This study analyzes the family life and public careers of six generations of a notable Parisian family, the Cochins. Bourgeois merchants in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Cochins earned nobility through the office of alderman (echevin) of Paris. Their family ethos fostered a much-needed element in French public life: a cautious, critical, liberal reform that reflected an independence from the Left, the Legitimist--and later nationalist--Right, as well as the Catholic Church. Still, even these reforming conservatives, however liberal, ultimately found themselves opposing the Third Republic.