teaching me the use of
rapier and broadsword, at the rate of a _franc_ per week. Next came a
burly, beef-eating bully, half sailor, half lubber, who approached
with a swinging gait, and was presented as _frere_ Zouche, teacher of
single stick, who was also willing to make me skilful in my encounters
with footpads for a reasonable salary. Then followed a dancing-master,
a tailor, a violin-teacher, a shoemaker, a letter-writer, a barber, a
clothes-washer, and various other useful and reputable tradespeople or
professors, all of whom expressed anxiety to inform my mind, cultivate
my taste, expedite nay correspondence, delight my ear, and improve my
appearance, for weekly stipends.

I did not, at first, understand precisely the object of all their
ceremonious appeals to my purse, but I soon discovered from Corporal
Blon,--_who desired an early discount of his note_,--that I was looked
on as a sort of Don Magnifico from Africa, who had saved an immense
quantity of gold from ancient traffic, all of which I could command,
in spite of imprisonment.

So I thought it best not to undeceive the industrious wretches, and,
accordingly, dismissed each of them with a few kind words, and
promised to accept their offers when I became a little more familiar
with my quarters.

After breakfast, I made a tour of the corridors, to see whether the
representations of my morning courtiers were true; and found the
shoemakers and tailors busy over toeless boots and patchwork garments.
One alcove contained the violinist and dancing-master, giving lessons
to several scapegraces in the _terpsichorean_ art; in another was the
letter-writer, laboriously adorning a sheet with cupids, hearts,
flames, and arrows, while a love-lorn booby knelt beside him,
dictating a message to his mistress; in a hall I found two pupils of
Monsieur Laramie at _quart_ and _tierce_; in the corridors I came upon
a string of tables, filled with cigars, snuff, writing-paper, ink,
pens, wax, wafers, needles and thread; while, in the remotest cell, I
discovered a pawnbroker and gambling-table. Who can doubt that a real
Gaul knows how to kill time, when he is unwillingly converted into a
"government boarder," and transfers the occupations, amusements, and
vices of life, to the recesses of a prison!

* * * * *

Very soon after my incarceration at Brest, I addressed a memorial to
the Spanish consul, setting forth the afflictions of twenty-two of