Between his two supreme experiences in vision and sound, there had come to Ampère another and even profounder emotion. He tells the story himself, in words that probably express his feelings better than any possible description of his biographer could do, and that show us how wonderfully sensitive his soul was to emotion of all kinds. He had just completed his twenty-first year when he fell head over heels in love. Though he wrote very little, as a rule, he has left us a rather detailed description in diaries, evidently kept for the purpose, of the state of his feelings at this time. These bear the title, "_Amorum_," the story of his love. On the first page these words occur: "One day as I was taking an evening walk, just after the setting of the sun, making my way along a little brook," then there is a hiatus, and he was evidently quite unable to express all that he felt. It seems that he was gathering botanical specimens, wearing an excellent set of spectacles ever since his adventure on the stage-coach had shown him the need of them, when he suddenly perceived at some distance two young and charming girls who were gathering flowers in the field. He looked at one of them, and he knew that his fate was sealed. Up to that time, as he says, the idea of marriage had never occurred to him. One might think that the idea would occur very gently at first, then grow little by little; but that was not Ampère's way. He wanted to marry her that very day. He did not know her name; he did not know her family; he had never even heard her voice, but he knew that she was the destined one. Fortunately for the young lady and himself, she had very sensible parents. They demanded how he would be able to support a wife. Ampère was quite willing to do anything that they should suggest. His father had left enough to support the family, but not enough to enable him to support a wife in an independent home; and until he had some occupation, the parents of his bride-to-be refused to listen to his representations. For a time, he consented to be a salesman in a silk store in Lyons, in order to have some occupation which might eventually give him enough money to enable him to marry. Fortunately, however, he was diverted from a commercial vocation which might thus have absorbed a great scientist, and arrangements were made which permitted him to continue his intellectual life, yet have the woman of his choice. She was destined to make life happier far for him than is the usual lot of man, and he was ever ready to acknowledge how much she meant for his happiness.