The Count of Monte Cristo

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Spanish, but the family of Morcerf is French, and, I have heard, one of
the oldest of the south of France."

"Yes," replied Monte Cristo "these blazons prove that. Almost all the
armed pilgrims that went to the Holy Land took for their arms either a
cross, in honor of their mission, or birds of passage, in sign of
the long voyage they were about to undertake, and which they hoped to
accomplish on the wings of faith. One of your ancestors had joined the
Crusades, and supposing it to be only that of St. Louis, that makes you
mount to the thirteenth century, which is tolerably ancient."

"It is possible," said Morcerf; "my father has in his study a
genealogical tree which will tell you all that, and on which I made
commentaries that would have greatly edified Hozier and Jaucourt. At
present I no longer think of it, and yet I must tell you that we are
beginning to occupy ourselves greatly with these things under our
popular government."