All would have gone wonderfully well, but for my insane rage for dress. At that time they affected the stiffness of the Prussian uniform: a small hat, small curls pressed tight to the head, a pig-tail tied very fast, a closely-buttoned coat. I disliked this greatly; I submitted to these shackles during the day, but in the evening, when I hoped to escape the eyes of my superior officers, I put on a larger hat; the barber lowered the curls of my hair and loosened my pig-tail; I unbuttoned and turned back the facings of my coat. In this fond undress, I would go a-wooing on La Martinière's behalf under the cruel Fleming's windows. But one fine day brought me face to face with M. d'Andrezel. "What is this, sir?" said the terrible major. "Consider yourself under arrest for three days." I felt somewhat humiliated, but recognized the truth of the proverb that it is an ill wind that blows nobody good: I was delivered from my messmate's love-affairs. I read _Télémaque_ beside Fénelon's tomb[196]: I was not much in the humour for the philanthropic tale of the cow and the bishop. It amuses me to recall the beginning of my career. When passing through Cambrai with the King, after the Hundred Days, I looked for the house I had lived in and the coffee-house I used to frequent, but could not find them: all had vanished, men and monuments. * In the same year in which I was undergoing my military apprenticeship at Cambrai, we heard of the death of Frederic II.[197]; I am now ambassador to that great King's nephew[198], and am writing this portion of my Memoirs in Berlin. Upon that piece of important public news followed sorrowful news for me: Lucile wrote to me that my father had been carried off by a fit of apoplexy two days after the Angevin Fair, one of the delights of my childhood. Among the authentic documents which I keep for consultation I find the death-certificates of my parents. As these documents also in a special manner mark the death of a century, I place them on record here as constituting a page of history. "Extract from the death-register of the parish of Combourg, for 1786, upon which is written as follows, page 8, _verso_: