CHAPTER III

[Contents]CHAPTER IIITHE SCHOOLBOY: SAINT-LÉONSWith his seventh year the time came for him to go to school. The schoolmaster of Saint-Léons was the child’s godfather. Everything pointed to him as the child’s first teacher. So Jean-Henri left the ancestral home at Malaval to return to his father’s house at Saint-Léons and attend the local school, which was kept by his godfather, Pierre Ricard. He could not have done better as a start in life. Let us leave him to paint one picture of this second phase of his life. He begins with a description of the school:What shall I call the room in which I was to become acquainted with the alphabet? It would be difficult to find the exact word, because the room served for every purpose. It was at once a school, a kitchen, a bedroom, a dining-room, and, at times, a chicken-house and a piggery. Palatial schools were not dreamt of in those days; any wretched hovel was thought good enough.A broad fixed ladder led to the floor above.[25]Under the ladder stood a big bed in a boarded recess. What was there upstairs? I never quite knew. I would see the master sometimes bring down an armful of hay for the ass, sometimes a basket of potatoes which the housewife emptied into the pot in which the little porker’s food was cooked. It must have been a loft of sorts, a store-house of provisions for man and beast. Those two apartments composed the whole building.To return to the lower one, the schoolroom: a window faces south, the only window in the house, a long, narrow window whose frame you can touch at the same time with your head and both your shoulders. This sunny aperture is the only lively spot in the dwelling; it overlooks the greater part of the village, which straggles along the slopes of a tapering valley. In the window-recess is the master’s little table.The opposite wall contains a niche in which stands a gleaming copper pail full of water. Here the parched children can relieve their thirst when they please, with a cup left within their reach. At the top of the niche are a few shelves bright with pewter plates, dishes, and drinking-vessels, which are taken down from their sanctuary on great occasions only.More or less everywhere, at any spot which the light touches, are crudely-coloured pictures, pasted on the walls. Here is Our Lady of the Seven Dolours, the disconsolate Mother of God, opening her blue cloak to show her heart pierced with seven daggers. Between the sun and moon, which stare[26]at you with their great, round eyes, is the Eternal Father, Whose robe swells as though puffed out with the storm. To the right of the window, in the embrasure, is the Wandering Jew. He wears a three-cornered hat, a large, white, leather apron, hobnailed shoes, and carries a stout stick. “Never was such a bearded man seen before or after,” says the legend that surrounds the picture. The draughtsman has not forgotten this detail; the old man’s beard spreads in a snowy avalanche over the apron and comes down to his knees. On the left is Geneviève of Brabant, accompanied by the roe; with cruel Golo hiding in the bushes, sword in hand. Above hangsThe Death of Mr. Credit, slain by defaulters at the door of his inn; and so on and so on, in every variety of subject, at all the unoccupied spots of the four walls.I was filled with admiration of this picture-gallery, which held one’s eyes with its great patches of red, blue, green, and yellow. The master, however, had not set up his collection with a view to training our minds and hearts. That was the last and least of the worthy man’s ambitions. An artist in his fashion, he had adorned his house according to his taste; and we benefited by the scheme of decoration.While the gallery of halfpenny pictures made me happy all the year round, there was another entertainment which I found particularly attractive in winter, in frosty weather, when the snow lay long on the ground. Against the far wall stands the fire-place, as monumental in size as at[27]my grandmother’s. Its arched cornice occupies the whole width of the room, for the enormous redoubt fulfils more than one purpose. In the middle is the hearth, but on the right and the left are two breast-high recesses, half wood and half stone. Each of them is a bed, with a mattress stuffed with husks of winnowed corn. Two sliding boards serve as shutters and close the chest if the sleeper would be alone. This dormitory, sheltered under the chimney breast, supplies couches for the favoured ones of the house, the boarders. They must lie snug in them at night, when the north wind howls at the mouth of the dark valley and sends the snow awhirl. The rest is occupied by the hearth and its accessories: the three-legged stools; the salt-box, hanging against the wall to keep its contents dry; the heavy shovel which it takes two hands to wield; lastly, the bellows, similar to those with which I used to blow out my cheeks in grandfather’s house. They consist of a big branch of pine, hollowed throughout its length with a red-hot iron. By means of this channel one’s breath is applied, from a convenient distance, to the spot which is to be revived. With a couple of stones for supports, the master’s bundle of sticks and our own logs blaze and flicker, for each of us has to bring a log of wood in the morning, if he would share in the treat.Nevertheless, the fire was not exactly lit for us, but, most of all, to warm a row of three pots in which simmered the pigs’ food, a mixture of potatoes and bran. That, despite the tribute of[28]a log, was the real object of the brushwood fire. The two boarders, on their stools, in the best places, and we others, sitting on our heels, formed a semicircle around those big cauldrons full to the brim and giving off little jets of steam, with puff-puff-puffing sounds. The bolder among us, when the master’s eyes were engaged elsewhere, would dig a knife into a well-cooked potato and add it to their bit of bread; for I must say that, if we did little work at my school, at least we did a deal of eating. It was the regular custom to crack a few nuts and nibble at a crust while writing our page or setting out our rows of figures.We, the smaller ones, in addition to the comfort of studying with our mouths full, had every now and then two other delights, which were quite as good as cracking nuts. The back-door communicated with the yard where the hen, surrounded by her brood of chicks, scratched at the dung-hill, while the little porkers, of whom there were a dozen, wallowed in their stone trough. This door would open sometimes to let one of us out, a privilege which we abused, for the sly ones among us were careful not to close it on returning. Forthwith the porkers would come running in, one after the other, attracted by the smell of the boiled potatoes. My bench, the one where the youngsters sat, stood against the wall, under the copper pail to which we used to go for water when the nuts had made us thirsty, and was right in the way of the pigs. Up they came trotting and grunting, curling their little tails; they rubbed against our[29]legs; they poked their cold, pink snouts into our hands in search of a scrap of crust; they questioned us with their sharp little eyes to learn if we happened to have a dry chestnut for them in our pockets. When they had gone the round, some this way and some that, they went back to the farmyard, driven away by a friendly flick of the master’s handkerchief. Next came the visit of the hen, bringing her velvet-coated chicks to see us. All of us eagerly crumbled a little bread for our pretty visitors. We vied with one another in calling them to us and tickling with our fingers their soft and downy backs. No, there was certainly no lack of distraction.1Now we know the school, with all its amenities, and our curiosity, aroused to the highest pitch, inquires, not without some alarm, what was taught in such a place and in such company. After the description of the class-room, we have the programme of studies:Let us first speak of the young ones, of whom I was one. Each of us had, or rather was supposed to have, in his hands a little penny book, the alphabet, printed on grey paper. It began, on the cover, with a pigeon or something like it. Next came a cross, followed by the letters in their[30]order. When we turned over, our eyes encountered the terribleba,be,bi,bo,bu, the stumbling-block of most of us. When we had mastered that formidable page we were considered to know how to read and were admitted among the big ones. But if the little book was to be of any use, the least that was required was that the master should interest himself in us to some extent and show us how to set about things. For this the worthy man, too much taken up with the big boys, had not the time. The famous alphabet with the pigeon was thrust upon us only to give us the air of scholars. We were to contemplate it on our bench, to decipher it with the help of our next neighbours, in case he might know one or two of the letters. Our contemplation came to nothing, being every moment disturbed by a visit to the potatoes in the stewpots, a quarrel among playmates about a marble, the grunting invasion of the porkers, or the arrival of the chicks. With the aid of these diversions we would wait patiently until it was time for us to go home. That was our most serious work.The big ones used to write. They had the benefit of the small amount of light in the room, by the narrow window where the Wandering Jew and ruthless Golo faced each other, and of the large and only table with its circle of seats. The school supplied nothing, not even a drop of ink; every one had to come with a full set of utensils. The ink-horn of those days, a relic of the ancient pen-case of which Rabelais speaks, was a long cardboard[31]box divided into two stages. The upper compartment held the pens, made of goose-quill trimmed with a penknife; the lower contained, in a tiny well, ink made of soot mixed with vinegar.The master’s great business was to mend the pens—a delicate task, not without danger for inexperienced fingers—and then to trace at the head of the white page a line of strokes, single letters, or words according to the scholar’s capabilities. When that is over, keep an eye on the work of art which is coming to adorn the copy! With what undulating movements of the wrist does the hand, resting on the little finger, prepare and plan its flight! All at once the hand starts off, flies, whirls; and lo and behold, under the line of writing is unfurled a garland of circles, spirals, and flourishes, framing a bird with outspread wings; the whole, if you please, in red ink, the only kind worthy of such a pen. Large and small, we stood awestruck in the presence of such marvels. The family, in the evening, after supper, would pass from hand to hand the masterpiece brought back from school:—“What a man!” was the comment. “What a man, to draw you a Holy Ghost with one stroke of the pen!”What was read at my school? At most, in French, a few selections from sacred history. Latin recurred oftener, to teach us to sing vespers properly. The more advanced pupils tried to decipher manuscript, a deed of sale, the hieroglyphics of some scrivener.