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.
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