I gradually became acquainted with all the men of the Opposition party, who were beginning the work of undermining the monarchy at the commencement of the nineteenth century--the uncompleted task of the end of the eighteenth century. I met Carrel at M. de Leuven's house, where he often came, as he wrote for the _Courrier_, of which paper M. de Leuven was one of the chief editors. I met Manuel, Benjamin Constant and Béranger at Colonel Bro's; but Béranger was the only one of the three with whom I had time to become intimately acquainted or who had himself leisure to gauge me: the other two were to die, one before I became known, and the other when I was but little known. Bro was much attached to me. I have previously recorded how, thanks to him, I had seen Géricault upon his dying bed. He had one son, at that time a charming boy named Olivier, who became one of our bravest officers in the new army, as his father had been one of the bravest in the old _grande armée._ It was his life that was so miraculously saved by General Lamoricière when a Bedouin's yataghan was already at his throat. I have not seen him since 1829, and I am going to relate a story that will bring back recollections of childhood to him wherever he may be. Colonel Bro used to procure Adolphe and me all the enjoyments he possibly could, and among them the sport of shooting. By some means or other, I know not how, he owned, at that time, the Lake of Enghien. In 1827 and '28 the Lake of Enghien was not a pretty little smooth, trim, well-kept lake as it is now; it had then no public gardens on its banks filled with roses, dahlias and jessamine; no Gothic châteaux, Italian villas and Swiss châlets all round it; nor, indeed, upon its surface had it a flotilla of swans, as now, begging for cakes from the people who hired boats at three francs fifty centimes the hour, furrowing the surface of its waters, which were as clear as the water in a basin, and as smooth as the glass of a mirror. No, the Lake of Enghien was, at that period, a simple, natural lake, too muddy to be called a lake, and not muddy enough to be called a pond. It was covered with reeds and water-lilies, amongst which diver birds played, water-hens cackled and wild ducks dabbled, in quite sufficient quantities to give sport to a score of guns.