“But, sir,” said the officer, himself a former student at the Ecole Polytechnique, “I can’t:  I’ve given them my word!” But Casimir Perier was not there to listen even just then I observed a man of woebegone appearance, sitting in a corner of the drawing-room in which the foregoing scene had taken place.  One of my eldest brother’s aides-de-camp, General Marbot, was walking up and down in front of him, never taking his eyes off him.  “What are you doing there?” I asked the general.

“I’m keeping my eye on that gentleman you see there.”

“Who is he?”

“The Prefect of Police.”

“Really?”

“They say he is playing us false”

And there you see a specimen of the plight you find yourself in on the morrow of a revolution, when order needs restoring not only in the open streets but in the highest quarters in the State.

For my own part, I was always delighted to hear the drums call the National Guard—­and consequently all our masters, tutors, and professors, who served in it—­to arms, at each fresh outbreak of disturbance.

It meant interrupted studies, and, above all, interrupted attendance at school, where, however, luckily for me, I was not to stay much longer.  Seeing that I did no good there whatever, my father decided, in the spring of 1831, to remove me altogether, and as my taste for a naval career was growing stronger and stronger, he resolved to make a sailor of me But before I seriously entered the profession he wished me to make a sea-voyage.  So I was sent to Toulon, to be shipped as volunteer pilot’s apprentice, on board the Arthemise frigate, commander Latreyte.  I was barely thirteen I could not have begun at a better age.

After bidding the tenderest farewell to my father and mother, my aunt, and my brothers and sisters, from whom I had never been parted before, I was packed into a post-chaise with Monsieur Trognon, and off we started.

As far as Lyons our journey was uneventful, but when we got there M. Paulze d’Ivoy, the prefet, and M. Vitet, author of Barricades des Etats de Blois, took possession of me, nominally to show me the town—­in reality to make me the pretext for certain demonstrations in favour of the new order of things.  I was driven about, to Fourvieres, to La Croix-Rousse, and so forth, and had the best of receptions from their sturdy inhabitants.  Thirteen-year-old lad as I was, I had to receive the officers of the National Guard—­very military indeed they were, with their uniform with its white facings, copied from that of the Imperial Guard.  And these receptions and official entertainments, which were not at all to my personal taste, were repeated all along the road till we got to Toulon, marked by increasing animation and fervour as we got farther south, and as the population through which we passed became more and more divided by political passions.  At Valence I found an enormous crowd of people, and the garrison and National Guard both under arms, while a tall lieutenant-colonel, of the 49th Regiment of the Line, insisted on my inspecting the troops in person.