[32]And history, geography? No one ever heard of them. What difference did it make to us whether the earth was round or square! In either case, it was just as hard to make it bring forth anything.And grammar? The master troubled his head very little about that, and we still less. We should have been greatly surprised by the novelty and the forbidding look of such words in the grammatical jargon as substantive, indicative, and subjunctive. Accuracy of language, whether of speech or writing, must be learnt by practice. And none of us was troubled by scruples in this respect. What was the use of all these subtleties, when, on coming out of school, a lad went back to his flock of sheep!And arithmetic? Yes, we did a little of this, but not under that learned name. We called it sums. To put down rows of figures, not too long, add them and subtract them one from the other was more or less familiar work. On Saturday evenings, to finish up the week, there was a general orgy of sums. The top boy stood up and, in a loud voice, recited the multiplication table up to twelve times. I say twelve times, for, in those days, because of our old duodecimal measures, it was the custom to count as far as the twelve-times table, instead of the ten-times of the metric system. When this recital was over, the whole class, the little ones included, shouted it in chorus, creating such an uproar that chicks and porkers took to flight if they happened to be there.[33]And this went on to twelve times twelve, the first in the row starting the next table and the whole class repeating it as loud as it could yell. Of all that we were taught in school, the multiplication table was what we knew best, for this noisy method ended by dinning the different numbers into our ears. This does not mean that we became skilful reckoners. The cleverest of us easily got muddled with the figures to be carried in a multiplication sum. As for division, rare indeed were they who reached such heights. In short, the moment a problem, however insignificant, had to be solved, we had recourse to mental gymnastics much rather than to the learned aid of arithmetic.This account cannot be suspected of any malicious exaggeration: the narrator is too full of sympathy for his old master to do him anything less than justice. In any case he bears him no grudge in respect of the deficiencies of his teaching:When all is said, our master was an excellent man who could have kept school very well but for his lack of one thing: and that was time. He devoted to us all the little leisure which his numerous functions left him. And first of all, he managed the property of an absentee landowner, who only occasionally set foot in the village. He had under his care an old castle with four towers, which had[34]become so many pigeon-houses; he directed the getting-in of the hay, the walnuts, the apples, and the oats. We used to help him during the summer, when the school, which was well attended in winter, was almost deserted. The few who remained, because they were not yet big enough to work in the fields, were small children, including him who was one day to set down these memorable facts. Lessons were less dull at that time of year. They were often given on the hay or the straw; oftener still, lesson-time was spent in cleaning out the dovecot or stamping on the snails that had sallied in rainy weather from their ramparts, the tall box borders of the garden belonging to the castle.Our master was a barber. With his light hand, which was so clever at beautifying our copies with curlicue birds, he shaved the notabilities of the place: the mayor, the parish priest, the notary. Our master was a bell-ringer. A wedding or a christening interrupted the lessons; he had to ring a peal. A gathering storm gave us a holiday: the great bell must be tolled to ward off the lightning and the hail. Our master was a choir-singer. With his mighty voice he filled the church where he led theMagnificatat vespers. Our master wound up the village clock. This was his proudest function. Giving a glance at the sun, to ascertain the time more or less nearly, he would climb to the top of the steeple, open a huge cage of rafters, and find himself in a maze of wheels and springs whereof the secret was known to him alone.[35]In this picture of the schoolmaster and the school we have lost sight for a time of our little Jean-Henri. What becomes of him? What does he do in such a school, under such a master? To begin with, no one takes a greater interest in the visits of hens and piglings, no one appreciates more keenly the delights of school in the open air. In the meanwhile, his love of plants and animals finds expression in all directions, even on the cover of his penny spelling-book:Embellished with a crude picture of a pigeon which I study and contemplate much more zealously than the A, B, C. Its round eye, with its circlet of dots, seems to smile upon me. Its wing, of which I count the feathers one by one, tells me of flights on high, among the beautiful clouds; it carries me to the beeches, raising their smooth trunks above a mossy carpet studded with white mushrooms that look like eggs dropped by some vagrant hen; it takes me to the snow-clad peaks where the birds leave the starry print of their red feet. He is a fine fellow, my pigeon-friend: he consoles me for the woes hidden behind the cover of my book. Thanks to him, I sit quietly on my bench and wait more or less till school is over.School out of doors has other charms. When the master takes us to kill the snails in the box borders, I do not always scrupulously fulfil my[36]office as exterminator. My heel sometimes hesitates before coming down upon the handful which I have gathered. They are so pretty! Just think, there are yellow ones and pink, white ones and brown, all with dark spiral streaks. I fill my pockets with the handsomest so as to feast my eyes upon them at my leisure.On haymaking days in the master’s field, I strike up an acquaintance with the Frog. Flayed and stuck at the end of a split stick, he serves as live bait to tempt the Crayfish from his retreat by the edge of the brook. On the alder-tree I catch the Hoplia, the splendid Beetle who pales the azure of the heavens. I pick the narcissus and learn to gather, with the tip of my tongue, the tiny drops of honey that lie right at the bottom of the cleft corolla. I also learn that too-long indulgence in this quest always brings a headache; but this discomfort in no way impairs my admiration for the glorious white flower, which wears a narrow red collar at the throat of its funnel. When we go to beat the walnut-trees, the barren grass-plots provide me with Locusts, spreading their wings, some into a blue fan, others into a red.And thus the rustic school, even in the heart of winter, furnished continuous food for my interest in things.But while the love of plants and animals developed automatically, without guide or example, in the child predestined to entomology,[37]there was one respect in which he did not make progress: the knowledge of the alphabet, which was indeed neglected for the pigeon. Consequently neither the schoolmaster nor the spelling-book had much to do with the earliest stage of his education. He tells us how he learned to read, not at Master Ricard’s, but, thanks to his father, in the school of the animals and nature:I was still at the same stage, hopelessly behind-hand with the intractable alphabet, when my father, by a chance inspiration, brought me home from the town what was destined to give me a start along the road of reading. Despite the not insignificant part which it played in my intellectual awakening, the purchase was by no means a ruinous one. It was a large print, price six farthings, coloured and divided into compartments in which animals of all sorts taught the A, B, C by means of the first letters of their names.I made such rapid progress that, in a few days, I was able to turn in good earnest to the pages of my little pigeon-book, hitherto so undecipherable. I was initiated; I knew how to spell. My parents marvelled. I can explain this unexpected progress to-day. Those speaking pictures, which brought me among my friends the beasts, were in harmony with my instincts. If the animal has not fulfilled all that it promised in so far as I am concerned, I have at least to thank it for teaching[38]me to read. I should have succeeded by other means, I do not doubt, but not so quickly or pleasantly. Animals for ever!Luck favoured me a second time. As a reward for my prowess I was given La Fontaine’sFables, in a popular, cheap edition, crammed with pictures, small, I admit, and very inaccurate, but still delightful. Here were the crow, the fox, the wolf, the magpie, the frog, the rabbit, the ass, the dog, the cat; all persons of my acquaintance. The glorious book was immensely to my taste, with its skimpy illustrations in which the animal walked and talked. As to understanding what it said, that was another story. Never mind, my lad! Put together syllables that say nothing to you yet; they will speak to you later and La Fontaine will always remain your friend.2[39]1Souvenirs,VI., pp. 46–68;The Life of the Fly, chap. vi., “My Schooling.”↑2Souvenirs,IV., pp. 50–60;The Life of the Fly, chap. vi., “My Schooling.”↑

