to so few! It used not to be so, but France in all such things is

changed for the worse. Our not remote ancestors held the right of

life and death over the surrounding vulgar. From this room, many

such dogs have been taken out to be hanged; in the next room (my

bedroom), one fellow, to our knowledge, was poniarded on the

spot for professing some insolent delicacy respecting his

daughterhis daughter? We have lost many privileges; a new

philosophy has become the mode; and the assertion of our station,

in these days, might (I do not go as far as to say would, but might)

cause us real inconvenience. All very bad, very bad!”

The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff, and shook his

head; as elegantly despondent as he could becomingly be of a

country still containing himself, that great means of regeneration.

“We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and in

the modern time also,” said the nephew, gloomily, “that I believe

our name to be more detested than any name in France.”

“Let us hope so,” said the uncle. “Detestation of the high is the

involuntary homage of the low.”

“There is not,” pursued the nephew, in his former tone, “a face

I can look at, in all this country round about us, which looks at me

with any deference on it but the dark deference of fear and

slavery.”

“A compliment,” said the Marquis, “to the grandeur of the

family, merited by the manner in which the family has sustained

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

its grandeur. Hah!” And he took another gentle little pinch of

snuff, and lightly crossed his legs.

But, when his nephew, leaning an elbow on the table, covered

his eyes thoughtfully and dejectedly with his hand, the fine mask

looked at him sideways with a stronger concentration of keenness,

closeness, and dislike, than was comportable with its wearer’s

assumption of indifference.

“Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference

of fear and slavery, my friend,” observed the Marquis, “will keep

the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof,” looking up to

it, “shuts out the sky.”

That might not be so long as the Marquis supposed. If a picture

of the chateau as it was to be a very few years hence, and of fifty

like it as they too were to be a very few years hence, could have

been shown to him that night, he might have been at a loss to

claim his own from the ghastly, fire-charred, plunder-wrecked

ruins. As for the roof he vaunted, he might have found that

shutting out the sky in a new wayto wit, for ever, from the eyes

of the bodies into which its lead was fired, out of the barrels of a

hundred thousand muskets.

“Meanwhile,” said the Marquis, “I will preserve the honour and

repose of the family if you will not. But you must be fatigued. Shall

we terminate our conference for the night?”

“A moment more.”

“An hour, if you please.”