sent out, nor any “billets de faire part”; Philippe had his designs.  He lodged his wife in an appartement in the rue Saint-Georges, which he bought ready-furnished from Lolotte.  Madame Bridau the younger thought it delightful, and her husband rarely set foot in it.  Without her knowledge, Philippe purchased in the rue de Clichy, at a time when no one suspected the value which property in that quarter would one day acquire, a magnificent hotel for two hundred and fifty thousand francs; of which he paid one hundred and fifty thousand down, taking two years to pay the remainder.  He spent large sums in altering the interior and furnishing it; in fact, he put his income for two years into this outlay.  The pictures, now restored, and estimated at three hundred thousand francs, appeared in such surroundings in all their beauty.

The accession of Charles X. had brought into still greater court favor the family of the Duc de Chaulieu, whose eldest son, the Duc de Rhetore, was in the habit of seeing Philippe at Tullia’s.  Under Charles X., the elder branch of the Bourbons, believing itself permanently seated on the throne, followed the advice previously given by Marshal Gouvion-Saint-Cyr to encourage the adherence of the soldiers of the Empire.  Philippe, who had no doubt made invaluable revelations as to the conspiracies of 1820 and 1822, was appointed lieutenant-colonel in the regiment of the Duc de Maufrigneuse.  That fascinating nobleman thought himself bound to protect the man from whom he had taken Mariette.  The corps-de-ballet went for something, therefore, in the appointment.  Moreover, it was decided in the private councils of Charles X., to give a faint tinge of liberalism to the surroundings of Monseigneur the Dauphin.  Philippe, now a sort of equerry to the Duc de Maufrigneuse, was presented not only to the Dauphin, but also to the Dauphine, who was not averse to brusque and soldierly characters who had become noted for a past fidelity.  Philippe thoroughly understood the part the Dauphin had to play; and he turned the first exhibition of that spurious liberalism to his own profit, by getting himself appointed aide-de-camp to a marshal who stood well at court.

In January, 1827, Philippe, who was now promoted to the Royal Guard as lieutenant-colonel in a regiment then commanded by the Duc de Maufrigneuse, solicited the honor of being ennobled.  Under the Restoration, nobility became a sort of perquisite to the “roturiers” who served in the Guard.  Colonel Bridau had lately bought the estate of Brambourg, and he now asked to be allowed to entail it under the title of count.  This favor was accorded through the influence of his many intimacies in the highest rank of society, where he now appeared in all the luxury of horses, carriages, and liveries; in short, with the surroundings of a great lord.  As soon as he saw himself gazetted in the Almanack under the title of Comte de Brambourg, he began to frequent the house of a lieutenant-general of artillery, the Comte de Soulanges.