young imagination that the event has remained for ever fixed in my
memory.

Chap. 2.

While my childhood was rolling by peacefully, the storm of
revolution which had been growling in the distance, drew ever nearer,
and it was not long before it broke. We were in 1789.

The assembly of the States General stirred up all manner of
passions, destroyed the tranquillity enjoyed by the province in which
we lived and introduced divisions into all families, particularly
into ours; for my father, who for a long time had railed against the
abuses to which France was subjected, accepted, in principle, the
improvements which were mooted, without foreseeing the atrocities to
which these changes were going to lead; while his three
brothers-in-law and all his friends rejected any innovation. This
gave rise to animated discussions, of which I understood nothing, but
which distressed me because I saw my mother in tears as she tried to
keep the peace between her brothers and her husband. For my part,
although I did not understand what was going on, I naturally took
sides with my father.

The Constituent Assembly had revoked all feudal rents. My father
possessed some of these which his father had purchased. He was the
first to conform to the law. The peasantry who had been waiting to
make up their minds until my father gave them a lead, refused to
continue paying these rents once they knew what he had done.

Shortly after this, France having been divided into departments,