In concluding my experiences at Saint-Michel, I recollect, in a dreamlike fashion, that towards the end of my first year, just before the holidays, we played a comedy called _The Children of Edward_, by Casimir Delavigne. To me was allotted the part of a young princess, and my mother supplied me for the occasion with a muslin dress which she borrowed from a little girl of our neighbourhood. This white dress was, later, the cause of a pretty little romance, which I will tell further on. In the second year of my schooling, having begun to learn Latin, I wrote to my parents to send me some books, and a few days after, looking down into the valley, behold I saw mounting the path to the convent, my father astride on Babache, the good old mule of thirty years’ service, well known at all the market towns around. For my father always rode Babache, whether to the market, or going the round of his fields with the long weeding-fork, which he used from his saddle, cutting down the thistles and weeds. Upon reaching the convent, my father emptied an enormous sack which he had brought with him on his saddle. “See, Frédéric,” he called, “I have brought thee a few books and some paper!” Therewith he pulled from the sack, one after the other, four or five dictionaries bound in parchment, a mass of paper books--“Epitome,” “De Viris Illustribus,” “Selecta Historiæ,” “Conciones,” &c.--a huge bottle of ink, a bundle of goose quills, and enough writing paper to last me seven years, to the end of my school time in fact. It was from Monsieur Aubanel, printer at Avignon, and father of the future famous and beloved Félibre, at that time unknown to me, that my worthy parent had with such promptness made this provision for my education. At our pleasant monastery of St. Michel de Frigolet, however, I had no leisure to use much writing material. Monsieur Donnat, our master, for one reason or another, was seldom at his own establishment, and, as the proverb truly says, “When the cat is away, the mice will play.” The masters, badly paid, had always some excuse for cutting short the lesson, and when the parents visited the school, there was often no one to be seen. On their inquiring for the boys, some of us would be found actively engaged in repairing the stone wall which upheld a slanting field, while others would be among the vines revelling in the discovery of forgotten little bunches of grapes or mushrooms. Unfortunately, these circumstances did not conduce to much confidence in our headmaster. Another thing which contributed to the decline of the school was that, in order to increase the numbers, poor Monsieur Donnat took pupils who paid little or nothing, and these were not the boys who ate least.