“Every one knows the history of Mirabeau’s long imprisonment and harsh treatment, and I have already told you the events which marked the youth of Talleyrand; but the story of Cerutti is known only to the few with whom he was most intimate, and is, perhaps, more illustrative of the spirit of the times than that of either of his friends. The man’s career was short, and very like the flash which precedes the tempest—everything, while he was on the stage moving before the public eye—nothing, so soon as his part was over and the curtain dropped. He died and left nought behind to save him from oblivion—not even the memory of the manner in which he had performed his character, and in which he had been so much applauded. “His father was a wealthy silk-grower in the environs of Turin, and his childhood was passed amid the shady groves, which stretched for miles around the château where his family resided. His younger brother had taken to books and learning, and had been appointed to accompany the young Count Hercules V—— on his travels; while Joseph Cerutti, the eldest of the family, remained at home to assist his father in the direction of his fortune and the improvement of the estate. His life was that of an Italian gentleman of the middle class at the time—that is to say, his studies were neither very deep nor his occupations very grave, and his days passed pleasantly enough in the exercise of small practices of piety, the cultivation of small adventures of gallantry, very little reading, and great indulgence in the _dolce far niente_; added to which, he was compelled to superintend the progress of the silkworms, which formed the whole wealth of the father and the patrimony of his sons. But this occupation was far from being sufficiently interesting to rouse him from the dream in which he lived, and in which his days might all have passed, had it not been for the one event which, sooner or later, will turn the tide of all men’s lives, making the hitherto troubled sea of existence at once calm and placid, or changing its smooth surface into a raging hell. “Count Hercules V—— returned from Rome, whither he had been journeying with young Cesario Cerutti, the brother of our hero. The estate of the noble family of V—— joined that of the Cerutti, and from the friendship which existed between the young nobleman and the companion of his studies, sprung an intimacy between the two families, which was at variance with the Italian habits of the period, wherein distinctions and caste were more respected than in any other country in Europe.