CHAPTER VII 



THE SCHOOLMASTER: CARPENTRAS 



/^NLY eighteen years old, he left the Nor- 

 ^^ mal College with his diploma, his brevet 

 superieur, and began his career as primary 

 schoolmaster in the College of Carpentras. 

 Merit, it seems, was recognised, and at the 

 outset fortune did not treat him so badly. 

 We may judge of this the better from the pic- 

 ture which the ex-s"choolmaster has given us 

 of nis first beginnings at the College: 



It was when I first began to teach, about 1843. 

 I had left the Normal School at Vaucluse some 

 months before, with my diploma and all the sim- 

 ple enthusiasm of my eighteen years, and had been 

 sent to Carpentras, there to manage the primary 

 school attached to the College. It was a strange 

 school, upon my word, notwithstanding its pompous 

 title of " upper " ; a sort of huge cellar oozing 

 with the perpetual damp engendered by a well 

 backing on it in the street outside. For light there 

 was the open door, when the weather permittted, 

 and a narrow prison-window, with iron bars and 

 lozenge panes set in lead. By way of benches there 



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