My aunt laughed heartily, and my mother gave a little stifled laugh, and the whole troop went off in a regular whirlwind of rustling skirts and farewells, whilst I was taken away to the cage where I was to be imprisoned.
I spent two years at this school, and I learned to read, write, and do sums. I also learned plenty of new games, and to sing rondeaux and embroider handkerchiefs for mamma.
I was comparatively happy on the whole, because we went out on Sundays and Thursdays, and I had a sort of sensation of liberty on those days. The sun in the street seemed to me quite different from the sun in the big garden belonging to the school. My Aunt Felix Faure (no relation to the wife of the late President) often fetched me and took me out with her. There was a little brook running through the grounds round her house at Neuilly, and I used to spend hours fishing in it with my two cousins, a boy and a girl.
These two years passed by peacefully enough, the chief events being my terrible fits of temper, which upset the whole school occasionally, and ended usually by my spending two or three days in the sick-room. One day Aunt Rosine arrived suddenly, to take me away altogether. My father had written giving orders as to where I was to be placed, and these orders were imperative. My mother was travelling, so she had sent word to my aunt, who had hurried off at once between two dances, to carry out the instructions she had received.
The idea that I was to be ordered about without any regard to my own wishes or inclinations put me into an indescribable rage. I rolled about on the ground, uttering the most heartrending cries. I yelled out all kinds of reproaches, blaming mamma, my aunts, and Mme. Fressard for not finding some way to keep me with her. The struggle lasted two hours, and while I was being dressed I escaped twice into the garden and attempted to climb the trees and to throw myself into the pond, in which there was more mud than water.
THE GRAND CHAMP CONVENT, VERSAILLES.
From a Photo. by C. Robert, Paris.
Finally, when I was completely exhausted and subdued, I was taken off sobbing in my aunt's carriage.
I stayed three days at her house, as I was so feverish that they all thought I was sickening for some illness. It proved to be nothing but the result of my wild fit of anger.