e absorbed eighteen years of my life. Our
head master used to remark that college is a second home; whereby I have
always fancied he did some injustice to the first.

My school-days were hardly over when my uncle and guardian, M. Brutus
Mouillard, solicitor, of Bourges, packed me off to Paris to go through
my law course. I took three years over it: At the end of that time,
just eighteen months ago, I became a licentiate, and "in the said
capacity"--as my uncle would say took an oath that transformed me into
a probationary barrister. Every Monday, regularly, I go to sign my name
among many others on an attendance list, and thereby, it appears, I am
establishing a claim upon the confidence of the widow and the orphan.

In the intervals of my legal studies I have succeeded in taking my Arts
Degree. At present I am seeking that of Doctor of Law. My examinations
have been passed meritoriously, but without brilliance; my tastes run
too much after letters. My professor, M. Flamaran, once told me the
truth of the matter: "Law, young man, is a jealous mistress; she allows
no divided affection." Are my affections divided? I think not, and I
certainly do not confess any such thing to M. Mouillard, who has not yet
forgotten what he calls "that freak" of a Degree in Arts. He builds some
hopes upon me, and, in return, it is natural that I should build a few
upon him.

Really, that sums up all my past: two certificates! A third diploma
in prospect and an uncle to leave me his money--that is my future. Can
anything more commonplace be imagined?

I may add that I never felt any temptation at all to put these things
on record until to-day, the tenth of December, 1884. Nothing had ever
happened to me; my history was a blank. I might have died thus. But who
can foresee life's sudden transformations? Who can foretell that the
skein, hitherto so tranquilly unwound, will not suddenly become tangled?
This afternoon a serious adventure befell me. It agitated me at the
time, and it agitates me still more upon reflection. A voice within me
whispers that this cause will have a series of effects, that I am on
the threshold of an epoch, or, as the novelists say, a crisis in my
existence. It has struck me that I owe it to myself to write my
Memoirs, and that is the reason why I have just purchased this brown
memorandum-book in the Odeon Arcade. I intend to make a detailed
and particular entry of the event, and, as time goes on, of its
consequence