However this might be, a prodigious step was made; where he had once seen the downfall of monarchy he now saw the accession of France. The points of his moral compass were changed, and what had once been sunset was now sunrise; and all these revolutions took place in turns, without his family suspecting it. When, in this mysterious labor, he had entirely lost his old Bourbonic and Ultra skin, when he had pulled off the aristocrat, the Jacobite, and the Royalist, when he was a perfect Revolutionist, profoundly democratic, and almost republican, he went to an engraver's and ordered one hundred cards, with the address, "Baron Marius Pontmercy." This was but the logical consequence of the change which had taken place in him,--a change in which everything gravitated round his father. Still, as he knew nobody and could not show his cards at any porter's lodge, he put them in his pocket. By another natural consequence, in proportion as he drew nearer to his father, his memory, and the things for which the Colonel had fought during five-and-twenty years, he drew away from his grandfather. As we said, M. Gillenormand's humor had not suited him for a long time past, and there already existed between them all the dissonances produced by the contact of a grave young man with a frivolous old man. The gayety of Géronte offends and exasperates the melancholy of Werther. So long as the same political opinions and ideas had been common to them, Marius met his grandfather upon them as on a bridge; but when the bridge fell there was a great gulf between them. And then, before all else, Marius had indescribable attacks of revolt when he reflected that it was M. Gillenormand who, through stupid motives, pitilessly tore him from the Colonel, thus depriving father of son, and son of father. Through his reverence for his father, Marius had almost grown to have an aversion for his grandfather. Nothing of this, however, was revealed in his demeanor; he merely became colder than before, laconic at meals, and rarely at home. When his aunt scolded him for it he was very gentle, and alleged as excuse his studies, examinations, conferences, etc. The grandfather, however, still adhered to his infallible diagnostic,--"He is in love; I know the symptoms." Marius was absent every now and then. "Where can he go?" the aunt asked. In one of his trips, which were always very short, he went to Montfermeil in order to obey his father's intimation, and sought for the ex-Sergeant of Waterloo, Thénardier the landlord. Thénardier had failed, the public-house was shut up, and no one knew what had become of him. In making this search Marius remained away for four days. "He is decidedly getting out of order," said the grandfather. They also fancied they could notice that he wore under his shirt something fastened round his neck by a black ribbon. CHAPTER VII. SOME PETTICOAT.