one, sweeping her gun-deck from end to end, and laying low four hundred
of her crew. After this commencement of his career, Commander de
Parseval had spent his whole life in fighting and adventure. He had been
in three shipwrecks, one specially terrible one on the Isle de Sable,
near the coast of Nova Scotia, in which (he was a lieutenant at the
time) he swam ashore to get help and save the crew of his frigate. He
died with the rank of admiral, after having had the chief command of the
Baltic Fleet during the Crimean War. He was a charming fellow, slight
and smart-looking, very carefully dressed, as resolute in command as he
was formal as to politeness, a consummate seaman, managing his ship in
first-rate style. I sailed a great deal with him, and learned much from
him, and from the very first I felt a personal affection for him, which
was never belied, and which he reciprocated. An extra bond of sympathy
existed between us--when I was just becoming deaf, he was deaf already.

We made a cruise for drill, on the Didon, doing a deal of navigation in
all sorts of weathers, and I performed the duties of captain of the
watch--my first attempt at command, my first trial in a responsible
position.

The winter season of 1836 found me back in Paris, where I began my
classes again, and gave myself up in particular to my passion for the
fine arts. This taste of mine was the cause of a terrible blowing up I
got from my father. The jury of the Salon of 1836 refused a picture of
Marilhat's--I think it was his first. Some of the artists who had seen
the young painter's work thought this decision unjust. They grumbled,
and their grumbling got as far as the newspapers. I was curious enough
to go and see the picture at Durand-Ruel's. It was a view of Rome by
twilight, seen between great umbrella pines, I thought it a splendid
picture, and spurred somewhat, I confess, by a spirit of contradiction,