Going thence to Paris I settled down in the family of a very intelligent French professor, where I remained nearly a year. Not a word of English was spoken in the family; and, with the daily lesson in a French method, and lectures at the Sorbonne and Coll<e!>ge de France, the new language soon became familiar. The lectures then heard strengthened my conception of what a university should be. Among my professors were such men as St. Marc Girardin, Arnould, and, at a later period, Laboulaye. In connection with the lecture-room work, my studies in modern history were continued, especially by reading Guizot, Thierry, Mignet, Thiers, Ch<a^>teaubriand, and others, besides hearing various masterpieces in French dramatic literature, as given at the Th<e'><a^>tre Fran<c,>ais, where Rachel was then in her glory, and at the Od<e'>on, where Mlle. Georges, who had begun her career under the first Napoleon, was ending it under Napoleon III. My favorite subject of study was the French Revolution, and, in the intervals of reading and lectures, I sought out not only the spots noted in its history, but the men who had taken part in it. At the H<o^>tel des Invalides I talked with old soldiers, veterans of the Republic and of the Napoleonic period, discussing with them the events through which they had passed; and, at various other places and times, with civilians who had heard orations at the Jacobin and Cordelier clubs, and had seen the guillotine at work. The most interesting of my old soldiers at the Invalides wore upon his breast the cross of the Legion of Honor, which he had received from Napoleon at Austerlitz. Still another had made the frightful marches through the Spanish Peninsula under Soult, and evidently felt very humble in the presence of those who had taken part in the more famous campaigns under Napoleon himself. The history of another of my old soldiers was pathetic. He was led daily into the cabaret, where my guests were wont to fight their battles o'er again, his eyes absolutely sightless, and his hair as white as snow. Getting into conversation with him I learned that he had gone to Egypt with Bonaparte, had fought at the Battle of the Pyramids, had been blinded by the glaring sun on the sand of the desert, and had been an inmate at the Invalides ever since;--more than half a century. At a later period I heard from another of my acquaintances how, as a schoolboy, he saw Napoleon beside his camp-fire at Cannes, just after his landing from Elba.