on me to endeavour, by diligence and good conduct, to rise to the position of half scholar, three-quarter scholar, and finally to that of full scholar, and so relieve my mother of the expense of keeping me at college. Seeing I adored my mother, and that my greatest joy should therefore have been to help her by my own exertions, this sacred object ought to have been ever present with me.

But woe is me! Instincts forcibly repressed are apt to wake again with tenfold fierceness. And so mine did, many a time and often—far too often, alas!

One day I had got into a scrape for some piece of carelessness or other, some exercise unfinished, or lesson left unlearnt. I suppose I thought my punishment out of proportion to my crime, for I complained, the sole result being that the penalty was largely increased. I was marched off to the college prison, a sort of dungeon, where I was to be kept on bread and water till I had finished an enormous imposition of I know not how many lines, some five hundred or a thousand, I think—something absurd, I know! When I found myself under lock and key I began to think I was a brute. The feelings of Orestes when the Furies reproached him with his mother's death were not more bitter than mine when I was given my prison fare! I looked at the bread, and burst into tears. "Oh! you scoundrel, you brute, you beast," I cried; "look at the bread your mother earns for you! Your mother who is coming to see you after school, and will hear you are in prison, and will go home weeping through the streets, without having seen or kissed you! Come, come, you are a wretch; you do not even deserve to have dry bread!"

And I put it aside, and went hungry.

However, in my normal condition I worked on fairly enough, and, thanks to the prizes I won every year, I gradually progressed towards that ardently wished-for goal, a "full scholarship."

There was a chapel in the Lycée Saint Louis, where musical masses were sung every Sunday. The gallery, which occupied the full width of the chapel, was divided into two parts, and in one of these were the choristers' seats and the organ. When I joined the Lycée, the chapel-master was Hyppolyte Monpou, then accompanist at the Choron School of Music, well known in later years as the composer of a number of melodies and theatrical works, which brought him some considerable popularity.

Thanks to the training my mother had given me ever since my babyhood, I could read music at sight; and my voice was sweet and very true. On entering the college I was at once handed over to Monpou, who was astonished by my aptness, and forthwith appointed me solo soprano of his little choir, which consisted of two sopranos, two altos, two tenors, and two basses.

I lost my voice owing to a blunder of Monpou's. He insisted on my singing while it was breaking, although complete silence and rest are indispensable while the vocal chords are in their transitional stage; and I never recovered the power and ring and tone I had as a child, and which constitute a really good singing voice. Mine has always been husky ever since. But for this accident, I believe I should have sung well in after life.

At the Revolution of 1830, the Abbé Ganser ceased to be our Principal. He was succeeded by Monsieur Liez, a former Professor at the Lycée Henri IV., strongly attached to the new régime, and a zealous advocate of the system of military drill forthwith introduced into the various colleges. He used to come and watch us drilling, standing bolt upright like any sergeant instructor or colonel on parade, and with his right hand thrust into the breast of his coat, like Napoleon I.

Two years afterwards Monsieur Liez was superseded by Monsieur Poirson. It was while he was Principal that the various circumstances which decided the ultimate bent of my life took place.

Among my many faults was one pet sin. I worshipped music; the first storms that ruffled the surface of my youthful existence originated with the overmastering passion, which had such paramount influence on my ultimate career.

Anybody who knows anything about a Lycée has heard of the Festival of Saint Charlemagne, so dear to every schoolboy.

One feature of the festival is a great banquet, to which every student who has gained either one first or two second places in the various competitions during that term is bidden. On this banquet follows a two days' holiday, which gives the boys a chance of "sleeping out"—in other words, of spending a night at home—a rare treat universally coveted.

The festival fell in mid-winter. In 1831 I had the good luck to be one of the invited guests; and to reward me, my mother promised I should go in the evening to the Théâtre Italien with my brother, to hear Rossini's "Otello." Malibran played Desdemona; Rubini, Otello; and Lablache, the Father.

I was nearly wild with impatience and delight. I remember I could not eat for excitement, so that my mother said to me at dinner, "If you don't eat your dinner I won't let you go to the opera," and forthwith I began to consume my victuals, in a spirit of resignation at all events.

We had dined early that evening, as we had no reserved seats (this would have been far too costly), and we had to be at the opera house before the doors were opened, with the crowd of people who waited on the chance of finding a couple of places untaken in the pit. Even this was a terrible expense to my poor mother, as the seats cost 3 frs. 75 c. each.

It was bitterly cold; for two mortal hours did Urbain and I wait, stamping our frozen toes, for the happy moment when the string of people began to move past the ticket office window.

We got inside at last. Never shall I forget my first sight of the great theatre, the curtain and the brilliant lights. I felt as if I were in some temple, as if a heavenly vision must shortly rise upon my sight.

At last the solemn moment came. I heard the stage-manager's three knocks, and the overture began. My heart was beating like a sledge-hammer.

Oh, that night! that night! what rapture, what Elysium! Malibran, Rubini, Lablache, Tamburini (he sang Iago); the voices, the orchestra! I was literally beside myself.

I left that theatre completely out of tune with the prosaic details of my daily life, and absolutely wedded to the dream which was to be the very atmosphere and fixed ideal of my existence.

That night I never closed my eyes; I was haunted, "possessed;" I was wild to write an "Otello" myself!

I am ashamed to say my work in school betrayed my state of mind. I scamped my duties in every possible way; I used to dash off my exercises without making any draft, so as to gain more time to give to musical composition, my favourite occupation—the only one worth attention, as it seemed to me. Many were the tears and heavy the troubles that resulted. One day, the master on duty, seeing me scribbling away on music paper, came and asked for my work. I handed him my fair copy. "And where is your rough draft?" said he. As I hadn't got one to show, he snatched my music paper and tore it up. Of course I objected, and got punished for my pains. Another protest, and an appeal to the Principal, only resulted in a repetition of the old story; I was kept in school, given extra work, imprisoned, &c., &c.

This first tormenting, far from having its intended effect, only inflamed my ardour, and made me resolve to ensure myself free indulgence of my taste by doing my school-work thoroughly and regularly.

Thus things stood when I took the step of drawing up a kind of "profession of faith," wherein I warned my mother of my fixed determination to embrace the artistic career. I had hesitated some time, so I declared, between music and painting; but I was now convinced that whatever talent I possessed would find its best outlet in the former art, and my decision, I added, was final.

My