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the gentlemen of the town who examined me, said so to my father; and the poor dear man did not know himself for joy at having a son a genius.

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Although I did not very clearly know what a genius was, I was a good deal puffed up with the idea of being one, and on that account took things easily at school, learning only now and then when in the humour, but in the main passing ahead of my schoolfellows. At the last public examination I went through before leaving school, I distinguished myself by my answering; and the master said to me, ' You will get on, however little you may work.'

"M. Imbert, who was present at the examination, took me home with him according to promise, and thus was I most advantageously placed for making my way in the world. I was at first delighted at the thought of becoming an architect, so much the more as M. Imbert was goodness itself, and took great interest in me: but at the end of a year I had got enough of it. I felt a great desire to try something else. M. Imbert began to see my indifference, or rather my unwillingness, to stick steadily to his business. He remonstrated and scolded in a way far from pleasant. Jacque,' said he,' I am afraid you will never do any good-Jack-of-all-trades, and master of none.' Tired of this sort of dog-life, and with a mind to be a soldier, I was more than half-pleased when I was drawn by the conscription. My parents, as you may well believe, were greatly grieved at it; but so was not I. Ah, sir, at that time the uniform was so handsome! and I, a youngster, already saw myself a captain, colonel, general, and what not beside. I seemed as if I had nothing to do but to put my foot in the stirrup. There were a great many raw recruits like myself, but then I had received a better education than most of them."

Well, I hope you did your duty as a soldier?" observed M. Grandville.

II.

"You shall hear," proceeded Denoyer. "On entering the army, I soon found that all is not gold that glitters. It is one thing to idle about the streets in a gaudy uniform, and another to endure fatigue, wounds, and starvation. The Russian campaign was destined to give me a trial of soldiering. I passed three months with the depôt of the regiment, which was quartered in the environs of Mayence, on this side of the Rhine. I was one of five or six hundred recruits who were drilled every day, and all day long. I knew my business as well in a fortnight as the oldest veteran; and our officers took notice of me already, and predicted that I should have epaulettes at the end of the campaign. As I wrote a good hand, and spelt well, my sergeant-major intrusted me with his business, which I per

formed whilst he was amusing himself at Baden, on the other side of the Rhine; and that obtained me some kindnesses on his part.

"At this time my passion for books was stronger than ever. As one was never out of my hand, I passed for a very learned man, which did not at all make me a favourite with my comrades, or even with our officers. For then, sir, people did not think so much of men of education as they do now. What is more, the emperor himself, great man as he was, did not much like his soldiers to be readers. All he wanted was, to see them do his bidding; and he was furious at the notion of any one thinking for himself. Well, the order arrived for us to repair to Hamburg, to rejoin the Maréchal Davoust, Prince of Eckmühl. Then we went through Prussia and Poland, and stood fire for the first time at Mohilow. Look, sir, one who has not seen a battle, and a battle like that, where nine of our cavalry regiments were cut in pieces, can scarcely estimate the truth of the Spanish proverb, 'War is the feast of death.' Surely it is the feast of wolves. I felt that day my blood boiling in my veins, and yet my courage was more in exercise in subsequent battles than on that day of Mohilow. Then I was like one drunk or mad, but afterwards I knew the danger.

"I will say nothing, sir, of our horrible retreat, nor of the passage of the Berezina. It has been related by others in their books much better than I could do it. Surely the horrors of that time were sufficient to open the eyes of those who think that to turn the earth into a slaughter-house, and men into butchers of each other, is heroism? If in every war the Chinese saying comes true-I long ago met with it in a book, when I didn't believe it; now I do "The most brilliant victory is only the light of a conflagration, which the tears of suffering humanity slakes into a smoke, the faithful emblem of its miscalled glory'if this be true of every war, what must be said of the horrors of this disastrous epoch, in which we had to contend at once with men, the elements-earth and heaven? There are still times, sir, when I start up in my sleep, when in my dreams I am again in the midst of these terrors. No words could place before you the sufferings, physical and moral, then endured. All social ties were broken. Hunger, devouring hunger, reduced us to the brutal instinct of self-preservation; while, like savages, the strongest despoiled the weakest. They rushed round the dying, and frequently waited not for their last breath; and if some preserved enough of good in them to consult their own safety without injuring others, yet their virtue, save in some few rare instances, went no farther. Leader or comrade fell by our side, and we passed by him without moving a step out of our way, for fear of prolonging our journey, or even turning our head; for our beard and our hair were stiffened by the ice, and every motion was pain. Often have I seen real tears of blood flowing from

eyes inflamed by the continual sight of the snow and the smoke of the bivouacs; and then the poor creatures fell upon their knees, and then upon their hands-their heads moved for a little alternately to the right and left-some faint cries of agony escaped from their open mouth-at last they fell on the snow, and died. I saw, but even did not pity them; for what had they lost by dying?

"At Youpranoüi, the same village where the emperor only missed by an hour being taken by the Russian partisan Leslawin, the soldiers burnt the houses completely as they stood, merely to warm themselves for a few minutes. The light of these fires attracted some of these miserable wretches, whom the excessive severity of the cold and their sufferings had rendered delirious; they ran in like madmen, and gnashing their teeth, and laughing like demons, threw themselves into these furnaces, where they perished in the most horrible convulsions. Their famished companions regarded them undismayed; there was even some who drew out these bodies from the flames, and it is but too true that they ventured to pollute their mouths with this loathsome food! But I must not talk any more of that dreadful time.

