r and harder, and, if there
was no more real vice, there was far less superficial delicacy in the
manners of society, and the relations between men and women, than
there is nowadays.

Perhaps the true course lies midway; for certainly if there was much
coarseness then, there is much cant and much squeamishness now, which
could be excellently well dispensed with.

Beside this, boys were brought into the great world much earlier at
that period, and were made men of at an age when they would have been
learning Greek and Latin, had their birth been postponed by a single
century.

Then, at fifteen, they held commissions, and carried colors in the
battle's front, and were initiated into all the license of the court,
the camp, and the forum.

So it came that the discussion of a subject such as that which I have
described, was very naturally introduced even between parents and a
beloved and only son by the circumstances of the day. Morals, as
regards the matrimonial contract, and the intercourse between the
sexes, have at all times been lower and far less rigid among the
French, than in nations of northern origin; and never at any period of
the world was the morality of any country, in this respect, at so low
an ebb as was France under the reign of the Fifteenth Louis.

The Count de St. Renan replied, therefore, to his son with as little
restraint as if he had been his equal in age, and equally acquainted
with the customs and vices of the world, although intrigue and crime
were the topics of which he had to treat.

"It is quite true, Raoul," replied the count, "that so far as the
unhappy Lord of Kerguelen was concerned, the guilt of the Chevalier de
la Rochederrien was, as you say, no deeper, perhaps less deep than
that of the miserable lady. He was, indeed, bound to Kerguelen by
every tie of friendship and honor; he had been aided by his purse,
backed by his sword, nay, I have heard and believe, that he owed his
life to him. Yet for all that he seduced his wife; and to make it
worse, if worse it could be, Kerguelen had married her from the
strongest affection, and till the chevalier brought misery, and
dishonor, and death upon them, there was no wedded couple in all
France so virtuous or so happy."

"Indeed, sir!" replied Raoul, in tones of great emotion, staring with
his large, dark eyes as if some strange sight had presented itself to
him on a sudden.

"I know well, Raoul, and if you have not heard it yet, you wil