I went up to the top of the towers of Nôtre Dame once with Hugo, and I do not like to think what it cost me in perspirations and cold shivers. But we must return to the question of my mental training, for it was high time it was begun in earnest. They had tried to get me entered free at all the colleges endowed for the education of sons of superior officers. But, in spite of the most urgent representations, they could neither obtain for me admission to the Prytanée nor a bursary in any Imperial lycée. Had I been of sufficient age to be of any importance at that time I should have flattered myself that Bonaparte's hatred for my father was being continued towards me. None of the applications on my behalf, then, had been successful, when one of my cousins died, of whom I have already spoken,--the Abbé Conseil. He had been tutor to the royal pages, he had received all sorts of benefices from Louis XV. and Louis XVI., and he was accordingly wealthy. He owned a charming house in the village of Largny, within a league of Villers-Cotterets, and a most picturesque garden, both in the centre of a valley; I have not referred to all this before because our cousin Conseil showed us but scant hospitality. He also had a house at Villers-Cotterets--number 3 or 5, I think, in the rue de Lormet, just opposite the house where Demoustier died. I paid two visits a year to this cousin Conseil, one on New Year's Day, the other on his birthday. He would give me a kiss on one cheek and a slap on the other, and there ended his generosity. Once he gave me half a crown. But my mother and I never went again, and he died the same year. He left an income of something like 12,000 livres behind him, to a certain Miss Ryan, before mentioned. My mother received a legacy of 1500 francs, and to one of his relatives he bequeathed a bursary at the Seminary of Soissons. My destiny was clear, and Cécile's prophecy was to be realised: I was to be the future Seminarist. But the question remained how to get me there,--not an easy matter. I had an unreasoning aversion to priests, and Cécile's prediction had sown in my heart the seeds of revolt against its coming true. My mother's mind was not made up. She, poor woman, was incapable of insisting on anything that she saw was the least distasteful to me; but she desired to give me as good an education as possible. The thought of making a priest of me had, however, never entered her head. I believe, indeed, if she had thought such a thing were likely to come of it she would have been the first to oppose the plan, which she now put before me in the most glowing colours. Two or three months passed, I resisting and my mother begging and praying me to go.