I did not think of my hurt, but of my return home. When my friend came back from his excursions with a black eye and a torn coat, he was pitied, pampered, coddled, dressed up again; while I, under similar circumstances, was promptly punished. The wound I had received was dangerous, but La France was unable to persuade me to come indoors, such was my fright. I went and hid on the second floor with Gesril, who bound up my head in a napkin. This napkin set him going: it suggested a mitre to him; he turned me into a bishop and made me sing High Mass with him and his sisters until supper-time. The dignitary of the Church was at last obliged to go downstairs: my heart beat. Taken aback by my face disordered and smeared with blood, my father said not a word; my mother screamed; La France told my piteous case, and tried to excuse me; I was nevertheless rated for it. They dressed my ear, and Monsieur and Madame de Chateaubriand resolved to separate me from Gesril as soon as possible[73]. I am not sure that it was not in this year that the Comte d'Artois[74] visited Saint-Malo: a sham fight was arranged for him in the roads. From the top of the bastion of the powder-magazine I watched the young Prince standing among the crowd on the beach: in his splendour and in my obscurity how many unknown destinies lay hidden! Thus, if my memory do not fail me, Saint-Malo has seen two Kings of France only: Charles IX. and Charles X. * There you have the picture of my early childhood. I do not know whether the harsh education I received be sound in principle, but it was adopted by my relations without purpose and as the natural outcome of their temperament. What is certain is that it imbued me with ideas different from those of other men; what is still more certain is that it impressed upon my sentiments a character of melancholy which arose from the habit of suffering acquired in the age of weakness, improvidence and mirth.