"Good!" exclaimed the marquis, "a noble ambition. You aspire to be the founder of a race illustrious in the arts, and to earn your own nobility, instead of throwing it away, as so many poor creatures do who are unworthy to bear a great name. But would you consider it a disadvantage that your descendants should be proud to bear your name?"
"Yes, signor marquis, I would, if my descendants were ignorant fools."
"My friend," replied the marquis, very calmly, "I am aware that the nobility has degenerated in all countries, and I do not need to tell you that it is the less pardonable in proportion to the degree of distinction that it had to bear and of grandeur to maintain. But is it for us to call this or that social rank to book, or to attempt to decide concerning the merit or lack of merit of the individuals who compose it? The most interesting, and at the same time the most profitable course for us all, in a discussion of this sort, would be to examine the institution in itself. Will you not tell me your ideas, Michel, and whether you approve or disapprove the distinctions established between different classes of men?"
"I approve them," said Michel, unhesitatingly, "for I aspire to distinguish myself; but I disapprove any application of the principle of heredity in such distinctions."
"Of the principle of heredity?" repeated the marquis. "In so far as fortune and power are concerned, I agree. That is a French idea—a bold idea. I like such ideas! But in so far as regards disinterested renown, honor pure and simple—will you allow me to ask you a few questions, my boy?
"Let us assume that Michelangelo Lavoratori, here present, was born only two or three hundred years ago. Let us assume that he was the rival of Raphael or Titian, and that he left a name worthy to stand beside those glorious names. I will assume, also, that this palace in which we now are belonged to him, and that it has remained in his family. Lastly, let us assume that you are the last scion of that family, and that you do not cultivate the art of painting. Your inclinations have turned you toward some other profession, or perhaps you have no profession, for you are rich; the noble works of your illustrious ancestor produced a fortune which his descendants have faithfully transmitted to you. You are standing here under your own roof, in the portrait gallery in which your ancestors have their places one after another. Moreover, you know the history of all of them. It is contained in manuscripts which have been carefully preserved and handed down in your family.
"Let us suppose, further, that I, a child picked up on the steps of a hospital, wander into this palace. I am ignorant of my father's name, and even of that of the unfortunate creature who gave birth to me. I have no ties whatever that bind me to the past, and, born but yesterday, I gaze with surprise upon this succession of ancestors from whom you have descended through well-nigh three centuries. I question you in open-mouthed wonder, and I am even inclined to make sport of you for living thus with the dead and through the dead; and I doubt whether this brilliant lineage has not deteriorated a little in the lapse of time.
"You answer me by pointing with pride to the founder of your race, the illustrious Michelangelo Lavoratori, who, from nothing at all, had become a great man, and whose memory will never perish. Then you tell me a fact at which I marvel greatly: that the sons and daughters of this Michel, overflowing with veneration for their father's memory, chose to be artists too. One was a musician, another an engraver, a third a painter. If they did not receive from heaven the same talents as their father, they did at all events retain in their hearts and transmit to their children respect and love for art. Their children, in their turn, did likewise, and all these talents, all these mottoes, all these biographies, which you exhibit to me and explain to me, present the spectacle of several generations of artists, eager to maintain the standard of their hereditary profession. Unquestionably only a few among all these seekers after glory were truly worthy of the name they bore. Genius is an exception, and it takes you but a short time to point out to me the small number of noteworthy artists who have upheld by their own labors the glory of your family. But that small number has been sufficient to replenish your generous blood, and to maintain in the ideas of the intermediate generations a certain fire, a certain pride, a certain thirst for grandeur which may still produce distinguished men.
"But I, a foundling, isolated in the vast expanse of time—I continue my apologue,—a natural scorner of all hereditary celebrity, seek to lower your pride. I smile with an air of triumph when you admit that this or that ancestor, whose portrait impresses me by its air of innocence, was never anything more than a paltry genius, a narrow-minded creature; that a certain other, whose rakish dress and bristling moustache I do not like, was a black sheep, a fool or a fanatic; in short, I give you to understand that you are a degenerate artist, because you have not inherited the sacred fire, and that you have fallen asleep in a luxurious far niente, contemplating the fruitful life of your forefathers.
"Thereupon you reply to me; and you will allow me to place in your mouth a few words which seem to me not devoid of sense: