It was impossible that
he should marry a bourgeoise heiress in his father's lifetime, so he
was bound to live on shabbily under the paternal roof with memories of
his two years of splendor in Paris, and the lost love of a great lady
to bear him company. He grew moody and depressed, vegetating at home
with a careworn aunt and a half heart-broken father, who attributed
his son's condition to a wasting malady. Chesnel was no longer there.
The Marquis died in 1830. The great d'Esgrignon, with a following of
all the less infirm noblesse from the Collection of Antiquities, went
to wait upon Charles X. at Nonancourt; he paid his respects to his
sovereign, and swelled the meagre train of the fallen king. It was an
act of courage which seems simple enough to-day, but, in that time of
enthusiastic revolt, it was heroism.
"The Gaul has conquered!" These were the Marquis' last words.
By that time du Croisier's victory was complete. The new Marquis
d'Esgrignon accepted Mlle. Duval as his wife a week after his old
father's death. His bride brought him three millions of francs for du
Croisier and his wife settled the reversion of their fortunes upon her
in the marriage-contract. Du Croisier took occasion to say during the
ceremony that the d'Esgrignon family was the most honorable of all the
ancient houses in France.
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