[8] In an article in the _Revue Internationale de l’Enseignement_ for April 13, 1885. The article contains many interesting details. [9] The following is a genuine English address from pupils in a Parisian _lycée_ to their master:-- “My dear and respected Professor--I take the liberty of testifying the feelings of gratitude which animate us all since we have been under your tutorship. “No doubt we have been lacking in zeal and attention, but we nevertheless appreciate fully the pains you have evidently taken for our benefit. We therefore assure you that if you are not satisfied, we take the engagement to strive to do better hereafter; and you shall see that we will be faithful to our word. “We terminate with the desire that you will sincerely accept this as a true testimonial of our real affection and respect.” Creditable, though not faultless. [10] There have been a few exceptions, such as Lord Egremont and the Duc de Luynes. [11] French carters are superior to English in providing two-wheeled carts with breaks. I remember seeing the horses suffer very much for the want of them in steep roads and streets in England. The French, too, are usually very careful about balancing loads so as not to press heavily on the shaft-horse, but they are merciless in first overloading a cart and then beating the horse because the weight is beyond his strength. [12] My wife had no rest till she had procured the abolition of this custom by an edict from the Mayor of Sens, but very likely it went on in private afterwards. [13] The University decorations of _Officier de l’Instruction Publique_ and _Officier d’Académie_ confer no social position. The fellowship of the University confers none either outside of the University itself. [14] The reason for the cheapness of the _lycées_ is because they are not intended to be paying concerns (deficits being filled up by the State), and because the pupils benefit by the wholesale scale of all purchases, on which, of course, no profit is made. The buildings, being supplied by the towns and the State, are rent free. Some of the newer ones are magnificent. The _Lycée Lakanal_, near Paris, cost £400,000, and is a model of practical modern arrangement. [15] An English friend of mine, himself a man of the very highest culture, says that the cultivated English keep their talk down to a low level from a dread of the watchful jealousy of their intellectual inferiors. They only dare venture to talk in their own way between themselves in privacy. [16] I can speak from experience on this matter, having had in youth an intensely strong local affection for the wilder parts of northern England, a feeling that afterwards extended itself to Scotland, but I remember that when this feeling was strongest, the midland and southern counties were quite like a foreign country to me--a very dull, uninteresting foreign country--and I had no home feeling whatever in London, nor any desire to revisit it.