our childhood, and perhaps too in the first awakening instincts of our
youth. Nothing but a memory remains of that enchanting spot. It was
confiscated by Napoleon III. on some flimsy pretext or other, and
forthwith cut to pieces, so as to destroy every trace of those who had
owned and lived in it. It is as much as I can do, as I drive along the
Avenue Bineau, to find, among the villas which have been built all over
it, some well-known tree or other, behind which I used to lie in wait to
shoot the hares, which a big dog I had trained to the work used to put
up for me As for the house itself, after being the scene of a terrible
orgie, it was sacked and burnt down by the conquerors in the glorious
fight of February 1848. Not a stone of it remains. All the works of art
within it were destroyed But I know of one stray bit saved from the
wreck. The traveller who goes to see the museum at Neufchatel, in
Switzerland, may observe, alongside of the picture which represents M.
de Montmolin, an officer of the Swiss Guard, allowing himself to be
murdered on the 10th of August, sooner than give up the flag which was
intrusted to his loyal care, a very small canvas, carefully mended up.
That fragment is the principal figure in Leopold Robert's first picture,
and his masterpiece, L'IMPROVISATEUR, which used to hang in the
billiard-room at Neuilly. Either a salvage man, or a looter of
enlightened taste, cut it out with a penknife, in the midst of the
conflagration, and it is the only thing that was saved.

But let me come back to my story.

In my father's sitting-room at Neuilly, and the billiard-room more
especially, with the doors on the terrace open, the evenings used to be
spent, in a circle of neighbours, friends, and habitual visitors.

These evenings had such a decisive influence on my future destiny that I