Paris Melville went to Poitiers, where he studied jurisprudence and
was also employed as tutor in the college of St. Marceon. In the 'Diary'
of his nephew, who was a great literary impressionist, and whose pages
preserve for us the very 'form and pressure' of the scenes he describes,
many incidents are related of his Continental life which disclose his
character as a youth. During the third year of Melville's residence in
Poitiers the academic quiet of the town was broken by the clash of arms.
Civil war had broken out afresh in France, and Poitiers, which was a
Catholic town, held by the Duke of Guise, was invested by a Protestant
army under Coligny. Melville, as a foreigner and a Protestant, found
himself in a situation where he needed to use the greatest caution to
escape the danger to which he was exposed. When the siege began the
colleges were closed, and he was received into the family of a prominent
citizen as tutor to his boy. There was a small party of the soldiery
quartered in the house, and one day their corporal, who had observed
Melville at his devotions, challenged him as a Huguenot, and threatened
to deal with him by martial law as one who might betray the town. With a
courage and an adroitness which were native to him, he at once turned
round on his assailant and repudiated his imputations; and seizing on
some armour that was lying by, donned it, and going to the stables took
the best horse by the head, as if to join there and then the ranks of
the army of defence, when the corporal, fairly nonplussed by the
apparent vehemence of his loyalty, begged his forgiveness. He had no
more trouble of this kind, but he never felt secure of his liberty, and
it was a comfort to him to know that he had a good horse standing in the
stable by which, if it should come to the worst, he could make his
escape to Coligny's camp. During the siege his pupil, a bright boy, to
whom he had become deeply attached, was killed by a cannon-ball which
penetrated the wall of his room and struck him on the thigh. Melville
was in the house at the time, and on entering the room the dying boy
embraced him and passed away with the words of the Apostle on his
lips--[Greek: didaskale, ton dromon mou teteleka]--'Master, I have
finished my course.' 'That bern gaed never out of his hart.'

On the siege being raised, Melville left Poitiers for Geneva, footing it
all the way in the company of a few fellow-students. If he was sickly as
a child, he