Rummaging one day in a drawer, I unearthed a flageolet, on which I at once tried to pick out “Malbrook.” Driven nearly mad by my squeaks, my father begged me to leave him in peace until he had time to teach me the proper fingering of the melodious instrument, and the right notes of the martial song I had pitched on. At the end of two days I was able to regale the family with my noble tune. Now, how strikingly this shows my marvellous aptitude for wind instruments. What a fruitful subject for a born biographer! My father next taught me to read music, explaining the signs thoroughly, and soon after he gave me a flute. At this I worked so hard that in seven or eight months I could play quite fairly. Wishing to encourage my talent, he persuaded several well-to-do families of La Côte to join together and engage a music-master from Lyons. He was successful in getting a second violin, named Imbert, to leave the Théâtre des Célestins and settle in our outlandish little town to try and musicalise the inhabitants, on condition that we guaranteed a certain number of pupils and a fixed salary for conducting the band of the National Guard. I improved fast, for I had two lessons a day; having also a pretty soprano voice I soon developed into a pleasant singer, a bold reader, and was able to play Drouet’s most intricate flute concertos. My master had a son a few years older than myself, a clever horn-player, with whom I became great friends. One day, as I was leaving for Meylan, he came to see me. “Were you going without saying good-bye?” he asked. “You may never see me again.” His gravity struck me at the moment, but the joy of seeing Meylan and my glorious _Stella montis_ quite put him out of my head. But on my return home my friend was gone; he had hanged himself the very day I left, and no one has ever been able to discover why. It was a sad home-coming for me! Among some old books I found d’Alembert’s edition of Rameau’s _Harmony_, and how many weary hours did I not spend over those laboured theories, trying vainly to evolve some sense out of the disconnected ideas. Small wonder that I did not succeed, seeing that one needs to be a past master of counterpoint and acoustics before one can possibly grasp the author’s meaning. It is a treatise on harmony for the use of those only who know all about it already.