CHAPTER IIITHE SCHOOLBOY: SAINT-LÉONS

With his seventh year the time came for him to go to school. The schoolmaster of Saint-Léons was the child’s godfather. Everything pointed to him as the child’s first teacher. So Jean-Henri left the ancestral home at Malaval to return to his father’s house at Saint-Léons and attend the local school, which was kept by his godfather, Pierre Ricard. He could not have done better as a start in life. Let us leave him to paint one picture of this second phase of his life. He begins with a description of the school:What shall I call the room in which I was to become acquainted with the alphabet? It would be difficult to find the exact word, because the room served for every purpose. It was at once a school, a kitchen, a bedroom, a dining-room, and, at times, a chicken-house and a piggery. Palatial schools were not dreamt of in those days; any wretched hovel was thought good enough.A broad fixed ladder led to the floor above.[25]Under the ladder stood a big bed in a boarded recess. What was there upstairs? I never quite knew. I would see the master sometimes bring down an armful of hay for the ass, sometimes a basket of potatoes which the housewife emptied into the pot in which the little porker’s food was cooked. It must have been a loft of sorts, a store-house of provisions for man and beast. Those two apartments composed the whole building.To return to the lower one, the schoolroom: a window faces south, the only window in the house, a long, narrow window whose frame you can touch at the same time with your head and both your shoulders. This sunny aperture is the only lively spot in the dwelling; it overlooks the greater part of the village, which straggles along the slopes of a tapering valley. In the window-recess is the master’s little table.The opposite wall contains a niche in which stands a gleaming copper pail full of water. Here the parched children can relieve their thirst when they please, with a cup left within their reach. At the top of the niche are a few shelves bright with pewter plates, dishes, and drinking-vessels, which are taken down from their sanctuary on great occasions only.More or less everywhere, at any spot which the light touches, are crudely-coloured pictures, pasted on the walls. Here is Our Lady of the Seven Dolours, the disconsolate Mother of God, opening her blue cloak to show her heart pierced with seven daggers. Between the sun and moon, which stare[26]at you with their great, round eyes, is the Eternal Father, Whose robe swells as though puffed out with the storm. To the right of the window, in the embrasure, is the Wandering Jew. He wears a three-cornered hat, a large, white, leather apron, hobnailed shoes, and carries a stout stick. “Never was such a bearded man seen before or after,” says the legend that surrounds the picture. The draughtsman has not forgotten this detail; the old man’s beard spreads in a snowy avalanche over the apron and comes down to his knees. On the left is Geneviève of Brabant, accompanied by the roe; with cruel Golo hiding in the bushes, sword in hand. Above hangsThe Death of Mr. Credit, slain by defaulters at the door of his inn; and so on and so on, in every variety of subject, at all the unoccupied spots of the four walls.I was filled with admiration of this picture-gallery, which held one’s eyes with its great patches of red, blue, green, and yellow. The master, however, had not set up his collection with a view to training our minds and hearts. That was the last and least of the worthy man’s ambitions. An artist in his fashion, he had adorned his house according to his taste; and we benefited by the scheme of decoration.While the gallery of halfpenny pictures made me happy all the year round, there was another entertainment which I found particularly attractive in winter, in frosty weather, when the snow lay long on the ground. Against the far wall stands the fire-place, as monumental in size as at[27]my grandmother’s. Its arched cornice occupies the whole width of the room, for the enormous redoubt fulfils more than one purpose. In the middle is the hearth, but on the right and the left are two breast-high recesses, half wood and half stone. Each of them is a bed, with a mattress stuffed with husks of winnowed corn. Two sliding boards serve as shutters and close the chest if the sleeper would be alone. This dormitory, sheltered under the chimney breast, supplies couches for the favoured ones of the house, the boarders. They must lie snug in them at night, when the north wind howls at the mouth of the dark valley and sends the snow awhirl. The rest is occupied by the hearth and its accessories: the three-legged stools; the salt-box, hanging against the wall to keep its contents dry; the heavy shovel which it takes two hands to wield; lastly, the bellows, similar to those with which I used to blow out my cheeks in grandfather’s house. They consist of a big branch of pine, hollowed throughout its length with a red-hot iron. By means of this channel one’s breath is applied, from a convenient distance, to the spot which is to be revived. With a couple of stones for supports, the master’s bundle of sticks and our own logs blaze and flicker, for each of us has to bring a log of wood in the morning, if he would share in the treat.Nevertheless, the fire was not exactly lit for us, but, most of all, to warm a row of three pots in which simmered the pigs’ food, a mixture of potatoes and bran. That, despite the tribute of[28]a log, was the real object of the brushwood fire. The two boarders, on their stools, in the best places, and we others, sitting on our heels, formed a semicircle around those big cauldrons full to the brim and giving off little jets of steam, with puff-puff-puffing sounds. The bolder among us, when the master’s eyes were engaged elsewhere, would dig a knife into a well-cooked potato and add it to their bit of bread; for I must say that, if we did little work at my school, at least we did a deal of eating. It was the regular custom to crack a few nuts and nibble at a crust while writing our page or setting out our rows of figures.We, the smaller ones, in addition to the comfort of studying with our mouths full, had every now and then two other delights, which were quite as good as cracking nuts. The back-door communicated with the yard where the hen, surrounded by her brood of chicks, scratched at the dung-hill, while the little porkers, of whom there were a dozen, wallowed in their stone trough. This door would open sometimes to let one of us out, a privilege which we abused, for the sly ones among us were careful not to close it on returning. Forthwith the porkers would come running in, one after the other, attracted by the smell of the boiled potatoes. My bench, the one where the youngsters sat, stood against the wall, under the copper pail to which we used to go for water when the nuts had made us thirsty, and was right in the way of the pigs. Up they came trotting and grunting, curling their little tails; they rubbed against our[29]legs; they poked their cold, pink snouts into our hands in search of a scrap of crust; they questioned us with their sharp little eyes to learn if we happened to have a dry chestnut for them in our pockets. When they had gone the round, some this way and some that, they went back to the farmyard, driven away by a friendly flick of the master’s handkerchief. Next came the visit of the hen, bringing her velvet-coated chicks to see us. All of us eagerly crumbled a little bread for our pretty visitors. We vied with one another in calling them to us and tickling with our fingers their soft and downy backs. No, there was certainly no lack of distraction.1Now we know the school, with all its amenities, and our curiosity, aroused to the highest pitch, inquires, not without some alarm, what was taught in such a place and in such company. After the description of the class-room, we have the programme of studies:Let us first speak of the young ones, of whom I was one. Each of us had, or rather was supposed to have, in his hands a little penny book, the alphabet, printed on grey paper. It began, on the cover, with a pigeon or something like it. Next came a cross, followed by the letters in their[30]order. When we turned over, our eyes encountered the terribleba,be,bi,bo,bu, the stumbling-block of most of us. When we had mastered that formidable page we were considered to know how to read and were admitted among the big ones. But if the little book was to be of any use, the least that was required was that the master should interest himself in us to some extent and show us how to set about things. For this the worthy man, too much taken up with the big boys, had not the time. The famous alphabet with the pigeon was thrust upon us only to give us the air of scholars. We were to contemplate it on our bench, to decipher it with the help of our next neighbours, in case he might know one or two of the letters. Our contemplation came to nothing, being every moment disturbed by a visit to the potatoes in the stewpots, a quarrel among playmates about a marble, the grunting invasion of the porkers, or the arrival of the chicks. With the aid of these diversions we would wait patiently until it was time for us to go home. That was our most serious work.The big ones used to write. They had the benefit of the small amount of light in the room, by the narrow window where the Wandering Jew and ruthless Golo faced each other, and of the large and only table with its circle of seats. The school supplied nothing, not even a drop of ink; every one had to come with a full set of utensils. The ink-horn of those days, a relic of the ancient pen-case of which Rabelais speaks, was a long cardboard[31]box divided into two stages. The upper compartment held the pens, made of goose-quill trimmed with a penknife; the lower contained, in a tiny well, ink made of soot mixed with vinegar.The master’s great business was to mend the pens—a delicate task, not without danger for inexperienced fingers—and then to trace at the head of the white page a line of strokes, single letters, or words according to the scholar’s capabilities. When that is over, keep an eye on the work of art which is coming to adorn the copy! With what undulating movements of the wrist does the hand, resting on the little finger, prepare and plan its flight! All at once the hand starts off, flies, whirls; and lo and behold, under the line of writing is unfurled a garland of circles, spirals, and flourishes, framing a bird with outspread wings; the whole, if you please, in red ink, the only kind worthy of such a pen. Large and small, we stood awestruck in the presence of such marvels. The family, in the evening, after supper, would pass from hand to hand the masterpiece brought back from school:—“What a man!” was the comment. “What a man, to draw you a Holy Ghost with one stroke of the pen!”What was read at my school? At most, in French, a few selections from sacred history. Latin recurred oftener, to teach us to sing vespers properly. The more advanced pupils tried to decipher manuscript, a deed of sale, the hieroglyphics of some scrivener.