was succeeded by a man who ordered the
school to be broken up. This was as unexpected as unmerited. Captain Otter
and myself remonstrated, but in vain. The youngsters were sent to the
right-about; but I am happy to say that the greater part of them had the
good sense to form themselves into classes at their own lodgings, where
the same masters attended them. Finding my services of no further use, I
sighed for country air and a change of scene. The town manners shocked my
delicacy, and I much feared I should lose my innocence. The copy I
frequently wrote when at school stared me in the face--that "Evil
communications corrupt good manners." I therefore determined before I
became contaminated to change my quarters. I waited on the commandant and
obtained leave to live at a small village two miles from the town. My new
residence was a small _chateau_, the proprietress of which was the widow
of a colonel of cuirassiers in the old time. I took possession of a
good-sized bedroom and drawing-room, for which I paid, with my board,
seventy napoleons a year. The establishment consisted of a housekeeper,
more like a man than a woman, one maid servant, and two men. The widow was
an agreeable person, nearly in her seventieth year, but very healthy and
active. At the back of the _chateau_ was a delightful garden, with a brook
running through it, in which were some trout, carp and tench. Adjoining it
were vineyards belonging to the house. I could now, in the literal sense
of the word, in which one of our poets intended it, "From the loop-holes
of my retreat peep at such a world" without partaking of its folly.

My time was occupied with a French master, and in drawing, and reading
French authors, and if my mind had not been tortured by my being a
captive, and not knowing how long I was likely to remain so, I should have
been comparatively happy. Our letters, when we did receive them, were
always broken open and read to the commandant by one of the gendarmes who
could blunder out a little English. If they contained anything against the
French Government, or treated on politics, they never reached us. By these
honourable means all our domestic concerns became known to the mighty
chief, the ignorant, left-handed, blundering translator, and a host of
others. In short, our letters, after having run the gauntlet through a
number of dirty hands, with still more dirty minds, were scarcely worth
receiving.

One morning, as I was sitting at bre