Jean Louis Lambert was one of those rare persons with tastes both scientific and literary. But it was only classical literature that appealed to him. He was a passionate Grecian and an ardent admirer of the French masterpieces of _le grand siècle_. In the remarkable literary works which his own day was producing, in the novels of Balzac and George Sand, which were his mother-in-law’s meat and drink, he took not the slightest interest. His Homer, on the other hand, he almost knew by heart; and he made his little daughter as familiar with tales from the _Iliad_ as are most children with “Red Riding Hood” or “Cinderella.” Dr. Lambert himself wrote verses in the classic style, which he would recite to his mother-in-law; but there were others which were red republican, and which he would have kept from her hearing had not that _enfant terrible_ of a Juliette caught them up and repeated them parrot-like to her grandparents. Dr. Seron, an old soldier of _la grande armée_, was infuriated by poems in which his son-in-law dared to attack his idol, the Emperor. Indeed, the family tendency to wrangle was considerably accentuated by the fact that three of its members (Juliette’s mother took no interest in public affairs) held directly divergent political opinions. Mme. Seron was a liberal monarchist, Dr. Seron a Buonapartist, and Dr. Lambert a social democrat. None of these fervent partisans had the remotest idea of keeping their opinions to themselves. Consequently, whenever Dr. Lambert and his wife drove over from Blérancourt, a village nine miles from Chauny, where Juliette’s father had set up in practice, the voice of controversy rose high. These debates generally occurred at meal time. And baby Juliette, accustomed to have the attention of her doting elders fixed upon herself, strongly objected to these diversions. She tells how to restore herself to the limelight she would clamber into the middle of the table and begin to upset the plates and glasses. The device never failed. Discussion ceased; the three controversialists would be overcome with laughter, while the silent member of the group, Juliette’s mother, would suddenly become active. Snatching her daughter from the wreck on the table, she would be administering a sound smacking when three pairs of hands would be eagerly outstretched to rescue the culprit. Thus Juliette learnt two lessons: first, not to fear her mother’s severity, from which she might always count upon the indulgence of her other relatives to deliver her; second, to appreciate “that first born of common sense,” the comic spirit. In her earliest years it was her inestimable privilege to have “laughter for nurse, pure fun for friend.” George Meredith, it will be remembered, divides humanity[4] into three classes: the non-laughers, the excessive laughers and those who stand where the comic spirit places them, “at middle distance between the inveterate opponents and the drum and fife supporters of comedy.”