and casting to the winds that dignity and
self-control with which he never cared long to encumber himself, he broke forth
into the strain best calculated to give him ease.
    I don't know how, in the progress of his discours, he had contrived to cross
the channel, and land on British ground; but there I found him when I began to
listen.
    Casting a quick, cynical glance round the room - a glance which scathed, or
was intended to scathe, as it crossed me - he fell with fury upon les Anglaises.
    Never have I heard English women handled as M. Paul that morning handled
them: he spared nothing - neither their minds, morals, manners, nor personal
appearance. I specially remember his abuse of their tall stature, their long
necks, their thin arms, their slovenly dress, their pedantic education, their
impious scepticism (!), their insufferable pride, their pretentious virtue: over
which he ground his teeth malignantly, and looked as if, had he dared, he would
have said singular things. Oh! he was spiteful, acrid, savage; and, as a natural
consequence, detestably ugly.
    »Little wicked venomous man!« thought I; »am I going to harass myself with
fears of displeasing you, or hurting your feelings? No, indeed; you shall be
indifferent to me, as the shabbiest bouquet in your pyramid.«
    I grieve to say I could not quite carry out this resolution. For some time
the abuse of England and the English found and left me stolid: I bore it some
fifteen minutes stoically enough; but this hissing cockatrice was determined to
sting, and he said such things at last - fastening not only upon our women, but
upon our greatest names and best men; sullying the shield of Britannia, and
dabbling the union-jack in mud - that I was stung. With vicious relish he
brought up the most spicy current continental historical falsehoods - than which
nothing can be conceived more offensive. Zélie, and the whole class, became one
grin of vindictive delight; for it is curious to discover how these clowns of
Labassecour secretly hate England. At last, I struck a sharp stroke on my desk,
opened my lips, and let loose this cry: -
    »Vive l'Angleterre, l'Histoire et les Héros! A bas la France, la Fiction et
les Faquins!«
    The class was struck of a heap. I suppose they thought me mad. The professor
put up his handkerchief, and fiendishly smiled into its folds. Little monster of
malice! He now thought