“And when Larrey needed me no longer, I fought on my own account, joining the Grenadiers’ Guards, and I was always the last to fight and the first to run.”
Then I would clap my hands and cry: “Bravo, grandfather!” and he would understand by that that he had made a mistake.
IX
LEARNING TO BE BRAVE
IF my grandmother, who was not a learned person, and who acquired much knowledge in educating me, wished to make me learned, my grandfather, who as a general rule was lacking in courage, wished me to become a brave woman.
Early on Sunday mornings, before going to high mass with my schoolmates, he would take me with him to the Hospital. I was a friend of Sister Victoire, who used to aid my grandfather in his dressing of wounds and his operations. Both of them were forming me to look on human misery, they said.
I often assisted at small operations, and grandfather promised that when, by my good behaviour, I was worthy of it, I should be present at more important ones.
He showed me what he called “fine” wounds. Sister Victoire often taught me, especially if she were dressing a child’s wound, how to roll and place a bandage. When I was seven years old I knew a good many things about surgery, and could be of some help to Sister Victoire and grandfather. I could prepare an arm for bleeding; I learned how to bleed, myself, and how to bandage an arm after the operation, and this was most important, for, in those days, bleeding was an important part of medical practice.
During the summer grandfather would often bleed people in the courtyard of our house, near the garden, under a lilac tree of which I was very fond, and whose perfume when in flower intoxicated me. It was not a shrub but a real tree, affording shade.
People used to come and, without giving any explanation or asking for a consultation, say simply: “I have come to be bled,” and they were bled on the spot.