Memoirs | Page 9

figure in Leopold Robert's first picture, and his masterpiece, L'IMPROVISATEUR, which used to hang in the billiard-room at Neuilly. Either a salvage man, or a looter of enlightened taste, cut it out with a penknife, in the midst of the conflagration, and it is the only thing that was saved.
But let me come back to my story.
In my father's sitting-room at Neuilly, and the billiard-room more especially, with the doors on the terrace open, the evenings used to be spent, in a circle of neighbours, friends, and habitual visitors.
These evenings had such a decisive influence on my future destiny that I cannot do otherwise than speak of them.
That billiard-room is before me now, with the pictures that adorned it, all of them masterpieces--L'Improvisateur, by Leopold Robert; La Feeme du Brigand, by Schnetz, Faust and Marguerite, by Ary Scheffer; Venice, by Ziegler--hanging round.
I see the most frequent guests too. First two abbes, whose names--the Abbe de Saint-Phar and the Abbe de Saint-Albin--were a significant inheritance due to the frailty of their great-grandparents many years before the Revolution And yet another abbe, with powdered side curls, L'Abbe de Labordere, a former Grand Vicar of Frejus' who somehow or other, I know not how, had become mayor of Neuilly. Then there was the Marechal de Gouvion de Saint-Cyr, our near neighbour, who always had a circle round him; and admirals too, the Comte de Sercey, with his pigtail--an Indian veteran, Admiral Villaumetz; and generals and officers besides, whose stories of their campaigns used to fill us with enthusiasm. Amongst the generals who were friends of the family there was General Drouot, who was very fond of me, and would take me on his knee and tell me stories. I had seen Horace Vernet's picture, La Bataille de Hanau, which represents Drouot on foot amongst his guns, just as the Bavarian Cuirassiers are charging through them. That had been quite enough to fire my ardour, and I wanted to be an artilleryman too. Just about the same time, my father was presented with a twelve- pounder howitzer by the Vincennes artillery, and Colonel de Caraman came to try it with us. We fired shots in the park, at the rising ground near Villiers, and my military enthusiasm was wrought up to the highest pitch. I tormented my mother till she had an artillery uniform made for me, and when I had it on my back I thought my fortune was made. After having been taken to the fair at Neuilly, and seeing the non- commissioned officers of the Regiment of the Guard quartered at Courbevoie dancing with the pretty laundresses belonging to the village, I tried hard to force my sisters to join me in imitating the particular style of dance I had seen them perform. I have heard it said that my choregraphic performance was fairly successful, but there my fancy for the military career ended. General Drouot went back to Nancy; I did not see him again, and I soon fell under other and more lasting influences.
Among my father's aides-de-camp there was a young cavalry lieutenant- colonel, the Comte d'Houdetot, who had begun life as a midshipman. He was a very clever man, and one of the most delightful story-tellers imaginable. By birth a creole, from the Mauritius, he and his family had happened to come back to Europe on board the corvette La Regeneree, commanded by that same Admiral Villaumetz, our neighbour and constant visitor in the billiard-room. At the time of the voyage D'Houdetot was a baby in arms, and in an action between the Regeneree and the English, at the Loos Islands, his wet nurse was cut in two by a round shot, which gave rise to a saying of his, "I have more right to promotion than anybody. Lots of people have had horses killed under them, but I'm the only man in the French army that ever had a woman killed under him."
Mutually attracted by this common memory, the former middy and the old admiral used to spend their evenings relating their adventures to each other and their stories, which had begun by interesting, ended by fascinating me. It was worth while to hear D'Houdetot tell about the battle of Trafalgar, at which he had been present as a midshipman on board the Algesiras, commanded by his uncle Admiral Magon, how, as he lay on the poop, with both his legs broken by the bursting of a shell, he saw his uncle the admiral receive his death-blow, at the very moment when, wounded already, and his hat and wig carried away by a shot, he had thrown himself on to the nettings, shouting to his crew, "The first man who boards that ship with me shall have the Cross;" and how too, the boarding party having been