"We have also had views of the homes and haunts of great authors," said Ernest. "I have made a scrap-book of leaves and flowers from the homes and graves of men of letters, and it includes souvenirs of nearly all the most eminent names in English literature." Havre is really a port of Paris, and is one of the most thriving maritime towns of France. Like most port towns it is more businesslike than picturesque. The Class made but two visits here, outside of the hotel. One of these was to the birthplace of Bernardin de St. Pierre in Rue de la Cordesis, and the other to the cliffs on which the great French light-houses are erected at a height of three hundred feet. [Illustration: MOLIÈRE.] It was in the bright twilight of a late day in August that the Class mounted the cliffs and overlooked the sea, whose waves still reflected the vermilion of the sky. The boys were sober at the thought that this was their last day in Europe, and that they were now to return to the set tasks of the school-room. [Illustration: THE READING OF "PAUL AND VIRGINIA."] "These cliffs," said Master Lewis, "were the favorite haunts of the author of 'Paul and Virginia.' He was a mere theorist, a daydreamer; and here he loved to gaze on the bright sea, and plan expeditions of republican colonists to such lands as he paints in his novels. His expeditions ended in the air. But he himself went to Mauritius, where he lived three years. On his return to Paris, while the brightness of tropical scenery still haunted him, he wrote 'Paul and Virginia.'" [Illustration: RACINE.] "When Corneille, the great Corneille, as the popular dramatist came to be called, read his masterpiece, _Polyeucte_, to a party of fashionable literary people in Paris, it was coolly received on account of the fine Christian sentiments it contained. The criticism was that the religion of the stage should be that, not of God, but of the gods. Even a bishop present took this view. "Bernardin de St. Pierre was as sharply criticised when he first read in public his beautiful romance of 'Paul and Virginia.' It was at a party given by Madame Necker. 'At first,' says a writer, 'every one listened in silence; then the company began to whisper, then to yawn. Monsieur de Buffon ordered his carriage, and slipped out of the nearest door. The ladies who listened were ridiculed when tears at last gathered in their eyes.' [Illustration: RACINE READING TO LOUIS XIV.] "_Polyeucte_ still lives in French literature, and the wits who condemned it are forgotten; 'Paul and Virginia' charmed France; fifty imitations of it were published in a single year, and it was rapidly translated into all European tongues. It remains a classic, but the critics in Madame Necker's parlors are recollected only for their mistake."