fell into a pond, out of which I was extricated
with great difficulty: at the age of five, I had a fall, and received
a severe wound on the head: as a great deal of blood flowed from it,
it was thought unnecessary to bleed me; but a deposit, formed in the
head, burst at the ear after forty days, and, contrary to expectation,
I was saved. A short time afterwards, I fell into the kitchen fire:
this accident did not injure my face, but there are to this day two
marks of it on my body. Thus often was endangered, in its earliest
years, that life which was afterwards to prove so checkered.

"My father sold the estate of Champceri when I was two years old. He
had a house at Cosne, to which he removed, and passed three years
there. The recollection of that house, of its superb garden, and
beautiful terrace, upon the Loire, and of the chateau of Mienne, a
league from Cosne, where we went so often, remains indelibly engraved
on my memory. Passing by that road, thirty-five years after, I
instantly recognized the chateau, though I was but five years old when
we quitted Cosne. My father purchased the marquisate of St. Aubin, an
estate most desirable from its situation, its extent, and its titular
and seigniorial rights. I have never thought, without a feeling of
tenderness, of this spot, once so dear to me, in which six years of
innocence and happiness glided away.

"When we were once fixed at St. Aubin, my education began to be
attended to. Mademoiselle Urgon, the village schoolmistress, taught me
to read. Having an excellent memory, I learnt with great facility; and
at the end of six or seven months, I read with ease. I was brought up
with a brother fifteen months younger than myself, of whom I was
exceedingly fond; with the exception of the hour set apart for
reading, we were allowed to play together all day long. We passed part
of the day in the court-yard, or in the garden; and in the evening we
played in the drawing-room.

"I was six years old when my brother was sent to Paris, to the famous
academy of M. Bertrand, the most virtuous and best instructor of his
time. It was he who invented the method of learning to spell in six
weeks, by means of boxes full of counters. Two or three months after
the departure of my brother, my mother made a journey to Paris, and
took me with her.

"I was not much pleased with Paris, and, for the first few days of my
stay there, I regretted St. Aubin bitterly. I had two teeth pulled
out; my