especially, did their errands and their marketing on horseback.  There were very few vehicles to be seen.  The prettiest of the peasant girls had been selected; and it was really a pleasure to see them prancing, to the number of forty, round the Duchess’s carriage, with their captain and lieutenant riding at each door, all dressed alike, in white, in the full Cauchoise costume, chignon and cap with lace lappets, each on her pacing hack, which she managed to perfection.  When a halt was made, the squadron dismounted, each girl holding her horse—­a most charming effect it made in the Norman landscape.  I never heard where the guard was quartered, but I am quite convinced there never can have been any difficulty about finding the necessary billets.  I M de Murat, Prefect of the Lower Seine, was the originator of this idea.  He was a charming fellow, but so absent, that one morning, when the Duchesse de

[Illustration:  Ladies and men on horseback.]

Berri sent for him, he hastily put on his sword and his smartest uniform, and hurried in his three-cornered hat to wait on Madame, without discovering, till he got there, that he had forgotten his breeches!

A great change came into my life in 1828.  I was ten years old; my turn had come; I was sent to school, and entered the College Henri IV.  Ay di me! as the Spanish lament has it.  When I pass by Saint-Etienne du Mont, and look at the Tower of Clovis, and the great walls of that learned prison in which I spent three years, the memories that come back to me are not pleasant—­far from it.  My life there was mortally tedious, and I did no good whatsoever.  My whole education has been gained by reading (I was and I have always remained passionately fond of reading), by observation, and by listening to those people who know how to hold my attention.  I listened with all my ears and all my heart to the Abbe Dupanloup, when he gave me religious instruction; to Pouillet, when he taught us physical science; to the great Arago, when he put a sextant into my hands for the first time in my life.  Later on, to Michelet, when I attended the course of historical lectures he gave to my sister Clementine; and later yet, to the lessons on law which were given us by M. Rossi, the minister of Pius IX.  But Greek and Latin, and hours spent over an exercise or a translation with a fat dictionary to keep me company!  Oh, mercy on me!  From the scholastic point of view I was simply a dunce, nothing but a dunce.  Yet I managed to scramble one prize—­the shabbiest of them all—­the second for Latin versions in the seventh class!  I was presented with my reward at the prize distribution, to the tune of “Vive Henri IV.”  Vive ce roi vaillant, ce diable a quatre . . .!” At the same moment I received, from a stout red-faced gentleman, a wet kiss—­much too wet a kiss—­which gave me no pleasure whatsoever.  I recollect the porter at the college was nicknamed “Boit-sans-soif”; that my greatest joy was to go out by his door, after