The Baron Tonnelier had a large fortune, increasing every day by successful speculation.  In his youth he had been a good horseman, a Voltairian, and a Liberal.

In time—­though he remained a Voltairian—­he renounced horsemanship, and Liberalism.  Although he was a simple deputy, he had a twinge of democracy now and then; but after he was invested with the peerage, he felt sure from that moment that the human species had no more progress to make.

The French Revolution was ended; its giddiest height attained.  No longer could any one walk, talk, write, or rise.  That perplexed him.  Had he been sincere, he would have avowed that he could not comprehend that there could be storms, or thunder-clouds in the heavens—­that the world was not perfectly happy and tranquil, while he himself was so.  When his nephew was old enough to comprehend him, Baron Tonnelier was no longer peer of France; but being one who does himself no hurt—­and sometimes much good by a fall, he filled a high office under the new government.  He endeavored to discharge its duties conscientiously, as he had those of the preceding reign.

He spoke with peculiar ease of suppressing this or that journal—­such an orator, such a book; of suppressing everything, in short, except himself.  In his view, France had been in the wrong road since 1789, and he sought to lead her back from that fatal date.

Nevertheless, he never spoke of returning, in his proper person, to his grandfather’s mill; which, to say the least, was inconsistent.  Had Liberty been mother to this old gentleman, and had he met her in a clump of woods, he would have strangled her.  We regret to add that he had the habit of terming “old duffers” such ministers as he suspected of liberal views, and especially such as were in favor of popular education.  A more hurtful counsellor never approached a throne; but luckily, while near it in office, he was far from it in influence.

He was still a charming man, gallant and fresh—­more gallant, however, than fresh.  Consequently his habits were not too good, and he haunted the greenroom of the opera.  He had two daughters, recently married, before whom he repeated the most piquant witticisms of Voltaire, and the most improper stories of Tallemant de Reaux; and consequently both promised to afford the scandalmongers a series of racy anecdotes, as their mother had before them.

While Louis de Camors was learning rapidly, by the association and example of the collateral branches of his family, to defy equally all principles and all convictions, his terrible father finished the task.

Worldling to the last extreme, depraved to his very core; past-master in the art of Parisian high life; an unbridled egotist, thinking himself superior to everything because he abased everything to himself; and, finally, flattering himself for despising all duties, which he had all his life prided himself on dispensing with—­such was his father.  But for all this, he was the pride of his circle, with a pleasing presence and an indefinable charm of manner.