"The academy," Alfieri tells us, "was a large, handsome quadrangular building, with a large court in the middle; two sides of the square were occupied by the students, the other two by the king's theatre and royal archives. The side occupied by us, who were called of the second and third apartment, was opposite the latter; that occupied by the students of the first apartment being opposite to the king's theatre. The upper gallery on our side was called the third apartment, and was devoted to the younger boys and lower schools. The gallery on the ground floor was called the second, and occupied by the pupils rather more advanced in age: a portion of these studied at the university, another edifice adjoining to the academy; the rest received their education in the military college. Every gallery contained at least four chambers, each occupied by eleven youths, over which an assistant, or usher, presided,--a poor fellow, whose only payment consisted in being boarded and lodged free of expense, while he studied theology or law, at the university; or, if he were not a poor student, he was an old and ignorant priest. A third portion of the side destined to the first apartment was occupied by the king's pages, to the number of twenty or twenty-five, who were totally separated from us of the second, at the opposite angle of the court, and close to the galleries of the archives. We, the younger pupils, could not have been worse placed. On one side, was a theatre which we were only permitted to visit about five or six times during the carnival; on the other, the pages who attended on the court, and who, continually hunting and riding, appeared to enjoy much freer and happier lives than the poor imprisoned boys; besides these, we overlooked the proceedings of the first class, which was composed almost entirely of foreigners, Russian and German, with a large proportion of English;--this class was restrained by no rule except that of being in by midnight; and their apartment was a mere lodging house to them, instead of being a place of education." Alfieri was placed in the third apartment: he had the luxury of a servant to attend on him; but the fellow, unchecked by superior authority, became a sort of petty tyrant over his young master: in all other respects, he was on an equality with the rest of his comrades.