esse de Guiche,
to see her sons. Great was their delight at the meeting. I thought they
would never have done embracing her; and I, too, was warmly welcomed by
these dear and affectionate boys, who kissed me again and again. They
have already won golden opinions at the college, by their rare aptitude
in acquiring all that is taught them, and by their docility and manly
characters.

The masters paid the Duchesse the highest compliments on the progress
her sons had made previously to their entrance at Ste.-Barbe, and
declared that they had never met any children so far advanced for their
age. I shared the triumph of this admirable mother, whose fair cheeks
glowed, and whose beautiful eyes sparkled, on hearing the eulogiums
pronounced on her boys. Her observation to me was, "How pleased their
father will be!"

Ste.-Barbe is a little world in itself, and a very different world to
any I had previously seen. In it every thing smacks of learning, and
every body seems wholly engrossed by study.

The spirit of emulation animates all, and excites the youths into an
application so intense as to be often found injurious to health. The
ambition of surpassing all competitors in their studies operates so
powerfully on the generality of the _eleves_, that the masters
frequently find it more necessary to moderate, than to urge the ardour
of the pupils. A boy's reputation for abilities soon gets known, but he
must possess no ordinary ones to be able to distinguish himself in a
college where every victory in erudition is sure to be achieved by a
well-contested battle.

We passed through the quarter of Paris known as the Pays Latin, the
aspect of which is singular, and is said to have been little changed
during the last century. The houses, chiefly occupied by literary men,
look quaint and picturesque. Every man one sees passing has the air of
an author, not as authors now are, or at least as popular ones are,
well-clothed and prosperous-looking, but as authors were when genius
could not always command a good wardrobe, and walked forth in
habiliments more derogatory to the age in which it was neglected, than
to the individual whose poverty compelled such attire.

Men in rusty threadbare black, with books under the arm, and some with
spectacles on nose, reading while they walked along, might be
encountered at every step.

The women, too, in the Pays Latin, have a totally different aspect to
those of every other part of Paris. The de