Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The story is told that a master in one of our great public schools – which shall be nameless – kept on reading About’s Le Roi des Montagnes with his French class for twelve years continuously. By the time it was ended a fresh lot of boys had come up, and he began it again. I can’t help thinking he must have longed for some change, much as I admire Edmond About’s brilliant jeu d’esprit. Nevertheless there is something to be said for his system. He had got hold of a book which interested and attracted his boys, and he stuck to it, not perhaps being readily able to put his hand on another. He remembered, probably the weary dulness that he had himself felt as a boy when struggling in very small instalments through Athalie, or even Les Femmes Savantes, or Tartuffe, and he wished to spare his pupils a similar infliction.