Besides
he felt keenly the profound sorrow of his young friend, and respected
it. After a rather long silence, Noel raised his head, and returned to
the correspondence.
"All the letters which follow," said he, "carry traces of the
preoccupation of my father's mind on the subject of his bastard son. I
lay them, however, aside. But this is what strikes me in the one written
from Rome, on March 5, 1829. 'My son, our son, that is my great, my only
anxiety. How to secure for him the future position of which I dream?
The nobles of former times were not worried in this way. In those days
I would have gone to the king, who, with a word, would have assured
the child's position in the world. To-day, the king who governs with
difficulty his disaffected subjects can do nothing. The nobility has
lost its rights, and the highest in the land are treated the same as
the meanest peasants!' Lower down I find,--'My heart loves to picture to
itself the likeness of our son. He will have the spirit, the mind, the
beauty, the grace, all the fascinations of his mother. He will inherit
from his father, pride, valour, and the sentiments of a noble race. And
the other, what will he be like? I tremble to think of it.
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