leon surgeon of the Imperial Guard, and was, later, physician to the
family of Louis XVIII. He was married three times, and his wives each
bore him children. The second wife was the mother of the great novelist,
and she died soon after giving birth to her child. The Prince Eugene and
the Empress Josephine stood sponsors at the baptism of the child, and in
after life he relinquished his two given names for that of Eugene--after
the prince--by which he is now universally known.

While at school, Eugene and an intimate companion were noted for the
mischief they wrought. One of their mischievous acts was, to raise
Guinea pigs and then turn them loose in the botanical garden of the
elder Sue, where, of course, they destroyed many of the plants.

A tutor was engaged to school the refractory boys--one that was very
poor, and who dreaded above all things else, to lose his situation.
Whenever the tutor required that the boys should study their Latin, they
threatened him with a dismissal from his place, and so intimidated him
by this and other means, that he was content to let them alone. The
elder Sue asked him how the boys progressed in their Latin. He was
compelled to reply that they were excellent scholars, whereupon the old
gentleman demanded a specimen of the Latin they had acquired. They at
once manufactured a torrent of atrocious sentences, and palmed them off
upon him as genuine Latin, he not knowing enough to detect the
imposition, but the remorseful tutor had to listen to it in silence! The
father was delighted.

The elder Sue was a very easy, good-natured man, but had no learning,
though he was reckoned a _savan_ of the first water. Eugene knew this, and
wickedly took advantage of it. His father--the doctor--was in the habit of
delivering a course of botanical lectures to a circle of very select
ladies, and Eugene suspected that his father, notwithing his voluble
discourse, had little knowledge of botany. He, therefore, with one or two
of his companions, took occasion (as it was their task to prepare plants
and flowers in vases, with their names written upon the vases for
examination) to insert new and unheard of names to puzzle the old man. He
entered the hall one day, smiling to the ladies on either hand, and stood
before them. He took up a vase, and for an instant was staggered by the
name, but it would not do to let his ignorance be known, so he very coolly
said, "This, ladies, is the _concrysionisoides_." He hem