grieved, and ready to cry. M. Baffo brought me life again. He rushed to
me, embraced me tenderly, and said, "Thou are right, my child. The sun
does not move; take courage, give heed to your reasoning powers and let
others laugh."

My mother, greatly surprised, asked him whether he had taken leave of his
senses to give me such lessons; but the philosopher, not even
condescending to answer her, went on sketching a theory in harmony with
my young and simple intelligence. This was the first real pleasure I
enjoyed in my life. Had it not been for M. Baffo, this circumstance might
have been enough to degrade my understanding; the weakness of credulity
would have become part of my mind. The ignorance of the two others would
certainly have blunted in me the edge of a faculty which, perhaps, has
not carried me very far in my after life, but to which alone I feel that
I am indebted for every particle of happiness I enjoy when I look into
myself.

We reached Padua at an early hour and went to Ottaviani's house; his wife
loaded me with caresses. I found there five or six children, amongst them
a girl of eight years, named Marie, and another of seven, Rose, beautiful
as a seraph. Ten years later Marie became the wife of the broker Colonda,
and Rose, a few years afterwards, married a nobleman, Pierre Marcello,
and had one son and two daughters, one of whom was wedded to M. Pierre
Moncenigo, and the other to a nobleman of the Carrero family. This last
marriage was afterwards nullified. I shall have, in the course of events,
to speak of all these persons, and that is my reason for mentioning their
names here.

Ottaviani took us at once to the house where I was to board. It was only
a few yards from his own residence, at Sainte-Marie d'Advance, in the