The Comte de Chagny, standing up in his box, listened to all this

frenzy and took part in it by loudly applauding. Philippe Georges

Marie Comte de Chagny was just forty-one years of age. He was a great

aristocrat and a good-looking man, above middle height and with

attractive features, in spite of his hard forehead and his rather cold

eyes. He was exquisitely polite to the women and a little haughty to

the men, who did not always forgive him for his successes in society.

He had an excellent heart and an irreproachable conscience. On the

death of old Count Philibert, he became the head of one of the oldest

and most distinguished families in France, whose arms dated back to the

fourteenth century. The Chagnys owned a great deal of property; and,

when the old count, who was a widower, died, it was no easy task for

Philippe to accept the management of so large an estate. His two

sisters and his brother, Raoul, would not hear of a division and waived

their claim to their shares, leaving themselves entirely in Philippe's

hands, as though the right of primogeniture had never ceased to exist.

When the two sisters married, on the same day, they received their

portion from their brother, not as a thing rightfully belonging to

them, but as a dowry for which they thanked him.

The Comtesse de Chagny, nee de Moerogis de La Martyniere, had died in

giving birth to Raoul, who was born twenty years after his elder

brother. At the time of the old count's death, Raoul was twelve years

of age. Philippe busied himself actively with the youngster's

education. He was admirably assisted in this work first by his sisters

and afterward by an old aunt, the widow of a naval officer, who lived

at Brest and gave young Raoul a taste for the sea. The lad entered the

Borda training-ship, finished his course with honors and quietly made

his trip round the world. Thanks to powerful influence, he had just

been appointed a member of the official expedition on board the Requin,

which was to be sent to the Arctic Circle in search of the survivors of

the D'Artoi's expedition, of whom nothing had been heard for three

years. Meanwhile, he was enjoying a long furlough which would not be

over for six months; and already the dowagers of the Faubourg

Saint-Germain were pitying the handsome and apparently delicate

stripling for the hard work in store for him.

The shyness of the sailor-lad--I was almost saying his innocence--was

remarkable. He seemed to have but just left the women's apron-strings.

As a matter of fact, petted as he was by his two sisters and his old

aunt, he had retained from this purely feminine education manners that

were almost candid and stamped with a charm that nothing had yet been

able to sully. He was a little over twenty-one years of age and looked

eighteen. He had a small, fair mustache, beautiful blue eyes and a

complexion like a girl's.




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