The Martian: A Novel. Du Maurier George

he danced "La Dieppoise" for her, and sang her a little ungrammatical ditty in praise of wine and women. It began:

      "Beuvons, beuvons, beuvons donc

      De ce vin le meilleur du monde …

      Beuvons, beuvons, beuvons donc

      De ce vin, car il est très‐bon!

      Si je n'en beuvions pas,

      J'aurions la pépi‐e!

      Ce qui me…"

      I have forgotten the rest – indeed, I am not quite sure that it is fit for the drawing‐room!

      "Ah, mon Dieu! quel amour d'enfant! Oh! gardons‐le!" cried my lady, and they kept him.

      I can imagine the scene. Indeed, Lady Archibald has described it to me, and Barty remembered it well. It was his earliest English recollection, and he has loved buttered toast and crumpets ever since – as well as women and wine. And thus he was adopted by the Archibald Rohans. They got him an English governess and a pony; and in two years he went to a day school in Dover, kept by a Miss Stone, who is actually alive at present and remembers him well; and so he became quite a little English boy, but kept up his French through Lady Archibald, who was passionately devoted to him, although by this time she had a little daughter of her own, whom Barty always looked upon as his sister, and who is now dead. (She became Lord Frognal's wife – he died in 1870 – and she afterwards married Mr. Justice Robertson.)

      Barty's French grandfather and grandmother came over from Dieppe once a year to see him, and were well pleased with the happy condition, of his new life; and the more Lord and Lady Archibald saw of these grandparents of his, the more pleased they were that he had become the child of their adoption. For they were first‐rate people to descend from, these simple toilers of the sea; better, perhaps, cæteris 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 Laferté 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.

      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 playing the fool, in and out of season, but somehow always à propos; and French boys love a boy for that more than anything else; or did, in those days.

      Such very simple buffooneries as they were, too – that gave him (and us) such stupendous delight!

      For instance – he is sitting at evening study between Bussy‐Rabutin and Laferté; M. Bonzig is usher for the evening.

      At 8.30 Bussy‐Rabutin gives way; in a whisper he informs Barty that he means to take a nap ("piquer un chien"), with his Gradus opened before him, and his hand supporting his weary brow as though in deep study. "But," says he —

      "If Bonzig finds me out (si Bonzig me colle), give me a gentle nudge!"

      "All right!" says Barty – and off goes Bussy‐Rabutin into his snooze.

      8.45. – Poor fat little Laferté falls into a snooze too, after giving Barty just the same commission – to nudge him directly he's found out from the chaire.

      8.55. – Intense silence; everybody hard at work. Even Bonzig is satisfied with the deep stillness and studious recueillement that brood over the scene – steady pens going – quick turning over of leaves of the Gradus ad Parnassum. Suddenly Barty sticks out his elbows and nudges both his neighbors at once, and both jump up, exclaiming, in a loud voice:

      "Non, m'sieur, je n'dors pas. J'travaille."

      Sensation. Even Bonzig laughs – and Barty is happy for a week.

      Or else, again – a new usher, Monsieur Goupillon (from Gascony) is on duty in the school‐room during afternoon school. He has a peculiar way of saying "oê, vô!" instead of "oui, vous!" to any boy who says "moi, m'sieur?" on being found fault with; and perceiving this, Barty manages to be found fault with every five minutes, and always says "moi, m'sieur?" so as to elicit the "oê, vô!" that gives him such delight.

      At length M. Goupillon says,

      "Josselin, if you force me to say 'oê, vô!' to you once more, you shall be à la retenue for a week!"

      "Moi, m'sieur?" says Josselin, quite innocently.

      "Oê, vô!" shouts M. Goupillon, glaring with all his might, but quite unconscious that Barty has earned the threatened punishment! And again Barty is happy for a week. And so are we.

      Such was Barty's humor, as a boy – mere drivel – but of such a kind that even his butts were fond of him. He would make M. Bonzig laugh in the middle of his severest penal sentences, and thus demoralize the whole school‐room and set a shocking example, and be ordered à la porte of the salle d'études – an exile which was quite to his taste; for he would go straight off to the lingerie and entertain Mlle. Marceline and Constance and Félicité (who all three adored him) with comic songs and break‐downs of his own invention, and imitations of everybody in the school. He was a born histrion – a kind of French Arthur Roberts – but very beautiful to the female eye, and also always dear to the female heart – a most delightful gift of God!

      Then he was constantly being sent for when boys' friends and parents came to see them, that he might sing and play the fool and show off his tricks, and so forth. It was one of M. Mérovée's greatest delights to put him through his paces. The message "on demande Monsieur Josselin au parloir" would be brought down once or twice a week, sometimes even in class or school room, and became quite a by‐word in the school; and many of the masters thought it a mistake and a pity. But Barty by no means disliked being made much of and showing off in this genial manner.

      He could turn le père Brossard round his little finger, and Mérovée too. Whenever an extra holiday was to be begged for, or a favor obtained for any one, or the severity of a pensum mitigated, Barty was the messenger, and seldom failed.

      His constitution, inherited from a long line of frugal seafaring Norman ancestors (not to mention another long line of well‐fed, well‐bred Yorkshire Squires), was magnificent. His spirits never failed. He could see the satellites of Jupiter with the naked eye; this was often tested by M. Dumollard, maître de mathématiques (et de cosmographie), who had a telescope, which,