Poet, honour to thy Gascon mother! but, poor little chap, I received no answer. Of course I know the poor ’prentice verses deserved none, but--no use denying it--this disdain hurt me, and when in after life I in my turn received such offerings, remembering my own discomfort, I always felt it a duty to acknowledge them with courtesy. About the age of fourteen, the longing for my native fields and the sound of my native tongue grew on me to such a degree that it ended by making me quite ill from home-sickness. Like the prodigal son, I said to myself, “How much happier are the servants and shepherds of our farm, down there, who eat the good bread that my mother provides; the friends of my childhood, too, my comrades of Maillane, who live at liberty in the country, labouring, sowing, reaping, and gathering olives, beneath the blessed sun of God, than I who drudge between four walls, over translations and compositions.” My sorrow was mixed with a strong distaste for the unreal world where I was immured, and with a constant drawing towards some vague ideal which I discerned in the blue distance of the horizon. So it fell out that one day while reading, I think, the _Magazin des Familles_, I came upon a description of the silent and contemplative life of the Monks of La Chartreuse at Valbonne. Thereupon I became possessed with the idea of this conventual life, and escaping from the school one fine afternoon I set out alone, determined and desperate, on the road to Pont Saint-Esprit, which winds along the banks of the Rhône, for I knew Valbonne was somewhere in that neighbourhood. “There,” I said to myself, “I will go and knock at the door of the convent, imploring and weeping until they consent to admit me. Then once inside I will roam all day, in bliss, among the trees of the forest--I will steep myself in thoughts of God and sanctify myself as did the good Saint-Gent.” Then suddenly a thought arrested me: “And thy mother,” I said to myself, “to whom, miserable boy, thou hast not even bidden farewell, and who, when she learns thou hast disappeared, will seek thee by hill and by dale, poor woman, weeping disconsolate as did the mother of Gent!” Turning about, with a heavy heart and hesitating steps I made my way back to the farm, in order to embrace my parents once more before forsaking the world; but the nearer I drew to the paternal home, the faster my monkish ideas and proud resolution melted in the warmth of my filial love, as a ball of snow dissolves before the fire. At the door of the farm, where I arrived late, my mother cried out in astonishment at the sight of me: “But why have you left your school before the holidays?” And I, already ashamed of my flight, replied in a broken voice: “I am home-sick--I cannot go back to that fat old Millet, where one has only carrots to eat.” But the next day our shepherd, Ronquet, took me back to my abhorred jail, with the promise, however, that I should be liberated at the end of the term.