After evening prayers, which were said in public in the college chapel, the principal used to read to us. One of the boys, taken at random, had to give an account of what had been read. We came to prayers from our games tired and very sleepy; we flung ourselves upon the forms, trying to hide in a dark corner so as not to be seen and consequently questioned. There was a confessional, in particular, which we fought for, as offering a safe retreat. One evening I had the good fortune to gain this harbor and thought myself safe from the principal; unluckily he perceived my stratagem, and resolved to make an example. Slowly and at great length he read the second head of a sermon; every one went to sleep. By mere chance, I remained awake in my confessional. The principal, who could only see the tips of my feet, thought that I had dropped off like the rest, and suddenly called me by my name and asked me what he had been reading. The second head of the sermon contained an enumeration of the various ways in which it is possible to offend against God. I not only related the substance of the matter, but repeated the divisions in their proper order, and recited almost word for word several pages of mystical prose, devoid of meaning to a child. A murmur of applause ran through the chapel: the principal called me to him, gave me a tap on the cheek, and in reward allowed me to stay in bed next morning till breakfast-time. I modestly withdrew from my schoolfellows' admiration, and took good care to avail myself of the favour accorded me. This memory for words, which I have partly lost, has been replaced in my case by another and more singular kind of memory, of which I shall perhaps have occasion to speak. One thing I find humiliating: memory is often the one accomplishment that accompanies stupidity; it belongs generally to ponderous minds, which it makes yet heavier with the luggage with which it overcharges them. And yet, without memory, where should we be? We should forget our friendships, our loves, our pleasures, our business; genius would be unable to collect its ideas; the fondest heart would lose its tenderness, if it lost its memory; our existence would be reduced to the successive moments of an incessantly gliding present; there would be no longer a past. Alas, unhappy that I am! Our life is so vain as to be but a reflex of our memory. * I went to Combourg for the holidays. Country-house life in the neighbourhood of Paris can give no idea of country-house life in a distant province. The Combourg property consisted, as its sole domain, of moorland, a few mills, and the two forests of Bourgouët and Tanoërn, in a district where timber is of almost no value. But Combourg was rich in feudal rights. These rights were of different kinds: some fixed certain dues in exchange for certain concessions, or established customs sprung from the ancient order of politics; others seemed from the first to have been sports and nothing more.