They had two children, a son, Ary, who died in 1900 after
having made a name for himself as a painter, and written beautiful poems
(which, however, were only published after his death), and a daughter,
Noemi (Madame Psichari) who, faithfully preserving the intellectual
heritage she has received from her great father, has become one of the
centres of highest Paris, a soul of fire, who fights for Justice and
Truth and social ideas with burning enthusiasm.
V.
A source of very much pleasure to me was my acquaintance with the old
author and College de France Professor, Philarete Chasles. Gregoire
introduced me to him and I gradually became at home, as it were, in his
house, was always a welcome visitor, and was constantly invited there.
In his old age he was not a man to be taken very seriously, being
diffusive, vague and vain. But there was no one else so communicative,
few so entertaining, and for the space of fifty years he had known
everybody who had been of any mark in France. He was born in 1798; his
father, who was a Jacobin and had been a member of the Convention, did
not have him baptised, but brought him up to believe in Truth, (hence
the name Philarete,) and apprenticed him to a printer. At the
Restoration of the Royal Family, he was imprisoned, together with his
father, but released through the influence of Chateaubriand; he then
went to England, where he remained for full seven years (1819-1826),
working as a typographer, and made a careful study of English
literature, then almost unknown in France.
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