them.

I did not know my maternal grandfather. This venerable ancestor
was, I have been told, a process server in one of the poorest
parishes of the Rouergue. He used to engross on stamped paper in a
primitive spelling. With his well-filled pen case and ink horn, he
went drawing out deeds up hill and down dale, from one insolvent
wretch to another more insolvent still. Amid his atmosphere of
pettifoggery, this rudimentary scholar, waging battle on life's
acerbities, certainly paid no attention to the insect; at most, if
he met it, he would crush it under foot. The unknown animal,
suspected of evil doing, deserved no further enquiry. Grandmother,
on her side, apart from her housekeeping and her beads, knew still
less about anything. She looked on the alphabet as a set of
hieroglyphics only fit to spoil your sight for nothing, unless you
were scribbling on paper bearing the government stamp. Who in the
world, in her day, among the small folk, dreamt of knowing how to
read and write? That luxury was reserved for the attorney, who
himself made but a sparing use of it. The insect, I need hardly
say, was the least of her cares. If sometimes, when rinsing her
salad at the tap, she found a caterpillar on the lettuce leaves,
with a start of fright she would fling the loathsome thing away,
thus cutting short relations reputed dangerous. In short, to both
my maternal grandparents, the insect was a creature of no interest
whatever and almost always a repulsive object, which one dared not
touch with the tip of one's finger. Beyond a doubt, my taste for
animals was not derived from them.

I have more precise information regarding my grandparents on the
father's side, for their green old age allowed me to know them