re were still unpretentious and comfortable.

Amongst the French boys of our own age with whom we played daily was
Antoine de Mores, eldest son of the Duc de Vallombrosa. Later on in
life the Marquis de Mores became a fanatical Anglophobe, and he lost
his life leading an army of irregular Arab cavalry against the British
forces in the Sudan; murdered, if I remember rightly, by his own men.
Most regretfully do I attribute Antoine de Mores' violent Anglophobia
to the very rude things I and my brother were in the habit of saying to
him when we quarrelled, which happened on an average about four times a
day.

The favourite game of these French boys was something like our "King of
the Castle," only that the victor had to plant his flag on the summit
of the "Castle." Amongst our young friends were the two sons of the Duc
Des Cars, a strong Legitimist, the Vallombrosa boy's family being
Bonapartists. So whilst my brother and I naturally carried "Union
Jacks," young Antoine de Mores had a tricolour, but the two Des Cars
boys carried white silk flags, with a microscopic border of blue and
red ribbon running down either side. One day, as boys will do, we
marched through the town in procession with our flags, when the police
stopped us and seized the young Des Cars' white banners, the display of
the white flag of the Bourbons being then strictly forbidden in France.
The Des Cars boys' abbe, or priest-tutor, pointed out to the police the
narrow edging of red and blue on either side, and insisted on it that
the flags were really tricolours, though the proportion in which the
colours were displayed might be an unusual one. The three colours were
undoubtedly there, so the police released the flags, though I feel sure
that that abbe must have been a Jesuit.

The Comte de Chambord (the Henri V. of the Legitimists) was virtually
offered the throne of France in either 1874 or 1875, but all the
negotiations failed because he obstinately refused to recognise the
Tricolour, and insisted upon retaining the white flag of his ancestors.
Any one with the smallest knowledge of the psychology of the French
nation must have known that under no circumstances whatever would they
consent to abandon their adored Tricolour. The Tricolour is part of
themselves: it is a part of their very souls; it is more than a flag,
it is almost a religion. I wonder that in 1875 it never occurred to any
one to suggest to the Comte de Chambord the ingenious expedient