a wife, in short, who should unite all the distinctions of birth and
beauty, wit and wealth, and character.

The intimates who came to play their game of cards of an evening--the
Troisvilles (pronounced Treville), the La Roche-Guyons, the Casterans
(pronounced Cateran), and the Duc de Verneuil--had all so long been
accustomed to look up to the Marquis as a person of immense
consequence, that they encouraged him in such notions as these. They
were perfectly sincere in their belief; and indeed, it would have been
well founded if they could have wiped out the history of the last
forty years. But the most honorable and undoubted sanctions of right,
such as Louis XVIII. had tried to set on record when he dated the
Charter from the one-and-twentieth year of his reign, only exist when
ratified by the general consent. The d'Esgrignons not only lacked the
very rudiments of the language of latter-day politics, to wit, money,
the great modern /relief/, or sufficient rehabilitation of nobility;
but, in their case, too, "historical continuity" was lacking, and that
is a kind of renown which tells quite as much at Court as on the
battlefield, in diplomatic circles as in Parliament, with a book, or
in connection with an adventure; it is, as it were, a sacred ampulla
poured upon the heads of each successive generation. Whereas a noble
family, inactive and forgotten, is very much in the position of a
hard-featured, poverty-stricken, simple-minded, and virtuous maid,
these qualifications being the four cardinal points of misfortune. The
marriage of a daughter of the Troisvilles with General Montcornet, so
far from opening the eyes of the Antiquities, very nearly brought
about a rupture between the Troisvilles and the salon d'Esgrignon, the
latter declaring that the Troisvilles were mixing themselves up with
all sorts of people.