[32]And history, geography? No one ever heard of them. What difference did it make to us whether the earth was round or square! In either case, it was just as hard to make it bring forth anything.And grammar? The master troubled his head very little about that, and we still less. We should have been greatly surprised by the novelty and the forbidding look of such words in the grammatical jargon as substantive, indicative, and subjunctive. Accuracy of language, whether of speech or writing, must be learnt by practice. And none of us was troubled by scruples in this respect. What was the use of all these subtleties, when, on coming out of school, a lad went back to his flock of sheep!And arithmetic? Yes, we did a little of this, but not under that learned name. We called it sums. To put down rows of figures, not too long, add them and subtract them one from the other was more or less familiar work. On Saturday evenings, to finish up the week, there was a general orgy of sums. The top boy stood up and, in a loud voice, recited the multiplication table up to twelve times. I say twelve times, for, in those days, because of our old duodecimal measures, it was the custom to count as far as the twelve-times table, instead of the ten-times of the metric system. When this recital was over, the whole class, the little ones included, shouted it in chorus, creating such an uproar that chicks and porkers took to flight if they happened to be there.[33]And this went on to twelve times twelve, the first in the row starting the next table and the whole class repeating it as loud as it could yell. Of all that we were taught in school, the multiplication table was what we knew best, for this noisy method ended by dinning the different numbers into our ears. This does not mean that we became skilful reckoners. The cleverest of us easily got muddled with the figures to be carried in a multiplication sum. As for division, rare indeed were they who reached such heights. In short, the moment a problem, however insignificant, had to be solved, we had recourse to mental gymnastics much rather than to the learned aid of arithmetic.This account cannot be suspected of any malicious exaggeration: the narrator is too full of sympathy for his old master to do him anything less than justice. In any case he bears him no grudge in respect of the deficiencies of his teaching:When all is said, our master was an excellent man who could have kept school very well but for his lack of one thing: and that was time. He devoted to us all the little leisure which his numerous functions left him. And first of all, he managed the property of an absentee landowner, who only occasionally set foot in the village. He had under his care an old castle with four towers, which had[34]become so many pigeon-houses; he directed the getting-in of the hay, the walnuts, the apples, and the oats. We used to help him during the summer, when the school, which was well attended in winter, was almost deserted. The few who remained, because they were not yet big enough to work in the fields, were small children, including him who was one day to set down these memorable facts. Lessons were less dull at that time of year. They were often given on the hay or the straw; oftener still, lesson-time was spent in cleaning out the dovecot or stamping on the snails that had sallied in rainy weather from their ramparts, the tall box borders of the garden belonging to the castle.Our master was a barber. With his light hand, which was so clever at beautifying our copies with curlicue birds, he shaved the notabilities of the place: the mayor, the parish priest, the notary. Our master was a bell-ringer. A wedding or a christening interrupted the lessons; he had to ring a peal. A gathering storm gave us a holiday: the great bell must be tolled to ward off the lightning and the hail. Our master was a choir-singer. With his mighty voice he filled the church where he led theMagnificatat vespers. Our master wound up the village clock. This was his proudest function. Giving a glance at the sun, to ascertain the time more or less nearly, he would climb to the top of the steeple, open a huge cage of rafters, and find himself in a maze of wheels and springs whereof the secret was known to him alone.[35]In this picture of the schoolmaster and the school we have lost sight for a time of our little Jean-Henri. What becomes of him? What does he do in such a school, under such a master? To begin with, no one takes a greater interest in the visits of hens and piglings, no one appreciates more keenly the delights of school in the open air. In the meanwhile, his love of plants and animals finds expression in all directions, even on the cover of his penny spelling-book:Embellished with a crude picture of a pigeon which I study and contemplate much more zealously than the A, B, C. Its round eye, with its circlet of dots, seems to smile upon me. Its wing, of which I count the feathers one by one, tells me of flights on high, among the beautiful clouds; it carries me to the beeches, raising their smooth trunks above a mossy carpet studded with white mushrooms that look like eggs dropped by some vagrant hen; it takes me to the snow-clad peaks where the birds leave the starry print of their red feet. He is a fine fellow, my pigeon-friend: he consoles me for the woes hidden behind the cover of my book. Thanks to him, I sit quietly on my bench and wait more or less till school is over.School out of doors has other charms. When the master takes us to kill the snails in the box borders, I do not always scrupulously fulfil my[36]office as exterminator. My heel sometimes hesitates before coming down upon the handful which I have gathered. They are so pretty! Just think, there are yellow ones and pink, white ones and brown, all with dark spiral streaks. I fill my pockets with the handsomest so as to feast my eyes upon them at my leisure.On haymaking days in the master’s field, I strike up an acquaintance with the Frog. Flayed and stuck at the end of a split stick, he serves as live bait to tempt the Crayfish from his retreat by the edge of the brook. On the alder-tree I catch the Hoplia, the splendid Beetle who pales the azure of the heavens. I pick the narcissus and learn to gather, with the tip of my tongue, the tiny drops of honey that lie right at the bottom of the cleft corolla. I also learn that too-long indulgence in this quest always brings a headache; but this discomfort in no way impairs my admiration for the glorious white flower, which wears a narrow red collar at the throat of its funnel. When we go to beat the walnut-trees, the barren grass-plots provide me with Locusts, spreading their wings, some into a blue fan, others into a red.And thus the rustic school, even in the heart of winter, furnished continuous food for my interest in things.But while the love of plants and animals developed automatically, without guide or example, in the child predestined to entomology,[37]there was one respect in which he did not make progress: the knowledge of the alphabet, which was indeed neglected for the pigeon. Consequently neither the schoolmaster nor the spelling-book had much to do with the earliest stage of his education. He tells us how he learned to read, not at Master Ricard’s, but, thanks to his father, in the school of the animals and nature:I was still at the same stage, hopelessly behind-hand with the intractable alphabet, when my father, by a chance inspiration, brought me home from the town what was destined to give me a start along the road of reading. Despite the not insignificant part which it played in my intellectual awakening, the purchase was by no means a ruinous one. It was a large print, price six farthings, coloured and divided into compartments in which animals of all sorts taught the A, B, C by means of the first letters of their names.I made such rapid progress that, in a few days, I was able to turn in good earnest to the pages of my little pigeon-book, hitherto so undecipherable. I was initiated; I knew how to spell. My parents marvelled. I can explain this unexpected progress to-day. Those speaking pictures, which brought me among my friends the beasts, were in harmony with my instincts. If the animal has not fulfilled all that it promised in so far as I am concerned, I have at least to thank it for teaching[38]me to read. I should have succeeded by other means, I do not doubt, but not so quickly or pleasantly. Animals for ever!Luck favoured me a second time. As a reward for my prowess I was given La Fontaine’sFables, in a popular, cheap edition, crammed with pictures, small, I admit, and very inaccurate, but still delightful. Here were the crow, the fox, the wolf, the magpie, the frog, the rabbit, the ass, the dog, the cat; all persons of my acquaintance. The glorious book was immensely to my taste, with its skimpy illustrations in which the animal walked and talked. As to understanding what it said, that was another story. Never mind, my lad! Put together syllables that say nothing to you yet; they will speak to you later and La Fontaine will always remain your friend.2[39]

