and customs of this
society, suffering from thick-headed Royalism, infected with bigotry
rather than zeal, all stagnating together, motionless as their town
founded upon a rock. Yet Angouleme enjoyed a great reputation in the
provinces round about for its educational advantages, and neighboring
towns sent their daughters to its boarding schools and convents.

It is easy to imagine the influence of the class sentiment which held
Angouleme aloof from L'Houmeau. The merchant classes are rich, the
_noblesse_ are usually poor. Each side takes its revenge in scorn of the
other. The tradespeople in Angouleme espouse the quarrel. "He is a man
of L'Houmeau!" a shopkeeper of the upper town will tell you, speaking of
a merchant in the lower suburb, throwing an accent into the speech which
no words can describe. When the Restoration defined the position of
the French _noblesse_, holding out hopes to them which could only be
realized by a complete and general topsy-turvydom, the distance between
Angouleme and L'Houmeau, already more strongly marked than the distance
between the hill and plain, was widened yet further. The better
families, all devoted as one man to the Government, grew more exclusive
h