Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/146

 Ursule, as one cannot maintain that there is no bond of parentage between Ursule and the doctor; but this suit would certainly frighten a defenceless young girl and might lead to some compromise.”

“The severity of the law upon the claims of natural children is so great,” said the newly-made licentiate, anxious to show off his knowledge, “that, according to the terms of a decision of the supreme Court of Appeal of the seventh of July, 1817, a natural child can lay claim to nothing from his natural grandfather, not even maintenance. So you see how they have widened the parentage of the natural child. The law pursues the natural child even to its legitimate descent, for it alleges that the liberality shown to the grandchildren applies to the natural son by interposition of person. This results from comparing Articles 757, 908 and 911 of the Civil Code. The Royal Court of Paris on the twenty-sixth of December of last year also reduced the legacy left to the legitimate child of the natural son by the grandfather, who, most assuredly, as a grandfather, was as much of a stranger to the natural grandson as the doctor, as an uncle, could be to Ursule.”

“All that,” said Goupil, “seems to me only to concern the question of gifts made by the grandparents to the natural descendants; it is no question at all of the uncles, who do not appear to me to have any tie of kindred with the legitimate children of their natural brothers-in-law. Ursule is a stranger to Doctor Minoret. I recollect a decision