hundred and twenty-five times, which pleased me much."[Footnote:
_Oeuvres_, vii 179 _(Pensees diverses)._]

Beside the tie of friendship we may set that of the family. In old
France this bond was much closer than it is in modern America. If a man
rose in the world, the benefit to his relations was greater than now;
and there was no theory current that a ruler, or a man in a position of
trust, should exclude from the places under him those persons with whom
he is best acquainted, and of whose fidelity to himself and to his
employers he has most reason to be sure. On the other hand, a disgrace
to one member of a family spread its blight on all the others, and the
judicial condemnation of one man might exclude his near relations from
the public service--a state of things which was beginning to be
repugnant to the public conscience, but which had at least the merit of
forming a strong band to restrain the tempted from his contemplated
crime.

In fact, the old idea of the family as an organic whole, with common
joys, honors, and responsibilities, common sorrows and disgraces, was
giving way to the newer notion of individualism. In France, however, the
process never went so far as it has done in some other countries,
including our own.

Good manners were certainly the rule at the French court, but there
were exceptions, and not inconspicuous ones, for Louis XV. was an
unfeeling man, and Louis XVI. was an awkward one. When Mademoiselle
Genet, fifteen years old, was first engaged as reader to the former
king's daughters, she was in a state of agitation easy to imagine. The
court was in mourning, and the great rooms hung with black, the state
armchairs on platforms, several steps above the floor, the feathers