Next day they woke us at dawn, my father had died precisely at the time we heard the knocking at the door! Then it was that I heard these words, but without taking in their significance: "_My poor child, the papa who loved you so much is dead!_" I cannot tell what lips uttered those words over me, the little orphan of three and a half years, nor who it was that announced the greatest misfortune of my life. "My father is dead?" said I. "What does that mean?" "It means that you will never see him again." "What! I shall never see my papa again?" "No." "Why shall I not see him?" "Because the good God has taken him from you." "For ever?" "For ever." "And you say I shall never see him any more?" "Never again." "Never, never at all?" "Nevermore!" "Where does the good God live?" "He lives in heaven." I remained in thought for a moment; unreasoning baby though I was, I quite understood that something dreadful had happened in my life. Then I took advantage of the first moment when attention was diverted from me to escape from my uncle's house and run straight home to my mother. All the doors were open, and everybody looked scared; one could tell that death was in the house. I got in without being noticed at all, and reached a little room where arms were kept; I took up one of my father's single-barrelled guns, which he had often promised to give me when I should be grown up. Then, armed with this gun, I climbed the stairs. I met my mother on the first landing; she was coming out of the death-chamber, weeping bitterly. "Where are you going?" she asked, surprised to see me there, when she thought I was at my uncle's. "I am going to heaven," I replied. "What! you are going to heaven?" "Yes, let me go." "What are you going to do in heaven, my poor child?" "I am going to kill the good God for killing papa." My mother seized me in her arms and pressed me closely to her. "Oh! my child," she cried, "do not say such things; we are quite unhappy enough already." Indeed, the death of my father, who had only received a retiring salary of 4000 francs, left us with no other fortune than about 30 roods of land in the village of Soucy, which had belonged to my maternal grandfather, who was still living at that time. There were arrears of salary due to my father, as I have said, arrears of 28,500 francs, for the years VII and VIII, but since our journey to Paris a law had been passed which declared that no arrears before the year IX should be paid. As for the indemnity of 500,000 francs, due from the King of Naples for the French prisoners, which Bonaparte had exacted, nothing was heard of it, and it was for this reason, no doubt, that the French seized the kingdom of Naples.