hopes of a better future were merely a dream.
"You seem to be sleeping in the delights of
Capua, but it is time that you resume the course
of your studies. You have probably lost a
twelvemonth in doing nothing, and it is my
duty to take care that you do not stray from the
path which I have traced out for you. . . . .
People have dared to say that I ill treated
you, and that you were obliged to leave the
paternal mansion in order to find a refuge
from my violence!   But did I ever strike you
brutally?"

Decidedly, the poor schoolmaster was infatuated.
He knew nothing of the sanctity of his
vocation, and he believed he had no reason to
reproach himself, because he had abstained from
beating his unhappy son to death. So poor
Philibert thrust his neck once more into the
collar of wretchedness.

Up to 1830, many schoolmasters made no
scruple of inflicting corporal punishment on
their scholars. Philibert's father shared the
errors of his colleagues; nevertheless, he did
not dare to indulge in them too openly. When
people came to him to put their children to
school, after explaining the mechanism and the
gradation of the studies, after boasting justly of
the pureness of the air, and asserting that in no
establishment in the neighbourhood did pupils
enjoy a more plentiful and wholesome diet, he
thus opened the question of chastisements and
punishments:

"I am not fond of punishing children, but it
is necessary that they should obey me, because I
never require more than is just. I often prefer
to inflict a slight manual correction rather than
put them in confinement; and here is the
instrument of punishment."

So saving, he would draw out of his coat-
pocket a little switch, six inches long at the
utmost, and scarcely so thick as an ordinary
goose-quill. " Five or six strokes, on the palm
of the hand, with this almost inoffensive wand,"
he would add, with a smile, " is all the correction
I allow myself to inflict."

The parents would likewise smile; for, in
truth, the little bit of wood he exhibited had
more the placid air of a black-lead pencil than
the redoubtable aspect of a cane. But many
of them did not laugh afterwards, when their
children showed them the black and blue marks
imprinted on the fleshy parts of their little bodies
by the inoffensive wand. The schoolmaster had
simply several varieties of wand at his disposal;
the little one he was so fond of showing, and
others much longer and much more flexible with
which the trees in his garden abundantly
supplied him.

This mode of correction pleased certain parents
—Heaven forgive them!—but the schoolmaster
took good care not to apply it to children whose
families had formally forbidden the brutalising
usage. Philibert had no parents to protect him;
and in spite of his delicate organisation, in spite
of his blind submission to his father's orders, a
day came when he was unable to escape contact
with the terrible wand.

Once only in his life, in the middle of the
summer of 1811 (he was then in his fifteenth
year), Philibert had not precisely disobeyed his
father, but had acted without his formal order,
and certainly most excusably. The heat was
oppressive; and during his father's momentary
absence he asked leave of the usher to go and
bathe in the little stream of the Reigne. Next
day, the usher, fearing that he might have
exceeded his powers, requested Philibert not to
mention the circumstance. The promise was
given. Four or five months afterwards, about
Christmas of the same year, the weather was
excessively cold. One morning, Philibert left
the school, without anything on his head; his
absence lasted perhaps three minutes. The head
of the establishment, observing his son come
quietly back and take his accustomed place in
class, called out, "Follow me to my room."
Philibert obeyed.

"Where have you been, sir?" asked the
schoolmaster, in the tone of voice he had
employed at the gymnastic lesson.

Philibert hesitated. He did not suppose that
his father could make inquiries about so simple
a thing as a three-minutes' absence. We know
how rapidly reflections are made, especially by a
creature already smitten with fear. Philibert,
yielding up his reason to the impulse of the
fright which harassed him, mentally said to
himself: " I have been to fetch my penknife,
which I gave yesterday to our neighbour the
cutler, to set; there surely can be no harm in
that. Consequently, my father questions me
thus severely, to make me confess some former
fault. Let me think; what fault can I have
committed within the last twelvemonth? Ah!
I have it!"

After this brief self-examination Philibert
replied, with fear and trembling, " I went to
bathe, father, but I obtained permission first."

"To bathe? In such weather as this?"
retorted the parent. "Ahl You have been
to bathe?"

Displaying still more cruelty in his anger
than the unhappy Philibert had manifested
thoughtlessness in his reply, the schoolmaster
seized one of those long rods which have been
mentioned.

"No, father, no," cried Philibert, distractedly,
but comprehending now the madness of his
avowal; "I have not been to bathe. That
happened five months ago."

It was too late. The schoolmaster had struck
the first blow, and he continued to strike, while
the poor boy, terrified more by the shame than
by the pain, clasping his hands, cried, " Pardon,
pardon, father! I have not been to bathe. I
have been to fetch my penknife from the cutler's.
Pardon! Do not strike me."

"Get out with you, disobedient son," said
the father, after he had wealed with lashes the
hands, the arms, and the back of his victim.
Philibert, on his knees in the middle of the
room, did not stir.

"Will you get out!" repeated the
schoolmaster.