‘Which is the circumstance?’ promptly exclaimed the Comtesse Laura. ‘You must tell us.’ ‘It is a very long episode; nevertheless, if you will grant me your attention for a while, I will obey. * * * * * The most unforeseen resolutions are often due to the most trifling causes: it was perhaps one word, a single word, which decided my future. Everybody knows the awkwardness of those pet names that one gives to children, which continue up to a time when what was once pretty and graceful becomes intensely ridiculous. It was formerly the fashion in France, as it was here, and for the matter of that everywhere, to confer upon the very young that second baptism of friendship. Of course it seems the most natural thing in the world to do to-day what we did yesterday. Consequently, in Paris as in Vienna, they called tall, grown-up men, Fanfan, Dédé, Lolo, and other sobriquets, very sweet, but utterly unsuited to the men themselves. I ought to be a good special pleader of that cause, for I also have been called by one of those pet names, and I made a fine thing of it by remembering it on one of the most eventful days of my life. Yes, that rather ridiculous name was for me a talisman worth all the charms of the fairies. Napoleon had overthrown the contemned government of the Directorate. Sufficiently strong to be merciful, he allowed all those who had abandoned their country in order to save their heads to come back again. I had just left my ‘father’ in Amsterdam, he having resolved to send me to Paris in order to see his business man, and to find resources which were absolutely lacking in the alien land. He confided me to one of our countrymen, M. Clément, whose acquaintance we had made in Holland, and who was going back to France. We started together for Paris. We took up our quarters at the Hôtel de Paris in the Rue Coquillière. M. Clément found letters from his family, who had a few days previously left for Dijon, bidding him to follow them instantly. On leaving me, he entrusted me to the care of the manager, M. Chandeau, a pastry-cook by trade, who was willing to keep me there, though my appearance by no means promised a profitable customer, or even one able to settle a little bill. Nevertheless, I had a modest room on the fifth floor at a rental of twelve francs per month, and as for my meals, I arranged them very much in accordance with the slenderness of my purse. I prefer not to dwell upon this more than precarious existence.