Prefects, receivers-general, and various administrations that have come and gone during the last forty years, have tried to tame the ancient families perched aloft like wary ravens on their crag; the said families were always willing to accept invitations to dinners and dances; but as to admitting the strangers to their own houses, they were inexorable. Ready to scoff and disparage, jealous and niggardly, marrying only among themselves, the families formed a serried phalanx to keep out intruders. Of modern luxury they had no notion; and as for sending a boy to Paris, it was sending him, they thought, to certain ruin. Such sagacity will give a sufficient idea of the old-world manners and customs of this society, suffering from thick-headed Royalism, infected with bigotry rather than zeal, all stagnating together, motionless as their town founded upon a rock. Yet Angoulême enjoyed a great reputation in the provinces round about for its educational advantages, and neighboring towns sent their daughters to its boarding schools and convents. It is easy to imagine the influence of the class sentiment which held Angoulême aloof from L’Houmeau. The merchant classes are rich, the _noblesse_ are usually poor. Each side takes its revenge in scorn of the other. The tradespeople in Angoulême espouse the quarrel. “He is a man of L’Houmeau!” a shopkeeper of the upper town will tell you, speaking of a merchant in the lower suburb, throwing an accent into the speech which no words can describe. When the Restoration defined the position of the French _noblesse_, holding out hopes to them which could only be realized by a complete and general topsy-turvydom, the distance between Angoulême and L’Houmeau, already more strongly marked than the distance between the hill and plain, was widened yet further. The better families, all devoted as one man to the Government, grew more exclusive here than in any other part of France. “The man of L’Houmeau” became little better than a pariah. Hence the deep, smothered hatred which broke out everywhere with such ugly unanimity in the insurrection of 1830 and destroyed the elements of a durable social system in France. As the overweening haughtiness of the Court nobles detached the provincial _noblesse_ from the throne, so did these last alienate the _bourgeoisie_ from the royal cause by behavior that galled their vanity in every possible way.