one of so bad a disposition as mine. She pretended to search for me. I
answered as soon as I was called, and she came to the fig-tree, where
she very well knew I was. "What are you doing there?" she asked.
"Watching a star." "You were not watching a star," said my mother, who
was listening on her balcony; "children of your age know nothing of
astronomy." "Ah, madame," cried Mademoiselle Caroline, "he has opened
the faucet of the reservoir; the garden is inundated!" Then there was
a general excitement. The fact was that my sisters had amused
themselves by turning the cock to see the water flow, but a sudden
spurt wet them all over and frightened them so much that they ran away
without closing it. Accused and convicted of this piece of mischief
and told that I lied when I denied it, I was severely punished. Worse
than all, I was jeered at for my pretended love of the stars and
forbidden to stay in the garden after dark.

Such tyrannical restrains intensify a passion in the hearts of
children even more than in those of men; children think of nothing but
the forbidden thing, which then becomes irresistibly attractive to
them. I was often whipped for my star. Unable to confide in my kind, I
told it all my troubles in that delicious inward prattle with which we
stammer our first ideas, just as once we stammered our first words. At
twelve years of age, long after I was at school, I still watched that
star with indescribable delight,--so deep and lasting are the
impressions we receive in the dawn of life.

My brother Charles, five years older than I and as handsome a boy as
he now is a man, was the favorite of my father, the idol of my mother,
and consequently the sovereign of the house. He was robust and
well-made, and had a tutor. I, puny and even sickly, was sent at five
years of age as day pupil to a school in the town; taken in the morning