. ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE. ' 7

acquiescence in \‘.heir sequestration from all independent life, unless that which could be found in the priesthood or the cloister. The daughters had all adopted a religious life, one of them, however, oc- cupying the more brilliant position of a cllaarainzxxe,‘ but they were all driven back to the paternal roof by the Revolu- tion. The second son became a priest, and eventually bishop, obeying the univer- sallaiv of self-renunciation so, curiously and without outward murmur accepted by these young aristocrats. The third son, M. le Chevalier, was equally destined to annihilate himself for his race ; but here a curious coniretzmpx intervened to check the family plans. The eldest son, for whose sake and to keep whose fortune intact all these brothers and sisters had to sacrifice themselves, was himself re- quired to complete the sacrifice by giving up the bride he desired, her dot not being considered sufiicient for the heir of the Lamartines. But some spark of ori<rinal- ity existed in this halt-revolutionized’ fine

entlemari. To the consternation of every- body concerned, he declined marrying any one except the woman he loved; and lo! in the rigid house of the Lamartines, where every one up to this moment had obe ed his destiny without a murmur, the object of all these renunciations became the first rebel. “ll ditii Jan pin, ‘llfaut maricr I: dz:-imlz'2r.”’ But the passage in which this extraordinary revolution within a revolution, this family mu) t1’e'tat, is sug- gested, afiords so perfect a sketch of the singular state of society then existing, that we need not apologize to the reader for quoting it entire : —

M father was the youngest of this numer- ous Zauiily. At the iige of sixteen he had en- tered the regiment in which his father had served before him. He was not intended to marry; it was the rule of the time. His lot was to grow old in tile modest position of captain, which he attained at an early age; to pass his few months of leave now and then in his father's house; to gain, in the process of time, the Cross of Saiiit~Louis, which was the end of all ambitions to the provincial gentle- man; then, when he grew old, endowed with a small pension from the State, or a still smaller revenue of his own, to vegetate in one of his brother's old tiuiletzux. with rooms in the upper storey; to superintend the arderi, to shoot with the mrl, to look alter t e horses, to play with the children, to make up a party at whist or trirtriu, the born servant ot_every- body—a domestic slave, happy in being so, beloved and neglected by all; and thus to complete his life. unknown, without lands, without wife, without descendants, until the

time when age and infirluities confined him to the bare room, on the walls of which his helmet and his old sword were hung, and that day on which eve bozlly in the tiuimzu should be told— M. le C ev ier is dead.

My father was the Chevalier de Lalnartine; and this was the life to which he was d stined. No doubt his modest and respectfuf nature would have accepted it with sorrow, but with- out complaint. An unexpected circumstance, however, changed all at once these arrange. merits of fate. The eldest brother became hypochondriac. He said to his father. “ You must marry the chevalier.” All the feelings of tamily, and the pre'udices of habit, rose up in the heart of the ol noble against this sugges- tion. Chevaliers are not intended for mar- riage. My father was consigned to his regi- ment. A step so strange, and which was especially repugnant to my grandmother, was put off from year to year. Marry the chev- alier! it was monstrous. On the other hand, to allow the family to die out, and the name to become extinct, was a crime against the race.

The chevalier, however, over whose pas-l

sive head so many discussions were going on, was not long of feeling the exciting in- fluence of the new idea, and allowed thoughts to enter into his mind which, in other circumstances, he would have thrust away from him. One of his sisters was a member of a chapter of noble £}zaIzoin:.r.\‘.e.i' —a kind of bzjguinagz, without labour or austerity, in which a select number of no- ble ladies, each in her “pretty house, sur- rounded by a little garden,” were collected round the chapel in which they said their daily pra 'ers. In winter these elegant nuns —i nuns they could be called- ivere alloived to pay visits as they pleased among their relatives and friends, and even when assembled in their chapter had evi- dently a very pretty society among them- selves, many being young, and all tun! soft fizu tnandaine, elegant, and fund of society. True, they were debarred all male visitors, but with one remarkable ex- ception. The 'oung r/uznizinzxrzx were allowed to receive visits from their broth- ers, who were permitted to stay with them fora fixed number of days at each visit, and to be presented to their friends in the chapter. This “conciliated everythin ,” as M. de Lamartine says; and thus in tie most natural way a few genuine love- matches, rare enough now, still more rare then, were made up from time to time in the pretty hall-monastic retirement where girls of fifteen still unprofessed lived under the genial charge of young women of twenty-five, dignified into “ madame," by the vows of the order. M. le Chevalier de Larnartine went very often to visit his