Not but what the instincts which in after years led me away from these paths of peace already existed within me; but they were dormant.  From the accident of my birth I was torn by conflicting forces.  There was some Basque and Bordeaux blood in my mother’s family, and unknown to me the Gascon half of myself played all sorts of tricks with the Breton half.  Even my family was divided, my father, my grandfather, and my uncles being, as I have already said, the reverse of clerical, while my maternal grandmother was the centre of a society which knew no distinction between royalism and religion.  I recently found among some old papers a letter from my grandmother addressed to an estimable maiden lady named Guyon, who used to spoil me very much when I was a child, and who was then suffering from a dreadful cancer.

TREGUIER, March 19, 1831.

“Though two months have elapsed since Natalie informed me of your departure for Treglamus, this is the first time I have had a few moments to myself to write and tell you, my dear friend, how deeply I sympathise with you in your sad position.  Your sufferings go to my heart, and nothing but the most urgent necessity has prevented me from writing to you before.  The death of a nephew, the eldest son of my defunct sister, plunged us into great sorrow.  A few days later, poor little Ernest, son of my eldest daughter, and a brother of Henriette, the boy whom, you were so fond of and who has not forgotten you, fell ill.  For forty days he was hanging between life and death, and we have now reached the fifty-fifth day of his illness and still he does not make much progress towards his recovery.  He is pretty well in the day time, but his nights are very bad.  From ten in the evening to five or six in the morning, he is feverish and half-delirious.  I have said enough to excuse myself in the eyes of one who is so kind-hearted and who will forgive me.  How I wish I was by your side to repay you the attention you bestowed on me with so much zeal and benevolence.  My great grief is to be unable to help you.

“March 20th.

“I was sent for to the bedside of my dear little grandson, and I was obliged to break off my conversation with you, which I now resume, my dear friend, to exhort you to put all your trust in God.  It is He who afflicts us, but He consoles us with the hope of a reward far beyond what we suffer.  Let us be of good cheer; our pains and our sorrows do not last long, and the reward is eternal.

“Dear Natalie tells me how patient and resigned you are amid the most cruel sufferings.  That is quite in keeping with your high feelings.  She says that never a complaint comes from you however keen your pain.  How pleasing you are in God’s sight by your patience and resignation to His heavenly will.  He afflicts you, but those whom He loveth He chasteneth.  What joy can be compared to that which God’s love gives?  I send you L’Ame sur le Calvaire, which will furnish you with much