The two snakes--M. de Valence and Madame de Montesson--Who little Hermine was--Garnier the wheelwright and Madame de Valence--Madame Lafarge--Fantastic apparition of Madame de Genlis CHAPTER III Mademoiselle Pivert--I make her read the _Thousand and One Nights_, or, rather, one story in that collection--Old Hiraux, my music-master--The little worries of his life--He takes his revenge on his persecutors after the fashion of the Maréchal de Montluc--He is condemned to be flogged, and nearly loses the sight of his eyes--What happened on Easter Day in the organ-loft at the monastery--He becomes a grocer's lad--His vocation leads him to the study of music--I have little aptitude for the violin CHAPTER IV The dog lantern-bearer--Demoustier's epitaph--My first fencing-master--"The king drinks"--The fourth terror of my life--The tub of honey CHAPTER V My horror of great heights--The Abbé Conseil--My opening at the Seminary--My mother, much pressed, decides to enter me there--The horn inkstand--Cécile at the grocer's--My flight CHAPTER VI The Abbé Grégoire's College--The reception I got there--The fountains play to celebrate my arrival--The conspiracy against me--Bligny challenges me to single combat--I win CHAPTER VII The Abbé Fortier--The jealous husband and the viaticum--A pleasant visit--Victor Letellier--The pocket-pistol--I terrify the population--Tournemolle is requisitioned--He disarms me CHAPTER VIII A political chronology--Trouble follows trouble--The fire at the farm at None--Death of Stanislas Picot--The hiding-place for the louis d'or--The Cossacks--The haricot mutton CHAPTER IX The quarry--Frenchmen eat the haricot cooked for the Cossacks--The Duc de Treviso--He allows himself to be surprised--Ducoudray the hosier--Terrors CHAPTER X The return to Villers-Cotterets, and what we met on the way--The box with the thirty louis in it--The leather-bag--The mole--Our departure--The journey--The arrival at Mensal and our sojourn their--King Joseph--The King of Rome--We leave Mensal--Our visit to Crispy in Valois--The dead and wounded--The surrender of Paris--The isle of Elba CHAPTER XI Am I to be called Davy de La Pailleterie or Alexandre Dumas?--_Deus dedit, Deus dabit_--The tobacco-shop--The cause of the Emperor Napoleon's fall, as it appeared to my writing-master--My first communion--How I prepared for it BOOK IV CHAPTER I Auguste Lafarge--Bird-snaring on a large scale--A wonderful catch--An epigram--I wish to write French verses--My method of translating Virgil and Tacitus--Montanan--My political opinions CHAPTER II