of the giant who cradled the infancy of the century in his banners and
sang to it hymns with the lullaby of cannon.

Initiated by Felicite into the grandeur of all these things, which
may, perhaps, escape the eyes of those who work them, Calyste
gratified at Les Touches the taste for the glorious, powerful at his
age, and that artless admiration, the first love of adolescence, which
is always irritated by criticism. It is so natural that flame should
rise! He listened to that charming Parisian raillery, that graceful
satire which revealed to him French wit and the qualities of the
French mind, and awakened in him a thousand ideas, which might have
slumbered forever in the soft torpor of his family life. For him,
Mademoiselle des Touches was the mother of his intellect. She was so
kind to him; a woman is always adorable to a man in whom she inspires
love, even when she seems not to share it.

At the present time Felicite was giving him music-lessons. To him the
grand apartments on the lower floor, and her private rooms above, so
coquettish, so artistic, were vivified, were animated by a light, a
spirit, a supernatural atmosphere, strange and undefinable. The modern
world with its poesy was sharply contrasted with the dull and
patriarchal world of Guerande, in the two systems brought face to face
before him. On one side all the thousand developments of Art, on the
other the sameness of uncivilized Brittany. No one will therefore ask
why the poor lad, bored like his mother with the pleasures of
/mouche/, quivered as he approached the house, and rang the bell, and
crossed the court-yard. Such emotions, we may remark, do not assail a
mature man, trained to the ups and downs of life, whom nothing
surprises, being prepared for all.