She was the active and efficient partner in the concern, Mrs. Rowden the dignified and representative one.  The whole of our course of study and mode of life, with the exception of our religious training, of which I have spoken before, was followed under her direction, and according to the routine of most French schools.

The monastic rule of loud-reading during meals was observed, and l’Abbe Millot’s “Universal History,” of blessed boring memory, was the dry daily sauce to our diet.  On Saturday we always had a half-holiday in the afternoon, and the morning occupations were feminine rather than academic.

Every girl brought into the schoolroom whatever useful needlework, mending or making, her clothes required; and while one read aloud, the others repaired or replenished their wardrobes.

Great was our satisfaction if we could prevail upon Mademoiselle Descuilles herself to take the book in hand and become the “lectrice” of the morning; greater still when we could persuade her, while intent upon her own stitching, to sing to us, which she sometimes did, old-fashioned French songs and ballads, of which I learnt from her and still remember some that I have never since heard, that must have long ago died out of the musical world and left no echo but in my memory.  Of two of these I think the words pretty enough to be worth preserving, the one for its naive simplicity, and the other for the covert irony of its reflection upon female constancy, to which Mademoiselle Descuilles’ delivery, with her final melancholy shrug of the shoulders, gave great effect.

    LE TROUBADOUR

    Un gentil Troubadour
    Qui chante et fait la guerre,
    Revenait chez son pere,
    Revant a son amour.

    Gages de sa valeur,
    Suspendus a son echarpe,
    Son epee, et sa harpe,
    Se croisaient sur son coeur.

    Il rencontre en chemin
    Pelerine jolie,
    Qui voyage, et qui prie,
    Un rosaire a la main.

    Colerette, a long plis,
    Cachait sa fine taille,
    Un grand chapeau de paille,
    Ombrait son teint de lys.

    “O gentil Troubadour,
    Si tu reviens fidele,
    Chante un couplet pour celle
    Qui benit ton retour.”

    “Pardonne a mon refus
    Pelerine jolie! 
    Sans avoir vu ma mie,
    Je ne chanterai plus.”

    “Et ne la vois-tu pas? 
    O Troubadour fidele! 
    Regarde moi—­c’est elle! 
    Ouvre lui donc tes bras!

    “Craignant pour notre amour,
    J’allais en pelerine,
    A la Vierge divine
    Prier pour ton retour!”

    Pres des tendres amans
    S’eleve une chapelle,
    L’Ermite qu’on appelle,
    Benit leurs doux sermens

    Venez en ce saint lieu,
    Amans du voisinage,
    Faire un pelerinage
    A la Mere de Dieu!

The other ballad, though equally an illustration of the days of chivalry, was written in a spirit of caustic contempt for the fair sex, which suggests the bitterness of the bard’s personal experience:—­