as not too far from home to send a
mite seven years old, to acquire the French language and begin her
education. And so to Boulogne I went, to a school in the oddly named
"Rue tant perd tant paie," in the old town, kept by a rather sallow and
grim, but still vivacious old Madame Faudier, with the assistance of her
daughter, Mademoiselle Flore, a bouncing, blooming beauty of a discreet
age, whose florid complexion, prominent black eyes, plaited and
profusely pomatumed black hair, and full, commanding figure, attired for
fete days, in salmon-colored merino, have remained vividly impressed
upon my memory. What I learned here except French (which I could not
help learning), I know not. I was taught music, dancing, and Italian,
the latter by a Signor Mazzochetti, an object of special detestation to
me, whose union with Mademoiselle Flore caused a temporary fit of
rejoicing in the school. The small seven-year-old beginnings of such
particular humanities I mastered with tolerable success, but if I may
judge from the frequency of my _penitences_, humanity in general was not
instilled into me without considerable trouble. I was a sore torment, no
doubt, to poor Madame Faudier, who, on being once informed by some
alarmed passers in the street that one of her "demoiselles" was
perambulating the house roof, is reported to have exclaimed, in a
paroxysm of rage and terror, "Ah, ce ne peut etre que cette _diable_ de
Kemble!" and sure enough it was I. Having committed I know not what
crime, I had been thrust for chastisement into a lonely garret, where,
having nothing earthly to do but look about me, I discovered (like a
prince in the Arabian Nights) a ladder leading to a trap-door, and
presently was out on a sort of stone coping, which ran round the steep
roof of the high, old-fashioned house, surveying with serene
satisfaction the extensive prospect landward and seaward, unconscious
that I was at the same time an object of terror to the beholders in the
street below. Snatched from the perilous delight of this bad eminence, I
was (again, I think, rather like the Arabian prince) forthwith plunged
into the cellar; where I curled myself up on the upper step, close to
the heavy door that had been locked upon me, partly for the comfort of
the crack of light that squeezed itself through it, and partly, I
suppose, from some vague idea that there was no bottom to the steps,
derived from my own terror rather than from any precise historical
kn