ar back as my recollections of
Geneva go I remember how I felt the tears of my unhappy parents falling
upon my cheeks; and how their complaints of misery, which I did not
understand, provoked me also to tears. Later I experienced to the full
and with keen consciousness in what a state of crushing want and of
deep distress my parents lived. My father found all his hopes deceived.
He died bowed to the earth with pain, and broken with trouble,
immediately after he had succeeded in placing me as apprentice to a
goldsmith. My mother talked much about you; she said she would pour out
all her troubles to you; but then she fell a victim to that despondency
which is born of misery. That, and also a feeling of false shame, which
often preys upon a deeply wounded spirit, prevented her from taking any
decisive step. Within a few months after my father's death my mother
followed him to the grave." "Poor Anne! poor Anne!" exclaimed
Mademoiselle, quite overcome by sorrow. "All praise and thanks to the
Eternal Power of Heaven that she is gone to the better land; she will
not see her darling son, branded with shame, fall by the hand of the
executioner," cried Olivier aloud, casting his eyes upwards with a wild
unnatural look of anguish.

The police grew uneasy outside; footsteps passed to an fro. "Ho! ho!"
said Olivier, smiling bitterly, "Desgrais is waking up his myrmidons,
as though I could make my escape _here_. But to continue--I led a hard
life with my master, albeit I soon got to be the best workman, and at
last even surpassed my master himself. One day a stranger happened to
come into our shop to buy some jewellery. And when he saw a beautiful
necklace which I had made he clapped me on the shoulder in a friendly
way and said, eyeing the ornament, 'Ha! i' faith, my young friend,
that's an excellent piece of work. To tell you the truth, I don't know
who there is who could beat you, unless it were Rene Cardillac, who,
you know, is the first goldsmith in the world. You ought to go to him;
he would gladly take you into his workshop; for nobody but you could
help him in his artistic labours; and on the other hand he is the only
man from whom you could learn anything.' The stranger's words sank into
my heart and took deep root there. I hadn't another moment's ease in
Geneva; I felt a violent impulse to be gone. At last I contrived to get
free from my master. I came to Paris. Rene Cardillac received me coldly
and churlishly. I persevered