When, after twenty-five years have flown by, one stops to look back over one's past life, one is surprised to find how many men and events are completely forgotten that in their time occasioned much stir in the world, remembrance of them being obliterated as soon as equilibrium was restored. M. Éliça Gallay was Inspector of the University. One day he arrived at Marseilles and gave his usual discourse at the royal college. In this speech was the phrase which follows; we give the sense of it if not exactly the actual words:-- "Messieurs, we are obliged to have two scales of weights and measures. When a pupil is loyal and religious anything can be forgiven him; but if he be a Liberal the greatest severity must be exercised towards him." The use of these two scales of _weight_ and _measurement_ was much commented upon in the newspapers at the time, and it disgusted Méry to such an extent that he wrote a pamphlet, of a somewhat scathing nature, it would seem, against M. Éliça Gallay; and this pamphlet, as we have said, cost our author eight months' imprisonment. Méry had no means of livelihood in Marseilles, he hated a commercial life, he could write poetry with the greatest facility and he was an adept in the art of draughts-playing. He would not dream of a commercial life, he could not count on poetry, so he resolved to make use of the game which, played as he played it, became an art. Méry left for Paris with the intention of making a living as a draught-player. He was then twenty-one, and he lodged at Madame Caldairon's, 11 rue des Petits-Augustins, with Achille Vaulabelle, author of the _Deux Restaurations_, and began an existence divided between the study of geology under Cuvier and perfecting himself at draughts by playing with the best amateurs at the café _Manoury._ So he played draughts at the café _Manoury_ and studied geology at the Jardin des Plantes. By playing ten sous a game--never more--Méry managed for a year to make an income of ten francs per day. On the other hand, he never missed his lesson in comparative anatomy, and Cuvier had not a more assiduous pupil than he; showing him great friendliness, and predicting that he would make a name in geology. In other ways, too, matters shaped themselves wonderfully to the advantage of the future of our friend from Marseilles. Madame Caldairon, who worshipped him, wanted him to marry a young dressmaker who was very much in the fashion at that time, and whose business, one of the most flourishing in Paris, brought in from twenty-five to thirty thousand francs a year. The marriage was arranged, and Méry was gleefully looking forward to a rosy future, when his young fiancée caught a chill one cold February night in 1826, when she and Méry were obliged to walk across the pont des Arts, as they could not get a cab anywhere, either in the rue Jacob or on the Embankment. The chill developed into pneumonia, she died in three days and Méry was a widower before he