t Librarian in the Department of the
Interior. It was sometimes stated that there was no library at all. It
is certain that it was a sinecure, though the pay, 3,000 francs, was
small. In 1848 the Duke had the bad taste to ask for his resignation,
but the Empire repaired the injury. Alfred de Musset died in Paris,
May 2, 1857.

HENRI DE BORNIER
de l'Academie Francaise.

THE CONFESSIONS OF A CHILD OF THE CENTURY

BOOK 1.

PART I

CHAPTER I

TO THE READER

Before the history of any life can be written, that life must be lived;
so that it is not my life that I am now writing. Attacked in early youth
by an abominable moral malady, I here narrate what happened to me during
the space of three years. Were I the only victim of that disease, I would
say nothing, but as many others suffer from the same evil, I write for
them, although I am not sure that they will give heed to me. Should my
warning be unheeded, I shall still have reaped the fruit of my agonizing
in having cured myself, and, like the fox caught in a trap, shall have
gnawed off my captive foot.

CHAPTER II

REFLECTIONS

During the wars of the Empire, while husbands and brothers were in
Germany, anxious mothers gave birth to an ardent, pale, and neurotic
generation. Conceived between battles, reared amid the noises of war,
thousands of children looked about them with dull eyes while testing
their limp muscles. From time to time their blood-stained fathers would
appear, raise them to their gold-laced bosoms, then place them on the
ground and remount their horses.

The life of Europe centred in one man; men tried to fill their lungs with
the air which he had breathed. Yearly France presented that man with
three hundred thousand of her youth; it was the tax to Caesar; without
that troop behind him, he could not follow his fortune. It was the escort
he needed that he might scour the world, and then fall in a little valley
on a deserted island, under weeping willows.

Never had there been so many sleepless nights as in the time of that man;
never had there been seen, hanging over the ramparts of the cities, such
a nation of desolate mothers; never was there such a silence about those
who spoke of death. And yet there was never such joy, such life, such
fanfares of war, in all hearts. Never was there such pure sunlight as
that which dried all this blood. God made the sun for this man, men said;