agitation which reigned outside should not be felt in the college. I
will say also that Dom Ferlus, with diplomatic skill, presented the
appearance of approving of what he could not prevent. The walls
therefore were covered with Republican slogans. It was forbidden to
use the word "Monsieur". The pupils went to the dining hall or on
walks, singing the Marseillaise or other Republican hymns; and as
they heard continually of the achievements of our armies, in which
some of the older pupils were even enrolled as volunteers, and as
they were brought up in a military atmosphere, (since, even before
the revolution, Sorèze was a military college, where one learned
drill, horse-riding, fortification, and so on), all this youth had,
for some time, adopted a warrior-like stance and spirit which had led
to a slackening of good manners. Added to which the uniform
contributed greatly to give them a very strange aspect. The scholars
wore big shoes, which were cleaned only every ten days, stockings of
grey thread, plain brown trousers and jacket, no waistcoat, shirts
undone, and covered with stains of ink and red pencil, no tie,
nothing on the head, the hair in a pig-tail, often undone, and the
hands....! Like those of a coal-heaver.

Imagine me, clean, polished, dressed in clothes of fine cloth,
neat and tidy, thrown into the midst of seven hundred urchins, got up
as imps, and who, on hearing a shout of "Here are some new ones!"
left their games and came, in a mob to gather round us, staring as if
we were strange animals.

My father embraced us and left...! I was in a state of utter
despair! Here I was, alone, alone for the first time in my life, my
brother being in the upper school while I was in the lower. We were
in the middle of winter. It was very cold, but according to school