"Madame, you yourself introduced the man into the conversation and not I; I never speak of the man."
"But suppose if Alexandre..."
"If your son, madame, one day becomes emperor of the French, since he will have, or rather as he already has, a splendid hand, his orders will be literally carried out, unless his marshals do not know how to read."
But my mother was not comforted for my lack of mathematical ability by this contingency, she sighed a deep sigh, and gave expression to the final word let fall by weary consciences, and exhausted intellects, and faith that has reached the doubting point—
"If only!..."
So I continued my five sorts of writing, my down-strokes and my up-strokes, my flourishes, my hearts, my rosettes and lacs d'amour, with Oblet.
Oblet, be it understood, was not the worst of those who treated the dethroned emperor badly: it was bad enough to call him M. Bonaparté, but many even contested his very name, saying that it never was Napoleon, but Nicolas, thus depriving him of his title of The Lion of the Desert,—fools that they were,—in order to call him Conqueror of the Nations.
While all these things were happening I attained my thirteenth year, and it became time to think of making my First Communion—a serious event in the life of every child, but specially so in mine.
For, young as I was, I had always felt deeply religious, apart from external observances. That sentiment is always ready to vibrate in my heart like a mysterious, hidden chord, but it never really thrills save under the influence of a vivid emotion of joy or sorrow. In both circumstances, my first impulse, whether of gratitude or of affliction, is always towards the Saviour. Churches I hardly ever enter, for directly I cross the threshold I feel, like Habakkuk, as though an angel were pulling me back by the hair. Yet churches are such sacred places to me that I feel it sacrilege to go there as others do, merely out of curiosity or from a religious freak.
No, it takes a deep access of joy, or some profound grief, to make me go into our northern churches, and then I always choose the loneliest comer or the darkest place—(though with God no dark places exist)—there I often prostrate myself, near a pillar against which I can lean my head; there, with eyes riveted, my being isolated from all others, I can bury myself in the one thought, that of a God, good, all powerful, eternal and infinite. I cannot find a word to say to Him, not a prayer to address to Him. What can one say to God, and what use is it to pray to Him, when He can see the face behind the mask, impiety behind hypocrisy? No, I prostrate my body, my heart, my soul, before His mercy-seat, I humble myself at the feet of His greatness. I bless Him for past mercies, I praise Him for the present, and I hope in Him for the future.