had raised themselves into what is ignorantly but generally considered to be the noble caste by the addition of the “de.” Amidst such an influx of new recruits the authentic old nobility is, in these days, completely overwhelmed. There being no strictly-kept peerage, as in England, there is nothing authoritative to refer to, and an injurious doubt is cast upon real coronets by the perplexing abundance of false ones. Besides the “de,” the most positive titles are coolly assumed and worn. You may meet with people who live in an old château and are very _comme il faut_, very simple and well bred, without any appearance of false pretension whatever, yet they have just one little bit of false pretension--their title. They call themselves Count and Countess, yet are not Count and Countess at all. Their fortune was made in business two generations ago, and the château purchased, and the title of the old family that once lived there gradually assumed by a too familiar process. [Sidenote: Absence of a pure Caste in England.] [Sidenote: Younger Branches.] [Sidenote: New Peers.] The French _noblesse_, as a caste, is spoiled by this intrusion and acceptance of false nobles, but if there were not this fatal objection it would be much more truly a caste than the British nobility and gentry. There is, in fact, no pure and well-guarded upper caste in England except simply the holders of titles. You may belong to the highest nobility in England by descent, and there will be nothing to distinguish you from a plebeian unless you are a son of the representative of the family. In every genuine _noblesse_ noble blood continues to bear some distinctive mark of caste. The English way is more convenient, because it constantly throws off the poorer branches into the general mixture that we vaguely call “the middle classes”; the continental way of preserving a noble caste, even in its poorer members, is more faithful to the principle of descent. The way of selecting new men for the English peerage is also a violation of the caste principle. They are not usually taken from well-descended families, but from the new rich, and in this way we constantly see men of low birth elevated to a position which instantly gives them precedence over the most ancient untitled families in England. In short, we live in a time of confusion between the true caste principle and the true democratic principle, a confusion that will ultimately be cleared away by the abolition of titles, though that is still in the distant future. Meanwhile the new rich in France may fairly argue that as they have not, like their English brethren, a sovereign to ennoble them, they have no resource but to ennoble themselves. [Sidenote: Abolition of Caste by Poverty.]