the only motto which the scutcheons of all _gentilhommes_ have in common,
'Noblesse oblige.' War, with all its perils and all its grandeur,--war
lifts on high the banners of France,--war, in which every ancestor of
mine whom I care to recall aggrandised the name that descends to me. Let
me then do as those before me have done; let me prove that I am worth
something in myself, and then you and I are equals; and I can say with no
humbled crest, 'Your benefits are accepted:' the man who has fought not
ignobly for France may aspire to the hand of her daughter. Give me
Valerie; as to her dot,--be it so, Rochebriant,--it will pass to her
children."

"Alain! Alain! my friend! my son!--but if you fall."

"Valerie will give you a nobler son."

Duplessis moved away, sighing heavily; but he said no more in deprecation
of Alain's martial resolves.

A Frenchman, however practical, however worldly, however philosophical he
may be, who does not sympathise with the follies of honour--who does not
concede indulgence to the hot blood of youth when he says, "My country is
insulted and her banner is unfurled," may certainly be a man of excellent
common sense; but if such men had been in the majority, Gaul would never
have been France--Gaul would have been a province of Germany.

And as Duplessis walked homeward--he the calmest and most far-seeing of
all authorities on the Bourse--the man who, excepting only De Mauleon,
most decidedly deemed the cause of the war a blunder, and most
forebodingly anticipated its issues, caught the prevalent enthusiasm.
Everywhere he was stopped by cordial hands, everywhere met by