there dwelt an old lady, always dressed in black, who regularly every
day, at the very same hour, placed an indispensable article of domestic
use upon her window-sill, so that it was as good as a clock to us. Later
on, I changed my room for one looking over the courtyard, facing the
rooms occupied by an actor at the Comedie-Francaise named Dumilatre, and
his daughters; Dumilatre, whom I knew well, having seen him play those
small tragedy parts which consist in making a dignified exit and saying,
"Yes, my lord," had the same habits as my black lady, and the same
object used to appear upon his window-sill with equal regularity. I had
only changed my clock!

It was during the winter sojourn at the Palais-Royal, too, that our
masters and their lessons multiplied. And several of these masters were
oddities, amongst others our professor of German. Picture a little
bland-mannered old man, dressed all in black, with satin breeches,
woollen stockings, enormous shoes, and a broad-brimmed hat. He had been
tutor to Prince Metternich in his youth. I know not what chance had
later driven him into France--where, during the Terror, he became one of
the secretaries of the much-dreaded Committee of Public Safety at
Strasbourg. He lived alone with his daughter, whom he often sent to
Germany, not by the ordinary means of communication, but concealed in
the van which was sent periodically into Hungary to fetch supplies of
leeches for the hospitals, which circumstance made us conclude that the
simple name of "Herr Simon" by which he called himself probably
concealed some deep mystery. Nothing, alas! remains to me of his German,
nor of that of a valet of the same race, who had been put about me, so
ill adapted has my mental constitution always proved to any foreign
language.

Another oddity was our dancing master, an Opera dancer, named Seuriot.