As we know from Gandish's work, that better times were in store for the
wandering monarch, and that the officers came acquainting him that his
people demanded his presence a grands cris, when of course King Alfred
laid down the toast and resumed the sceptre; so in the case of Florac,
two humble gentlemen, inhabitants of Lamb Court, and members of the Upper
temple, had the good luck to be the heralds as it were, nay indeed, the
occasion, of the rising fortunes of the Prince de Moncontour. Florac had
informed us of the death of his cousin the Duc d'Ivry, by whose demise
the Vicomte's father, the old Count de Florac, became the representative
of the house of Ivry, and possessor, through his relative's bequest, of
an old chateau still more gloomy and spacious than the count's own house
in the Faubourg St. Germain--a chateau, of which the woods, domains, and
appurtenances had been lopped off by the Revolution. "Monsieur le Comte,"
Florac says, "has not wished to change his name at his age; he has
shrugged his old shoulder, and said it was not the trouble to make to
engrave a new card; and for me," the philosophical Vicomte added, "of
what good shall be a title of prince in the position where I find
myself?" It is wonderful for us who inhabit a country where rank is
worshipped with so admirable a reverence, to think that there are many
gentlemen in France who actually have authentic titles and do not choose
to bear them.
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