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Like Chenonceaux, it escaped the revolution, and is now, with its
furniture of the sixteenth century, the residence of the Marquis de
Biancourt, descended from its ancient proprietors.
As we sauntered over the gardens, our conversation turned on the old
aristocracy of France.
'The loss of our aristocracy,' said Tocqueville, 'is a misfortune from
which we have not even begun to recover. The Legitimists are their
territorial successors; they are the successors in their manners, in
their loyalty, and in their prejudices of _caste_; but they are not their
successors in cultivation, or intelligence, or energy, or, therefore, in
influence. Between them and the _bourgeoisie_ is a chasm, which shows no
tendency to close. Nothing but a common interest and a common pursuit
will bring them together.
'If the murder of the Duc d'Enghien had not made them recoil in terror
and disgust from Napoleon, they might have perhaps been welded into one
mass with his new aristocracy of services, talents, and wealth.
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