Bourbons, and a second reinstatement (that almost fabulous phase of
contemporary history), all these things took the Marquis by
surprise at the age of sixty-seven. At that time of life, the most
high-spirited men of their age were not so much vanquished as worn out
in the struggle with the Revolution; their activity, in their remote
provincial retreats, had turned into a passionately held and immovable
conviction; and almost all of them were shut in by the enervating,
easy round of daily life in the country. Could worse luck befall a
political party than this--to be represented by old men at a time when
its ideas are already stigmatized as old-fashioned?

When the legitimate sovereign appeared to be firmly seated on the
throne again in 1818, the Marquis asked himself what a man of seventy
should do at court; and what duties, what office he could discharge
there? The noble and high-minded d'Esgrignon was fain to be content
with the triumph of the Monarchy and Religion, while he waited for the
results of that unhoped-for, indecisive victory, which proved to be
simply an armistice. He continued as before, lord-paramount of his
salon, so felicitously named the Collection of Antiquities.

But when the victors of 1793 became the vanquished in their turn, the
nickname given at first in jest began to be used in bitter earnest.
The town was no more free than other country towns from the hatreds
and jealousies bred of party spirit. Du Croisier, contrary to all
expectation, married the old maid who had refused him at first;
carrying her off from his rival, the darling of the aristocratic
quarter, a certain Chevalier whose illustrious name will be
sufficiently hidden by suppressing it altogether, in accordance with
the usage formerly adopted in the place itself, where he was known by
his title only. He was "the Chevalier" in the town, as the Comte