Grand ciel! 220 Here was the show-trial, so long evaded, come on me like a thunderclap. These two fine, braided, mustachioed, sneering personages, were none other than dandy professors of the college⁠—Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte⁠—a pair of cold-blooded fops and pedants, sceptics, and scoffers. It seems that M. Paul had been rashly exhibiting something I had written⁠—something, he had never once praised, or even mentioned, in my hearing, and which I deemed forgotten. The essay was not remarkable at all; it only seemed remarkable, compared with the average productions of foreign schoolgirls; in an English establishment it would have passed scarce noticed. Messieurs Boissec and Rochemorte had thought proper to question its genuineness, and insinuate a cheat; I was now to bear my testimony to the truth, and to be put to the torture of their examination.

A memorable scene ensued.