I met at this college two men who have since become famous in different ways: Moreau[132], the general, and Limoëlan[133], the author of the infernal machine, who is now a priest in America. There is only one portrait of Lucile extant, a bad miniature by Limoëlan, who turned portrait-painter during the revolutionary troubles. Moreau was a day-boy, Limoëlan a boarder. Rarely have two such singular destinies been found at the same time, in the same province, the same small town, the same school[134].
My intellectual disposition.
Although the training at Rennes College was very religious, my fervor abated: the number of my masters and schoolfellows tended to multiply the occasions for distraction. I made progress in the study of languages; I became strong in mathematics, for which I have always had a decided leaning: I should have made a good naval officer or sapper. I was born with a generally quick disposition, I was susceptible to serious and agreeable things alike: I commenced with poetry before taking up prose; the arts delighted me; I have always passionately loved music and architecture. Although disposed to be easily bored, I was capable of grasping the smallest details; gifted with a patience that was proof against anything, however wearied I might be of the subject in hand, my perseverance overcame my distaste. I have never abandoned a matter that was worth completing; there are things which I have pursued for fifteen or twenty years of my life, as full of ardor on the last day as on the first.
This intellectual suppleness was again apparent in matters of secondary importance. I was good at chess, handy at billiards, a good shot, an expert swordsman; I drew tolerably; I should have sung well, if my voice had been trained. All this, added to the manner in which I was brought up and to the life I led as a soldier and traveller, produced the result that I have never played the prig nor displayed the stupid self-sufficiency, the awkwardness, the slovenly habits of the men of letters of former days, still less the conceited assurance, the jealousy and the blustering vanity of the new authors.
I spent two years at Rennes College; Gesril left eighteen months before I did. He entered the navy. Julie, my third sister, was married in the course of these two years; she gave her hand to the Comte de Farcy[135], a captain in the Condé Regiment, and settled with her husband at Fougères, where my two eldest sisters, Mesdames de Marigny and de Québriac were already living. Julie's wedding took place at Combourg, and I was present at it. I there met the Comtesse de Tronjoli[136], who distinguished herself by her courage on the scaffold: she was the cousin and close friend of the Marquis de La Rouërie, and was implicated in his conspiracy. I had never yet seen beauty except in my own family; I was confused on perceiving it in the face of a strange woman. Each step in life opened out a new perspective before me; I heard the distant and alluring voice of the passions which were coming to me; I hastened towards those sirens, attracted by an unknown harmony. It appeared that, like the High Priest of Eleusis, I had a different incense for each divinity. But could the hymns which I sang while burning that incense be called "balsams," like the poems of the hierophant[137]?
*
After Julie's marriage, I set out for Brest. On leaving the great College of Rennes, I did not feel the same regret that I had experienced on bidding farewell to the little College of Dol; perhaps I had lost the bud of innocence which turns everything into a charm for us; time was beginning to open it. My mentor in my new position was one of my maternal uncles, Vice-Admiral the Comte Ravenel de Boisteilleul[138], one of whose sons[139], a very distinguished artillery-officer in the armies of Bonaparte, married the only daughter[140] of my sister the Comtesse de Farcy.
My life at Brest.
On my arrival at Brest, I did not find my cadet's commission awaiting me; some accident had delayed it. I remained what was called an "aspirant," and, as such, was exempt from following the regular studies. My uncle put me to board in the Rue de Siam, at a cadets' ordinary, and introduced me to the naval commander, the Comte d'Hector[141]. Left for the first time to my own resources, instead of becoming intimate with my future messmates, I indulged in my instinct for solitude. My usual society was confined to my fencing-master, my drawing-master, and my mathematical tutor.
The sea which I was to behold upon so many coasts bathed, at Brest, the extremity of the Armorican Peninsula: beyond that prominent cape lay nothing but the boundless ocean and unknown worlds. My imagination revealed in all this space. Often, seated on some mast lying along the Quai de Recouvrance, I watched the movements of the crowd: shipwrights, sailors, soldiers, custom-house officers, convicts passed to and fro before my eyes. Passengers embarked and disembarked, pilots directed the steering, carpenters squared blocks of wood, cordwainers twisted hawsers, ship's boys lit fires under coppers from which issued a thick smoke and the healthy smell of tar. Bales of merchandise, sacks of victuals were carried to and from the quay; trains of artillery were rolled from the sea to the magazines, from the magazines to the sea. Here, carts were pushed backwards into the water to receive cargoes; there, loads were hoisted with tackle, while cranes lowered stones and dredging-machines dug out the alluvium. Forts fired signals, ships' boats came and went, vessels set sail or returned to harbor.