Oratorian teachings, took me from Pont-le-Voy, and sent me to Paris to
an institution in the Marais. I was then fifteen. When examined as to
my capacity, I, who was in the rhetoric class at Pont-le-Voy, was
pronounced worthy of the third class. The sufferings I had endured in
my family and in school were continued under another form during my
stay at the Lepitre Academy. My father gave me no money; I was to be
fed, clothed, and stuffed with Latin and Greek, for a sum agreed on.
During my school life I came in contact with over a thousand comrades;
but I never met with such an instance of neglect and indifference as
mine. Monsieur Lepitre, who was fanatically attached to the Bourbons,
had had relations with my father at the time when all devoted
royalists were endeavoring to bring about the escape of Marie
Antoinette from the Temple. They had lately renewed acquaintance; and
Monsieur Lepitre thought himself obliged to repair my father's
oversight, and to give me a small sum monthly. But not being
authorized to do so, the amount was small indeed.

The Lepitre establishment was in the old Joyeuse mansion where, as in
all seignorial houses, there was a porter's lodge. During a recess,
which preceded the hour when the man-of-all-work took us to the
Charlemagne Lyceum, the well-to-do pupils used to breakfast with the
porter, named Doisy. Monsieur Lepitre was either ignorant of the fact
or he connived at this arrangement with Doisy, a regular smuggler whom
it was the pupils' interest to protect,--he being the secret guardian
of their pranks, the safe confidant of their late returns and their
intermediary for obtaining forbidden books. Breakfast on a cup of
"cafe-au-lait" is an aristocratic habit, explained by the high prices
to which colonial products rose under Napoleon. If the use of sugar
and coffee was a luxury to our parents, with us it was the sign of
self-conscious superiority. Doisy gave credit, for he reckoned on the