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The Library of fiction, or Family story-teller [ed. by C. Dickens].
The Library of fiction or Family story-teller - ed. by C. Dickens Author:Charles Dickens 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: MONSIEUR ANTONY BOUGAINVILLE; OR, THE PETITION. BY ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. Monsieur Antony Bougainville was born in the small village of Champfort, in the Sou... more »th of France, on the 4th day of February, in the year of our Lord 1786, at half-past three in the morning precisely. We like accuracy in such matters. Monsieur Antony's parents were poor, exceedingly poor ; but it is well for the world, and it was well for Monsieur Antony in particular, that poverty in the parents does not, by any means, preclude genius in the children. At least, it most certainly had no such effect in the case of Monsieur Antony; for he, as the sequel will show, was a man of extraordinary acquirements, and possessed of a singular versatility of talent. The personal appearance of Monsieur Antony, too, was exceedingly prepossessing ; that is, of course, after he grew up a bit. He was tall, well made, and (unlike the majority of his countrymen,) was, in short, what might be called a whacking fellow. He was gifted, moreover, with capital front; that is, with a face capable of facing any thing—one of the most valuable qualities of which a man can be possessed, and which its traducers would in vain attempt to disparage by calling it impudence. At an early age, Monsieur Bougainville felt the first impulses of that genius which subsequently made his fortune. These impulses, however he felt not, like ordinary geniuses, in his head, but in his heels. There he felt an itching, and an excess of vital energy, that kept constantly impelling him into the air, and as plainly indicated as any such hint could possibly do, that he was born to be a dancing-master. Satisfied of this himself, Monsieur Bougainville, after undergoing in his own person a thorough course of instruction in the saltatory art, began teach...« less