De la Ponce spoke Italian and German as fluently as his own language; he offered to teach them to me in my leisure moments--and God knows I had plenty of spare moments at that time. We started with Italian. It was the easiest language--the honey of which Horace speaks, the gilding that clothes the outside of the cup of bitter drink given to a sick child. One of the books out of which I learnt Italian was Ugo Foscolo's fine novel, which I have since translated under the title of the _Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis._ That book gave me an idea of, an insight into and a feeling for romantic literature of which previously I had been totally ignorant. In two months' time I could talk Italian fairly correctly, and I began to translate poetry. I much preferred this to my sales and my marriage contracts and the drawing up of bonds and transfers at Maître Mennesson's. Furthermore, a change took place in the office greatly to the advantage of my literary education, but not to my legal education. Niguet, that precious head clerk who had told tales to M. Mennesson of my love-disappointments, had bought in a neighbouring village a lawyer's practice, which I believe Lafarge had been obliged to sell as he had not been able to find the wherewithal to take it up; and Paillet, a friend of mine, who was six or eight years my senior, had succeeded Niguet as head clerk over me. Paillet was well-to-do; he had a delightful property two leagues from Villers-Cotterets; his tastes were luxurious; consequently, he let me off more readily than Niguet (who was an old Basochian[1] without any fun in him and entirely wrapped up in his business) to pursue the simple luxuries I could indulge in, namely, shooting, flirting and dancing. So it came about that instead of encouraging me in treading the narrow and difficult path of a provincial solicitor, Paillet allowed me to cast my eyes abroad, instinctively understanding, doubtless, that the work they had put me to was not what I was cut out for. It can easily be seen that Paillet exercised material influence over my future destiny, apart from the moral influence exercised by de la Ponce and de Leuven. I was then perfectly happy in the love of my mother, and in a younger and sweeter love growing up side by side with hers without injuring it, and in the friendship of de la Ponce and of de Paillet, when de Leuven came to complete my happiness: I lacked nothing save that golden mean of which Horace speaks; had I had that too, I should have had scarcely aught to wish for.