One knows what a critical period a new industry always goes through, when it is first exploited. If the leader fails, it is soon discredited. Rather than run a dangerous risk, Albert's mother, deprived of her entire fortune, had preferred to liquidate. This liquidation left to her child only an estate situated at Saint Martin d'Uriage, almost in the mountains, consisting of a house, farm, woods and meadows, which was not entirely unencumbered and the income of which was only a little more than two thousand francs. Alone, she would have gone there: the nearness of the church and the peace of the country were calling her. Albert was only three years old. From that time he was her aim in life. She hoped that he would realize the success lost by his father and his grandfather. To make some money and to give him a better education, she opened a kindergarten, and when he was older, asked for and obtained a modest situation in the post office at Grenoble, much better suited to her capacity for order, intelligence and good organization. In allowing him to find himself, to realize himself by first divining his worth, she gave him life a second time. He rewarded her by quick progress in his career, by his talent and later by his affection, a rather sheltering affection, somewhat changeable and very reserved in difficult periods, but which could be at times so confiding, so delicate, so deep, that the old woman, as she thought of it, felt her eyes fill with tears and her heart grow heavy. As soon as he began to earn money, he made her give up all work: Must he not be allowed to repay her? When he married, although their property of Saint-Martin, inherited from his father, and, besides, entirely freed by himself of all debt, was inscribed in his marriage-contract and even enabled him to treat on even terms with the Molay-Norrois, yet he still continued to pay her the income, to which he added a moderate allowance, for he did not intend that anyone, not even his wife, should realize that keen struggle with poverty which he and his mother had known, in order that no such imputation should be associated with the memory of his dead father.