It is galling to admit it, but there is no blinking the facts of history.

It seems to me that the feeling of independence and self-respect which this English system gives rise to, even among the lowest class, must render them man for man better soldiers than those drawn from a peasantry whose very lives are at the mercy of their lords." "I think, du Tillet," the marquis said later on on the same evening, when the young people had retired, "I have done very well in taking my brother Auguste's advice as to having an English companion for Ernest.

If things were as they were under the Grand Monarque, I do not say that it would have been wise to allow a young French nobleman to get these English ideas into his head, but it is different now.
"We are on the eve of great changes.

What will come of it no one can say; but there will certainly be changes, and it is a good thing that my children should get broader ideas than those in which we were brought up.

This lad is quiet and modest, but he ventures to think for himself.