There is one thing that I have always noticed in the Parisian lecturer,—his complete lack of timidity, of want of self-confidence. However dull he may be, however mediocre, however uneloquent,—and he is often one, or all three,—no matter, he is sure of himself. He has chosen to shine as a lecturer, and as a lecturer he will under no circumstance be induced to recognise himself as a failure. This stupendous self-conceit is a masculine characteristic, I know, but the Parisian lecturer carries it off with art. He is an artist in his genius for believing in himself. How many great men have I gone forth to hear talk of their art or of themselves, and come away amazed by the string of admirably delivered commonplaces they have uttered! M. Gustave Larroumet is a lecturer all Paris was wild about some years ago. I was told that for love or money you could not get a place at one of his lectures, unless you subscribed beforehand for the whole course, and even then that he was bombarded with declarations, like a popular tenor, and that young girls died of undeclared love for him. Never was such a popular lecturer as M. Larroumet! I went in dread and awe. Should I, too, succumb, and add one more to the daily thousand and one declarations of a hopeless passion? The vast hall was thronged, the dresses were exquisite, the bonnets dazzling. All the young girls of fashionable Paris were there, with note-books and scented pocket-handkerchiefs for the expected great emotions. He came, the popular lecturer, and never was I more grievously disillusioned. He spoke well, his gesticulation and enunciation were equally delightful to hear and behold. He was, what one might expect him to be after such a course of public worship, the _blasé_ fine gentleman of the lecture-hall, good-looking, youngish, the very tenor of lecturers. But to what hopeless mediocrities he treated us, what _lieux-communs_ he imperturbably walked us through! It was one of Gresset’s plays he analysed. The gist of it all was that our grandmothers were better bred than we are, because they indulged in _persiflage_ and we in _blagues_. And this was the great lecturer of the hour!