The Revolution of 1830, fell like a thunder-bolt upon France, and the Bourbons of the elder branch allowed themselves to be driven from their post. The elements of revolution had been for the last seven or eight years fermenting far more in society, in the arts and in literature, than in the political sphere; and Ferdinand, with all his heart and soul a devoted royalist, as far as the government was concerned, was naïvely and unsuspectingly in every thing else, a determined revolutionist, overthrowing intellectual dynasties, spurning authority, mocking at control, gloating over Victor Hugo, George Sand, _e tutti quanti_, and fancying the whole was quite compatible with the political faith he would sooner have died than resign. Sometimes Madame de Candolles would think very seriously of what could be the future career of her son, and the word _Nothing!_ emblazoned in gigantic ideal letters, was the only answer her imagination ever framed. In 1832, it so happened that the now prefect named in the department, was an old friend of the widow’s family—a _bourgeois_, it is true, still a respectable man, whose father and uncle had, in very difficult times, rendered more than one signal service to Madame de Candolles’ own parents. M. Durand and his wife drew Ferdinand and his mother as much about them as they possibly could, and whenever he found an occasion of insinuating any thing of the kind into the widow’s ear, the well-intentioned préfet would talk seriously, nay, almost paternally, of her son’s future, and the little it seemed likely to offer him. One day, after a conversation in which Madame de Candolles had more freely than usual admitted the barrenness of the lad’s prospects, M. Durand contrived to lead her insensibly toward the notion of some employment whereby a becoming existence might be insured, hinted that there were positions where political opinions need be no obstacle, to which the nomination even did not emanate directly from the government, and ended by proposing to invest Ferdinand with the dignity of head librarian to the _Bibliothèque de la Ville_, a place yielding some hundred and fifty pounds a year, and just left vacant by the death of Madame Durand’s nephew. Madame de Candolles’ surprise was scarcely surpassed by her indignation, and, though she managed to cover both by a slight veil of politeness, there was in her refusal a degree of haughtiness that went well-nigh to disturb the honest préfet’s equanimity. As to Ferdinand, he did not exactly know, when the offer was first made clear to him, whether he ought not to take down a certain sword worn at Marigny by his ancestor, Palamède de Candolles, and punish M. Durand with positive loss of life for his audacity; but, when what he called _reason_ returned, he determined simply by the frigid dignity of his manners in future to make the _bourgeois_ functionary of Louis Philippe feel the full extent of his mistake, and bring him to a proper