Sentence:  In winter , in the city , there had been the Maneret School , which taught excellently with a kind of austere passion for knowledge ; there had <WSD>been</WSD> lessons in French from a small Polish nobleman with a really profound distaste for his pupils ; there had been the dancing class - Miss Craddock , thin and tireless , with her supervising wand and her everlasting one-two-three , one-two-three . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  happen, occur, take place; this was during the visit to my parents' house"