ber, 1810,
in the old quarter of Paris, on the left bank of the Seine. The stories of
his childhood--which are pretty, like all true stories about children--show
a sensitive, affectionate, vivacious, impetuous, perverse nature,
precocious observation and intelligence. He was one of those beautiful,
captivating children whom nobody can forbear to spoil, and who, with the
innocent cunning of their age, reckon on the effect of their own charms. He
was not four years old when he first fell in love, as such mere babies,
both girls and boys, occasionally do: these infantine passions exhibit most
of the phenomena of maturer ones, and show how intense and absorbing a
passion may be which belongs exclusively to the region of sentiment and
imagination. Alfred de Musset's first love was his cousin, a young girl
nearly grown up when he first saw her: he left his playthings to listen to
her account of a journey she had made from Belgium, then the seat of war,
and from that day, whenever she came to the house, insisted on her telling
him stories, which she did with the patience and invention of Scheherazade.
At last he asked her to marry him, and, as she did not refuse, considered
her his betrothed wife. After some time she returned to her home in Liege:
there were tears on both sides--on his genuine and excessive grief. "Do not
forget me," said Clelia.--"Forget you! Don't you know that your name is cut
upon my heart with a pen-knife?" He set himself to learn to read and write
with incredible application, that he might be able to correspond with his
beloved. His attachment did not abate with absence, so that when Clelia
really married, the whole family thought it necessary to keep it a secret
from her little lover, and he remained in ignorance of it for years,
although he betrayed extraordinary suspicion and misgiving on the subject.
He was a schoolboy of eight or nine before he learned the truth, and was at
first extremely agitated: he asked tremblingly if Clelia had been making
fun of him, and being assured that she had not, but that they had not
allowed her to wait for him, and that she loved him like an elder sister,
he grew calm and said, "I will be satisfied with that." The cousins seldom
met in after-life, but preserved a tender affection for each other, which
served to avert a lawsuit and rupture that threatened to grow out of a
business disagreement between the two branches of the family. In 1852,
Clelia came to Paris to be pre