This gentleman, the personification of probity, possessed the confidence of the Duc d’Avaray, whose estate he managed, and being full of zeal for his noble client’s business, he devoted more attention to it than to his office. At Avaray legal business was very scarce, and we had hardly enough to fill up our time. For my own part, I had many leisure hours, which my kind master enabled me to employ by placing his library at my service. I had the good fortune to find in it Linnæus’s Treaty on Botany, and I learned the rudiments of that science. The study of botany required time, and I could only devote to it the hours prior to the office opening. Unfortunately, I had become a tremendous sleeper--I hardly know how--and I could not manage to get up before eight o’clock. I resolved to conquer this obstinate somnolency, and I invented a waking apparatus, which, from its originality, deserves honorable mention here. The room I occupied formed a portion of the Château d’Avaray, and was situated over an archway, closed by a heavy gate. Having noticed that the porter opened this gate, which led into the gardens, every morning, the idea occurred to me of profiting by this circumstance to institute an energetic alarum. This is how I managed it. When I went to bed, I fastened to one of my legs the end of a cord, which, passing through my half-opened window, was attached to the upper part of the iron gate. When the porter pushed the gate open, he dragged me, when least expecting it, to the middle of my bedroom. Thus violently roused from sleep, I tried to hold on by the bed-clothes; but the more I resisted, the more did the pitiless porter push on his side, and I at length woke up to hear him always abusing the hinges, which he determined to oil before the day was out. Then, I unloosed my leg, and, with my Linnæus in my hand, I went to interrogate Nature on her admirable secrets, the study of which caused me to spend many pleasant hours.