“I had probably been examining this portrait for quite a long while when Dr. C——, clapping me on the shoulder, said—
“‘Ah, my friend, you have before you a family relic which I am proud to possess. My maternal grandfather was the friend of the illustrious man whom you see painted there in the days of his early boyhood, and it was from my grandfather that that miniature came into my possession.’
“I asked him to be good enough to tell me the name of his grandfather’s illustrious friend. Upon this he unhooked the miniature and held it out to me:
“‘See,’ he said, 'on the exergue ... Lyon, 1787. Doesn’t that recall anything to you? No? Well, that child of twelve was the great Ampère.'
“Then, in a flash, I had an exact perception, an unequivocal estimate of what death had swept away one year previously in the farmhouse of Les Alies.”
MEMOIRS OF A VOLUNTEER
TO PAUL ARÈNE