ur?

Whatever weaknesses he yielded to when he grew to man's estate are
such as the world only too readily condones in many a famous man
less tempted than Josselin was inevitably bound to be through life.
Men of the Josselin type (there are not many--he stands pretty much
alone) can scarcely be expected to journey from adolescence to
middle age with that impeccable decorum which I--and no doubt many
of my masculine readers--have found it so easy to achieve, and find
it now so pleasant to remember and get credit for. Let us think of
_The Footprints of Aurora_, or _Etoiles mortes_, or _Dejanire et
Dalila_, or even _Les Trepassees de Francois Villon!_

Then let us look at Rajon's etching of Watts's portrait of him (the
original is my own to look at whenever I like, and that is pretty
often). And then let us not throw too many big stones, or too hard,
at Barty Josselin.

Well, the summer term of 1847 wore smoothly to its close--a happy
"trimestre" during which the Institution F. Brossard reached the
high-water mark of its prosperity.

There were sixty boys to be taught, and six house-masters to teach
them, besides a few highly paid outsiders for special classes--such
as the lively M. Durosier for French literature, and M. le
Professeur Martineau for the higher mathematics, and so forth; and
crammers and coachers for St.-Cyr, the Polytechnic School, the Ecole
des Ponts et Chaussees.

Also fencing-masters, gymnastic masters, a Dutch master who taught
us German and Italian--an Irish master with a lovely brogue who
taught us English. Shall I ever forget the blessed day when ten or
twelve of us were presented with an _Ivanhoe_ apiece as a
class-book, or how Barty and I and Bonneville (who knew English)
devoured the immortal story in less than a week--to the disgust of
Rapaud, who refused to believe that we could possibly know such a
beastly tongue as English well enough to read an English book for
mere pleasure--on our desks in play-time, or on our laps in school,
_en cachette_! "Quelle sacree pose!"

He soon mislaid his own copy, did Rapaud; just as he mislaid my
_Monte Cristo_ and Jolivet's illustrated _Wandering Jew_--and it was
always:

"Dis donc, Maurice!--prete-moi ton _Ivanhoe_!" (with an accent on
the e), whenever he had to construe his twenty lines of Valtere
Scott--and what a hash he made of them!

Sometimes M. Brossard himself would come, smoking his big
meerschaum, and help the English class during prepar