Robert Louis Stevenson

“ But his public spirit made him refuse the proposal; and he would not even ask permission to pass his term of imprisonment in a Maison de Santé, although his health was more than usually feeble at the time. "When you have taken your stand in a contest with Government, it seems to me," he wrote, "ridiculous to complain of the blows it inflicts on you, and impolitic to furnish it with any occasion of generosity." His first thought in La Force was to alleviate the condition of the other prisoners. ”

“ BÉRANGER, Pierre Jean de, the national song-writer of France, was born at Paris on the 19th August 1780. The aristocratic particle before the name was a piece of groundless vanity on the part of his father, which the poet found useful as a distinction. ”

“ She must not be confounded with the Lisette of the songs; the pieces addressed to her (La Bonne Vieille, Maudit Printemps, &c.) are in a very different vein. Lucien Bonaparte interested himself in the young poet, transferred to him his own pension of 1000 francs from the Institute, and set him to work on a Death of Nero. Five years later, through the same patronage, although indirectly, Béranger became a clerk in the university at a salary of another thousand. ”

“ Later on he passed some time in a school at Péronne, founded by one Bellenglise on the principles of Rousseau, where the boys were formed into clubs and regiments, and taught to play solemnly at politics and war. Béranger was president of the club, made speeches before such members of Convention as passed through Péronne, and drew up addresses to Tallien or Robespierre at Paris. ”