I feel myself under a debt to every one who gives me an agreeable half-hour; and certainly the evening we spent in his society left a very pleasant impression behind it. For the first few days after we have quitted our native land, we feel a certain degree of loneliness, which makes us creep closer to any stray countryman we may happen to meet, than our national reserve would permit us to do under any other circumstance. On our part, therefore, there was no backwardness, and our young officer had been travelling so long, that I dare say he never remembered what the word _stranger_ meant. In a foreign country, knowing no one, we were thrown upon each other for amusement, and we were not long in finding it. Each told his anecdote and his tale. We peopled the little salon at Dieppe with characters from every quarter of the globe. We forgot the place, and the time, and more than one hour had waned after midnight before we retired to rest. Much of what passed is gone from my recollection, but, amongst other questions, I remember asking what was the state of a college which had been founded in a distant country, by a noble countryman of ours? "The matter," replied he, "is rather oddly ordered at present, for you must know that, when I saw it, there were eleven professors and three scholars; but the most singular part of the whole is, that the professor of theology is a reputed atheist, and the professor of languages stutters so as to be unintelligible in any. We went from anecdotes to tales, and one which he said he had heard while crossing the country from Marseilles towards ---- made an impression on my mind that will not easily be effaced. He called it" THE STORY OF THE BEAUTY OF ARLES. Ah chi mi taglie la mia pace antica, E Amore? Io nol distinguo, Alcun mel' dica. --METASTASIO. With a frame of iron, a strong fixed mind, and a dauntless determined spirit, Armand Villars went forth into the world, seemingly well calculated to sustain its sorrows, and to repel its dangers. There was a likeness in his mind and person; the beauty of his countenance was of that stern grave cast which suited his character, and his form was of the same powerful nature as his spirit. In youth he was unlike the rest. It was not that his mind was brighter, but it was that it never bent: and the very energy of his calmness gave him command amongst his companions, if companions they may be called, for there is little companionship where there is no similarity. Yet still they courted him to be amongst them, and might have taught him to fancy himself above the common level of his kind, but Villars was proud, not vain. A vain man acts for others, a proud man for himself. And Villars thought of his own opinion, scarcely dreaming that others would judge of him at all.