My apprenticeship to the law was agreeable enough. M. Mennesson was not a bad sort of fellow, provided one did not in his presence say anything good concerning priests, or pronounce a panegyric upon the Bourbons.
If anybody did, his little grey eyes would flash; he would seize hold of an Old Testament or a History of France, open the Old Testament at the Book of Ezekiel, the History of France at the Reign of Henri III., and begin commenting on either after the fashion of the Citateur of Pigault-Lebrun.
I have said that I entered M. Mennesson's as errand-boy; at first the title caused me some feeling of shame; but I soon saw, on the contrary, that quite the pleasantest side of the profession of a lawyer's clerk fell to my share.
M. Mennesson drew up many deeds for the peasants of neighbouring villages. When these peasants could not make it convenient to come to him, I was commissioned to go and get their signatures to the deeds in their homes. I was told over night of the direction I was to be sent next day, and I made my plans accordingly.
If it was in the shooting season, I took an excellent companion for the wayside in the shape of my gun; if the season was over, I would go over night and set bird snares at all the pools which lay along my route.
In the first instance, it was very seldom that I did not bring back a hare or a couple of rabbits; in the second, half a dozen thrushes, blackbirds or jays, and a score of robins and other small birds.
One day my employer gave me notice that I was to go to Crespy on the day following, to collect information about a deed from his confrère, Me. Leroux.
As the distance was rather longer than usual (it is three and a half leagues from Villers-Cotterets to Crespy), I engaged a baker, who was a client of M. Mennesson, and who was concerned in the business I was going about, to lend me his horse.
It was always a treat to me to be on horseback, even though only astride a baker's steed.