rule over them. It is a task to put angels out of patience. An unhappy
class-master must then not be too severely blamed, ill-paid as he is,
and consequently not too competent, if he is occasionally unjust or
out of temper. Perpetually watched by a hundred mocking eyes, and
surrounded with snares, he sometimes revenges himself for his own
blunders on the boys who are only too ready to detect them.

Unless for serious misdemeanors, for which there were other forms of
punishment, the strap was regarded at Vendome as the _ultima ratio
Patrum_. Exercises forgotten, lessons ill learned, common ill behavior
were sufficiently punished by an imposition, but offended dignity
spoke in the master through the strap. Of all the physical torments to
which we were exposed, certainly the most acute was that inflicted by
this leathern instrument, about two fingers wide, applied to our poor
little hands with all the strength and all the fury of the
administrator. To endure this classical form of correction, the victim
knelt in the middle of the room. He had to leave his form and go to
kneel down near the master's desk under the curious and generally
merciless eyes of his fellows. To sensitive natures these
preliminaries were an introductory torture, like the journey from the
Palais de Justice to the Place de Greve which the condemned used to
make to the scaffold.

Some boys cried out and shed bitter tears before or after the
application of the strap; others accepted the infliction with stoic
calm; it was a question of nature; but few could control an expression
of anguish in anticipation.

Louis Lambert was constantly enduring the strap, and owed it to a
peculiarity of his physiognomy of which he was for a long time quite