rude or courteous, according to the nature of the challenge. Umpires were appointed who decided which should throw the gage, and in what manner the champions should take the lead. The combat did not cease till one of the parties declared himself vanquished. I found my friend Gesril at this college, and, as at St. Malo, he presided at these engagements. He was my second in an affair which I had with St. Riveul, a young gentleman, who became the first victim of the revolution. I fell under my adversary, refused to surrender, and my pride cost me dear. I said like Jean Desmarest when going to the scaffold: “I cry for mercy to none but God."

At this college I met two men, who afterwards became celebrated for very different causes: Moreau, the General, and Limoëlan, the inventor of the Infernal Machine, now a Priest in America. There is only one portrait in existence of Lucile, and this wretched miniature was done by Limoëlan, who became an artist during the revolutionary distresses. Moreau was a day scholar, Limoëlan a boarder. It is rare to find at the same time, in the same province, in the same little town, under the roof of the same college such remarkable destinies.

I cannot help here relating a trick which my companion Limoëlan played off upon the Prefect of the week.

The Prefect was accustomed to make his rounds in the corridors, after we had retired, to see if all were right, and used to look in at a hole which had been made in each door for this purpose. Limoëlan, Gesril, St. Riveul and I slept in the same dormitory :

"D'animaux malfaisans c'était un fort bon plat."

We had in vain stopped up the hole with a piece of paper several times; the Prefect pushed aside the paper, and found us dancing about on our beds and breaking the chairs.

One evening, Limoëlan, without telling us of his project, prevailed upon us all to get into bed, and then put out the light. Very soon we heard him get up, go to the door, and then creep into bed again. About a quarter of an hour after, we heard the Prefect walking along the passage upon tiptoe;

just as if he had some cause for suspecting us; he stood still at the door, listened, peeped in, and not perceiving any light **.

"Who in the world has done that?" cried he, rushing into the chamber. Limoëlan was stifled with laughter, and Gesril speaking through his nose, said in a half silly and half bantering tone: "What's the matter, M. le Prefet?" As for St. Riveul and me-we laughed till we were half choaked, and hid ourselves under the cover.

The Prefect could not get anything out of us; we were quite heroic. All four were accordingly consigned to prison in the cellar; here St. Riveul scooped out the earth under a door which communicated with the lower court; he contrived to get his head jammed into this opening, when a hog ran up to him and attacked his head; Gesril glided into the college wine-cellar, and set a cask of wine running. Limoëlan demolished a wall, and as for me, a second Perrin Dandin, scrambling about in an air-hole, I collected a crowd of canaille in the street by my eloquent harangues. The terrible inventor of the Infernal Machine playing off this polisson trick upon `the Prefect of a college-calls to mind young Cromwell, scratching with ink the face of another regicide, who signed, next to him, the sentence for the execution of Charles I.

Although the education which we received at the College of Rennes was very religious, my fervour relaxed: the great number of my tutors and schoolfellows were so many causes of distraction to me. I made considerable progress in the study of languages, and was a proficient in mathematics, for which I had always had a decided turn. I should have made a capital officer of the marine, or of engineers. I had a natural aptitude for everything. I was equally alive to the grave and the gay. I commenced with poetry before got into prose; the arts were my delight, and I was passionately fond of music and architecture. Though very liable to get tired of anything, I was capable of the most minute details, being endowed with patience, which was proof against every obstacle; though fatigued with the object with which I was occupied, my perseverance was greater than my repugnance. I have never given up anything which was worth the trouble of finishing, and there

are some things which I have persevered in for fifteen and twenty years of my life, with as much ardour on the last day as the on first.

This aptitude was also manifested in minor things. I was quick at chess, adroit at billiards, hunting, military exercises, and was a tolerable draughtsman. I should have been a very good singer if my voice had been cultivated. All this, added to the tone of my education, and the life of a soldier and traveller, prevented my feeling anything like pedantry, or of assuming the dogged, self-satisfied air, the awkwardness and slovenly habits of other men of letters; far less the haughtiness and assurance, envy and vain-glorious conceit of modern authors.

navy.

