Edgar Quinet Author:Richard Heath Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I. BOURG, WESEL. 1803-1807. " Nerer, perhaps, waa a child surrounded by persons of a more opposite character."—Ma Idia. Edgae Quinet was born F... more »ebruary the l7th, 1803, at Bourg, the chief town of Ain in France, a department bordering on Switzerland. When he came into the world the Temple of Janus was closed. But the very next day, the second of his life, it was re-opened, and the fiends of war came hurrying out to desolate Europe for more than twelve years. The babe who thus made its appearance at so unpro- pitious an hour was a pale-faced little creature, and it was doubtful whether its exit would not be almost coeval with its entry. The Quinets were an old Catholic family established in Brcsse for three centuries. Edgar's grandfather, Phili- bert Quinet, was Maire of Bourg, his grandmother being the daughter of a lawyer in the Dauphiny. She was a character. A conventual life of some years had made her terribly hard. Her domestic discipline was more than monastic; once a week she employed a garde- de-ville to whip her three children (one was a girl) naughty or not. When her son was only three she shut him up in a drawer. When he was a young man she had all the flowers he loved torn up; and when he was fifty years old she rebuked him as unceremoniously as if he were still a boy. This awful old lady had a strangeadmiration for beauty. She surrounded herself with engravings and works of art, and would have no domestic in her employ who had not regular features. There must have been something beautiful in the face of her new-born grandson, since, at the sight of him, she relaxed her sternness and said, " He will have mind." The son who was treated so severely was the father of Edgar Quinet, and his early experiences ought not to be forgotten in estimating hi...« less