The Martian: A Novel

by George Du Maurier

Then, from eight till twelve, class—Latin, Greek, French, English, German—and mathematics and geometry—history, geography, chemistry, physics-everything that you must get to know before you can hope to obtain your degree of Bachelor of Letters or Sciences, or be admitted to the Polytechnic School, or the Normal, or the Central, or that of Mines, or that of Roads and Bridges, or the Military School of St. Cyr, or the Naval School of the Borda. All this was fifty years ago; of course names of schools may have changed, and even the sciences themselves.

Then, at twelve, the second breakfast, meat (or salt fish on Fridays), a dish of vegetables, lentils, red or white beans, salad, potatoes, etc.; a dessert, which consisted of fruit or cheese, or a French pudding. This banquet over, a master would stand up in his place and call for silence, and read out loud the list of boys who were to be kept in during the play‑hour that followed:

"À la retenue, Messieurs Maurice, Rapaud, de Villars, Jolivet, Sponde," etc. Then play till 1.30; and very good play, too; rounders, which are better and far more complicated in France than in England; "barres"; "barres traversières," as rough a game as football; fly the garter, or "la raie," etc., etc., according to the season. And then afternoon study, at the summons of that dreadful bell whose music was so sweet when it rang the hour for meals or recreation or sleep—so hideously discordant at 5.30 on a foggy December Monday morning.

Altogether eleven hours work daily and four hours play, and sleep from nine till five or half past; I find this leaves half an hour unaccounted for, so I must have made a mistake somewhere. But it all happened fifty years ago, so it's not of much consequence now.

Probably they have changed all that in France by this time, and made school life a little easier there, especially for nice little English boys—and nice little French boys too. I hope so, very much; for French boys can be as nice as any, especially at such institutions as F. Brossard's, if there are any left.

Most of my comrades, aged from seven to nineteen or twenty, were the sons of well‑to‑do fathers—soldiers, sailors, rentiers, owners of land, public officials, in professions or business or trade. A dozen or so were of aristocratic descent—three or four very great swells indeed; for instance, two marquises (one of whom spoke English, having an English mother); a count bearing a string of beautiful names a thousand years old, and even more—for they were constantly turning up in the Classe d'Histoire de France au moyen âge; a Belgian viscount of immense wealth and immense good‑nature; and several very rich Jews, who were neither very clever nor very stupid, but, as a rule, rather popular.

Then we had a few of humble station—the son of the woman who washed for us; Jules, the natural son of a brave old caporal in the trente‑septième légère (a countryman of M. Brossard's), who was not well off—so I suspect his son was taught and fed for nothing—the Brossards were very liberal; Filosel, the only child of a small retail hosier in the Rue St.‑Denis (who thought no sacrifice too great to keep his son at such a first‑rate private school), and others.

During the seven years I spent at Brossard's I never once heard paternal wealth (or the want of it) or paternal rank or position alluded to by master, pupil, or servant—especially never a word or an allusion that could have given a moment's umbrage to the most sensitive little only son of a well‑to‑do West End cheese‑monger that ever got smuggled into a private suburban boarding‑school kept "for the sons of gentlemen only," and was so chaffed and bullied there that his father had to take him away, and send him to Eton instead, where the "sons of gentlemen" have better manners, it seems; or even to France, where "the sons of gentlemen" have the best manners of all—or used to have before a certain 2d of December—as distinctly I remember; nous avons changé tout cela!

The head master was a famous republican, and after February, '48, was elected a "représentant du peuple" for the Dauphiné, and sat in the Chamber of Deputies—for a very short time, alas!

So I fancy that the titled and particled boys—"les nobles"—were of families that had drifted away from the lily and white flag of their loyal ancestors—from Rome and the Pope and the past.