What shall I call the room in which I was to become acquainted with the alphabet? It would be difficult to find the exact word, because the room served for every purpose. It was at once a school, a kitchen, a bedroom, a dining-room, and, at times, a chicken-house and a piggery. Palatial schools were not dreamt of in those days; any wretched hovel was thought good enough.A broad fixed ladder led to the floor above.[25]Under the ladder stood a big bed in a boarded recess. What was there upstairs? I never quite knew. I would see the master sometimes bring down an armful of hay for the ass, sometimes a basket of potatoes which the housewife emptied into the pot in which the little porker’s food was cooked. It must have been a loft of sorts, a store-house of provisions for man and beast. Those two apartments composed the whole building.To return to the lower one, the schoolroom: a window faces south, the only window in the house, a long, narrow window whose frame you can touch at the same time with your head and both your shoulders. This sunny aperture is the only lively spot in the dwelling; it overlooks the greater part of the village, which straggles along the slopes of a tapering valley. In the window-recess is the master’s little table.The opposite wall contains a niche in which stands a gleaming copper pail full of water. Here the parched children can relieve their thirst when they please, with a cup left within their reach. At the top of the niche are a few shelves bright with pewter plates, dishes, and drinking-vessels, which are taken down from their sanctuary on great occasions only.More or less everywhere, at any spot which the light touches, are crudely-coloured pictures, pasted on the walls. Here is Our Lady of the Seven Dolours, the disconsolate Mother of God, opening her blue cloak to show her heart pierced with seven daggers. Between the sun and moon, which stare[26]at you with their great, round eyes, is the Eternal Father, Whose robe swells as though puffed out with the storm. To the right of the window, in the embrasure, is the Wandering Jew. He wears a three-cornered hat, a large, white, leather apron, hobnailed shoes, and carries a stout stick. “Never was such a bearded man seen before or after,” says the legend that surrounds the picture. The draughtsman has not forgotten this detail; the old man’s beard spreads in a snowy avalanche over the apron and comes down to his knees. On the left is Geneviève of Brabant, accompanied by the roe; with cruel Golo hiding in the bushes, sword in hand. Above hangsThe Death of Mr. Credit, slain by defaulters at the door of his inn; and so on and so on, in every variety of subject, at all the unoccupied spots of the four walls.I was filled with admiration of this picture-gallery, which held one’s eyes with its great patches of red, blue, green, and yellow. The master, however, had not set up his collection with a view to training our minds and hearts. That was the last and least of the worthy man’s ambitions. An artist in his fashion, he had adorned his house according to his taste; and we benefited by the scheme of decoration.While the gallery of halfpenny pictures made me happy all the year round, there was another entertainment which I found particularly attractive in winter, in frosty weather, when the snow lay long on the ground. Against the far wall stands the fire-place, as monumental in size as at[27]my grandmother’s. Its arched cornice occupies the whole width of the room, for the enormous redoubt fulfils more than one purpose. In the middle is the hearth, but on the right and the left are two breast-high recesses, half wood and half stone. Each of them is a bed, with a mattress stuffed with husks of winnowed corn. Two sliding boards serve as shutters and close the chest if the sleeper would be alone. This dormitory, sheltered under the chimney breast, supplies couches for the favoured ones of the house, the boarders. They must lie snug in them at night, when the north wind howls at the mouth of the dark valley and sends the snow awhirl. The rest is occupied by the hearth and its accessories: the three-legged stools; the salt-box, hanging against the wall to keep its contents dry; the heavy shovel which it takes two hands to wield; lastly, the bellows, similar to those with which I used to blow out my cheeks in grandfather’s house. They consist of a big branch of pine, hollowed throughout its length with a red-hot iron. By means of this channel one’s breath is applied, from a convenient distance, to the spot which is to be revived. With a couple of stones for supports, the master’s bundle of sticks and our own logs blaze and flicker, for each of us has to bring a log of wood in the morning, if he would share in the treat.Nevertheless, the fire was not exactly lit for us, but, most of all, to warm a row of three pots in which simmered the pigs’ food, a mixture of potatoes and bran. That, despite the tribute of[28]a log, was the real object of the brushwood fire. The two boarders, on their stools, in the best places, and we others, sitting on our heels, formed a semicircle around those big cauldrons full to the brim and giving off little jets of steam, with puff-puff-puffing sounds. The bolder among us, when the master’s eyes were engaged elsewhere, would dig a knife into a well-cooked potato and add it to their bit of bread; for I must say that, if we did little work at my school, at least we did a deal of eating. It was the regular custom to crack a few nuts and nibble at a crust while writing our page or setting out our rows of figures.We, the smaller ones, in addition to the comfort of studying with our mouths full, had every now and then two other delights, which were quite as good as cracking nuts. The back-door communicated with the yard where the hen, surrounded by her brood of chicks, scratched at the dung-hill, while the little porkers, of whom there were a dozen, wallowed in their stone trough. This door would open sometimes to let one of us out, a privilege which we abused, for the sly ones among us were careful not to close it on returning. Forthwith the porkers would come running in, one after the other, attracted by the smell of the boiled potatoes. My bench, the one where the youngsters sat, stood against the wall, under the copper pail to which we used to go for water when the nuts had made us thirsty, and was right in the way of the pigs. Up they came trotting and grunting, curling their little tails; they rubbed against our[29]legs; they poked their cold, pink snouts into our hands in search of a scrap of crust; they questioned us with their sharp little eyes to learn if we happened to have a dry chestnut for them in our pockets. When they had gone the round, some this way and some that, they went back to the farmyard, driven away by a friendly flick of the master’s handkerchief. Next came the visit of the hen, bringing her velvet-coated chicks to see us. All of us eagerly crumbled a little bread for our pretty visitors. We vied with one another in calling them to us and tickling with our fingers their soft and downy backs. No, there was certainly no lack of distraction.1

A broad fixed ladder led to the floor above.[25]Under the ladder stood a big bed in a boarded recess. What was there upstairs? I never quite knew. I would see the master sometimes bring down an armful of hay for the ass, sometimes a basket of potatoes which the housewife emptied into the pot in which the little porker’s food was cooked. It must have been a loft of sorts, a store-house of provisions for man and beast. Those two apartments composed the whole building.

