and thus bring degeneracy into the highest circles of society. During
the years of the emigration Madame de la Baudraye, a girl of no
fortune, chosen for her noble birth, had patiently reared this sallow,
sickly boy, for whom she had the devoted love mothers feel for such
changeling creatures. Her death--she was a Casteran de la Tour
--contributed to bring about Monsieur de la Baudraye's return to
France.

This Lucullus of the Milauds, when he died, left his son the fief,
stripped indeed of its fines and dues, but graced with weathercocks
bearing his coat-of-arms, a thousand louis-d'or--in 1802 a
considerable sum of money--and certain receipts for claims on very
distinguished _emigres_ enclosed in a pocketbook full of verses, with
this inscription on the wrapper, _Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas_.

Young La Baudraye did not die, but he owed his life to habits of
monastic strictness; to the economy of action which Fontenelle
preached as the religion of the invalid; and, above all, to the air of
Sancerre and the influence of its fine elevation, whence a panorama
over the valley of the Loire may be seen extending for forty leagues.

From 1802 to 1815 young La Baudraye added several plots to his
vineyards, and devoted himself to the culture of the vine. The
Restoration seemed to him at first so insecure that he dared not go to
Paris to claim his debts; but after Napoleon's death he tried to turn
his father's collection of autographs into money, though not
understanding the deep philosophy which had thus mixed up I O U's and
copies of verses. But the winegrower lost so much time in impressing
his identity on the Duke of Navarreins "and others," as he phrased it,
that he came back to Sancerre, to his beloved vintage, without having