It was during this visit to Paris that my father became acquainted with M. Piron, _Sous Directeur des Postes aux Lettres_, a man whose memory should not be suffered to perish, since it was mainly through his exertions that the postal reform was adopted in France. For several years during the latter part of Louis Philippe's reign, M. Piron strove so persistently to promote the cause of cheap postage that he actually injured his prospects of rising in the Service, as the innovation was strenuously opposed both by the monarch and by the Postmaster-General, M. Dubost, the “French Maberly.” Therefore, while the “citizen king” remained on the throne the Government gave little or no encouragement to the proposed reform. But M. Piron, too much in earnest to put personal advancement above his country's welfare, went on manfully fighting for cheap postage. He it was who made the accidental discovery among the archives of the French Post Office of documents which showed that a M. de Valayer had, nearly two hundred years before, established in Paris a private (penny?) post—of which further mention will be made in the next chapter. Neither Charles Knight, who first suggested the impressed stamp, nor Rowland Hill, who first suggested the adhesive stamp, had heard of M. de Valayer or of his private post; and even in France they had been forgotten, and might have remained so but for M. Piron's discovery. One is reminded of the re-invention of the mariner's compass and of many other new-old things. Nine years after my father's official visit to Paris, that is, with the advent of the Revolution of 1848, the reforming spirit in France had stronger sway; and M. Piron's efforts were at last crowned with success. The uniform rate proposed by him (20 centimes) was adopted, and the stamp issued was the well-known black head of Liberty. In order to keep pace with the public demand, the first sheets were printed in such a hurry that some of the heads—the dies to produce which were then detached from one another—were turned upside down. M. Piron sent my father one of the earliest sheets with apologies for the reversals. These are now almost unobtainable, and are therefore much prized by philatelists. During this visit to Paris, or at a later one, my father also made the acquaintance of M. Grasset, M. St Priest, and other leading post officials; and, among non-official and very interesting people, M. Horace Say, son to the famous Jean Baptiste Say, and father to the late M. Léon Say, three generations of illustrious Frenchmen.