It was an encouraging proof of the durability of good impressions, to hear a school-boy of 1812, Charles Gayarré, tell of the first director of the college, M. Jules D'Avezac, an émigré from St. Domingo, and how the boys called him Titus because he was their delight. They never forgot his courtly manners, nor the tenderness and kindness in his face whenever he spoke to them. In the expression of the day, they could not tell which predominated in him, the gentleman or the scholar, for he was a distinguished scholar; he had translated Marmion into French and sent it to Walter Scott, and received from him a letter expressing how pleased he was with the muse who had repeated his verses in another hemisphere. But it was the second director, Rochefort, another St. Domingan, who, perhaps, most profoundly impressed the collegians. His lame foot naturally gained him the sobriquet of Tyrtæus. He made elegant translations from Horace, and when his scholars saw him walking his gallery, excitedly stamping with his lame foot, drinking cup after cup of black coffee, his long silky locks of dark hair tossed back from his pale temples, his face flushed, his eyes gleaming, they knew he was possessed of the divine afflatus, and watched him in awed curiosity. He distinguished the best scholars by allowing them apartments on the same floor with him, which released them from obedience to other authority than his. And occasionally he distinguished some of them supremely, by inviting a select few to dine with him, when, after dessert, he would read his poetry to them; and what with the good wine and the good dinner, the verses never failed to elicit the sincerest and most rapturous applause. But the great event in the curriculum of these distinguished young
