perhaps, is on account of the good fellows I met there, and who have
been my friends ever since, and also owing to the charm our kindly
instructor wielded over us all. I do not believe there is a single one
of his pupils, from the illustrious Marshal Canrobert down through my
contemporaries, Excelmans, Bonie, Morny, Daumesnil, the Greffulhe
brothers, Friant, Baudin, Valbezen, and many more, to the younger
generation that came after me, who does not cherish the most grateful
and affectionate feelings for the worthy Guerard. When we were close on
the time for my examination, he had me questioned several times over by
the official examiners of the Ecole Polytechnique and others, so as to
accustom me to the surprises of public examinations. I thus passed
through the hands of Baron Reynaud, and of Messieurs Bourdon, Delille,
and Lefebure de Fourcy. This last inspired me with downright terror, on
account of his reputation for methodical brutality. One of my class-
mates had reported to me that well-known colloquy between him and a
candidate who got confused, at he stood chalk in hand before the black
board, and who heard M. Lefebure de Fourcy's voice saying calmly,
"Waiter, just bring a bundle of hay for this pupil's breakfast." To
which the indignant pupil promptly added, "Waiter, bring two: the
examiner will breakfast with me." At length, crammed to the muzzle with
nautical and astronomical calculations, and all the other sciences the
official programme demanded, I started for Brest, kept up even as I
drove along, in the highest state of preparation. There were a few
interludes during the journey. Certain spots in Brittany were still,
early in that year 1834, disturbed by the consequences of the rising in
1831, and my passage was the signal in several places for what we call,
in parliamentary language, "mouvements en sens divers," conflicting
emotions. Sometimes I saw white handkerchiefs waving or twisted round
hats, doing duty for cockades. At other points the tricolour
demonstrations took a quaint form. I remember at one place where we