Quite apart from these valid, historical reasons, the British "love of a lord" is by no means confined to Great Britain. The Parisians, also, have a certain fondness for titles and distinctions of all sorts. For the English aristocracy they profess a genuine admiration, as affording the best example of the success of a certain _élite_ in affecting the social conscience. They quote approvingly John Bright when he admits that his folk--trades-people and commoners--are quite willing to have their public affairs managed by a superior class, specially trained, enjoying an independent and commanding social station. Their titles and their pride of ancestry give them robes and plumes, and a troop follows its officers more readily when they are gorgeously uniformed. Only, it is required that this privilege shall not be abused; no favor to mediocrities, no nepotism. Victor Hugo was more proud of his title of _vicomte Hugo_ than of his greatest work, and Balzac's obstinacy in clinging to his particle of _de_ has lately been shown to have been completely unfounded. To Sainte-Beuve, who infuriated him by constantly speaking of him as _M. Honoré Balzac_, he wrote: "My name is on my register of birth, as M. Fitz-James's is on his." So it is, but without any _de_. In 1836, at the period of the legal process to which one of his works, _Le Lys dans la vallée_, gave rise, he wrote: "If my name is that of an _old Gaulish family_, it is not my fault; but my name, De Balzac, is my name patronymic, an advantage which is not enjoyed by many aristocratic families who called themselves Odet before they called themselves Châtillon, Riquet before Caraman, Duplessis before Richelieu, and which are none the less great families.... If my name resounds well in some ears, if it is envied by some who are not content with their own, I cannot therefore renounce it.... My father ... found in the _Trésor des Chartres_ the concession of land made in the fifth century by the De Balzacs to establish a monastery in the environs of the little town of Balzac (department of La Charente), a copy of which, he told me, was, by their action, enregistered by the Parliament of Paris." It appears that there are existing no Merovingian records of any kind dating earlier than the seventh century; and a keeper of archives, M. Ch. Portal, in the department of Tarn, in which the death of the great novelist's father, "Bernard-François Balzac, born at Nougaïris," is recorded, having looked the matter up, discovered that his ancestors were simple country-people, laborers, who had never dreamed of a _de_ before their name, which, in fact, was really Balssa or Balsa!