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Went again over the Hôtel Monaco, but its dilapidated state somewhat alarms us. The suite of reception rooms are magnificent, but the garden into which they open pleases me still more, for it is vast and umbrageous. The line old hôtels in the Faubourg St.-Germain, and this is one of the finest, give one a good idea of the splendour of the noblesse de l'ancien régime.
Les Origines de la France Contemporaine. Tom. i. L'Ancien Régime. Par H. Taine. Paris: Hachette. 1876. But with all its attractiveness and high uses of its own, the genius for literature in its proper sense is distinct from the genius for political history. The discipline is different, because the matter is different.
The cane of a deceased philosopher is in close contact with the golden-hilted sword of a petit maître de l'ancien régime, and the sparkling tabatière of a Marquis Musqué, the partaker if not the cause of half his succès dans le monde, is placed by the chapelet of a religieuse de haute naissance, who often perhaps dropped a tear on the beads as she counted them in saying her Ave Marias, when some unbidden thought of the world she had resigned usurped the place of her aspirations for a brighter and more enduring world.
The air of this Court was to take the counterpart of all which had been thought right under Louis XIV. "Cela resemble trop a l'ancien systeme" was an answer so often given that it became a jest and almost a proverb.
He is of the provincial English, what you call a Nonconformist bah! He is clever, but bourgeois. He grates upon me; for I, his subordinate in this service, am aristocrat, a Count of l'ancien régime, catholique, presque royaliste. His blood is that of muddy peasants, yet he is my chief! Peste, I spit upon the sacred name of Dawson!"
De Tocqueville, "L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution," 166. "The Revolution," vol. I., p. 116. Buchez et Roux, I., 481. The list of notables convoked by the King in 1787 gives an approximate idea of this social staff.
"'Toute la Basse Silesie, la riviere de Neisse pour limite, la ville de Neisse a nous, aussi bien que Glatz; de l'autre cote de l'Oder l'ancien limite entre les Duches de Brieg et d'Oppeln. Namslau a nous. Les affaires de religion IN STATU QUO. Point de dependance de la Boheme; cession eternelle. En echange nous n'irons pas plus loin.
"Vive le Roi, et l'ancien regime!" was the word as each detachment joined a word most irritating to Papalier, who thought to himself many times during this night, that he would have put all to hazard on his own estate, rather than have undertaken this march, if he had known that he was to be one of a company of negroes, gathering like the tempest in its progress, and uttering at every turning, as if in mockery of himself, "Vive le Roi, et l'ancien regime!"
In the retired life which De Tocqueville led as a literary man political life being closed against him by the inflexible independence of his character his health failed, and he became ill, irritable, and querulous. While proceeding with his last work, 'L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution, he wrote: "After sitting at my desk for five or six hours, I can write no longer; the machine refuses to act.
The Jesuit Fathers have acted this time with the same charity and cordiality as on the former occasion. Mgr. L'Ancien and M. Petit have lived nearly two months in their infirmary. This rest has been very profitable to Monseigneur, for he has come forth from it quite rejuvenated. May the Lord grant that he be preserved a long time yet for the glory of God and the good of Canada!"
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