I was drawn from my reflections by the twittering of a thrush perched on the topmost branch of a birch-tree. At once that magic sound brought back before my eyes my father's domain: I forgot the catastrophes which I had lately witnessed, and suddenly carried back into the past, I saw once more the fields where I had so often heard the thrush's song. When I listened to it then, I was sad, as I am today; but that first sadness was of the kind which springs from a vague longing for happiness, at a time when we are without experience; the sadness which I now feel comes from the knowledge of things appreciated and judged. The song of the bird in the Combourg woods told me of a happiness which I hoped to achieve; the same song in the park at Montboissier reminded me of days wasted in the pursuit of that unattainable happiness. I have nothing more to learn; I have travelled faster than others, and have made the circuit of life. The hours fly and drag me with them; I have not even the certainty of being able to complete these Memoirs. In how many places have I already commenced to write them, and in what place shall I finish them? How long shall I wander on the edge of the wood? Let me make the most of the few moments left to me; let me hasten to depict my youth, while I am still in touch with it: the traveller quitting for ever an enchanted shore writes his journal in sight of the land which is withdrawing, soon to disappear from sight. I have described my return to Combourg and my reception by my father, my mother, and my sister Lucile. The reader will perhaps remember that my three other sisters were married and living on the estates of their new families in the neighbourhood of Fougères. My brother, whose ambition was beginning to display itself, was oftener in Paris than at Rennes. He first bought a post as _maître des requêtes_, which he sold in order to enter the military service. He entered the Royal Cavalry Regiment; he then joined the diplomatic service, and accompanied the Comte de La Luzerne to London, where he met André Chénier[152]; he was on the point of obtaining the Vienna Embassy, when our troubles broke out. He asked for Constantinople, but found a formidable competitor in Mirabeau, who had been promised this embassy as the price of his alliance with the Court party. My brother had therefore almost taken leave of Combourg at the time when I came to live there.