the sublime
mistake--if I may so call it--of our love for our mother lasted until
the day, much later in our lives, when we judged her finally. This
terrible despotism drove from my mind all thoughts of the voluptuous
enjoyments I had dreamed of finding at Tours. In despair I took refuge
in my father's library, where I set myself to read every book I did not
know. These long periods of hard study saved me from contact with my
mother; but they aggravated the dangers of my moral condition. Sometimes
my eldest sister--she who afterwards married our cousin, the Marquis de
Listomere--tried to comfort me, without, however, being able to calm the
irritation to which I was a victim. I desired to die.

Great events, of which I knew nothing, were then in preparation. The Duc
d'Angouleme, who had left Bordeaux to join Louis XVIII. in Paris, was
received in every town through which he passed with ovations inspired by
the enthusiasm felt throughout old France at the return of the Bourbons.
Touraine was aroused for its legitimate princes; the town itself was
in a flutter, every window decorated, the inhabitants in their Sunday
clothes, a festival in preparation, and that nameless excitement in the
air which intoxicates, and which gave me a strong desire to be present
at the ball given by the duke. When I summoned courage to make this
request of my mother, who was too ill to go herself, she became
extremely angry. "Had I come from Congo?" she inquired. "How could I
suppose that our family would not be represented at the ball? In
the absence of my father and brother, of course it was my duty to be
present. Had I no mother? Was she not always thinking of the welfare of
her children?"

In a moment the semi-disinherited son had become a personage! I was more
dumfounded by my importance than by the deluge of ironical reasoning
with which my mother received my request. I questioned my sisters, and
then discovered that my mother, who liked such theatrical plots,
was already attending to my clothes. The tailors in Tours were fully
occupied by the sudden demands of their regular customers, and my mother
was forced to employ her usual seamstress, who--according to provincial
custom--could do all kinds of sewing. A bottle-blue coat had been
secretly made for me, after a fashion, and silk stockings and pumps
provided; waistcoats were then worn short, so that I could wear one
of my father's; and for the first time in my life I had a shirt with a