e same cause. He had to
run amuck through the courtyard to the gate, where a servant was waiting
for him, often reaching it with torn clothes and a bloody face. This
persecution was stopped by his old playfellow, Orlando Furioso, who was two
years his senior: he threw himself into the crowd one day and dealt his
redoubtable blows with so much energy that he scattered the bullies once
for all. Among their schoolmates was the promising duke of Orleans, who was
then duc de Chartres, his father, afterward King Louis Philippe, bearing at
that time the former title. He took a strong fancy to Alfred de Musset,
which he showed by writing him a profusion of notes during recitation, most
of them invitations to dinner at Neuilly, where he occasionally went with
other school-fellows of the young prince. For a time after leaving school
De Chartres--as he was called by his young friends--kept up a lively
correspondence with Alfred, and when their boyish intimacy naturally
expired the recollection of it remained fresh and lively in the prince's
mind, as was afterward proved.

De Musset left college at the age of sixteen, having taken a prize in
philosophy for a Latin metaphysical essay. His disposition to inquire and
speculate had already manifested itself by uneasy questions in the classes
of logic and moral philosophy; and although few will agree with his brother
that his writings show unusual aptitude and profound knowledge in these
sciences, or that, as he says, "the thinker was always on a level with the
poet," nobody can deny the constant questioning of the Sphinx, the eager,
restless pursuit of truth, which pervades his pages. He pushed his search
through a long course of reading,--Descartes, Spinoza, Cabanis, Maine de
Biran--only to fall back upon an innate faith in God which never forsook
him, although it was strangely disconnected with his mode of life.

I have lingered over the early years of Alfred de Musset because the
childhood of a poet is the mirror wherein the image of his future is seen,
and because there is something peculiarly touching in this season of
innocence and unconsciousness of self in the history of men whose after
lives have been torn to pieces by the storms of vicissitude and passion. So
far, he had not begun to rhyme--an unusual case, as boys who can make two
lines jingle, whether they be poets or not, generally scribble plentifully
before leaving school. At the age of fourteen he wrote some verses to hi