uth the little Buvat, who had a marked repugnance
for all other kinds of study, manifested a particular inclination for
caligraphy: thus he arrived every morning at the College des Oratoriens,
where his mother sent him gratis, with his exercises and translations
full of faults, but written with a neatness, a regularity, and a beauty
which it was charming to see. The little Buvat was whipped every day for
the idleness of his mind, and received the writing prize every year for
the skill of his hand. At fifteen years of age he passed from the
Epitome Sacrae, which he had recommenced five times, to the Epitome
Graecae; but the professor soon perceived that this was too much for him,
and put him back for the sixth time in the Epitome Sacrae. Passive as he
appeared, young Buvat was not wanting in a certain pride. He came home
in the evening crying to his mother, and complaining of the injustice
which had been done him, declaring, in his grief, a thing which till
then he had been careful not to confess, namely, that there were in the
school children of ten years old more advanced than he was.

Widow Buvat, who saw her son start every morning with his exercises
perfectly neat (which led her to believe that there could be no fault to
be found with them), went the next day to abuse the good fathers. They
replied that her son was a good boy, incapable of an evil thought
toward God, or a bad action toward his neighbor; but that, at the same
time, he was so awfully stupid that they advised her to develop, by
making him a writing-master, the only talent with which nature had
blessed him. This counsel was a ray of light for Madame Buvat; she
understood that, in this manner, the benefit she should derive from her
son would be immediate. She came back to her house, and communicated to
her son the new plans she had formed for him. Young Buvat saw in this
only a means of escaping the castigation which he received every
morning, for which the prize, bound in calf, that he received every year
was not a compensation.

He received the propositions of his mother with great joy; promised her
that, before six months were over, he would be the first writing-master
in the capital; and the same day, after having, from his little savings,
bought a knife with four blades, a packet of quills, and two copy-books,
set himself to the work. The good Oratoriens were not deceived as to the
true vocation of young Buvat. Caligraphy was with him an art which