He sympathised neither with the young enthusiasts who desired a republic, without well knowing the numerous strata of habits and customs upon which that fabric, if designed for permanence, should be built--nor with the uneducated and fierce chivalry that longed for a restoration of the warrior empire--nor with the dull and arrogant bigots who connected all ideas of order and government with the ill-starred and worn-out dynasty of the Bourbons.

In fact, GOOD SENSE was with him the _principium et fons_ of all theories and all practice.

And it was this quality that attached him to the English.

His philosophy on this head was rather curious.
"Good sense," said he one day to Maltravers, as they were walking to and fro at De Montaigne's villa, by the margin of the lake, "is not a merely intellectual attribute.

It is rather the result of a just equilibrium of all our faculties, spiritual and moral.