which had been condemned by the Index at Rome, a fact which did not
prevent his dying in the most religious frame of mind possible, well
nigh in the odour of sanctity. My tutor was, in truth, of too lofty an
intelligence to persevere long in that religious nihilism, that denial
of the existence of a future state, which, spreading from religion to
family life, and from thence again to the affairs of the State, ends by
leaving nothing standing but animal man and his animal passions and
appetites. The long death-struggle of a passionately loved sister, who
was supported by the constant ministrations of the Bishop of Beauvais,
M. Feutrier, and her calm end, of which he was an eyewitness, began the
change within him. When, in later years, the Abbe Dupanloup, then Vicar
of the Church of the Assumption, was charged with the care of my
religious education, he and Trognon became very intimate, and death
alone interrupted the close communion then established between these two
great minds.

The first years of my education were very happy. Anything dry about it
was liberally compensated for by the constant intimacy of the family
circle. We were three sisters and six brothers (this last number soon
reduced to five by the death of my brother Penthievre), all living
together, eating together, often doing lessons together, together always
in all games and pleasure parties and excursions. What a joyous band we
were may easily be guessed. Each boy had his own tutor, and two
governesses were in charge of my sisters. So long as tutors and
governesses only had to deal with their own pupils, all went well, but
when the brothers and sisters were all together, and influenced by the
spirit of insubordination and love of playing pranks which the elder
ones brought back from school, we made life hard and sour to the
preceptorial body. But they got on, somehow. The GRANDSPARENTS, as we
called our parents, taken up as they were by their social engagements,