"He is more than that, my friend," answered Septimus Marvin, nodding his head slowly, so that the sun flashed on his spectacles in such a manner as to make Turner blink. Then he turned away again and crossed the bridge, leaving the English banker at the corner of it, still blinking. CHAPTER XVIII THE CITY THAT SOON FORGETS There are in humble life some families which settle their domestic differences on the doorstep, while the neighbours, gathered hastily by the commotion, tiptoe behind each other to watch the fun. In the European congerie France represents this loud-voiced household, and Paris--Paris, the city that soon forgets--is the doorstep whereon they wrangle. The bones of contention may be pitched far and wide by the chances and changes of exile, but the contending dogs bark and yap in Paris. At this time there lived, sometimes in Italy, sometimes at Frohsdorf, a jovial young gentleman, fond of sport and society, cultivating the tastes and enjoying the easy existence of a country-gentleman of princely rank--the Comte de Chambord. Son of that Duchesse de Berri who tried to play a great part and failed, he was married to an Italian princess and had no children. He was, therefore, the last of the Bourbons, and passed in Europe as such. But he did not care. Perhaps his was the philosophy of the indolent which saith that some one must be last and why not I? Nevertheless, there ran in his veins some energetic blood. On his father's side he was descended from sixty-six kings of France. From his mother he inherited a relationship to many makers of history. For the Duchesse de Berri's grandmother was the sister of Marie Antoinette. Her mother was aunt to that Empress of the French, Marie Louise, who was a notable exception to the rule that "Bon sang ne peut mentir." Her father was a king of Sicily and Naples. She was a Bourbon married to a Bourbon. When she was nineteen she gave birth to a daughter, who died next day. In a year she had a son who died in twenty hours. Two years later her husband died in her arms, assassinated, in a back room of the Opera House in Paris. Seven months after her husband's death she gave birth to the Comte de Chambord, the last of the old Bourbons. She was active, energetic and of boundless courage. She made a famous journey through La Vendée on horseback to rally the Royalists. She urged her father-in-law, Charles X, to resist the revolution. She was the best Royalist of them all. And her son was the Comte de Chambord, who could have been a king if he had not been a philosopher, or a coward. He was waiting till France called him with one voice. As if France had ever called for anything with one voice!