I am the daughter of a man who was a sincere sectarian, disinterested even to self-sacrifice, and who dreamed of absolute liberty and absolute equality. Until the terrible year of 1870, his mind mastered my own. For an instant, during the days of the Commune, he thought his dreams were about to be realised. Were he alive now, he would be a disciple of Monsieur Brisson, whose political ancestor he was. He would have pursued only one idea: the upsetting of everything.

The revolutionists and the Brissonists are, after all, only belated and antiquated minds, not yet freed from sophistries by the terrible vision of 1870; not stimulated by the lamentations heard from men on French soil, when trodden under foot by Prussia; not armed with patriotic combativeness by the sight of the panting flesh of those provinces which were torn from France, and which, in the figurative image of our country, occupy the place of the heart.

Juliette Adam.

CONTENTS

PAGE
I. My Grandmother[ 1]
II. When the Allies were at the Gates of Paris [ 26]
III. The Marriage of my Father and Mother[ 35]
IV. Born in an Inn[ 46]
V. My Early Childhood[ 57]
VI. First Day at School[ 68]
VII. I Go to a Wedding[ 81]
VIII. “Family Dramas”[ 92]
IX. Learning to be Brave[ 101]
X. A Three Weeks’ Visit[ 108]
XI. A Painful Return Home[ 121]
XII. A Visit to my Great-aunts[ 129]
XIII. I Make New Friends[ 140]
XIV. Some New Impressions Gained[ 152]
XV. The End of my Holiday[ 159]
XVI. At Home Again[ 165]
XVII. I Begin to Manage my Family[ 174]
XVIII. I Revisit Chivres[ 185]
XIX. I Begin my Literary Work[ 191]
XX. Louis Napoleon’s Flight from Prison[ 198]
XXI. My First Great Sorrow[ 207]
XXII. My First Railway Journey[ 219]
XXIII. My First Glimpse of the Sea[ 225]
XXIV. I Receive a Handsome Gift[ 233]
XXV. Our Homeward Journey[ 240]
XXVI. My First Communion[ 249]
XXVII. We Discuss French Literature[ 260]
XXVIII. We Talk About Politics[ 271]
XXIX. Talks about Nature[ 279]
XXX. A Serious Accident[ 286]
XXXI. “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity”[ 291]
XXXII. “Vive la République!”[ 299]
XXXIII. “Other Times, Other Manners”[ 312]
XXXIV. I Go to Boarding-school[ 319]
XXXV. Dark Days for the Republic[ 333]
XXXVI. Another Visit at Chivres[ 344]
XXXVII. I Begin to Study Housekeeping[ 350]
XXXVIII. An Exciting Incident[ 357]
XXXIX. An Offer of Marriage[ 366]
XL. The “Family Drama” Again[ 382]
XLI. My Marriage and its Results[ 393]

THE ROMANCE OF MY CHILDHOOD
AND YOUTH

I
MY GRANDMOTHER

AS I advance in years, one of the things which astonishes me most is the singular vividness of my memories of my childhood.