native town at the
Chamber of Deputies; and possibly that did the school more harm than
good--ne sutor ultra crepidam! as he was so fond of impressing on
_us_!

However, we went on pretty much as usual through spring and
summer--with occasional alarms (which we loved), and beatings of _le
rappel_--till the July insurrection broke out.

My mother and sister had left Mlle. Jalabert's, and now lived with
my father near the Boulevard Montmartre. And when the fighting was
at its height they came to fetch me home, and invited Barty, for the
Rohans were away from Paris. So home we walked, quite leisurely, on
a lovely peaceful summer evening, while the muskets rattled and the
cannons roared round us, but at a proper distance; women picking
linen for lint and chatting genially the while at shop doors and
porter's lodge-gates; and a piquet of soldiers at the corner of
every street, who felt us all over for hidden cartridges before they
let us through; it was all entrancing! The subtle scent of gunpowder
was in the air--the most suggestive smell there can be. Even now,
here in England, the night of the fifth of November never comes
round but I am pleasantly reminded of the days when I was "en pleine
revolution" in the streets of Paris with my father and mother, and
Barty and my little sister--and genial _piou-pious_ made such a
Conscientious examination of our garments. Nothing brings back the
past like a sound or a smell--even those of a penny squib!

Every now and then a litter borne by soldiers came by, on which lay
a dead or wounded officer. And then one's laugh died suddenly out,
and one felt one's self face to face with the horrors that were
going on.

Barty shared my bed, and we lay awake talking half the night;
dreadful as it all was, one couldn't help being jolly! Every ten
minutes the sentinel on duty in the court-yard below would
sententiously intone:

"Sentinelles, prenez-garde a vous!" And other sentinels would repeat
the cry till it died away in the distance, like an echo.

And all next day, or the day after--or else the day after that, when
the long rattle of the musketry had left off--we heard at intervals
the "feu de peloton" in a field behind the church of St.-Vincent de
Paul, and knew that at every discharge a dozen poor devils of
insurgents, caught red-handed, fell dead in a pool of blood!

I need hardly say that before three days were over the irrepressible
Barty had made a complete conquest of my sm