"Only a few thousands, as you know, lived to come back to France. I was one of them; but I was worn out, and having been badly wounded, I got my discharge. It was some time before I was like my former self, and had quite enough of military affairs. Instead of returning to Troyes a great general, I crawled into it a beggar. The hopes of returning to the house of my poor dear father had very much helped to keep me alive; and what, therefore, was my distress of mind when I found that the good man was dead! M. Imbert, my former master, had left the country. My poor old mother, almost blind, was living in loneliness and poverty; she who had always been so comfortably off. My return to her, sir, was truly a scene. We spent the first day weeping for our country, my father, and ourselves. The next day we began to try what I could do to earn bread; but, alas! everywhere an apprenticeship was necessary, even for six months; and my mother had almost nothing more to sell, and there were two to be maintained now.

"For the thousandth time I was sorry for having been a genius. I wished I had been a plain blockhead, with only as much sense as could have learned a handicraft; for now I should have been above starvation. I considered myself the most unlucky dog in existence; I felt, as it were, that my education had been my ruin."

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Stop, Jacque, I cannot agree to your reasoning," said M. Grandville. 66 Nothing is wanting to him who has a determined purpose, who applies all the energy of his will, and steadily perseveres in the same object; that is to say, he has an end, a single end, to which his every action, his every thought, refers." "Well, sir, I had one. All my actions, and all my thoughts,

were occupied with my mother. I wished with all my heart to deliver her from poverty, and to make some provision for her old age, and I could hardly succeed in keeping her from absolute want. The rich, sir, little know how hard it is for poor people to gain a livelihood."

I know it, and that better than most people, Jacque Denoyer. If I now enjoy a competence, I only owe it to my perseverance in the profession my father obliged me to embrace against my will, and from which all my tastes revolted. But, like you, I had an aged and infirm mother, with no other support but myself; and, more than you, I had a sister also to provide for. My mother lived to a great age, surrounded with all the comforts of life. She had seen my sister and myself well settled, and she died in the midst of her grandchildren, blessing us with the fondest affection."

Jacque Denoyer made a motion as if going to rise; he appeared greatly moved; but remained in his place.

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"Sir," said he, after a moment's pause, my mother blessed me also! Notwithstanding, she died with great grief at heart; she knew not what would become of me; and in fact I knew not myself. I wished much to leave the town; for in Troyes our equals had seen us well off and well clothed, and I was then so wretched. M. Deschamps, a solicitor, whom I knew by name, was at this time in want of a trustworthy man to carry money to Bar-upon-Seine. Some one mentioned me to him. He would only pay my expenses there, but not back. I did not care for that, as I did not intend returning to the town. I knew that my mother had a brother who was living in the environs of Bar-upon-Seine, so I resolved to go to him. I knew of no other relation in the world, and so I set out. Ah, sir, my heart failed me when leaving Troyes! I had nobody belonging to me but this uncle, and if he did not devise some plan, what was to become of me?

"An excellent man, sir, was my uncle; every one knew Father Mercier, for so he was styled, for the circuit of ten leagues round. He was considered a very learned man, having studied with the view of becoming a priest before the great Revolution; and so much the more, as he had been professor of the French tongue at Bar-upon-Seine for some time. But for ten years he had lived quietly at Landreville, where he had opened a little school for children. He had no children, and his wife was dead; but Toinette Lerouge, his stepdaughter, lived with him.

"I was received like a son, sir; and at the end of a week my uncle said to me, 'If you will marry Toinette, I will make you my heir. The house and garden are not very large, but they are entirely my own. You know enough to keep school and Toinette also, for she takes my place when I go to the mayoralty to copy deeds. The mayor is fond of us; for my sake he

will employ you when I am unable to work; and if, my children, you do but put your minds to the work, things will go on well.' To say the truth, Toinette pleased me greatly; she was neat and pretty, active at her work, and always in good-humour. The only thing I have never repented of in my life is having taken her for a wife. Yes, sir, if it was to do over again, I would do it again. I say so to her every day; and I have said so to her at a time when we were so unhappy, that the greatest favour the good God would have done us would have been to take us out of this world.

"We were now married. I became a schoolmaster, and filled my uncle's place at the mayoralty. It appeared to me most strange at first, being obliged to bear so patiently with this little noisy set; I who had been in the habit of seeing such strict discipline. I felt greatly displeased at it. There was one point upon which my uncle and I never could agree-it was upon education. He maintained that knowledge should be diffused as much as possible; that we French were in this respect behind every other civilised nation; that it was shameful to find so few knowing either how to read or write; and that the ignorance of the people was in a great measure the cause of their wretched condition. But, sir, I maintained the contrary. My uncle tried to persuade me that my arguments came from a spirit of contradiction; that though I had lost my time, and was ready for everything, but good for nothing, the fault lay not in my reading and writing, but in my character-my love of change, and want of steady application, and many other things which I do not remember. Nor was my employer the mayor behindhand in his arguments on the same subject.

"One day in particular, after having read me a lecture of an hour long, he said to me-Listen, Denoyer; I will put a case to you which you will understand, since you have read scientific books, and have been in chemical laboratories. Let us suppose that you, an ignorant man, wished to make use of instruments which you have seen produce marvellous things in the hands of chemists and natural philosophers-what would happen? Not knowing how to make use of them, you would burst the retorts; you would break the instruments; you would hurt yourself, and indignantly exclaim, "All this is good for nothing but to waste time and maim people." But if you have lost your time and maimed yourself, is it the fault of the instruments or of those who make them work wonders, or rather yours, who do not know how to use them?'

"That was a famous argument, sir," said Jacque Denoyer. "And what answer did you make to the mayor?" demanded M. Grandville, smiling.

"I do not remember, sir. I was more ready with an answer then than I am now. But the mayor, without yielding an inch of ground, said to me, 'Well, Denoyer, both at school

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