A year later Gilbert finished his military studies at Versailles, and, in accordance with his father’s wish, went over for some months to England, where he had relatives, the Marquise’s dead sister having married a Suffolk squire. It was not solely the claims of kinship which had prompted this visit. The Marquis de Château-Foix was deeply imbued with the ideas then prevalent among the Liberal _noblesse_ in France. Like them he desired to better the position of his tenantry; like them he sought help in English methods of agriculture, introducing these not only at Chantemerle, but in the small, distant, and not often visited estate near Lyons from which he took his title of Château-Foix. His father’s projects had been familiar to Gilbert ever since he was old enough to understand them, and, a native of that unique province where the curse of a non-resident nobility was scarcely known, and where _seigneur_ and peasantry were on almost patriarchal terms of intimacy, of mutual respect and often of affection, the young man considered them the outcome of a very natural instinct. He had, therefore, every sympathy with the Marquis’ views; he meant, when he had made his own career, to settle down and carry on his father’s work after the latter’s death, and though this event would not, he trusted, take place till a remote period—for the Marquis was only five-and-forty—Gilbert was pleased to think that if his sojourn in England proved profitable he might even now be of use to him. With these virtuous intentions he embarked for England, and found his stay under the hospitable roof of his English uncle agreeable as well as valuable. Sir William Ashley was pleased to approve of him, saying, indeed—than which there could be no higher praise—that he was almost like an Englishman; his cousin, George Ashley, of about his own age, was at hand to pilot him round neighbouring estates or about London, his younger cousin Amelia to welcome him when he came back. Hither also came Louis for a short visit, to make violent, half-teasing love to Amelia and to embitter the hearts of youthful country gentlemen by his elegance and good looks, and—chiefly for that reason—to create a certain relief in Gilbert’s mind when he departed. The English turnip, that supremely important root, was receiving Gilbert’s attention when the messenger brought him the news that was to change his whole career. The Marquis de Château-Foix had died in two days of a chill contracted while superintending some building operations on the estate. Voltairean and sceptic, he had given his life for his ideals, and the young man of twenty, whose feet, indeed, were at the moment heavy with the soil of a Suffolk turnip-field, but whose hand was always, in idea, on the hilt of the sword which was to make him a glorious name, was left to reign in his stead—if he chose.