says the Duc de Lauzun, “very prudently, and even deferentially with Mme. de Lauzun; I knew Mme. de Cambis very openly, for whom I concerned myself very little; I kept the little Eugénie whom I loved a great deal; I played high, I paid my court to the king, and I hunted with him with great punctuality."[33] He had for others, withal, that indulgence of which he himself stood in need.  “He was asked what he would say if his wife (whom he had not seen for ten years) should write to him that she had just discovered that she was enceinte.  He reflected a moment and then replied, ’I would write, and tell her that I was delighted that heaven had blessed our union; be careful of your health; I will call and pay my respects this evening.’ " There are countless replies of the same sort, and I venture to say that, without having read them, one could not imagine to what a degree social art had overcome natural instincts.

“Here at Paris,” writes Mme. d’Oberkirk, “I am no longer my own mistress.  I scarcely have time to talk with my husband and to answer my letters.  I do not know what women do that are accustomed to lead this life; they certainly have no families to look after, nor children to educate.”  At all events they act as if they had none, and the men likewise.  Married people not living together live but rarely with their children, and the causes that disintegrate wedlock also disintegrate the family.  In the first place there is the aristocratic tradition, which interposes a barrier between parents and children with a view to maintain a respectful distance.  Although enfeebled and about to disappear,[34] this tradition still subsists.  The son says " Monsieur” to his father; the daughter comes “respectfully” to kiss her mother’s hand at her toilet.  A caress is rare and seems a favor; children generally, when with their parents, are silent, the sentiment that usually animates them being that of deferential timidity.  At one time they were regarded as so many subjects, and up to a certain point they are so still; while the new exigencies of worldly life place them or keep them effectually aside.  M. de Talleyrand stated that he had never slept under the same roof with his father and mother.  And if they do sleep there, they are not the less neglected.  “I was entrusted,” says the Count de Tilly, “to valets; and to a kind of preceptor resembling these in more respects than one.”  During this time his father ran after women.  “I have known him,” adds the young man, “to have mistresses up to an advanced age; he was always adoring them and constantly abandoning them.”  The Duc de Lauzun finds it difficult to obtain a good tutor for his son; for this reason the latter writes, “he conferred the duty on one of my late mother’s lackeys who could read and write tolerably well, and to whom the title of valet-de-chambre was given to insure greater consideration.  They gave me the most fashionable teachers besides;