terror was his own.

For a while, he thought that he had hit upon a way of withdrawing his
son from such an existence. The relatives in Berlin had visited
the Desnoyers in their castle of Villeblanche. With good-natured
superiority, Karl von Hartrott had appreciated the rich and rather
absurd accumulations of his brother-in-law. They were not bad; he
admitted that they gave a certain cachet to the home in Paris and to the
castle. They smacked of the possessions of titled nobility. But Germany!
. . . The comforts and luxuries in his country! . . . He just wished his
brother-in-law to admire the way he lived and the noble friendships that
embellished his opulence. And so he insisted in his letters that the
Desnoyers family should return their visit. This change of environment
might tone Julio down a little. Perhaps his ambition might waken on
seeing the diligence of his cousins, each with a career. The Frenchman
had, besides, an underlying belief in the more corrupt influence of
Paris as compared with the purity of the customs in Patriarchal Germany.

They were there four months. In a little while Desnoyers felt ready to
retreat. Each to his own kind; he would never be able to understand
such people. Exceedingly amiable, with an abject amiability and evident
desire to please, but constantly blundering through a tactless desire to
make their grandeur felt. The high-toned friends of Hartrott emphasized
their love for France, but it was the pious love that a weak and
mischievous child inspires, needing protection. And they would accompany
their affability with all manner of inopportune memories of the wars in
which France had been conquered. Everything in Germany--a monument, a
railroad station, a simple dining-room device, instantly gave rise to
glorious comparisons. "In France, you do not have this," "Of course, you
never saw anything like this in America."