I remember also that, about the middle of the year 1805, my father, who was suffering from very bad health, left our château des Fossés for a house or château at Antilly,—I have not a single recollection of that sojourn beyond being taken there on Pierre's back. It had rained a great deal for two nights previously, and I was filled with surprise to see Pierre walk unconcernedly through the puddles of water which intersected the road.
"Do you know how to swim, Pierre?" I asked him. The impression Pierre's courage in crossing these puddles made upon me must have been very strong, for these words are the first I remember speaking, and, like those of M. de Crac, which froze in winter and thawed in spring, I can hear them ringing in my ears with the distant and faint accents of my childish voice. The question, "Pierre, can you swim?" was suggested to me by an event that happened at our house which deeply impressed my youthful imagination. Three young men, one called Dupuis, whom I have since seen as a jeweller in Paris—all of Villers-Cotterets—came to the château des Fossés, which was surrounded by water, to ask permission to bathe in the kind of moat which ran round it. My father gave them leave, and asked them if they could swim; they replied in the negative, and he showed them a place where they could touch the bottom safely without running any risk of drowning. The bathers kept to this spot at first, but, little by little, they grew bolder; and all at once we heard loud cries from the moat and ran to see,—there were the three bathers all on the point of drowning.
Fortunately, Hippolyte was there, and he could swim like a fish. In an instant he was in the water, and when my father reached the edge of the moat he had already almost saved the first of the three. My father, who was a splendid swimmer, like most Colonials, threw himself into the water and saved the second; and Hippolyte saved the third.
They were all pulled out in less than five minutes' time, but one of the three bathers had already lost consciousness, and, seeing him lying with his eyes shut and not breathing, I thought he was dead. My mother, who knew he had only fainted, as she had been reassured by my father that he was in no danger, turned the occasion, which had impressed me profoundly, to good account by giving me an eloquent sermon on the dangers of playing on the banks of the stream. No sermon ever had a more attentive listener; nor preacher a more fervent convert!
From that moment no one could ever persuade me to gather a single flower from the sides of the stream, not had they bribed me with all the coveted treasures of childhood—with rocking-horses, bleating lambs, or barking dogs.
Yet another thing had struck me: my father's grand form (which looked as though it might have been made in the same mould as that which formed the statues of Hercules or Antinous) compared with Hippolyte's poor small limbs.
It was my father's naked form I saw, dripping with water; he smiled an almost unearthly smile, as a man may who has accomplished a god-like act, the saving of another man's life.
And that was why I asked Pierre if he could swim; I remembered the fainting youth on the grass by the stream, as I saw Pierre venturing through puddles of water two inches deep, and I realised that neither my father nor Hippolyte were near at hand to save us.
Hippolyte was an excellent swimmer, a clever runner, and quite a good horseman, but, as I have before implied, his intellectual faculties were far from corresponding to his physical abilities. Two instances will give an idea of the state of his intelligence.
One evening, my mother fearing a frost in the night, and wishing to shelter some beautiful autumn flowers which were under a little wall breast high, and which brightened our outlook from the dining-room windows, called Hippolyte.