temperature, and the use of a screw-jack applied in a peculiar manner,
and vigorously turned by Ary Scheffer and myself, Jeanne d'Arc rose up
again upon her framework, and the damage was soon made good.

About that time too, influenced by the genius of Victor Hugo, my sister
Clementine and I were seized with a perfect passion for old Paris, that
delightful Paris of ancient story. We had Sauval's thick volumes, we had
searched all the old books for traces of the ancient legends, and we
used to spend our afternoons going to see the sites and hunt for the
remains of the places we had read about, There is not a church or a
monument of which we did not know every detail, nor an alley or a corner
in the quarters of the Halles, the Hotel de Ville, the Arsenal, the
Temple, and the Pantheon that we had not carefully explored with the
most fervent interest. What joy it was to us one day when we were trying
to trace the Hotel St. Paul, the old palace of our kings, to come upon a
course of masonry which had undoubtedly belonged to it!

Although I was on shore, I was still devoted to my profession. I used to
see almost all the naval officers who passed through Paris, and tried to
push forward those whom the general body of the profession singled out
as being likely commanding officers. These matters of promotion, as well
as any others that affected naval interests, brought me into daily touch
with the ministers, and my relations with M Theirs date from that time.
Yet, oddly enough, it was riding on horseback that brought us together!
During the King's stays at Camping and Fontainebleau, and his country
trips to Versailles, St. Cloud, and Raunchy, when he used to invite
foreign visitors and his ministers, and great personages in general, to
join in his excursions, M. Thiers was as much bored as I was at having
to go in the carriages and chars a bancs which drove in a long line one
behind the other. We much preferred accompanying them on horseback, and