Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/54

48. After all this preparation, I disclosed my wish to be placed as an apprentice in a druggist's shop.

Notwithstanding all my precaution, my sister Anne did not keep my secret, she thought it was her duty to make known the communication I had made. Great was the consternation produced by it, and a family council was summoned to deliberate. Peter the elder, and Peter the younger, were both sent for by my mother, and she told them she thought my brother-in-law, Mr. Sautreau, was tired of me, and had dictated this letter in order to get rid of me. The two Peters were of a different opinion, they discovered a fire and vivacity in the style altogether foreign to that of my brother-in-law; they therefore decided that the letter was mine, and mine alone, and it was the unanimous opinion that my mother ought to keep me at study. I had defeated my object by the pains I had taken to accomplish it, for they said that the ingenuity of my arguments to prove incapacity established incontestably the fact that inclination alone, not talent, was wanting.

My mother was so deeply grieved that she fell sick upon it. She sent my brothers with her answer to me, which was to the effect, that if I gave up studying for the ministry, she would give up me. I should experience a change for the worse in every way, they told me; my handsome clothing should be changed for coarse garments, and I should be sent to a school kept by one Perrinet, who was notorious for his mode of imparting instruction by free administration of stripes and frequent fasts; and if I still refused to study I should be sent to sea, and she would see me no more.

I decided to remain at my studies, but I tried hard to gain a change of masters at the least, through the