On account of an accident (a sprain, if I recollect rightly) Napoleon once spent a whole week at our house.

To this day, whenever I pass the Quai Conti, I cannot help looking up at a 'mansarde' at the left angle of the house on the third floor.

That was Napoleon's chamber when he paid us a visit, and a neat little room it was.

My brother used to occupy the one next to it.

The two young men were nearly of the same age: my brother perhaps had the advantage of a year or fifteen months.