On searching my memory, I did not fail to find indication of the force latent in me, which had had no opportunity of increasing owing to the paltry conditions of my life as a young well-to-do _bourgeois_. That Rugby semi-final for the inter-school championship, played between my college and the "Lilies of the Valley" from Bourdeaux. Our opponents, favoured by the wind and sun, had kept the game in our "twenty-five" nearly all the first half, and had scored four tries and two goals. That meant a beating for us; despair in our team. I can see myself at half-time, ceasing to suck my lemon in order to make a manly speech to my fourteen comrades. In the second half, we kicked off, got the play into their "twenty-five," and in our turn, scored two tries, the second of which was converted. We could not have gained more satisfaction by beating them, than we did by avoiding a humiliating defeat. Does the comparison make you smile? But I belonged to a generation which had already profited by the proud lesson of sport. I had pursued all the most violent athletics, less on rational than on passionate grounds, and for the delights of self-love which bear such a wonderful attraction for youthful hearts. I had run, boxed, and swum. I had been broken into the games where the individual learns to collaborate unselfishly with his partners. I bear witness to the nobility of that school. Without suspecting it I had gained a moral education there. One comes out tempered for any struggle, after having tried conclusions with rival energies over and over again in friendly meetings. And even if I had gained nothing but the bodily benefit! The play of my muscles and organs was free and healthy and unhampered. Well fed as we were, except on one or two occasions, I could have gone to the world's end. As I became hardened, I no longer got as tired as I had on the first days. I lay down to sleep, never mind where, and I slept. On waking up all I felt was a suspicion of stiffness, nothing more. The first advance! How often I was lucky enough to be able to give a helping hand to some man, by carrying his rifle or his load for him for an hour or two. My own pack sat lightly on me, seemed to have become part of me. I remember how distracted I was one day--I must have left it on the bank just now, I exclaimed, during the long halt...! Guillaumin saw that I was not laughing, it was he who exploded: My pack? It had been plastered on to my shoulders the whole blessed time! Another motive for my strength of mind, the chief one, was my correspondence.