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As I am nothing of a greybeard, I am only able to write of Mademoiselle Marie Rosalie Losset and of the pension de famille in the Rue des Poitevins at second hand. It was as far back as 1838 that Mademoiselle Marie, then a jeune fille of eighteen, came up to Paris from tranquil, beautiful Savoy to help her sister and brother-in-law, M. and Madame Laveur, to conduct their new boarding-house. Tall, graceful, masses of golden hair—the “Greek Statue,” the great Gambetta called her, and the name clung. I must be excused from stating names and events in chronological order—so much has happened since the year 1840! But I can give the precise terms of the pension: five or six francs a day for full board, including white or red wine. Also I am able to record that whereas the sister and brother-in-law, M. and Madame Laveur, were suspicious, severe and close-fisted, Mademoiselle Marie Rosalie Losset—“Mademoiselle Marie” for short—was all gaiety and generosity, and sympathised with the struggles, disappointments and financial ennuis of the boarders.