Chapter 3

Notwithstanding this accidental introduction to one of the nicest
distinctions of good society, and the general exhilaration that prevailed
in our party, I was far from being perfectly happy. To own the truth, I
had left my heart in Picardie. I do not say I was in love; I am far from
certain that there is any precedent for a pocket-handkerchief's being in
love at all, and I am quite sure that the sensations I experienced were
different from those I have since had frequent occasion to hear
described. The circumstances which called them forth were as follows:

The manufactory in which our family was fabricated was formerly
known as the Chateau de la Rocheaimard, and had been the property
of the Vicomte de la Rocheaimard previously to the revolution that
overturned the throne of Louis XVI. The vicomte and his wife joined
the royalists at Coblentz, and the former, with his only son, Adrien de la
Rocheaimard, or the Chevalier de la Rocheaimard, as he was usually
termed, had joined the allies in their attempted invasion on the soil of
France. The vicomte, a marechal du camp, had fallen in battle, but the
son escaped, and passed his youth in exile; marrying a few years later, a
cousin whose fortunes were at as low an ebb as his own. One child,
Adrienne, was the sole issue of this marriage, having been born in the
year 1810. Both the parents died before the Restoration, leaving the
little girl to the care of her pious grandmother, la vicomtesse, who
survived, in a feeble old age, to descant on the former grandeur of her
house, and to sigh, in common with so many others, for le bon vieux
temps. At the Restoration, there was some difficulty in establishing the
right of the de la Rocheaimards to their share of the indemnity; a
difficulty I never heard explained, but which was probably owing to the
circumstance that there was no one in particular to interest themselves in
the matter, but an old woman of sixty-five and a little girl of four. Such
appellants, unsupported by money, interest, or power, seldom make out
a very strong case for reparation of any sort, in this righteous world of
ours, and had it not been for the goodness of the dauphine it is probable
that the vicomtesse and her grand-daughter would have been reduced
to downright beggary. But the daughter of the late King got intelligence
of the necessities of the two descendants of Crusaders, and a pension
of two thousand francs a year was granted, en attendant.

{Rocheaimard = both the Chateau and the family are fictitious; marechal
du camp = general commanding a brigade; le bon vieux temps = the
good old days; late King = Louis XVI, guillotined in 1793; en attendant
= for the time being}

Four hundred dollars a year does not appear a large sum, even to