One day, while I was studying in a chamber contiguous to the kitchen, the maid set some of Miss Lambercier’s combs to dry by the fire, and on coming to fetch them some time after, was surprised to find the teeth of one of them broken off.  Who could be suspected of this mischief?  No one but myself had entered the room:  I was questioned, but denied having any knowledge of it.  Mr. and Miss Lambercier consult, exhort, threaten, but all to no purpose; I obstinately persist in the denial; and, though this was the first time I had been detected in a confirmed falsehood, appearances were so strong that they overthrew all my protestations.  This affair was thought serious; the mischief, the lie, the obstinacy, were considered equally deserving of punishment, which was not now to be administered by Miss Lambercier.  My uncle Bernard was written to; he arrived; and my poor cousin being charged with a crime no less serious, we were conducted to the same execution, which was inflicted with great severity.  If finding a remedy in the evil itself, they had sought ever to allay my depraved desires, they could not have chosen a shorter method to accomplish their designs, and, I can assure my readers, I was for a long time freed from the dominion of them.

As this severity could not draw from me the expected acknowledgment, which obstinacy brought on several repetitions, and reduced me to a deplorable situation, yet I was immovable, and resolutely determined to suffer death rather than submit.  Force, at length, was obliged to yield to the diabolical infatuation of a child, for no better name was bestowed on my constancy, and I came out of this dreadful trial, torn, it is true, but triumphant.  Fifty years have expired since this adventure—­the fear of punishment is no more.  Well, then, I aver, in the face of Heaven, I was absolutely innocent:  and, so far from breaking, or even touching the comb, never came near the fire.  It will be asked, how did this mischief happen?  I can form no conception of it, I only know my own innocence.

Let any one figure to himself a character whose leading traits were docility and timidity, but haughty, ardent, and invincible, in its passions; a child, hitherto governed by the voice of reason, treated with mildness, equity, and complaisance, who could not even support the idea of injustice, experiencing, for the first time, so violent an instance of it, inflicted by those he most loved and respected.  What perversion of ideas!  What confusion in the heart, the brain, in all my little being, intelligent and moral!—­let any one, I say, if possible, imagine all this, for I am incapable of giving the least idea of what passed in my mind at that period.