First Sentence

"In the days when the Bourbon reigned over Gaul, before the "simple, sensuous, passionate" verse of Alfred de Musset had succeeded the debonnaire Muse of Beranger in the affections of young France,-in days when the site of the Trocadero was a remote and undiscovered country, and the word "exposition" unknown in the Academic dictionary, and the Gallic Augustus destined to rebuild the city yet an exile,-a young law-student boarded, in common with other students, in a big dreary-looking house at the corner of the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle, abutting on the Place Lauzun, and within some ten minutes walk of the Luxembourg."