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"Courfeyrac had a father whose name was M. de Courfeyrac. One of the false ideas of the restoration in point of aristocracy and nobility was its faith in the particle. The particle, we know, has no significance. But the bourgeois of the time of La Minerve considered this poor de so highly that men thought themselves obliged to renounce it.... Courfeyrac did not wish to be behind, and called himself briefly Courfeyrac. [He] had in fact that youthful animation which we might call the diabolic beauty of mind. In later life, this dies out, like the playfulness of the kitten, and all that grace ends, on two feet in the bourgeois, and on four paws in the mouser.... There was in Tholomyès an attorney, and in Courfeyrac a paladin. Enjolras was the chief, Combeferre was the guide, Courfeyrac was the center. The others gave more light, he gave more heat; the truth is that he had all the qualities of a center, roundness and radiance." |