left all initiative to the tutors. Each of these was only expected to
enter daily in a book his report and opinion of the pupil committed to
his care. This book was seen by my father, and he added his own remarks
and orders, and then returned it.

Our day generally began at five o'clock in the morning. The elder ones
went to school to attend their classes, took their meals and played with
the boarders, and came home after evening school. The boys who were not
at school and the girls spent the day doing their lessons. In the
evening, pupils and teachers of both sexes all dined together, and then
went to the drawing-room, where there was always company, for my parents
received every evening. Thursdays and Sundays, which were school
holidays, were given up specially to lessons in what were known as
accomplishments: drawing, music, physical exercises, riding, fencing,
singlestick, dancing, &c. On Sundays, every one, great and small, dined
at "THE GREAT TABLE," and this life of ours was as regular as clockwork
summer and winter alike.

In winter time we lived in the Palais-Royal, which then was not at all
what it is nowadays. Where the Galerie d'Orleans is now to be seen,
there were hideous wooden passages, with muddy floors, exclusively
occupied by milliners' shops, and peopled, it was said, by thousands of
rats. To get rid of this collection of shanties, they were sawn through
below, and allowed to come down with a crash. Crowds of people came to
witness the collapse, in the hope of seeing the expected multitude of
rats rush out. There was not a single one! They had all cleared out in
good time. Such is the wisdom of the brute creation!

When I first lived at the Palais-Royal, I had a room in the Rue de
Valois, which overlooked the Boeuf a la Mode restaurant, and opposite