trained to endurance by his recent hardships, Philippe in the eyes of
his mother was a hero; in point of fact, he had simply become what
people (not to mince matters) call a blackguard.

Shocked at the destitution of her cherished son, Madame Bridau bought
him a complete outfit of clothes at Havre. After listening to the tale
of his woes, she had not the heart to stop his drinking and eating and
amusing himself as a man just returned from the Champ d'Asile was
likely to eat and drink and divert himself. It was certainly a fine
conception,--that of conquering Texas with the remains of the imperial
army. The failure was less in the idea than in the men who conceived
it; for Texas is to-day a republic, with a future full of promise.
This scheme of Liberalism under the Restoration distinctly proves that
the interests of the party were purely selfish and not national,
seeking power and nothing else. Neither men, nor occasion, nor cause,
nor devotion were lacking; only the money and the support of the
hypocritical party at home who dispensed enormous sums, but gave
nothing when it came to recovering empire. Household managers like
Agathe have a plain common-sense which enables them to perceive such
political chicane: the poor woman saw the truth through the lines of
her son's tale; for she had read, in the exile's interests, all the
pompous editorials of the constitutional journals, and watched the
management of the famous subscription, which produced barely one
hundred and fifty thousand francs when it ought to have yielded five
or six millions. The Liberal leaders soon found out that they were
playing into the hands of Louis XVIII. by exporting the glorious
remnants of our grand army, and they promptly abandoned to their fate
the most devoted, the most ardent, the most enthusiastic of its
heroes,--those, in short, who had gone in the advance. Agathe was
never able, however, to make her son see that he was more duped than