cannot do otherwise than speak of them.

That billiard-room is before me now, with the pictures that adorned it,
all of them masterpieces--L'Improvisateur, by Leopold Robert; La Feeme
du Brigand, by Schnetz, Faust and Marguerite, by Ary Scheffer; Venice,
by Ziegler--hanging round.

I see the most frequent guests too. First two abbes, whose names--the
Abbe de Saint-Phar and the Abbe de Saint-Albin--were a significant
inheritance due to the frailty of their great-grandparents many years
before the Revolution And yet another abbe, with powdered side curls,
L'Abbe de Labordere, a former Grand Vicar of Frejus' who somehow or
other, I know not how, had become mayor of Neuilly. Then there was the
Marechal de Gouvion de Saint-Cyr, our near neighbour, who always had a
circle round him; and admirals too, the Comte de Sercey, with his
pigtail--an Indian veteran, Admiral Villaumetz; and generals and
officers besides, whose stories of their campaigns used to fill us with
enthusiasm. Amongst the generals who were friends of the family there
was General Drouot, who was very fond of me, and would take me on his
knee and tell me stories. I had seen Horace Vernet's picture, La
Bataille de Hanau, which represents Drouot on foot amongst his guns,
just as the Bavarian Cuirassiers are charging through them. That had
been quite enough to fire my ardour, and I wanted to be an artilleryman
too. Just about the same time, my father was presented with a twelve-
pounder howitzer by the Vincennes artillery, and Colonel de Caraman came
to try it with us. We fired shots in the park, at the rising ground near
Villiers, and my military enthusiasm was wrought up to the highest
pitch. I tormented my mother till she had an artillery uniform made for
me, and when I had it on my back I thought my fortune was made. After
having been taken to the fair at Neuilly, and seeing the non-