And yet she was expecting a child.  When she could no longer conceal her condition, she was turned out of the house in which she had been employed; and her family, unable to support themselves, drove her away without mercy.  Overcome with grief, shame, and remorse, poor Colette wandered from farm to farm, begging, insulted, laughed at, beaten even at times.  Thus it came about, that in a dark wood, one dismal winter evening, she gave life to a male child.  No one ever understood how mother and child managed to survive.  But both lived; and for many a year they were seen in and around Sauveterre, covered with rags, and living upon the dear-bought generosity of the peasants.

Then the mother died, utterly forsaken by human help, as she had lived.  They found her body, one morning, in a ditch by the wayside.

The child survived alone.  He was then eight years old, quite strong and tall for his age.  A farmer took pity on him, and took him home.  The little wretch was not fit for anything:  he could not even keep his master’s cows.  During his mother’s lifetime, his silence, his wild looks, and his savage appearance, had been attributed to his wretched mode of life.  But when people began to be interested in him, they found out that his intellect had never been aroused.  He was an idiot, and, besides, subject to that terrible nervous affection which at times shakes the whole body and disfigures the face by the violence of uncontrollable convulsions.  He was not a deaf-mute; but he could only stammer out with intense difficulty a few disjointed syllables.  Sometimes the country people would say to him,—­

“Tell us your name, and you shall have a cent.”

Then it took him five minutes’ hard work to utter, amid a thousand painful contortions, the name of his mother.

“Co-co-co-lette.”

Hence came his name Cocoleu.  It had been ascertained that he was utterly unable to do anything; and people ceased to interest themselves in his behalf.  The consequence was, that he became a vagabond as of old.

It was about this time that Dr. Seignebos, on one of his visits, met him one day on the public road.

This excellent man had, among other extraordinary notions, the conviction that idiocy is nothing more than a defective state of the brains, which may be remedied by the use of certain well-known substances, such as phosphorus, for instance.  He lost no time in seizing upon this admirable opportunity to test his theory.  Cocoleu was sent for, and installed in his house.  He subjected him to a treatment which he kept secret; and only a druggist at Sauveterre, who was also well known as entertaining very extraordinary notions, knew what had happened.  At the end of eighteen months, Cocoleu had fallen off terribly:  he talked perhaps, a little more fluently; but his intellect had not been perceptibly improved.

Dr. Seignebos was discouraged.  He made up a parcel of things which he had given to his patient, put it into his hands, pushed him out of his door, and told him never to come back again.