And arithmetic? Yes, we did a little of this, but not under that learned name. We called it sums. To put down rows of figures, not too long, add them and subtract them one from the other was more or less familiar work. On Saturday evenings, to finish up the week, there was a general orgy of sums. The top boy stood up and, in a loud voice, recited the multiplication table up to twelve times. I say twelve times, for, in those days, because of our old duodecimal measures, it was the custom to count as far as the twelve-times table, instead of the ten-times of the metric system. When this recital was over, the whole class, the little ones included, shouted it in chorus, creating such an uproar that chicks and porkers took to flight if they happened to be there. And this went on to twelve times twelve, the first in the row starting the next table and the whole class repeating it as loud as it could yell. Of all that we were taught in school, the multiplication table was what we knew best, for this noisy method ended by dinning the different numbers into our ears. This does not mean that we became skilful reckoners. The cleverest of us easily got muddled with the figures to be carried in a multiplication sum. As for division, rare indeed were they who reached such heights. In short, the moment a problem, however insignificant, had to be solved, we had recourse to mental gymnastics much rather than to the learned aid of arithmetic. This account cannot be suspected of any malicious exaggeration: the narrator is too full of sympathy for his old master to do him anything less than justice. In any case he bears him no grudge in respect of the deficiencies of his teaching: When all is said, our master was an excellent man who could have kept school very well but for his lack of one thing: and that was time. He devoted to us all the little leisure which his numerous functions left him. And first of all, he managed the property of an absentee landowner, who only occasionally set foot in the village. He had under his care an old castle with four towers, which had become so many pigeon-houses; he directed the getting-in of the hay, the walnuts, the apples, and the oats. We used to help him during the summer, when the school, which was well attended in winter, was almost deserted. The few who remained, because they were not yet big enough to work in the fields, were small children, including him who was one day to set down these memorable facts. Lessons were less dull at that time of year. They were often given on the hay or the straw; oftener still, lesson-time was spent in cleaning out the dovecot or stamping on the snails that had sallied in rainy weather from their ramparts, the tall box borders of the garden belonging to the castle.