I was fourteen then; I was no longer a small boy, and yet I feel to-day how complete was the ignorance of the world in which we were living. In that forgotten corner, even the echo of great events hardly reached us. The town, a sad, old, dead capital, slumbered in the midst of its arid landscape; and the college, close to the ramparts, in the deserted quarter of the town, slumbered even more deeply. I do not remember any political catastrophe ever passing its walls while I was cloistered there. The Crimean war alone moved us, and even as to that it is probable that weeks elapsed before the fame of it reached us. When I recall my memories of that time, I smile to think what war was to us country schoolboys. In the first place, everything was extremely vague. The theatre of the struggle was so distant, so lost in a strange and savage country, that we seemed to be looking on at a story come true out of the “Arabian Nights.” We did not clearly know where the fighting was; and I do not remember that we had at any time curiosity enough to consult the atlases in our hands. It must be said that our teachers kept us in absolute ignorance of modern life. They themselves read the papers and learned the news; but they never opened their mouths to us about such things, and if we had questioned them, they would have dismissed us sternly to our exercises and essays. We knew nothing precise, except that France was fighting in the East, for reasons not within our ken. Certain points, however, stood out clear. We repeated the classic jokes about the Cossacks. We knew the names of two or three Russian generals, and we were not far from attributing to these generals the heads of child-devouring monsters. Moreover, we did not for one moment admit the possibility that the French could be beaten. That would have appeared to us contrary to the laws of nature. Then there were gaps. As the campaign was prolonged, we would forget, for months at a time, that there was any fighting, until some day some report came to arouse our attention again. I cannot tell whether we knew of the battles as they happened, or whether we felt the thrill which the fall of Sebastopol gave to France. All these things were confused. Virgil and Homer were realities which caused us more concern than the contemporary quarrels of nations. I only remember that for a time there was a game greatly in favour in our playgrounds. We divided ourselves into two camps. We drew two lines on the ground, and proceeded to fight. It was “prisoners’ base” simplified. One camp represented the Russian and one the French army. Naturally, the Russians ought to have been defeated, but the contrary sometimes occurred; the fury was extraordinary and the riot frightful. At the end of a week the superintendent was obliged to forbid this delightful game: two boys had had to be put on the sick list, with broken heads.