The eighty thousand francs thus squandered represented
his savings, accumulated for the day when the Marquis should send his
son to Paris, or open negotiations for a wealthy marriage.
Chesnel was clear-sighted so long as Victurnien was not there before
him. One by one he lost the illusions which the Marquis and his sister
still fondly cherished. He saw that the young fellow could not be
depended upon in the least, and wished to see him married to some
modest, sensible girl of good birth, wondering within himself how a
young man could mean so well and do so ill, for he made promises one
day only to break them all on the next.
But there is never any good to be expected of young men who confess
their sins and repent, and straightway fall into them again. A man of
strong character only confesses his faults to himself, and punishes
himself for them; as for the weak, they drop back into the old ruts
when they find that the bank is too steep to climb. The springs of
pride which lie in a great man's secret soul had been slackened in
Victurnien. With such guardians as he had, such company as he kept,
such a life as he led, he had suddenly became an enervated voluptuary
at that turning-point in his life when a man most stands in need of
the harsh discipline of misfortune and adversity which formed a Prince
Eugene, a Frederick II.
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