10 MEMOIRS OF 



to his health alone ; she devoted herself equally 

 to the formation of his mind, and was another 

 proof of the influence that a mother's early at- 

 tentions frequently shed over the future career 

 of her son. She guided him in his religious 

 duties, taught him to read fluently at the age of 

 four years, took him every morning to an ele- 

 mentary school, and, although herself ignorant 

 of Latin, so scrupulously made him repeat his 

 lessons to her, that he was always better pre- 

 pared with his tasks than any other boy at the 

 school. She made him draw under her own 

 inspection ; and, by constantly furnishing him 

 with the best works on history and general liter- 

 ature, nurtured that passion for reading, that 

 ardent desire for knowledge, which became the 

 principal spring of his intellectual existence. As 

 he advanced in drawing, his progress was super- 

 intended by one of his relations, an architect in 

 the town of Montbeliard; and he successively 

 passed through all the exercises of this first 

 school, repeating the usual catechisms, the 

 psalms of David, and the sonnets of Drelin- 

 court, &c., with the utmost facility. At ten 

 years of age he was placed in a higher school, 

 called the Gymnase, where, in the space of four 

 years, he profited by every branch of education 



