Chapter 1
_ CHAPTER I
In the 1880 edition of Men of the Day, under the heading _Astier-Rehu_, may be read the following notice:--
Astier, commonly called Astier-Rehu (Pierre Alexandre Leonard), Member of the Academie Francaise, was born in 1816 at Sauvagnat (Puy-de-Dome). His parents belonged to the class of small farmers. He displayed from his earliest years a remarkable aptitude for the study of history. His education, begun at Riom and continued at Louis-le-Grand, where he was afterwards to re-appear as professor, was more sound than is now fashionable, and secured his admission to the Ecole Normale Superieure, from which he went to the Chair of History at the Lycee of Mende. It was here that he wrote the Essay on Marcus Aurelius, crowned by the Academie Francaise. Called to Paris the following year by M. de Salvandy, the young and brilliant professor showed his sense of the discerning favour extended to him by publishing, in rapid succession, The Great Ministers of Louis

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