year’s end to year’s end.  They had never seen the sun, and habitually lived on half-raw “rosbif.”  It was only natural that such young barbarians should fail to appreciate the cookery of so celebrated a cordon-bleu, which term, I may add, is only applicable to a woman-cook, and can never be used of a man.  This truly admirable woman made us terrines of truffled foie-gras such as even Strasburg could not surpass, and gave them to us for breakfast.  I blush to own that those four benighted boys asked for eggs and bacon instead.

Although M. Ducros had heard English talked around him for so many years, he had all the average Frenchman’s difficulty in assimilating any foreign language.  His knowledge of our tongue was confined to one word only, and that a most curiously chosen word.  “Slop-basin” was the beginning and end of his knowledge of the English language.  M. Ducros used his one word of English only in moments of great elation.  Should, for instance, his sister Mlle. Louise have surpassed herself in the kitchen, M. Ducros, after tasting her chef d’oeuvre, would joyously ejaculate, “Slop-basin!” several times over.  It was understood in his family that “slop-basin” always indicated that the master of the house was in an extremely contented frame of mind.

The judicial system of France is not as concentrated as ours.  Every Sous-prefecture in France has its local Civil Court with a Presiding Judge, an Assistant Judge, and a “Substitut.”  The latter, in small towns, is the substitute for the Procureur de la Republique, or Public Prosecutor.  The legal profession in France is far more “clannish” than with us, for lawyers have always played a great part in the history of France.  The so-called “Parlements” (not to be confounded with our Parliament) had had, up to the time of the French Revolution, very large powers indeed.  They were originally Supreme Courts of Justice, but by the fifteenth century they could not only make, on their own account, regulations having the force of laws, but had acquired independent administrative powers.  Originally the “Parlement de Paris” stood alone, but as time went on, in addition to this, thirteen or fourteen local “Parlements” administered France.  After the Revolution, the term was only applied to Supreme Courts, without administrative powers.  M. Ducros was Assistant Judge of the Nyons Tribunal, and the Ducros were rather fond of insisting that they belonged to the old noblesse de robe.

As a child I could speak French as easily as English, and even after eight years of French lessons at school, my French was still tucked away in some corner of my head; but I had, of course, only a child’s vocabulary, sufficient for a child’s simple wants.  Under Madame Ducros’ skilful tuition I soon began to acquire an adult vocabulary, and it became no effort to me whatever to talk.