d no supervision
whatever. Provided they went to bed early, so that they used the least
possible fire and light, he was satisfied. Their day was cut up into
class hours, to be sure, but these were interfered with by every caprice
of the principal, who sent the pupils hither and thither on his personal
service.

And Moronval called about him all his former acquaintances,--a physician
without a diploma, a poet who never published, an opera singer without
an engagement,--all of whom were in a state of constant indignation
against the world which refused to recognize their rare merits.

Have you noticed how such people by a system of mutual attraction seem
to herd together, supporting each other as it were by their mutual
complaints? Inspired, in fact, by a thorough contempt for each other,
they pretend to an admiring sympathy.

Imagine the lessons given, the instruction imparted by such teachers,
the greater part of whose time was passed in discussions over their
pipes, the smoke from which soon became so thick that they could neither
see nor hear. They talked loudly, contradicted each other with vehemence
in a vocabulary of their own, where art, science, and literature were
picked into fragments as precious stuffs might be under the application
of violent acids.

And the "children of the sun," what became of them amid all this? Madame
Moronval alone, who preserved the good traditions of her former home and
school, made any attempts to perform the duties they had undertaken,
but the kitchen, her needle, and the care of the great establishment
absorbed a great part of her time.

As it was necessary that they should go out, their uniforms were kept
in order, for the pupils were proud of their braided tunics, and of the
chevrons reaching to the elbow. In the Moronval Academy, as in
certain armies of South America, all were sergeants. It was a trifling
compensation for the miseries of exile and for the harsh treatment of
surly masters. Moronval was quite pleasant the first days of each new
quarter, when his exchequer was full; he had even then been known to
smile; but the rest of the time he avenged himself on these black skins
for the negro blood in his own veins.

His violence accomplished that which his indolence had begun. Very soon
he began to lose his pupils; of the fifteen that were there at one time
there remained but eight.

"Number of pupils limited," said the prospectus, and there was a certain
amount of me