a naval lieutenant; and myself.  I will not give the full story of our work, and of the constant battle we had to fight with obstinate habit and dread of responsibility.  All those early attempts of ours at transforming our navy seem almost childish, looked at from the distance of the half-century which has since elapsed.  And indeed, though my recollection of them is clear enough, I have no means of verifying it, all my notes and reports, and all my correspondence relating to the undertakings in question, having passed out of my hands, in the following manner:—­

Some months after the Revolution in 1848, while I was residing in England, at Claremont, a visitor’s name was brought up to me.  The name, de X., was that of a good family, well known in Normandy and in the political and scientific world.  But instead of one of the faces I was prepared to see, I beheld that of a most unsatisfactory member of the family, whom I instantly remembered having seen in Algeria, wearing a Belgian uniform, and acting as reporter for the Constitutionnel newspaper.  He entered the room and said: 

“Do you remember me?”

“Perfectly.”

“Well, I’ve just arrived from your part of the world.”

“What do you mean?”

“After the Tuileries were captured, on February 24th (you were in Algiers just then), I took up my quarters in your rooms.  They are very comfortable rooms.  I stayed in them for two months.  They were rather upside down, as you may fancy.  Everything worth taking had been carried off, but the floor was littered with books and papers and a whole heap of things that everybody had trodden upon.  I amused myself by settling them all up, especially your letters and papers, which I sorted.  I arranged them into several classes.  Everything referring to your missions and to political matters I sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and everything touching the navy to the Ministry of Marine.  In fact, I disposed of everything.  But I put aside a few documents regarding the Princesse de Joinville’s business matters in Brazil and your own private journals of your sea-voyages, and brought them with me here.”

He smilingly showed me a packet he held in his hand, then went on: 

“But my journey has cost me a lot of money.”  “Then say how much you want, in plain English.”

“A hundred louis.”

I went and fetched the money, and then showed him the door without another word, though I could hardly resist kicking him through it.  Thus it was that I learnt what had become of my papers on naval subjects.  I greatly regretted the loss of my private correspondence, and more especially that of my letters from M. Dupuy de Lome, a most talented young engineer, much in advance of his times, with whom I had been in daily intercourse.