The fact is, the chevalier was imbued with many prejudices.  Considering the days in which he lived, he had received a very good education for a country nobleman; but the century had moved more rapidly than he.  Edmee, ardent and romantic; the abbe, full of sentiment and systems, had moved even more rapidly than the century; and if the vast gulf which lay between them and the patriarch was scarcely perceptible, this was owing to the respect which they rightly felt for him, and to the love he had for his daughter.  I rushed forward at full speed, as you may imagine, into Edmee’s ideas, but I had not, like herself, sufficient delicacy of feeling to maintain a becoming reticence.  The violence of my character found an outlet in politics and philosophy, and I tasted unspeakable pleasure in those heated disputes which at that time in France, not only at all public meetings but also in the bosoms of families, were preluding the tempests of the Revolution.  I doubt if there was a single house, from palace to hovel, which had not its orator—­rugged, fiery, absolute, and ready to descend into the parliamentary arena.  I was the orator of the chateau of Sainte-Severe, and my worthy uncle, accustomed to a resemblance of authority over those about him, which prevented him from seeing the real revolt of their minds, could ill endure such candid opposition as mine.  He was proud and hot-tempered, and, moreover, had a difficulty in expressing himself which increased his natural impatience, and made him feel annoyed with himself.  He would give a furious kick to the burning logs on the hearth; he would smash his eye-glasses into a thousand pieces; scatter clouds of snuff about the floor, and shout so violently as to make the lofty ceilings of his mansion ring with his resonant voice.  All this, I regret to say, amused me immensely; and with some sentence but newly spelt out from my books I loved to destroy the frail scaffolding of ideas which had served him all his life.  This was great folly and very foolish pride on my part; but my love of opposition and my desire to display intellectually the energy which was wanting in my physical life were continually carrying me away.  In vain would Edmee cough, as a hint that I should say no more, and make an effort to save her father’s amour propre by bringing forward some argument in his favour, though against her own judgement; the lukewarmness of her help, and my apparent submission to her only irritated my adversary more and more.

“Let him have his say,” he would cry; “Edmee, you must not interfere; I want to beat him on all points.  If you continually interrupt us, I shall never be able to make him see his absurdity.”

And then the squall would blow stronger from both sides, until at last the chevalier, seriously offended, would walk out of the room, and go and vent his ill-humour on his huntsman or his hounds.