rhaps,
_caeteris paribus_, than even the Rohans themselves.

All this early phase of little Josselin's life seems to have been
singularly happy. Every year at Christmas he went with the Rohans to
Castle Rohan in Yorkshire, where his English grandfather lived, the
Marquis of Whitby--and where he was petted and made much of by all
the members, young and old (especially female), of that very ancient
family, which had originally come from Brittany in France, as the
name shows; but were not millionaires, and never had been.

Often, too, they went to Paris--and in 1847 Colonel Lord Archibald
sold out, and they elected to go and live there, in the Rue du Bac;
and Barty was sent to the Institution F. Brossard, where he was soon
destined to become the most popular boy, with boys and masters
alike, that had ever been in the school (in any school, I should
think), in spite of conduct that was too often the reverse of
exemplary.

Indeed, even from his early boyhood he was the most extraordinarily
gifted creature I have ever known, or even heard of; a kind of
spontaneous humorous Crichton, to whom all things came easily--and
life itself as an uncommonly good joke. During that summer term of
1847 I did not see very much of him. He was in the class below mine,
and took up with Laferte and little Bussy-Rabutin, who were
first-rate boys, and laughed at everything he said, and worshipped
him. So did everybody else, sooner or later; indeed, it soon became
evident that he was a most exceptional little person.

[Illustration: "'QUEL AMOUR D'ENFANT!'"]

In the first place, his beauty was absolutely angelic, as will be
readily believed by all who have known him since. The mere sight of
him as a boy made people pity his father and mother for being dead!

Then he had a charming gift of singing little French and English
ditties, comic or touching, with his delightful fresh young pipe,
and accompanying himself quite nicely on either piano or guitar
without really knowing a note of music. Then he could draw
caricatures that we boys thought inimitable, much funnier than
Cham's or Bertall's or Gavarni's, and collected and treasured up. I
have dozens of them now--they make me laugh still, and bring back
memories of which the charm is indescribable; and their pathos, to
me!

And then how funny he was himself, without effort, and with a fun
that never failed! He was a born buffoon of the graceful kind--more
whelp or kitten than monkey--ever p