Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/91

 apply the title of your predilection, and behold you are, without more ado, a noble of France. No need of papers or permissions. You are noble by the grace of your own goodwill; and as most of the people around you are playing the same game, there is no earthly reason why your friend should be more of a count than you are of a baron. And so you may aspire to a larger dot from your bride. If you are in the army, you may even look as high as your general's daughter; and when you travel abroad or journey in the provinces, you will be made to understand what a fine thing it is to be able, thanks to your own valour and judgment, to inscribe yourself in hotel books as M. le Baron or M. le Comte. You will be served better than when you were plain Mr. So-and-So. Waiters will help you off and on with your coat with a deference hitherto not enjoyed by you in your anterior plebeian state, and the society papers will record your great doings with gusto and fervour. Who, under these circumstances, would not be a count or a marquis? Had I known years ago of the facilities and advantages offered in France to titled adventurers, I might have had the wit and wisdom to style myself countess of this or baroness of that, the sole existing representative of an Irish King or a Norman house. Indeed, such is the predisposition of the French bourgeois to believe in the noble origin of his