its charms upon Alain de Rochebriant. Even in the society of professed
Legitimists, he felt that faith had deserted the Legitimist creed or
taken refuge only as a companion of religion in the hearts of high-born
women and a small minority of priests. His chivalrous loyalty still
struggled to keep its ground, but its roots were very much loosened. He
saw--for his natural intellect was keen--that the cause of the Bourbon
was hopeless, at least for the present, because it had ceased, at least
for the present, to be a cause. His political creed thus shaken, with it
was shaken also that adherence to the past which had stifled his ambition
of a future. That ambition began to breathe and to stir, though he owned
it not to others, though, as yet, he scarce distinguished its whispers,
much less directed its movements towards any definite object. Meanwhile,
all that he knew of his ambition was the new-born desire for social
success.

We see him, then, under the quick operation of this change in sentiments
and habits, reclined on the _fauteuil_ before his fireside, and listening
to his college friend, of whom we have so long lost sight, Frederic
Lemercier. Frederic had breakfasted with Alain,--a breakfast such as
might have contented the author of the "Almanach des Gourmands," and
provided from the cafe Anglais. Frederic has just thrown aside his
regalia.

"Pardieu! my dear Alain. If Louvier has no sinister object in the
generosity of his dealings with you, he will have raised himself
prodigiously in my estimation. I shall forsake, in his favour, my
allegiance to Duplessis, though that clever fellow has just made a
wondrous coup in the Egyptians, and I gain forty thousand francs by
having followed his advice. But if Duplessis has a head as long as
Louvier's, he certainly has not an equal greatness of soul. Still, my