My indignation may easily be conceived; I shall not attempt to describe it.In this heroic fury, I swore never more to see the perfidious girl, supposing it the greatest punishment that could be inflicted on her.This, however, did not occasion her death, for twenty years after while on a visit to my father, being on the lake, Iasked who those ladies were in a boat not far from ours."What!"said my father, smiling, "does not your heart inform you? It is your former flame, it is Madam Christin, or, if you please, Miss Vulson." Istarted at the almost forgotten name, and instantly ordered the waterman to turn off, not judging it worth while to be perjured, however favorable the opportunity for revenge, in renewing a dispute of twenty years past, with a woman of forty.
Thus, before my future destination was determined, did I fool away the most precious moments of my youth.After deliberating a long time on the bent of my natural inclination, they resolved to dispose of me in a manner the most repugnant to them.I was sent to Mr.
Masseron, the City Register, to learn (according to the expression of my uncle Bernard) the thriving occupation of a scraper.This nickname was inconceivably displeasing to me, and I promised myself but little satisfaction in the prospect of heaping up money by a mean employment.The assiduity and subjection required completed my disgust, and I never set foot in the office without feeling a kind of horror, which every day gained fresh strength.
Mr.Masseron, who was not better pleased with my abilities than Iwas with the employment, treated me with disdain, incessantly upbraiding me with being a fool and blockhead, not forgetting to repeat, that my uncle had assured him I was a knowing one, though he could not find that I knew anything.That he had promised to furnish him with a sprightly boy, but had, in truth, sent him an ass.To conclude, I was turned out of the registry, with the additional ignominy of being pronounced a fool by all Mr.Masseron's clerks, and fit only to handle a file.
My vocation thus determined, I was bound apprentice; not, however, to a watchmaker, but to an engraver, and I had been so completely humiliated by the contempt of the register, that I submitted without a murmur.My master, whose name was M.Ducommon, was a young man of a very violent and boorish character, who contrived in a short time to tarnish all the amiable qualities of my childhood, to stupefy a disposition naturally sprightly, and reduce my feelings, as well as my condition, to an absolute state of servitude.I forgot my Latin, history, and antiquities; I could hardly recollect whether such people as Romans ever existed.When I visited my father, he no longer beheld his idol, nor could the ladies recognize the gallant Jean Jacques; nay, I was so well convinced that Mr.and Miss Lambercier would scarce receive me as their pupil, that I endeavored to avoid their company, and from that time have never seen them.The vilest inclinations, the basest actions, succeeded my amiable amusements, and even obliterated the very remembrance of them.I must have had, in spite of my good education, a great propensity to degenerate, else the declension could not have followed with such ease and rapidity, for never did so promising a Caesar so quickly become a Laradon.
The art itself did not displease me.I had a lively taste for drawing.There was nothing displeasing in the exercise of the graver; and as it required no very extraordinary abilities to attain perfection as a watchcase engraver, I hoped to arrive at it.Perhaps Ishould have accomplished my design, if unreasonable restraint, added to the brutality of my master, had not rendered my business disgusting.I wasted his time, and employed myself in engraving medals, which served me and my companions as a kind of insignia for a new invented order of chivalry, and though this differed very little from my usual employ, I considered it as a relaxation.
Unfortunately, my master caught me at this contraband labor, and a severe beating was the consequence.He reproached me at the same time with attempting to make counterfeit money, because our medals bore the arms of the Republic, though, I can truly aver, I had no conception of false money, and very little of the true, knowing better how to make a Roman As than one of our threepenny pieces.
My master's tyranny rendered insupportable that labor I should otherwise have loved, and drove me to vices I naturally despised, such as falsehood, idleness, and theft.Nothing ever gave me a clearer demonstration of the difference between filial dependence and abject slavery, than the remembrance of the change produced in me at that period.Hitherto I had enjoyed a reasonable liberty; this I had suddenly lost.I was enterprising at my father's, free at M.