francs, but my poor mother was so anxious, that she said to my
father that if I spent my money badly I might not take enough to eat,
and then my health would suffer, and so it was settled that a
comfortable boarding-house should be found for me, and that the amount
should be paid to the proprietor himself, or herself, every month.

Some of our neighbors told us of a certain Mme. Kergaran, a native of
Brittany, who took in boarders, and so my father arranged matters by
letter with this respectable person, at whose house I and my luggage
arrived one evening.

Mme. Kergaran was a woman of about forty. She was very stout, had a
voice like a drill-sergeant, and decided everything in a very abrupt
manner. Her house was narrow, with only one window opening on to the
street on each story, which rather gave it the appearance of a ladder of
windows, or better, perhaps, of a slice of a house sandwiched in between
two others.

The landlady lived on the first floor with her servant, the kitchen and
dining-room were on the second, and four boarders from Brittany lived
on the third and fourth, and I had two rooms on the fifth.

A little dark corkscrew staircase led up to these attics. All day long
Mme. Kergaran was up and down these stairs like a captain on board ship.
Ten times a day she would go into each room, noisily superintending
everything, seeing that the beds were properly made, the clothes well
brushed, if the attendance were all that it should be; in a word, she
looked after her boarders like a mother, and better than a mother.

I soon made the acquaintance of my four fellow-countrymen. Two were
medical and two were law students, but all impartially endured the
landlady's despotic yoke. They were as frightened of her as a boy
robbing an orchard would be of a rural policeman.

I, however, immediately felt that I wished to be independent; it is my
nature to rebel. I declared at once that I meant to come in at whatever
time I liked, for Mme. Kergaran had fixed twelve o'clock at night as the
limit. On hearing this she looked at me for a few moments, and then
said:

"It is quite impossible; I cannot have Annette awakened at any hour of
the night. You can have nothing to do out-of-doors at such a time."

I replied firmly that, according to the law, she was obliged to open the
door for me at any time.

"If you refuse," I said, "I shall get a policeman to witness the fact,
and go and get a bed at some hotel, at your expen