Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 1

---

[256] old, with black hair, very agreeable and good-natured. We spoke of jurisprudence in France and America, and of slavery in the latter country; also of several French juridical works. He treated the work of his brother-professor Duranton with great contempt; he said it was good for nothing. He told me that there were upwards of three thousand students of law at Paris; and that they were from all parts of the world,—Poland, Austria, Prussia, Italy, Spain, England, and even Greece. From this he drew, perhaps justly, some strong inferences in favor of the supremacy of Paris as the literary and juridical capital of the world. M. Bravard further observed that there were very few Frenchmen who gave any attention to foreign languages.

Feb. 21. Heard M. Duranton this morning; and I am disposed, from his lecture and appearance, to believe what I have been told of him. He is about fifty years old, with thick, uncombed iron-gray hair, and with a very vulgar look and manner. His voice was harsh and querulous, and there seemed no kind of grace in any thing he did. The subject of his lecture was ‘Testaments and Donations inter vivos under the Code Civil.’

Feb. 22. This morning first heard, at the Sorbonne, Lefebure de Fourcy¹ on the differential and integral calculus. He lectures in the place of the venerable Lacroix. Perhaps there was an audience of twenty-five. Almost all had their note-books, and took down the explanations of the professor. He stood at his blackboard, and in a plain business style went through his calculations. The chalk and sponge were his chief implements. Of course I could not follow him into the regions of mathematics, whither his involved and complex figures carried him; but I could observe the manner, which was entirely practical, without any show or apparent desire to do any thing but make his hearers understand the calculations. The professor was a large–sized and rather rough-looking person. From him I passed to the lecture–room of Pellat at the École de Droit. The latter lectures upon the ‘Pandects.’ He had a copy of the Corpus Juris before him, and was expounding the part relating to servitudes. He read, in the first place, a clause of a few lines in Latin, and then expounded its meaning with fulness and plainness, and in an entirely conversational manner. Almost all the students had their copies of the Corpus Juris resting on their knees, and followed the professor as he read, besides taking notes of his exposition. Pellat I have met at the Baron de Gerando's. He is apparently about forty or forty-five, and is modest in his manner. He did not produce the impression of remarkable talent. After Pellat, I heard, at the Sorbonne, a part of the lecture of Geruzez² on some French author,—I could not catch the name; and after