To return to the lower one, the schoolroom: a window faces south, the only window in the house, a long, narrow window whose frame you can touch at the same time with your head and both your shoulders. This sunny aperture is the only lively spot in the dwelling; it overlooks the greater part of the village, which straggles along the slopes of a tapering valley. In the window-recess is the master’s little table.

The opposite wall contains a niche in which stands a gleaming copper pail full of water. Here the parched children can relieve their thirst when they please, with a cup left within their reach. At the top of the niche are a few shelves bright with pewter plates, dishes, and drinking-vessels, which are taken down from their sanctuary on great occasions only.

More or less everywhere, at any spot which the light touches, are crudely-coloured pictures, pasted on the walls. Here is Our Lady of the Seven Dolours, the disconsolate Mother of God, opening her blue cloak to show her heart pierced with seven daggers. Between the sun and moon, which stare[26]at you with their great, round eyes, is the Eternal Father, Whose robe swells as though puffed out with the storm. To the right of the window, in the embrasure, is the Wandering Jew. He wears a three-cornered hat, a large, white, leather apron, hobnailed shoes, and carries a stout stick. “Never was such a bearded man seen before or after,” says the legend that surrounds the picture. The draughtsman has not forgotten this detail; the old man’s beard spreads in a snowy avalanche over the apron and comes down to his knees. On the left is Geneviève of Brabant, accompanied by the roe; with cruel Golo hiding in the bushes, sword in hand. Above hangsThe Death of Mr. Credit, slain by defaulters at the door of his inn; and so on and so on, in every variety of subject, at all the unoccupied spots of the four walls.

I was filled with admiration of this picture-gallery, which held one’s eyes with its great patches of red, blue, green, and yellow. The master, however, had not set up his collection with a view to training our minds and hearts. That was the last and least of the worthy man’s ambitions. An artist in his fashion, he had adorned his house according to his taste; and we benefited by the scheme of decoration.

While the gallery of halfpenny pictures made me happy all the year round, there was another entertainment which I found particularly attractive in winter, in frosty weather, when the snow lay long on the ground. Against the far wall stands the fire-place, as monumental in size as at[27]my grandmother’s. Its arched cornice occupies the whole width of the room, for the enormous redoubt fulfils more than one purpose. In the middle is the hearth, but on the right and the left are two breast-high recesses, half wood and half stone. Each of them is a bed, with a mattress stuffed with husks of winnowed corn. Two sliding boards serve as shutters and close the chest if the sleeper would be alone. This dormitory, sheltered under the chimney breast, supplies couches for the favoured ones of the house, the boarders. They must lie snug in them at night, when the north wind howls at the mouth of the dark valley and sends the snow awhirl. The rest is occupied by the hearth and its accessories: the three-legged stools; the salt-box, hanging against the wall to keep its contents dry; the heavy shovel which it takes two hands to wield; lastly, the bellows, similar to those with which I used to blow out my cheeks in grandfather’s house. They consist of a big branch of pine, hollowed throughout its length with a red-hot iron. By means of this channel one’s breath is applied, from a convenient distance, to the spot which is to be revived. With a couple of stones for supports, the master’s bundle of sticks and our own logs blaze and flicker, for each of us has to bring a log of wood in the morning, if he would share in the treat.

Nevertheless, the fire was not exactly lit for us, but, most of all, to warm a row of three pots in which simmered the pigs’ food, a mixture of potatoes and bran. That, despite the tribute of[28]a log, was the real object of the brushwood fire. The two boarders, on their stools, in the best places, and we others, sitting on our heels, formed a semicircle around those big cauldrons full to the brim and giving off little jets of steam, with puff-puff-puffing sounds. The bolder among us, when the master’s eyes were engaged elsewhere, would dig a knife into a well-cooked potato and add it to their bit of bread; for I must say that, if we did little work at my school, at least we did a deal of eating. It was the regular custom to crack a few nuts and nibble at a crust while writing our page or setting out our rows of figures.

We, the smaller ones, in addition to the comfort of studying with our mouths full, had every now and then two other delights, which were quite as good as cracking nuts. The back-door communicated with the yard where the hen, surrounded by her brood of chicks, scratched at the dung-hill, while the little porkers, of whom there were a dozen, wallowed in their stone trough. This door would open sometimes to let one of us out, a privilege which we abused, for the sly ones among us were careful not to close it on returning. Forthwith the porkers would come running in, one after the other, attracted by the smell of the boiled potatoes. My bench, the one where the youngsters sat, stood against the wall, under the copper pail to which we used to go for water when the nuts had made us thirsty, and was right in the way of the pigs. Up they came trotting and grunting, curling their little tails; they rubbed against our[29]legs; they poked their cold, pink snouts into our hands in search of a scrap of crust; they questioned us with their sharp little eyes to learn if we happened to have a dry chestnut for them in our pockets. When they had gone the round, some this way and some that, they went back to the farmyard, driven away by a friendly flick of the master’s handkerchief. Next came the visit of the hen, bringing her velvet-coated chicks to see us. All of us eagerly crumbled a little bread for our pretty visitors. We vied with one another in calling them to us and tickling with our fingers their soft and downy backs. No, there was certainly no lack of distraction.1

Now we know the school, with all its amenities, and our curiosity, aroused to the highest pitch, inquires, not without some alarm, what was taught in such a place and in such company. After the description of the class-room, we have the programme of studies:

