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Updated: June 29, 2025
Emile Allix brought us a leg of antelope from the Jardin des Plantes. It is excellent. To-night the sortie is to be made. November 29. All night long I heard the cannon. The fowls were installed in my garden to-day. The sortie is being delayed. The bridge thrown across the Marne by Ducros has been carried away, the Prussians having blown open the locks. November 30.
I was excedingly sorry to leave the delightful Ducros family who had treated me so kindly, and I owe a deep debt of gratitude to comely Mme. Ducros for the careful way in which she taught me history. In teaching history she used what I may call the synoptic method, taking periods of fifty years, and explaining contemporaneous events in France, Italy, Germany, and England during that period.
I blush to own that those four benighted boys asked for eggs and bacon instead. Although M. Ducros had heard English talked around him for so many years, he had all the average Frenchman's difficulty in assimilating any foreign language. His knowledge of our tongue was confined to one word only, and that a most curiously chosen word.
Ducros A Southern French country town "Tartarin de Tarascon" His prototypes at Nyons M. Sisteron the roysterer The Southern French An octogenarian pesteur French industry "Bone-shakers" A wonderful "Cordon-bleu" "Slop-basin" French legal procedure The bons-vivants The merry French judges La gaiete francaise Delightful excursions Some sleepy old towns Orange and Avignon M. Thiers' ingenious cousin Possibilities French political situation in 1874 The Comte de Chambord Some French characteristics High intellectual level Three days in a Trappist Monastery Details of life there The Arian heresy Silkworm culture Tendencies of French to complicate details Some examples Cicadas in London.
In spite of its dullness, I and the three other pupils liked the place. We all grew very fond of the charming Ducros family, we appreciated the wonderful beauty of the little spot, we climbed all the hills, and, above all, we had each hired a velocipede.
Was it a signal? The cannon can be heard at three points round Paris, to the east, west and south. This is because a triple attack is being made on the ring the Prussians have drawn round us. The attack is being made at Saint Denis by Laronciere, at Courbevoie by Vinoy, and on the Marne by Ducros.
"Some of those receipts are signed with your name, citizen Lebel," retorted Chauvelin forcefully. "Bah!" he added, and a tone of savage contempt crept into his even, calm voice now. "Heriot, Foucquier, Ducros and the whole gang of you are in it up to the neck: trafficking with our enemies, trading with England, taking bribes from every quarter for working against the safety of the Republic.
They did not steer well, were very difficult to get on and off, and gave us some awful falls; still we got an immense amount of fun out of them, and we scoured all the surrounding country on them, until all four of us developed gigantic calves which would have done credit to any coal-heaver. M. Ducros' sister was a brilliant culinary genius such as is only found in France.
M. Ducros' father had been the Protestant pasteur of Nyons for forty-four years. He was eighty-six years old, and on week-days the old gentleman dozed in the sun all day, and was quite senile and gaga.
The "Substitut" always preserved a rather deferential attitude before the President and M. Ducros, for they belonged to the magistrature assise, whilst he merely formed part of the magistrature debout The French word magistrat is not the equivalent of our magistrate, the French term for which is "Juge de Paix." A magistrat means a Judge or a Public Prosecutor.
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