slept at the college, but came in[Pg 141] the morning for the seven o’clock lessons. The two brothers, also, were day-boarders. The three of us were inseparable. As we lived in the same street we used to wait to go in to college together. Louis, who was very precocious and dreamed of adventures, seduced us. We agreed to leave home at six, so as to have a whole hour of freedom in which we could be men. For us “to be men” meant to smoke cigars and to go and have drinks at a shabby wine-shop, which Louis had discovered in an out-of-the-way street. The cigars and the drinks made us frightfully ill; but, then, what an emotion it was to step into the wine-shop, casting glances to right and left, and in terror of being observed.

[Pg 141]

These fine doings occurred towards the close of the winter. I remember there were mornings when the rain fell in torrents. We waded through, and arrived drenched. After that, the mornings became mild and fair, and then a mania took hold of us—that of going to see off[Pg 142] the soldiers. Aix is on the road to Marseilles. Regiments came into the town by the road from Avignon, slept one night, and started off on the morrow by the road to Marseilles. At that time, fresh troops, especially cavalry and artillery, were being sent to the Crimea. Not a week elapsed without troops passing. A local paper even announced these movements beforehand, for the benefit of the inhabitants with whom the men lodged. Only we did not read the paper, and we were much concerned to know overnight whether there would be soldiers leaving in the morning. As the departure occurred at five in the morning, we were obliged to get up very early, often to no purpose.

[Pg 142]

What a happy time it was! Louis and Julien would come and call me from the middle of the street, where not a person was yet to be seen. I hurried down. It would be chilly, notwithstanding the spring-time mildness of the days, and we three would cross the empty town.[Pg 143] When a regiment was leaving, the soldiers would be assembling on the Cours, before a hotel where the colonel generally stayed. Therefore, the moment that we turned into the Cours, our necks were stretched out eagerly. If the Cours was empty, what a blow! And it was often empty. On these mornings, though we did not say so, we regretted our beds, and cooled our heels till seven o’clock, not knowing what to do with our freedom. But, then, what joy it was, when we turned the street and saw the Cours full of men and horses! An amazing commotion arose in the slight morning chill. Soldiers came in from every direction, while the 

 Prev. P 55/81 next