appearance, a man of honor and true courage, who would fight a duel
for a yes or a no, had never yet fought upon a battle-field, though he
wore in his button-hole the cross of the Legion of honor. He was, as
you perceive, one of the blunders of the Restoration, perhaps the most
excusable of them. The youth of those days was the youth of no epoch.
It came between the memories of the Empire and those of the
Emigration, between the old traditions of the court and the
conscientious education of the _bourgeoisie_; between religion and
fancy-balls; between two political faiths, between Louis XVIII., who
saw only the present, and Charles X., who looked too far into the
future; it was moreover bound to accept the will of the king, though
the king was deceiving and tricking it. This unfortunate youth, blind
and yet clear-sighted, was counted as nothing by old men jealously
keeping the reins of the State in their feeble hands, while the
monarchy could have been saved by their retirement and the accession
of this Young France, which the old doctrinaires, the _emigres_ of the
Restoration, still speak of slightingly. Auguste de Maulincour was a
victim to the ideas which weighed in those days upon French youth, and
we must here explain why.

The Vidame de Pamiers was still, at sixty-seven years of age, a very
brilliant man, having seen much and lived much; a good talker, a man
of honor and a gallant man, but who held as to women the most
detestable opinions; he loved them, and he despised them. _Their_
honor! _their_ feelings! Ta-ra-ra, rubbish and shams! When he was with
them, he believed in them, the ci-devant "monstre"; he never
contradicted them, and he made them shine. But among his male friends,
when the topic of the sex came up, he laid down the principle that to
deceive women, and to carry on several intrigues at once, should be
the occupation of those young men who were so misguided as to wish to