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 that was
felt for me by my family, I sank into a horrible distrust of myself. A
second fall of snow checked the seeds that were germinating in my
soul. The boys whom I most liked were notorious scamps; this fact
roused my pride and I held aloof. Again I was shut up within myself
and had no vent for the feelings with which my heart was full. The
master of the school, observing that I was gloomy, disliked by my
comrades, and always alone, confirmed the family verdict as to my
sulky temper. As soon as I could read and write, my mother transferred
me to Pont-le-Voy, a school in charge of Oratorians who took boys of
my age into a form called the "class of the Latin steps" where dull
lads with torpid brains were apt to linger.

There I remained eight years without seeing my family; living the life
of a pariah,--partly for the following reason. I received but three
francs a month pocket-money, a sum barely sufficient to buy the pens,
ink, paper, knives, and rules which we were forced to supply