squadron dismounted, each girl holding her horse--a most charming effect
it made in the Norman landscape. I never heard where the guard was
quartered, but I am quite convinced there never can have been any
difficulty about finding the necessary billets. I M de Murat, Prefect of
the Lower Seine, was the originator of this idea. He was a charming
fellow, but so absent, that one morning, when the Duchesse de

[Illustration: Ladies and men on horseback.]

Berri sent for him, he hastily put on his sword and his smartest
uniform, and hurried in his three-cornered hat to wait on Madame,
without discovering, till he got there, that he had forgotten his
breeches!

A great change came into my life in 1828. I was ten years old; my turn
had come; I was sent to school, and entered the College Henri IV. Ay di
me! as the Spanish lament has it. When I pass by Saint-Etienne du Mont,
and look at the Tower of Clovis, and the great walls of that learned
prison in which I spent three years, the memories that come back to me
are not pleasant--far from it. My life there was mortally tedious, and I
did no good whatsoever. My whole education has been gained by reading (I
was and I have always remained passionately fond of reading), by
observation, and by listening to those people who know how to hold my
attention. I listened with all my ears and all my heart to the Abbe
Dupanloup, when he gave me religious instruction; to Pouillet, when he
taught us physical science; to the great Arago, when he put a sextant
into my hands for the first time in my life. Later on, to Michelet, when
I attended the course of historical lectures he gave to my sister
Clementine; and later yet, to the lessons on law which were given us by
M. Rossi, the minister of Pius IX. But Greek and Latin, and hours spent