Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/243

Rh about the town like a messenger, exchanging ducats, piastres, sequins, and crowns, according to the requirements of the persons he met, but he managed to make his ten francs every day.

I also found there a young Frenchman, who did not know mathematics, but managed to teach the Germans all the same. As he spoke the language well, he went every morning to a friend, a German naval officer, to take a lesson, and then carried his newly acquired information to his pupils, who each paid him a mark. If a pupil made any observation, the professor refused to give an explanation, in order, as he said, not to confuse the pupil's mind. When his lesson was finished he received his money, out of which he had to give ten cents to the naval officer.

In fact the émigrés busied themselves to such an extent in every department of commerce, that the Jews seemed likely at one time to leave the field to them. One Jew, who was a painter, revenged himself by taking a likeness on the quiet of the Frenchman he most disliked,—a certain