undertake, and the conscientiousness with which he will have
performed, his share of the work as editor and illustrator.

I also wish to state that it is to my beloved god-daughter, Roberta
Beatrix Hay (nee Josselin), that I dedicate this attempt at a
biographical sketch of her illustrious father.

Robert Maurice.

Part First

"De Paris a Versailles, loo, la,
De Paris a Versailles--
Il y a de belles allees,
Vive le Roi de France!
Il y a de belles allees,
Vivent les ecoliers!"

One sultry Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1847 I sat at my desk
in the junior school-room, or _salle d'etudes des petits_, of the
Institution F. Brossard, Rond-point de l'Avenue de St.-Cloud; or, as
it is called now, Avenue du Bois de Boulogne--or, as it was called
during the Second Empire, Avenue du Prince Imperial, or else de
l'Imperatrice; I'm not sure.

There is not much stability in such French names, I fancy; but their
sound is charming, and always gives me the nostalgia of Paris--Royal
Paris, Imperial Paris, Republican Paris!... whatever they may call
it ten or twelve years hence. Paris is always Paris, and always will
be, in spite of the immortal Haussmann, both for those who love it
and for those who don't.

All the four windows were open. Two of them, freely and frankly, on
to the now deserted play-ground, admitting the fragrance of lime and
syringa and lilac, and other odors of a mixed quality.

Two other windows, defended by an elaborate network of iron wire and
a formidable array of spiked iron rails beyond, opened on to the
Rond-point, or meeting of the cross-roads--one of which led
northeast to Paris through the Arc de Triomphe; the other three
through woods and fields and country lanes to such quarters of the
globe as still remain. The world is wide.

In the middle of this open space a stone fountain sent up a jet of
water three feet high, which fell back with a feeble splash into the
basin beneath. There was comfort in the sound on such a hot day, and
one listened for it half unconsciously; and tried not to hear,
instead, Weber's "Invitation a la Valse," which came rippling in
intermittent waves from the open window of the distant _parloir_,
where Chardonnet was practising the piano.

"Tum-te-dum-tum-tum ...
Tum-te-dum-di, diddle-iddle um!"

_e da capo_, again and again. Chardonnet was no heaven-born
musi