State, there can be no divided rule--no equality. One
must be master, and no family is so badly managed, or so badly brought
up, as where the law of nature is reversed, and we contemplate that most
despicable of all _lusi naturae_--a hen-pecked husband. To proceed, the
consequence of my mother's treatment, was to undermine in me all the
precepts of my worthy grandmother. I was a slave; and a slave under the
continual influence of fear cannot be honest. The fear of punishment
produced deceit to avoid it. Even my brother Auguste, from his regard
and pity for me, would fall into the same error. "Valerie," he would
say, running out to me as I was coming home with my little brother in my
arms, "your mother will beat you on your return. You must say so and
so." This so and so was, of course, an untruth; and, in consequence, my
fibs were so awkward, and accompanied by so much hesitation and
blushing, that I was invariably found out, and then punished for what I
did not deserve to be; and when my mother obtained such triumphant proof
against me, she did not fail to make the most of it with my father, who,
by degrees, began to consider that my treatment was merited, and that I
was a bad and deceitful child.

My only happiness was to be out in the open air, away from my mother's
presence, and this was only to be obtained when I was ordered out with
my little brother Pierre, whom I had to carry as soon as I had done the
household work. If Pierre was fractious, my mother would order me out
of the house with him immediately. This I knew, and I used to pinch the
poor child to make him cry, that I might gain my object, and be sent
away; so that to duplicity I added cruelty. Six months before this, had
any one told me that I ever would be guilty of such a thing, with what
indignation I should have denied it!

Although my mother flattered herself that it was only in her own
domestic circle that her unnatural conduct towards me was known, such
was not the case, and the treatment which I received from her was the
occasion of much sympathy on the part of the officers and their wives,
who were quartered in the barracks. Some of them ventured to
remonstrate with my father for his consenting to it; but although he was
cowed by a woman, he had no fear of men, and as he told them candidly
that any future interference in his domestic concerns must be answered
by the sword, no more was said to him on the subject. Strange, that a
ma