These threatening words put the finishing touch to my despair, and I cried and struggled all through the ceremony of my baptism. Finally grandfather came and took me from my mother’s arms.
“Juliette, you are a big girl,” he said, “listen to me. I am very pleased you are baptised, your grandmother will be so happy. You were a poor little unbaptised child, we did not know it. Your father forbade you being baptised. He doesn’t like churches.”
“Yes, grandfather, I heard people say so just now.”
“So, you understand, he is not like everybody else; it is a pity he is a heathen. Your mother had great courage in making you a Christian without his knowledge. He will be furious, and I shall not be sorry to be at Chauny. Oh! my darling, my darling, may the Supreme Being protect you!”
My grandmother made me say my prayers night and morning. She often spoke to me of God, but my grandfather never spoke except of the Supreme Being; I had known for a long time that the Supreme Being was God.
There was a table for children at the wedding. It was very amusing. At the end of the repast some persons rose from their seats and they talked and talked without any one stopping or answering them; then there were some others who sang, and then my grandfather said things which made everybody laugh, and we little ones laughed also.
And then finally papa read out something in a loud voice. One of the children said it was like a fable, and they repeated several times at the large table that “it was fine, very fine!”
Papa looked pleased. They danced to the music of a large orchestra, and I danced also, turning around as much as I could. A child older than I called me Camille Ambrosine. My father was near me at the moment, amused at seeing me enjoy myself so much.
“Why do you call her Camille Ambrosine?” asked my father. “Her name is Juliette.”
“I know it, Monsieur Lambert. Her name is Juliette Camille Ambrosine. Juliette is her every day name, Camille is her godmother’s, Ambrosine her godfather’s. I say so, because they baptised her after the wedding. I was there. It is droll, because she is very old to be baptised.”