in, the son of peasants and of lowly sailors, trebly
ridiculous as a deserter from the seminary, an unfrocked clerk and a
case-hardened pedant, was from the first well-received, listened to,
and ever made much of, simply because he spoke with sincerity. I have
had some ardent opponents, but I have never had a personal enemy. The
only two objects of my ambition, admission to the Institute and to the
College de France, have been gratified. France has allowed me to share
the favours which she reserves for all that is liberal: her admirable
language, her glorious literary tradition, her rules of tact, and the
audience which she can command. Foreigners, too, have aided me in
my task as much as my own country, and I shall carry to my grave a
feeling of affection for Europe as well as for France, to whom I would
at times go on my knees and entreat not to divide her own household
by fratricidal jealousy, nor to forget her duty and her common task,
which is civilization.

Nearly all the men with whom I have had anything to do have been
extremely kind to me. When I first left the seminary, I traversed,
as I have said, a period of solitude, during which my sole support
consisted of my sister's letters and my conversations with M.
Berthelot; but I soon met with encouragement in every direction. M.
Egger became, from the beginning of 1846, my friend and my guide in
the difficult task of proving, rather late in the day, what I could
do in the way of classics. Eugene Burnouf, after perusing a very
defective essay which I wrote for the Volney Prize in 1847, chose me
as a pupil. M. and Mme. Adolphe Garnier were extremely kind to me.
They were a charming couple, and Madame Garnier, radiant with grace
and devoid of affectation, first inspired me with admiration for a
kind of beauty from which theology had sequestered me. With M. Victor
Le Clerc I had brought before my eyes all those qualities of study and
methodical application which distinguished my former teachers. I had
learnt to like him from the time of my residence at St. Sulpice: he
was the only layman whom the directors of the seminary valued, and
they envied him his remarkable ecclesiastical erudition. M. Cousin,
though he more than once displayed friendliness for me, was too
closely surrounded by disciples for me to try and force my way
through such a crowd, which was somewhat subservient to their master's
utterances. M. Augustin Thierry, upon the other hand, was, in the true
s