lL? = OMe eee b. 9 my a on a 
JUVENILE CAREER. 3) 
effaced, or disappears, or is covered with the mask of 
conventionality. ‘The agriculturist would never go into 
a hothouse to learn the character, the form, or the 
appearance of those admirable plants which are the 
ornament of our ancient forests. Neither is it in our 
regiments that one might hope to trace out the true 
types of the peasants of Brittany, Normandy, Lorraine, 
or Franche-Comté. Our “school-regiments” (if I may 
be allowed the expression) would lead moralists quite as 
much astray. There, a sort of mean is established, about 
which, with very slight variations, all the youth of the 
present day is grouped. Is this for good or for evil? 
Far be it from me to open such a discussion here; I 
merely say that such is the fact, and this fact will explain 
why I have collected various-particulars of the childhood 
of our colleague, which might otherwise have appeared 
trifling. 
Carnot was only ten years old when his mother, in a 
journey to Dijon, took him with her, and, to reward him 
for the thoughtful docility which he always showed, took 
him to the theatre. A piece was represented that day, 
in which evolutions of troops and battles succeeded one 
another without intermission. The young scholar fol- 
lowed with sustained attention the series of events which 
were developed before him ; but, all on a sudden, he gets 
up, he is agitated, and, in spite-of the endeavours of his 
mother, calls out in terms hardly polite, to an actor who 
had just come on the stage. ‘This person was the acting 
general of the troops on whose side the young Carnot 
was interested ; by his cries, the child was warning the 
unskilful chief that the artillery was badly placed ; that 
the gunners, being without cover, must necessarily be 
killed by the first fire of musketry from the ramparts of 
