You now understand me, madam. You will not expect in this book a history of important events, or the vivid details of love. I have spoken of utility; and of what use is a love-story? In that sweet study, practice is worth more than theory, and each one needs his own experience: each one hastens to acquire it, and cares little to seek it already prepared in books. It is useless for old men, moralists by necessity, to cry, “Shun that dangerous rock, where we have once been shipwrecked!” Their children answer them, “You have tempted that sea, and we must tempt it in turn. We claim our right of shipwreck.”
Yet is there in my story something still of love; but, before all, of a man’s love for——shall I tell you? No, read, and you will learn.
X. B. Saintine.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
Charles Veramont, Count de Charney, whose name is not wholly effaced from the annals of modern science, and may be found inscribed in the mysterious archives of the police under Napoleon, was endowed by nature with an uncommon capacity for study. Unluckily, however, his intelligence of mind, schooled by the forms of a college education, had taken a disputatious turn. He was an able logician rather than a sound reasoner; and there was in Charney the composition of a learned man, but not of a philosopher.
At twenty-five, the count was master of seven languages; but instead of following the example of certain learned Polyglots, who seem to acquire foreign idioms for the express purpose of exposing their incapacity to the contempt of foreigners, as well as of their own countrymen, through a confusion of tongues, as well as intellect, Charney regarded his acquirements as a linguist only as a stepping-stone to others of higher value. Commanding the services of so many menials of the intellect, he assigned to each his business, his duty, his fields to cultivate. The Germans served him for metaphysics; the English and Italians for politics and jurisprudence; all for history; to the remotest sources of which he travelled in company with the Romans, Greeks, and Hebrews.