I was sorry to part company with him; but there was no help for it.
I had left the first seminary in the world for one in every respect
inferior to it. The leg had been badly set; I had the courage to break
it a second time. On the 2nd or 3rd of November, I passed from out the
last threshold appertaining to the Church, and I obtained a place
as "assistant master _au pair_"--to employ the phrase used in the
Quartier Latin of those days--without salary, in a school of the
St. Jacques district attached to the Lycee Henri IV. I had a small
bedroom, and took my meals with the scholars, and as my time was not
occupied for more than two hours a day, I was able to do a good deal
of work upon my own account. This was just what I wanted.
FIRST STEPS OUTSIDE ST. SULPICE.
PART II.
Constituted as I am to find my own company quite sufficient, the
humble dwelling in the Rue des Deux Eglises (now the Rue de l'Abbe
de l'Epee) would have been a paradise for me had it not been for
the terrible crisis which my conscience was passing through, and the
altered direction which I was compelled to give to my existence. The
fish in Lake Baikal have, it is said, taken thousands of years in
their transformation from salt to fresh water fish. I had to effect
my transition in a few weeks. Catholicism, like a fairy circle, casts
such a powerful spell upon one's whole life, that when one is deprived
of it everything seems aimless and gloomy. I felt terribly out of
my element.
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