aptitude. Whatever claim to the title of savant I may
possess I owe to M. Le Hir. I often think, even, that whatever I have
not learnt from him has been imperfectly acquired. Thus he did not
know much of Arabic, and this is why I have always been a poor Arabic
scholar.

A circumstance due to the kindness of my teachers confirmed me in my
calling of a philologist and, unknown to them, unclosed for me a
door which I had not dared open for myself. In 1844, M. Gamier was
compelled by old age to give up his lectures on Hebrew. M. Le Hir
succeeded him, and knowing how thoroughly I had assimilated his
doctrine he determined to let me take the grammar course. This
pleasant information was conveyed to me by M. Carbon with his usual
good nature, and he added that the Company would give me three hundred
francs by way of salary. The sum seemed to me such an enormous one
that I told M. Carbon I could not accept it. He insisted, however, on
my taking a hundred and fifty francs for the purchase of books.

A much higher favour was that by which I was allowed to attend M.
Etienne Quatremere's lectures at the College de France twice a
week. M. Quatremere did not bestow much preparatory labour upon his
lectures; in the matter of Biblical exegesis he had voluntarily kept
apart from the scientific movement. He much more nearly resembled M.
Garnier than M. Le Hir. Just another such a Jansenist as Silvestre de
Sacy, he shared the demi-rationalism of Hug and Jahn--minimising the
proportion of the supernatural as far as possible, especially in the
cases of what he called "miracles difficult to carry out," such as the
miracle of Joshua, but still retaining the principle, at all events
in respect to the miracles of the New Testament. This superficial
eclecticism did not much take my fancy. M. Le Hir was much nearer
the truth in not attempting to attenuate the matter recounted, and in
closely studying, after the manner of Ewald, the recital itself. As a
comparative grammarian, M. Quatremere was also very inferior to M. Le
Hir. But his erudition in regard to orientalism was enormous. A new
world opened before me, and I saw that what apparently could only be
of interest to priests might be of interest to laymen as well. The
idea often occurred to me from that time that I should one day teach
from the same table, in the small classroom to which I have as a
matter of fact succeeded in forcing my way.

This obligation to classify and systematize my