Mademoiselle clapped her hands and came still closer to me:
"M. de Chateaubriand," she said, "do tell my brother about the Pyramids and Our Lord's Sepulchre."
I told them a story as best I could of the Pyramids, the Holy Sepulchre, the Jordan, the Holy Land. The children were marvellously attentive: Mademoiselle took her pretty face in her two hands, with her elbows almost resting on my knees, and Henry, perched on a high arm-chair, swung his legs to and fro.
After that fine talk about serpents, cataracts, pyramids and the Holy Sepulchre, Mademoiselle said:
"Will you put me a question in history?"
"How, in history?"
"Yes, ask me about a year, the least important year in the whole history of France, except the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which we have not yet begun."
"Oh, I," exclaimed Henry, "I prefer a famous year: ask me something about a famous year!"
He was not so sure of his facts as his sister.
I began by obeying the Princess and said: