The printing-office, prosperous at first, fed by the debates of the assemblies and the news of the armies, was overthrown in 1800 by the general suppression of the newspapers. The printer was allowed to publish only an ecclesiastical journal; and even this sanction was withdrawn in favour of a priest whom Napoleon thought safe, but was mistaken. The family of M. Michelet was ruined. They had but one resource; it was to print for their creditors a few works belonging to the printer. They had no longer any journeymen; they did the work themselves. The father, who was occupied with his employment abroad, could render no assistance, but the mother, though sick, turned binder, cut and folded. The child--the future historian--was the compositor; the grandfather, very old and feeble, betook himself to the hard work of the press, and printed with his palsied hands. The young compositor, at twelve years of age, knew four words of Latin which he had picked up from an old bookseller, who had been a village teacher, and doted on grammar. The scene of the lad's labors--his workshop--was a cellar. For company he had occasionally his grandfather who came to see them, and always, without interruption, an industrious spider, that worked at the compositor's side, and even more assiduously than he. There were severe privations to undergo, but there was also much compensation. "I had the kindness of my parents, and their faith in my future prospects, a faith which is truly inexplicable, when I reflect how backward I was. Save the binding duties of my work, I enjoyed extreme independence, which I never abused. I was apprenticed, but without being in contact with coarse-minded people, whose brutality, perhaps, would have crushed the precious blossom of liberty within me. In the morning, before work, I went to my old grammarian, who gave me a task of five or six lines. I have retained thus much; that the quantity of work has much less to do with it than is supposed; children can imbibe but a very little every day; like a vase with a narrow neck, pour little or pour much, you will never get a great deal in at a time."