I recall that of old the professors accompanied their pupils as far as the starting place of the diligences in the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Victoires. One day as the heavy diligence with the students packed on the rear--the cheapest places which exposed them to all the dust of the road--was about to start on the long journey from Paris to Rome, M. Couder, Louis Philippe's favorite painter, was heard to say impressively to his special pupil, "Above all don't forget my style." This was a delightfully naïve remark, but it was touching nevertheless. He was the painter of whom the king said, after he had given him an order for the museum at Versailles, "M. Couder pleases me. His drawing is correct; his coloring satisfies, and he is not dear." Oh, the good, simple times, when words meant what they seemed to and admiration was just without that deifying bombast that is so readily heaped on one to-day! I broke the custom and went on alone after making arrangements to meet my comrades on the road to Genoa where I would overtake them driving an enormous coach drawn by five horses. My plans were first to stop at Nice, where my father was buried, and then to go to embrace my mother who was living at Bordighera. She had a modest villa in a pleasant location in a forest of palms overlooking the sea. I spent New Year's with my mother, the anniversary of my father's death, hours filled to overflowing with tenderness. All too soon I had to leave her, for my joyous comrades awaited me in their carriage on the road of the Italian La Corniche. My tears turned to laughter. Such is youth! Our first stop was at Loano about eight o'clock in the evening. I have confessed that I was almost gay and this is true. Nevertheless I was a prey to indefinite thoughts; I felt myself almost a man, henceforth to be alone in life. I pondered over such thoughts, too reasonable perhaps for my years, while Italy's blossoming mimosas, lemon trees and myrtles threw around me their sweet disturbing odors. What a pleasant contrast it was for me who until then had only known the sour smell of the faubourgs of Paris, the trampled grass of their fortifications, and the perfume--I mean perfume--of my beloved wings of the stage. We spent two days in Genoa visiting the Campo-Santo, the city's cemetery, so rich in the finest marble monuments, reputed to be the most beautiful in Italy. After that who can deny that self-esteem survives after death? Next I found myself one morning on the Place du Dôme at Milan walking with my companion Chaplain, the famous engraver of medallions, and later my confrère at the Institute. We shared our enthusiasms before the marvellous cathedral of white marble dedicated to the Virgin by that terrible partisan leader Jean Galeas Visconti as a repentance for his life. "In that epoch of faith the world covered itself with white robes," thus spake Bossuet whose weighty eloquence comes back to me.