It was then that my father gave the first sign of that decision of character for which I have known him. He was about fifteen years of age; observing his mother's distress, he approached the bed on which she lay, and said:
"I will no longer be a burden to you."
Thereupon my grandmother began to weep: I have heard my father describe the scene a score of times.
"René," said she, "what do you wish to do? Till your fields."
"They will not keep us; let me go away."
"Well, then," said the mother, "go where God wills that you should go."
She embraced the child with sobs. That same evening my father left the maternal farm and arrived at Dinan, where one of our kinswomen gave him a letter of recommendation to an inhabitant of Saint-Malo. The orphan adventurer was taken as a volunteer on board an armed schooner, which set sail a few days later.
My father's career.
At that time, the little commonwealth of Saint-Malo alone maintained the honour of the French ensign at sea. The schooner joined the fleet which the Cardinal de Fleury was dispatching to the assistance of Stanislaus, who was besieged at Dantzig by the Russians. There my father landed, and was present at the memorable combat which 1,500 Frenchmen, commanded by the Breton de Bréhan, Comte de Plélo[24], delivered, on the 29th of May 1734, against 40,000 Muscovites under Munich[25]. De Bréhan, diplomatist, warrior and poet, was killed; my father was twice wounded. He returned to France, and embarked once more. Wrecked upon the Spanish coast, he was attacked and stripped by robbers in Galicia, took a passage on board ship to Bayonne, and landed once again beneath the paternal roof. His courage and his orderly conduct had brought him into notice. He went to the West Indies, made money in the colonies, and laid the foundations of a new fortune for his family.