convict's drowning bird! Then he watched the poor little body grow more distant on the sea foam, and he felt himself very much alone. The bird was no longer in the cage, and so he handed it to Yves, who had listened to his story. And Yves, not wishing to seem to despise the thing which had cost the old convict so much work, accepted the gift.

EXERCISE XI.

(L’Avare, pp. 425-7.)

Harpagon is a miser. Valère is his steward, and Maître Jacques is his cook and coachman. The miser is going to give a supper, and has invited eight or ten people. He wishes good cheer, but does not wish to give much money. He thinks that a clever man can make good cheer with little money. Valère, the steward, says the same thing. Ten people have been invited, but the miser says that if there is enough to eat for eight, there will be plenty for ten. There is nothing more hurtful to men than to eat to excess. Frugality must rule in the repasts we give, and one must remember the maxim, “We should eat to live, and not live to eat." Harpagon will have these words cut in letters of gold on his mantel-piece. Maître Jacques will not fill the table with soups, entrées and roasts, but with those things of which people eat sparingly. Then the miser addresses the coachman, tells him to clean the carriage, and have the horses ready to drive to the fair. But Harpagon makes the poor brutes observe such strict fasting that they cannot walk. Poor Maître Jacques has pity on his neighbour. It breaks his heart to see his horses suffer. They cannot drag themselves along, and he has not the heart to whip them.

EXERCISE XII.

(Waterloo, pp. 428-31).

A. 1. There were three thousand five hundred of us. 2.

The light cavalry was supporting them. 3. We did not wear helmets. 4. The cavalry descended like a batteringram of bronze, so to speak. 5. A cloud of grape-shot burst at their right. 6. Do you hear that mighty stamping? 7.

Nothing like it will ever be seen.

8. Murat had been at the

taking of the redoubt of the Moskowa, but he was lacking at Waterloo. 9. Something like these stories appears in the epics of another age. 10. The infantry was taking aim at the cavalry. 11. The English listened to that tide rising. 12. Three thousand shouted, "Long live the Emperor." 13. There was an awful noise like that of an earthquake. 14. We have just noticed a ditch. 15. The second rank forced the first into the gulf. 16. The horses overturned and crushed the riders. 17. There was no way of retreat. 18. Fifteen hundred men were buried there. 19. It was a grave into which many other dead bodies were thrown on the day after the battle. 20. Did he examine the ground? 21. He asked a question of the peasant. 22. He was not warned by the peasant. 23. Napoleon's end came from a peasant's shake of the head. 24. It is time for Napoleon to fall. 25. Napoleon by himself counts for more than all others. 26. The moral order, like the material order, depends on principles.

B. There were eleven hundred and ninety-seven of them, and they had behind them one hundred and eighty lancers. At nine o'clock the bugles sounded and all the bands played. They came and took their place in the second line, where they had two iron wings, Kellermann on the left and Milhaud on the right. Then was seen a great sight. All that cavalry began to move. Like one man it came down the hill of la Belle-Alliance, disappeared in the valley and, reappearing on the other side, ascended the dreadful slope of Mont-SaintJean. There were two columns of them. Like two great serpents of steel they stretched out towards the plateau. Nothing like it was ever seen. The mass had become a monster. Through a great smoke you could see a pell-mell of helmets, swords, and of the rumps of horses, and above them the cuirasses, like the scales on the hydra. It was like a vision of Titans climbing Olympus. Twenty-six battalions of infantry were waiting for the twenty-six squadrons of cavalry. The infantry could not see the cavalry, but it could hear the noise of the horses, the rattle of the armour and the clanking of the swords. Then suddenly the helmets, the trumpeters, the standards and the horses appeared on the crest of the plateau. The cuirassiers arrived at the crest, and suddenly

they saw between themselves and the English the hollow road of Ohain. It was a frightful ravine, two fathoms deep. Horses and riders fell into that grave and crushed one another. When the abyss was full of men and horses, the others marched on them and passed over. Napoleon did not see this ravine when he ordered the charge, and the peasant of whom he asked the question replied that there was no hollow road. Why was it not possible that Napoleon should win the battle? Because a new series of facts was preparing. The moment had come for that man to fall. His weight was disturbing the equilibrium of human destiny. cemeteries, mothers' tears were complaining. was settled.

Reeking blood,
Napoleon's fall

admirablement [admirabləmã], ad- | aimer [cme], to love, like; — mieux,