Both were graceful, easy, assured, and they fulfilled Robert's conception of French officers, as men of the world who knew courts and manners.

It was a time when courts were more important than they are today, and they were recognized universally as the chief fountains from which flowed honor and advancement.
Robert did not like them as well as St.Luc, but he found a certain charm in their company.

They could talk of things that interested him, and they exerted themselves, telling indirectly of the glories of Quebec and alluding now and then to the greater splendors of Paris and Versailles.

It was a time when the French monarchy loomed as the greatest power in the world.

The hollowness and decay of the House of Bourbon were not yet disclosed, even to the shrewdest observers, and a spell was cast upon all the civilized nations by the gorgeous and glittering world of fashion and the world of arms.