over an exercise or a translation with a fat dictionary to keep me
company! Oh, mercy on me! From the scholastic point of view I was simply
a DUNCE, nothing but a dunce. Yet I managed to scramble one prize--the
shabbiest of them all--the second for Latin versions in the seventh
class! I was presented with my reward at the prize distribution, to the
tune of "Vive Henri IV." Vive ce roi vaillant, ce diable a quatre . .
.!" At the same moment I received, from a stout red-faced gentleman, a
wet kiss--much too wet a kiss--which gave me no pleasure whatsoever. I
recollect the porter at the college was nicknamed "Boit-sans-soif"; that
my greatest joy was to go out by his door, after evening school, and go
down the Rue de la Montagne or the Rue des Sept-Voies playing a thousand
pranks as I went, and that my grief used be keen indeed when I had to go
back the next morning. Yet some good comrades I had whom I dearly loved,
and amongst whom I improved in playing various games, and learned the
art of both giving and receiving kicks and cuffs. But, take it all in
all, my schooldays are, as they say in mathematics, "a minus quantity"
to me.




CHAPTER II

1830-1833


[Illustration: Boy waving flag and shooting a gun.]

The Revolution of 1830 broke out during my schooldays. I was twelve
years old--too young therefore, by far, to estimate its character,