"Our independence, our illicit occupations, our apparent indolence, the torpor in which we remained, our constant punishments, our repugnance toward homework and chores, won us the reputation of being useless and incorrigible boys: our masters despised us, and we similarly fell into the most terrible discredit among our classmates, from whom we concealed our contraband studies for fear of their mockeries. This double low regard, unjust on the part of the Fathers, was a natural sentiment on the part of our classmates; we didn't know how to play ball, run, or walk on stilts on those days of amnesty when by chance we obtained a moment of freedom; we didn't take part in any of the amusements then in style at the school; strangers to the pleasures of our comrades, we remained alone, seated sadly under a tree in the courtyard. The Poet and Pythagoras were an exception, living a life separate from that of the community. The penetrating instinct, the fragile self-regard of schoolboys, gave them a greater sensitivity with regard to minds that were higher or lower than their own; from there, for some, was hatred of our mute aristocracy; for others, scorn for our uselessness. We held these sentiments between us without our full knowledge, and it's possible that I didn't understand them until today. We lived therefore exactly like two rats skulking in the corner of the room that held our desks, bound there equally during the hours of study and during those of recreation." The result of these hidden labors, of these meditations which used up study time, was the famous Traité de la Volonté about which he spoke many times in La Comédie Humaine. Balzac always regretted the loss of this first work that he describes in Louis Lambert, and he speaks with an emotion that time has not diminished of the confiscation of the box that held the precious manuscript; some jealous schoolmates tried to snatch the box that two friends fiercely defended: "Suddenly, attracted by the noise of the battle, Father Haugoult roughly intervened and quieted the dispute. This terrible Haugoult ordered us to give the box to him; Lambert handed him the key, the teacher took the papers and flipped through them; then he said while confiscating them: 'So this is the foolishness for which you neglect your work!' Large tears fell from Lambert's eyes, caused as much by the consciousness of his offended sense of moral superiority as by the gratuitous insult and the betrayal that overwhelmed him. Father Haugoult probably sold the Traité de la Volonté to a grocer of Vendôme without knowing the importance of the scientific treasures whose seeds were left to die in ignorant hands."