most characteristic of them were not long-lived, the "little window"
and other things having had a bad effect on them; and most of those
who survived had, by the time he was old enough to take much notice,
gone through metamorphoses of Bonapartism, Constitutional Liberalism,
and what not. But still du Bousquier /is/ alive, as well as all the
minor assistants and spectators in the battle for the old maid's hand.
Suzanne, that tactful and graceless Suzanne to whom we are introduced
first of all, is very much alive; and for all her gracelessness, not
at all disagreeable. I am only sorry that she sold the counterfeit
presentment of the Princess Goritza after all.

/Le Cabinet des Antiques/, in its Alencon scenes, is a worthy pendant
to /La Vieille Fille/. The old-world honor of the Marquis d'Esgrignon,
the thankless sacrifices of Armande, the /prisca fides/ of Maitre
Chesnel, present pictures for which, out of Balzac, we can look only
in Jules Sandeau, and which in Sandeau, though they are presented with
a more poetical touch, have less masterly outline than here. One takes
--or, at least, I take--less interest in the ignoble intrigues of the
other side, except in so far as they menace the fortunes of a worthy
house unworthily represented. Victurnien d'Esgrignon, like his
companion Savinien de Portenduere (who, however, is, in every respect,
a very much better fellow), does not argue in Balzac any high opinion
of the /fils de famille/. He is, in fact, an extremely feeble youth,
who does not seem to have got much real satisfaction out of the
escapades, for which he risked not merely his family's fortune, but
his own honor, and who would seem to have been a rake, not from
natural taste and spirit and relish, but because it seemed to him to
be the proper thing to be. But the beginnings of the fortune of the
aspiring and intriguing Camusots are admirably painted; and Madame de
Maufrigneuse, that rather doubtful divinity, who appears so frequently