"'Unquestionably,' he replied. 'And that would be too cruel; you are as good a man as any of them.'
"'Very well,' I answered. 'Afterwards I can return to my proper station.'
"But, dear mother, you cannot think what these words meant to me, notwithstanding that I ought to have known it to be so. I left him at once and fled into the park in order to hide my suffering. Oh, it is too beautiful to lose--this sphere of honour and refinement, this world of the lovely, the ancestral, this supreme enchantment of the earth. Having tasted it, how can I return to the common and despised condition of mankind in general! Mother, you who have taught me that this is my true world, I leave it to you to answer.
"That afternoon we drove into the town of Fontainebleau, where there was a very fine haberdasher, just come from Paris, who agreed to make me the proper suit and to supply all the accessories. Two days after, I put on the uniform of a _débutant_, which cost me pretty dear but made a fine figure. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I longed for your spirit to have been in the glass only to see your son in such an array. The coat was dove-grey satin; waistcoat of dark red, finely figured, with silver buttons; small clothes of red, white silk stockings, and jewelled shoes with the red heels which are worn at Court. I also bought a new dress sword. It has an openwork silver handle and guard; the blade sheathed in a white scabbard, which is silver-mounted. I wore large frills and a small French hat finely laced with gold; and I bought besides long hunting-boots.
"I drove in our coach to the Palace. As I entered the gates the officer of the guard espied the livery of the Chevalier, and immediately caused his company to salute me, observing which all the gentlemen standing near took off their hats and bowed to me. I drove into the Court of the White Horse, a great square, one of the five around which this vast palace is built, and at the entrance door I was met by my dear friend Baron de Grancey.
"The Baron said to me, 'Did you not tell us you had never been to Court before?'
"I answered that I had not; and, indeed, my _débutant_ dress and ignorance were sufficient witness to it.
"'You must, then, have all the honours,' he said. 'He who comes up for the first time registers his genealogy and has a right to ride in the King's carriages.'