And, most gratifying thought of
all for a father, the young Count would have made his way in the world
by his own merits even if he had not been a d'Esgrignon.
All through his happy childhood and golden youth, Victurnien had never
met with opposition to his wishes. He had been the king of the house;
no one curbed the little prince's will; and naturally he grew up
insolent and audacious, selfish as a prince, self-willed as the most
high-spirited cardinal of the Middle Ages,--defects of character which
any one might guess from his qualities, essentially those of the
noble.
The Chevalier was a man of the good old times when the Gray Musketeers
were the terror of the Paris theatres, when they horsewhipped the
watch and drubbed servers of writs, and played a host of page's
pranks, at which Majesty was wont to smile so long as they were
amusing. This charming deceiver and hero of the ruelles had no small
share in bringing about the disasters which afterwards befell. The
amiable old gentleman, with nobody to understand him, was not a little
pleased to find a budding Faublas, who looked the part to admiration,
and put him in mind of his own young days. So, making no allowance for
the difference of the times, he sowed the maxims of a roue of the
Encyclopaedic period broadcast in the boy's mind.
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