Let us first speak of the young ones, of whom I was one. Each of us had, or rather was supposed to have, in his hands a little penny book, the alphabet, printed on grey paper. It began, on the cover, with a pigeon or something like it. Next came a cross, followed by the letters in their[30]order. When we turned over, our eyes encountered the terribleba,be,bi,bo,bu, the stumbling-block of most of us. When we had mastered that formidable page we were considered to know how to read and were admitted among the big ones. But if the little book was to be of any use, the least that was required was that the master should interest himself in us to some extent and show us how to set about things. For this the worthy man, too much taken up with the big boys, had not the time. The famous alphabet with the pigeon was thrust upon us only to give us the air of scholars. We were to contemplate it on our bench, to decipher it with the help of our next neighbours, in case he might know one or two of the letters. Our contemplation came to nothing, being every moment disturbed by a visit to the potatoes in the stewpots, a quarrel among playmates about a marble, the grunting invasion of the porkers, or the arrival of the chicks. With the aid of these diversions we would wait patiently until it was time for us to go home. That was our most serious work.The big ones used to write. They had the benefit of the small amount of light in the room, by the narrow window where the Wandering Jew and ruthless Golo faced each other, and of the large and only table with its circle of seats. The school supplied nothing, not even a drop of ink; every one had to come with a full set of utensils. The ink-horn of those days, a relic of the ancient pen-case of which Rabelais speaks, was a long cardboard[31]box divided into two stages. The upper compartment held the pens, made of goose-quill trimmed with a penknife; the lower contained, in a tiny well, ink made of soot mixed with vinegar.The master’s great business was to mend the pens—a delicate task, not without danger for inexperienced fingers—and then to trace at the head of the white page a line of strokes, single letters, or words according to the scholar’s capabilities. When that is over, keep an eye on the work of art which is coming to adorn the copy! With what undulating movements of the wrist does the hand, resting on the little finger, prepare and plan its flight! All at once the hand starts off, flies, whirls; and lo and behold, under the line of writing is unfurled a garland of circles, spirals, and flourishes, framing a bird with outspread wings; the whole, if you please, in red ink, the only kind worthy of such a pen. Large and small, we stood awestruck in the presence of such marvels. The family, in the evening, after supper, would pass from hand to hand the masterpiece brought back from school:—“What a man!” was the comment. “What a man, to draw you a Holy Ghost with one stroke of the pen!”What was read at my school? At most, in French, a few selections from sacred history. Latin recurred oftener, to teach us to sing vespers properly. The more advanced pupils tried to decipher manuscript, a deed of sale, the hieroglyphics of some scrivener.[32]And history, geography? No one ever heard of them. What difference did it make to us whether the earth was round or square! In either case, it was just as hard to make it bring forth anything.And grammar? The master troubled his head very little about that, and we still less. We should have been greatly surprised by the novelty and the forbidding look of such words in the grammatical jargon as substantive, indicative, and subjunctive. Accuracy of language, whether of speech or writing, must be learnt by practice. And none of us was troubled by scruples in this respect. What was the use of all these subtleties, when, on coming out of school, a lad went back to his flock of sheep!And arithmetic? Yes, we did a little of this, but not under that learned name. We called it sums. To put down rows of figures, not too long, add them and subtract them one from the other was more or less familiar work. On Saturday evenings, to finish up the week, there was a general orgy of sums. The top boy stood up and, in a loud voice, recited the multiplication table up to twelve times. I say twelve times, for, in those days, because of our old duodecimal measures, it was the custom to count as far as the twelve-times table, instead of the ten-times of the metric system. When this recital was over, the whole class, the little ones included, shouted it in chorus, creating such an uproar that chicks and porkers took to flight if they happened to be there.[33]And this went on to twelve times twelve, the first in the row starting the next table and the whole class repeating it as loud as it could yell. Of all that we were taught in school, the multiplication table was what we knew best, for this noisy method ended by dinning the different numbers into our ears. This does not mean that we became skilful reckoners. The cleverest of us easily got muddled with the figures to be carried in a multiplication sum. As for division, rare indeed were they who reached such heights. In short, the moment a problem, however insignificant, had to be solved, we had recourse to mental gymnastics much rather than to the learned aid of arithmetic.

The big ones used to write. They had the benefit of the small amount of light in the room, by the narrow window where the Wandering Jew and ruthless Golo faced each other, and of the large and only table with its circle of seats. The school supplied nothing, not even a drop of ink; every one had to come with a full set of utensils. The ink-horn of those days, a relic of the ancient pen-case of which Rabelais speaks, was a long cardboard[31]box divided into two stages. The upper compartment held the pens, made of goose-quill trimmed with a penknife; the lower contained, in a tiny well, ink made of soot mixed with vinegar.

The master’s great business was to mend the pens—a delicate task, not without danger for inexperienced fingers—and then to trace at the head of the white page a line of strokes, single letters, or words according to the scholar’s capabilities. When that is over, keep an eye on the work of art which is coming to adorn the copy! With what undulating movements of the wrist does the hand, resting on the little finger, prepare and plan its flight! All at once the hand starts off, flies, whirls; and lo and behold, under the line of writing is unfurled a garland of circles, spirals, and flourishes, framing a bird with outspread wings; the whole, if you please, in red ink, the only kind worthy of such a pen. Large and small, we stood awestruck in the presence of such marvels. The family, in the evening, after supper, would pass from hand to hand the masterpiece brought back from school:—

“What a man!” was the comment. “What a man, to draw you a Holy Ghost with one stroke of the pen!”

What was read at my school? At most, in French, a few selections from sacred history. Latin recurred oftener, to teach us to sing vespers properly. The more advanced pupils tried to decipher manuscript, a deed of sale, the hieroglyphics of some scrivener.[32]

And history, geography? No one ever heard of them. What difference did it make to us whether the earth was round or square! In either case, it was just as hard to make it bring forth anything.

And grammar? The master troubled his head very little about that, and we still less. We should have been greatly surprised by the novelty and the forbidding look of such words in the grammatical jargon as substantive, indicative, and subjunctive. Accuracy of language, whether of speech or writing, must be learnt by practice. And none of us was troubled by scruples in this respect. What was the use of all these subtleties, when, on coming out of school, a lad went back to his flock of sheep!

And arithmetic? Yes, we did a little of this, but not under that learned name. We called it sums. To put down rows of figures, not too long, add them and subtract them one from the other was more or less familiar work. On Saturday evenings, to finish up the week, there was a general orgy of sums. The top boy stood up and, in a loud voice, recited the multiplication table up to twelve times. I say twelve times, for, in those days, because of our old duodecimal measures, it was the custom to count as far as the twelve-times table, instead of the ten-times of the metric system. When this recital was over, the whole class, the little ones included, shouted it in chorus, creating such an uproar that chicks and porkers took to flight if they happened to be there.[33]And this went on to twelve times twelve, the first in the row starting the next table and the whole class repeating it as loud as it could yell. Of all that we were taught in school, the multiplication table was what we knew best, for this noisy method ended by dinning the different numbers into our ears. This does not mean that we became skilful reckoners. The cleverest of us easily got muddled with the figures to be carried in a multiplication sum. As for division, rare indeed were they who reached such heights. In short, the moment a problem, however insignificant, had to be solved, we had recourse to mental gymnastics much rather than to the learned aid of arithmetic.

This account cannot be suspected of any malicious exaggeration: the narrator is too full of sympathy for his old master to do him anything less than justice. In any case he bears him no grudge in respect of the deficiencies of his teaching:

When all is said, our master was an excellent man who could have kept school very well but for his lack of one thing: and that was time. He devoted to us all the little leisure which his numerous functions left him. And first of all, he managed the property of an absentee landowner, who only occasionally set foot in the village. He had under his care an old castle with four towers, which had[34]become so many pigeon-houses; he directed the getting-in of the hay, the walnuts, the apples, and the oats. We used to help him during the summer, when the school, which was well attended in winter, was almost deserted. The few who remained, because they were not yet big enough to work in the fields, were small children, including him who was one day to set down these memorable facts. Lessons were less dull at that time of year. They were often given on the hay or the straw; oftener still, lesson-time was spent in cleaning out the dovecot or stamping on the snails that had sallied in rainy weather from their ramparts, the tall box borders of the garden belonging to the castle.Our master was a barber. With his light hand, which was so clever at beautifying our copies with curlicue birds, he shaved the notabilities of the place: the mayor, the parish priest, the notary. Our master was a bell-ringer. A wedding or a christening interrupted the lessons; he had to ring a peal. A gathering storm gave us a holiday: the great bell must be tolled to ward off the lightning and the hail. Our master was a choir-singer. With his mighty voice he filled the church where he led theMagnificatat vespers. Our master wound up the village clock. This was his proudest function. Giving a glance at the sun, to ascertain the time more or less nearly, he would climb to the top of the steeple, open a huge cage of rafters, and find himself in a maze of wheels and springs whereof the secret was known to him alone.

