been compelled to share them, ever enforce obedience and discipline as a
superior among those with whom just before he was an equal, his ardour
would not have been merely cooled--it would have been changed into
despair for the armies of France, if hereafter they are met by those
whose officers have been trained to be officers from the outset and have
imbibed from their cradle an education not taught to the boy-pedants from
school--the two-fold education how with courtesy to command, how with
dignity to obey. To return to Rochebriant, such salons as I frequent are
somewhat formal--as befits my grave years and my modest income; I may
add, now that you know my vocation, befits me also as a man who seeks
rather to be instructed than amused. In those salons I did, last year
sometimes, however, meet Rochebriant--as I sometimes still meet you; but
of late he has deserted such sober reunions, and I hear with pain that he
is drifting among those rocks against which my own youth was shipwrecked.
Is the report true?"

"I fear," said Enguerrand, reluctantly, "that at least the report is not
unfounded. And my conscience accuses me of having been to blame in the
first instance. You see, when Alain made terms with Louvier by which he
obtained a very fair income, if prudently managed, I naturally wished
that a man of so many claims to social distinction, and who represents
the oldest branch of my family, should take his right place in our world
of Paris. I gladly therefore presented him to the houses and the men
most _a la mode_--advised him as to the sort of establishment, in
apartments, horses, &c., which it appeared to me that he might reasonably
afford--I mean such as, with his means, I should have prescribed to
myself--"

"Ah! I understand. But you, dear Enguerrand, are a born Parisian, every
inch of you: and a born Parisian is, whatever be thought to the contrary,