Our games never interfered with the coming and going of visitors and
habitual guests and old friends of my father's, who had been his friends
before the Revolution. There was the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, "the good
Duke," as he was called, very much dreaded by us children because he was
always kissing us, and smelt so strongly of tobacco; and M. de Lally-
Tollendal; and then friends of more recent date, General Gerard, Raoul
de Montmorency, Madame de Boigne, the Princesse de Poix, the Princesse
de Vaudemont, besides many others, soldiers, artists, diplomats, and
ladies--every one, in fact, who was distinguished either by their
personal charm, by mental qualities, or by the brilliancy of their
career. Some amongst the number were more congenial to me than others;
such as Francois Arago, the astronomer, inexhaustible in wit and humour,
whether he was recounting his adventures when he was in captivity in the
Barbary States, or the way he plagued his colleague Ampere, a soldier
like himself in the regiment of the "Parrots in mourning," as he dubbed
the Institute, in his southern accent, because of its green and black
uniform. And then Macdonald, Marmont, Molitor, and Mortier, the four
Marshals whose name began with M, the heroes of a hundred fights, the
living embodiment of the renown our arms had won. We used all of us to
try and hear whatever they said, whatever stories they told, and to
gather up any information or anecdote touching the military glory of our
country.

The diplomats interested us less--I will not speak of M. de Talleyrand,
whose face and figure were striking enough, though they made but little
impression on our uninformed imaginations. Yet I remember the fits of
laughter we went into one day, when my father, in a fit of absence, aped
the great man's limp as he crossed the drawing-room to receive him. We
delighted in Pozzo di Borgo, the Russian Ambassador, because as soon as