Our master was a barber. With his light hand, which was so clever at beautifying our copies with curlicue birds, he shaved the notabilities of the place: the mayor, the parish priest, the notary. Our master was a bell-ringer. A wedding or a christening interrupted the lessons; he had to ring a peal. A gathering storm gave us a holiday: the great bell must be tolled to ward off the lightning and the hail. Our master was a choir-singer. With his mighty voice he filled the church where he led theMagnificatat vespers. Our master wound up the village clock. This was his proudest function. Giving a glance at the sun, to ascertain the time more or less nearly, he would climb to the top of the steeple, open a huge cage of rafters, and find himself in a maze of wheels and springs whereof the secret was known to him alone.

[35]

In this picture of the schoolmaster and the school we have lost sight for a time of our little Jean-Henri. What becomes of him? What does he do in such a school, under such a master? To begin with, no one takes a greater interest in the visits of hens and piglings, no one appreciates more keenly the delights of school in the open air. In the meanwhile, his love of plants and animals finds expression in all directions, even on the cover of his penny spelling-book:

Embellished with a crude picture of a pigeon which I study and contemplate much more zealously than the A, B, C. Its round eye, with its circlet of dots, seems to smile upon me. Its wing, of which I count the feathers one by one, tells me of flights on high, among the beautiful clouds; it carries me to the beeches, raising their smooth trunks above a mossy carpet studded with white mushrooms that look like eggs dropped by some vagrant hen; it takes me to the snow-clad peaks where the birds leave the starry print of their red feet. He is a fine fellow, my pigeon-friend: he consoles me for the woes hidden behind the cover of my book. Thanks to him, I sit quietly on my bench and wait more or less till school is over.School out of doors has other charms. When the master takes us to kill the snails in the box borders, I do not always scrupulously fulfil my[36]office as exterminator. My heel sometimes hesitates before coming down upon the handful which I have gathered. They are so pretty! Just think, there are yellow ones and pink, white ones and brown, all with dark spiral streaks. I fill my pockets with the handsomest so as to feast my eyes upon them at my leisure.On haymaking days in the master’s field, I strike up an acquaintance with the Frog. Flayed and stuck at the end of a split stick, he serves as live bait to tempt the Crayfish from his retreat by the edge of the brook. On the alder-tree I catch the Hoplia, the splendid Beetle who pales the azure of the heavens. I pick the narcissus and learn to gather, with the tip of my tongue, the tiny drops of honey that lie right at the bottom of the cleft corolla. I also learn that too-long indulgence in this quest always brings a headache; but this discomfort in no way impairs my admiration for the glorious white flower, which wears a narrow red collar at the throat of its funnel. When we go to beat the walnut-trees, the barren grass-plots provide me with Locusts, spreading their wings, some into a blue fan, others into a red.And thus the rustic school, even in the heart of winter, furnished continuous food for my interest in things.

School out of doors has other charms. When the master takes us to kill the snails in the box borders, I do not always scrupulously fulfil my[36]office as exterminator. My heel sometimes hesitates before coming down upon the handful which I have gathered. They are so pretty! Just think, there are yellow ones and pink, white ones and brown, all with dark spiral streaks. I fill my pockets with the handsomest so as to feast my eyes upon them at my leisure.

On haymaking days in the master’s field, I strike up an acquaintance with the Frog. Flayed and stuck at the end of a split stick, he serves as live bait to tempt the Crayfish from his retreat by the edge of the brook. On the alder-tree I catch the Hoplia, the splendid Beetle who pales the azure of the heavens. I pick the narcissus and learn to gather, with the tip of my tongue, the tiny drops of honey that lie right at the bottom of the cleft corolla. I also learn that too-long indulgence in this quest always brings a headache; but this discomfort in no way impairs my admiration for the glorious white flower, which wears a narrow red collar at the throat of its funnel. When we go to beat the walnut-trees, the barren grass-plots provide me with Locusts, spreading their wings, some into a blue fan, others into a red.

And thus the rustic school, even in the heart of winter, furnished continuous food for my interest in things.

But while the love of plants and animals developed automatically, without guide or example, in the child predestined to entomology,[37]there was one respect in which he did not make progress: the knowledge of the alphabet, which was indeed neglected for the pigeon. Consequently neither the schoolmaster nor the spelling-book had much to do with the earliest stage of his education. He tells us how he learned to read, not at Master Ricard’s, but, thanks to his father, in the school of the animals and nature:

I was still at the same stage, hopelessly behind-hand with the intractable alphabet, when my father, by a chance inspiration, brought me home from the town what was destined to give me a start along the road of reading. Despite the not insignificant part which it played in my intellectual awakening, the purchase was by no means a ruinous one. It was a large print, price six farthings, coloured and divided into compartments in which animals of all sorts taught the A, B, C by means of the first letters of their names.I made such rapid progress that, in a few days, I was able to turn in good earnest to the pages of my little pigeon-book, hitherto so undecipherable. I was initiated; I knew how to spell. My parents marvelled. I can explain this unexpected progress to-day. Those speaking pictures, which brought me among my friends the beasts, were in harmony with my instincts. If the animal has not fulfilled all that it promised in so far as I am concerned, I have at least to thank it for teaching[38]me to read. I should have succeeded by other means, I do not doubt, but not so quickly or pleasantly. Animals for ever!Luck favoured me a second time. As a reward for my prowess I was given La Fontaine’sFables, in a popular, cheap edition, crammed with pictures, small, I admit, and very inaccurate, but still delightful. Here were the crow, the fox, the wolf, the magpie, the frog, the rabbit, the ass, the dog, the cat; all persons of my acquaintance. The glorious book was immensely to my taste, with its skimpy illustrations in which the animal walked and talked. As to understanding what it said, that was another story. Never mind, my lad! Put together syllables that say nothing to you yet; they will speak to you later and La Fontaine will always remain your friend.2

I made such rapid progress that, in a few days, I was able to turn in good earnest to the pages of my little pigeon-book, hitherto so undecipherable. I was initiated; I knew how to spell. My parents marvelled. I can explain this unexpected progress to-day. Those speaking pictures, which brought me among my friends the beasts, were in harmony with my instincts. If the animal has not fulfilled all that it promised in so far as I am concerned, I have at least to thank it for teaching[38]me to read. I should have succeeded by other means, I do not doubt, but not so quickly or pleasantly. Animals for ever!

Luck favoured me a second time. As a reward for my prowess I was given La Fontaine’sFables, in a popular, cheap edition, crammed with pictures, small, I admit, and very inaccurate, but still delightful. Here were the crow, the fox, the wolf, the magpie, the frog, the rabbit, the ass, the dog, the cat; all persons of my acquaintance. The glorious book was immensely to my taste, with its skimpy illustrations in which the animal walked and talked. As to understanding what it said, that was another story. Never mind, my lad! Put together syllables that say nothing to you yet; they will speak to you later and La Fontaine will always remain your friend.2

[39]

1Souvenirs,VI., pp. 46–68;The Life of the Fly, chap. vi., “My Schooling.”↑2Souvenirs,IV., pp. 50–60;The Life of the Fly, chap. vi., “My Schooling.”↑

1Souvenirs,VI., pp. 46–68;The Life of the Fly, chap. vi., “My Schooling.”↑

2Souvenirs,IV., pp. 50–60;The Life of the Fly, chap. vi., “My Schooling.”↑

Back to Index Next