I passed two years at the College of Rennes : Gesril quitted it eighteen months before me, and entered the Julie, my third sister, was married in the course of this time. She was united to the Count de Farcy, Captain in the regiment of Condé, and settled with her husband at Fougères, where my two elder sisters, Mesdames de Marignay and de Québriac already resided. The marriage of Julie took place at Combourg, and I was present at the wedding. I there met the Countess de Tronjoli, who afterwards distinguished herself so greatly by her intrepidity upon the scaffold : she was the cousin and intimate friend of the Marquis de La Rouërie, and was implicated in his conspiracy. I had never before seen beauty except in my own family, and was confounded now to perceive it in the countenance of a stranger. Every stage of my life opened a new perspective before me. I heard from afar the seducing voice of the passions, which were about to overcome me, and I flung myself at the foot of these syrens, attracted by an unknown harmony. It turned out that, like the chief priest of Eleusis, I had different incense for each divinity. But the hymns which I sang, while burning this incense, could they be called balmy, like the poesy of the hierophant?

La Vallée-aux-Loups, January, 1814.

I AM SENT TO BREST TO UNDERGO THE EXAMINATION FOR A NAVAL CADET-THE HARBOUR OF BREST-ANOTHER MEETING WITH GESRIL -LA PEROUSE-RETURN TO COMBOURG.

On

AFTER the marriage of Julie, I set out for Brest. quitting the large College of Rennes, I did not feel the regret which I experienced on leaving the little College of Dol. Perhaps I had no longer that innocence which flings a charm over all; time had begun to remove its defences. My Mentor, in my new position, was one of my maternal uncles, the Count Ravenel de Boisteilleul, chief of the squadron, one of whose sons, a very distinguished officer of artillery in the army of Buonaparte, is married to the only daughter of my sister Julie, the Countess de Farcy.

On my arrival at Brest, I did not find my "Brevet d'aspirant;" I know not what accident had delayed it. I was, therefore, what is called "Soupirant," and, as such, exempt from regular study. My uncle boarded me in La Rue de Siam, at a Table d'hôte of Aspirants, and presented me to Count Hector, the Commandant of the navy.

Left to myself for the first time, instead of joining my future comrades, I shut myself up in my instinctive solitude. My ordinary society was confined to my fencing, writing, and

mathematical masters.

The ocean which I was to meet with on many shores, bathed at Brest the extremity of the Amoricaine Peninsula. Beyond this foreland, there was nothing but a boundless sea and unknown worlds. My imagination revelled in this illimitable space. Often, when seated on the Quay de Recouvrance, have I watched the movements of the crowd; shipbuilders, sailors, soldiers, douaniers and galley-slaves, passing and repassing before me. Voyagers embarked and disembarked; pilots issued their directions; carpenters squared pieces of timber; rope-makers twisted cables; sailor-boys

lighted fires under huge coppers, whence issued a thick smoke of the sanitary odour of tar. Loads were being carried backwards and forwards, from the vessels to the warehouses, and from the warehouses to the vessels: bales of merchandise, sacks of provisions, trains of artillery. Carts were going into the water, or returning to receive fresh loads; tackles were raising heavy burdens, while the cranes were letting down huge stones, and the mud-suckers were removing the slough. The forts made reiterated signals, sloops went and came, and vessels were getting under weigh, or entering the basins.

My mind was full of vague ideas of society; its advantages and its evils. I know not what fit of melancholy seized me; I quitted the mast where I was seated, and, ascending by the Penfeld, which empties itself into the harbour, reached a point where I lost sight of the port. No longer able to see anything but a greensward valley, though still hearing the confused murmur of the sea, and the voices of men, I threw myself down on the banks of this little river. Now watching the running water, now following with my eyes the flight of the sea-gull, enjoying the silence that reigned around me, or listening to the blows of the caulker's hammer, I fell into a profound reverie. If in the midst of this reverie, the wind carried the sound of some gun of a vessel getting under sail, I trembled at every limb, and my cheeks were bedewed with

tears.

One day I had wandered to the verge of the river on the sea-side. It was extremely hot, and I stretched myself on the shore and fell asleep Suddenly, I was awakened by a magnificent sound. I opened my eyes, like Augustus, to see the Triremes in the anchorage of Sicily, after the victory over Pompus Sextus; volleys of artillery rapidly succeeded each other; the roadstead was covered with ships; the French squadron sailed in after the signature of the peace. The vessels manœuvred under sail, enveloped themselves in fire and smoke, hoisted their flags, presented the роор, the prow, the flank, and stopped short in the midst of their course by throwing out the anchor, or continued to fly over the buoyant

VOL. I.

I