It was arranged that I should go to the Abbé Grégoire's college in Villers-Cotterets instead of to the Seminary. They styled the Abbé Grégoire's school a College, just as in England the illegitimate sons of noblemen are called "lords."
It is a matter of courtesy.
However that may be, it was decided that I should go to the Abbé Grégoire's college.
Oh! if I begin to talk of the Abbé Grégoire, I shall go on indefinitely,—for he was an upright, worthy, and saintly man.
He was not a genius, he was something better than that—he was a thoroughly good man; during the years he governed the school two hundred scholars passed through his hands, and I do not know of a single one who has turned out badly.
During the forty years he served the church at Villers-Cotterets, not a single petty scandal which could make the irreligious or the libertine smile had ever been brought against him. Mothers who had confessed to him in their girlhood and during his youth took their daughters to him in full confidence, for they knew that then, as in their own time, only good and fatherly advice would be given through the confessional grating.
He never had a servant or a housekeeper; he lived with his sister, a little wizened old lady, rather hunch-backed, rather inclined to be shrewish, who adored—nay, who worshipped her brother.
Poor dear abbé, what a life we led him! How we enraged him, how he scolded us, and how much he loved us!
It was the same with him as with Hiraux; I loved him so warmly before there was any thought of being his pupil, that I submitted to the great change in my life without the least dread. Besides, what was it, compared with the Seminary?