ef feature of their mid-day meal, between
the early breakfast and the parent's dinner, which was ready when we
returned from school. This preparation of meat, much prized by certain
gourmands, is seldom seen at Tours on aristocratic tables; if I had
ever heard of it before I went to school, I certainly had never had
the happiness of seeing that brown mess spread on slices of bread and
butter. Nevertheless, my desire for those "rillons" was so great that it
grew to be a fixed idea, like the longing of an elegant Parisian duchess
for the stews cooked by a porter's wife,--longings which, being a woman,
she found means to satisfy. Children guess each other's covetousness,
just as you are able to read a man's love, by the look in the eyes;
consequently I became an admirable butt for ridicule. My comrades,
nearly all belonging to the lower bourgeoisie, would show me their
"rillons" and ask if I knew how they were made and where they were sold,
and why it was that I never had any. They licked their lips as they
talked of them--scraps of pork pressed in their own fat and looking like
cooked truffles; they inspected my lunch-basket, and finding nothing
better than Olivet cheese or dried fruits, they plagued me
with questions: "Is that all you have? have you really nothing
else?"--speeches which made me realize the difference between my brother
and myself.

This contrast between my own abandonment and the happiness of others
nipped the roses of my childhood and blighted my budding youth. The
first time that I, mistaking my comrades' actions for generosity, put
forth my hand to take the dainty I had so long coveted and which was now
hypocritically held out to me, my tormentor pulled back his slice to the
great delight of his comrades who were expecting that result. If noble
and distinguished minds are, as we often find them, capable of vanity,
can we blame the child who weeps when despised and jeered at? Under such
a trial many boys would have turned into gluttons and cringing beggars.
I fought to escape my persecutors. The courage of despair made me
formidable; but I was hated, and thus had no protection against
treachery. One evening as I left school I was struck in the back by
a handful of small stones tied in a handkerchief. When the valet, who
punished the perpetrator, told this to my mother she exclaimed: "That
dreadful child! he will always be a torment to us."

Finding that I inspired in my schoolmates the same repulsion