The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls

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Later the family made a trip to the English Lakes and in the winter of
the same year to the south of France, where they stayed two months, then
making a tour through Italy and Switzerland. The following Christmas
found Louis and his mother again in Mentone, where they stayed until
spring.

French was one of his favorite studies at school, and now after a few
months among French people he was able to speak fluently. Indeed, in
after life he was often mistaken for a Frenchman.

His French teacher on his second visit to Mentone gave him no regular
lessons, but "merely talked to him in French, teaching him piquet and
card tricks, introducing him to various French people and taking him to
concerts and other places; so, his mother remarks, like Louis' other
teachers at home I think they found it pleasanter to talk to him then to
teach him."