_Parbleu_, Madam, I have succeeded well in French. I understand not only _patois_, but even aristocratic nurse-maid French. Not long ago, when in noble society, I understood full one-half of the conversation of two German Countesses, each of whom could count at least sixty-four years, and as many ancestors. Yes, in the Café Royal, at Berlin, I once heard Monsieur Hans Michel Martens talking French, and understood every word, though there was no understanding in it. We must know the spirit of a language, and this is best learned by drumming. _Parbleu!_ how much do I not owe to the French drummer who was so long quartered in our house, who looked like a devil, and yet had the heart of an angel, and who drummed so excellently? He was a little nervous figure, with a terrible black moustache, beneath which the red lips turned suddenly outwards, while his fiery eyes glanced around. I, a youngster, stuck to him like a cur, and helped him to rub his military buttons like mirrors, and to pipe-clay his vest, for Monsieur Le Grand liked to look well; and I followed him to the watch, to the roll-call, to the parade. In those times there was nothing but the gleam of weapons and merriment--_les jours de fête sont passés!_ Monsieur Le Grand knew only a little broken German, only the chief expressions--“Bread,” “kiss,” “honour,” but he could make himself very intelligible with his drum. For instance, if I did not know what the word _liberté_ meant, he drummed the _Marseillaise_, and I understood him. If I did not understand the word _egalité_, he drummed the march, “_Ça ira ... les aristocrats a la lanterne!_” and I understood him. If I did not know what _bêtise_ meant, he drummed the Dessauer March, which we Germans, as Goethe also declares, have drummed in champagne--and I understood him. He once wanted to explain to me the word _l’Allemagne_, and he drummed the all too simple primeval melody, which on market days is played to dancing dogs--namely, _Dum-dum-dum_. I was vexed, but I understood him.