Part 25

We also grew very fond of Lamartine and Victor Hugo, quite openly--and of De Musset under the rose.

"C'était dans la nuit brune Sur le clocher jauni, La lune, Comme un point sur son i!"

(not for the young person).

I have a vague but pleasant impression of that year. Its weathers, its changing seasons, its severe frosts, with Sunday skatings on the dangerous canals, St.-Ouen and De l'Ourcq; its genial spring, all convolvulus and gobéas, and early almond blossom and later horse-chestnut spikes, and more lime and syringa than ever; its warm soft summer and the ever-delightful school of notation by the Isle of Swans.

This particular temptation led us into trouble. We would rise before dawn, Barty and Jolivet and I, and let ourselves over the wall and run the two miles, and get a heavenly swim and a promise of silence for a franc apiece; and run back again and jump into bed a few minutes before the five-o'clock bell rang the réveillé.

But we did this once too often--for M. Dumollard had been looking at Venus with his telescope (I think it was Venus) one morning before sunrise, and spied us out en flagrant délit; perhaps with that very telescope. Anyhow, he pounced on us when we came back. And our punishment would have been extremely harsh but for Barty, who turned it all into a joke.

After breakfast M. Mérovée pronounced a very severe sentence on us under the acacia. I forget what it was--but his manner was very short and dignified, and he walked away very stiffly towards the door of the étude. Barty ran after him without noise, and just touching his shoulders with the tips of his fingers, cleared him at a bound from behind, as one clears a post.

M. Mérovée, in a real rage this time, forgot his dignity, and pursued him all over the school--through open windows and back again--into his own garden (Tusculum)--over trellis railings--all along the top of a wall--and finally, quite blown out, sat down on the edge of the tank: the whole school was in fits by this time, even M. Dumollard--and at last Mérovée began to laugh too. So the thing had to be forgiven--but only that once!

Once also, that year, but in the winter, a great compliment was paid to la perfide Albion in the persons of MM. Josselin et Maurice, which I cannot help recording with a little complacency.

On a Thursday walk in the Bois de Boulogne a boy called out "À bas Dumollard!" in a falsetto squeak. Dumollard, who was on duty that walk, was furious, of course--but he couldn't identify the boy by the sound of his voice. He made his complaint to M. Mérovée--and next morning, after prayers, Mérovée came into the school-room, and told us he should go the round of the boys there and then, and ask each boy separately to own up if it were he who had uttered the seditious cry.

"And mind you!" he said--"you are all and each of you on your 'word of honor'--l'étude entière!"

So round he went, from boy to boy, deliberately fixing each boy with his eye, and severely asking--"Est-ce toi?" "Est-ce toi?" "Est-ce toi?" etc., and waiting very deliberately indeed for the answer, and even asking for it again if it were not given in a firm and audible voice. And the answer was always, "Non, m'sieur, ce n'est pas moi!"

But when he came to each of us (Josselin and me) he just mumbled his "Est-ce toi?" in a quite perfunctory voice, and didn't even wait for the answer!

When he got to the last boy of all, who said "Non, m'sieur," like all the rest, he left the room, saying, tragically (and, as I thought, rather theatrically for him):

"Je m'en vais le coeur navré--il y a un lâche parmi vous!" (My heart is harrowed--there's a coward among you.)

There was an awkward silence for a few moments.

Presently Rapaud got up and went out. We all knew that Rapaud was the delinquent--he had bragged about it so--overnight in the dormitory. He went straight to M. Mérovée and confessed, stating that he did not like to be put on his word of honor before the whole school. I forget whether he was punished or not, or how. He had to make his apologies to M. Dumollard, of course.

To put the whole school on its word of honor was thought a very severe measure, coming as it did from the head master in person. "La parole d'honneur" was held to be very sacred between boy and boy, and even between boy and head master. The boy who broke it was always "mis à la quarantaine" (sent to Coventry) by the rest of the school.

"I wonder why he let off Josselin and Maurice so easily?" said Jolivet, at breakfast.

"Parce qu'il aime les Anglais, ma foi!" said M. Dumollard--"affaire de goût!"

"Ma foi, il n'a pas tort!" said M. Bonzig.

Dumollard looked askance at Bonzig (between whom and himself not much love was lost) and walked off, jauntily twirling his mustache, and whistling a few bars of a very ungainly melody, to which the words ran:

"Non! jamais en France, Jamais Anglais ne règnera!"

As if we wanted to, good heavens!

(By-the-way, I suddenly remember that both Berquin and d'Orthez were let off as easily as Josselin and I. But they were eighteen or nineteen, and "en Philosophie," the highest class in the school--and very first-rate boys indeed. It's only fair that I should add this.)

By-the-way, also, M. Dumollard took it into his head to persecute me because once I refused to fetch and carry for him and be his "moricaud," or black slave (as du Tertre-Jouan called it): a mean and petty persecution which lasted two years, and somewhat embitters my memory of those happy days. It was always "Maurice au piquet pour une heure!"... "Maurice à la retenue!"... "Maurice privé de bain!"... "Maurice consigné dimanche prochain!" ... for the slightest possible offence. But I forgive him freely.

First, because he is probably dead, and "de mortibus nil desperandum!" as Rapaud once said--and for saying which he received a "twisted pinch" from Mérovée Brossard himself.

Secondly, because he made chemistry, cosmography, and physics so pleasant--and even reconciled me at last to the differential and integral calculus (but never Barty!).