My absolute inability to be resentful or to appear so is
inherited from them. The only two kinds of occupation which they knew
anything of were to till the land or to steer a boat on the estuaries
and archipelagos of rocks which the Trieux forms at its mouth. A short
time previous to the Revolution, three of them rigged out a bark, and
settled at Lezardrieux. They lived together on the bark, which was for
the best part of her time laid up in a creek of the Ledano, and
they sailed her when the fit took them. They could not be classed
as bourgeois, for they were not jealous of the nobles: they were
well-to-do sailors, independent of every one. My grandfather, one of
the three, took another step towards town life; he came to live at
Treguier. When the Revolution broke out, he showed himself to be a
sincere but honourable patriot. He had some little money, but, unlike
all others in the same position as himself, he would not buy any of
the national property, holding that this property had been ill-gotten.
He did not think it honourable to make large profits without labour.
The events of 1814-15 drove him half mad.
Hegel had not as yet discovered that might implies right, and in any
event he would have found it difficult to believe that France had been
victorious at Waterloo. The privilege of these charming theories, of
which by the way I have had rather too much, were reserved for me. On
the evening of March 19th, 1815, he came to see my mother and told
her to get up early the next morning and look at the tower.
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