Nobody’s Boy, Sans Famille

I was a foundling. But until I was eight years of age, I thought I had a mother like other children, for when I cried, a woman held me tightly in her arms and rocked me gently until my tears stopped falling. I never got into bed without her coming to kiss me, and when the December winds blew the icy snow against the window panes, she would take my feet between her hands and warm them while she sang to me. Even now, I can remember the song she used to sing. If a storm came on while I was minding our cow, she would run down the lane to meet me and cover my head and shoulders with her cotton skirt so I would not get wet.

When I quarreled with one of the village boys, she made me tell her all about it. She would talk kindly to me when I was wrong and praise me when I was right. By these and many other things, by the way, she spoke to me and looked at me and the gentle way she scolded me, I believed she was my mother.

My village, or, to be more exact, the town where I was brought up, for I did not have a village of my own, no birthplace, any more than I had a father or mother—the town where I spent my childhood was called Chavanon; it is one of the poorest in France. Only sections of the land could be cultivated, for the great stretch of moors was covered with heather and broom. We lived in a little house down by the brook.

Until I was eight years old, I had never seen a man in our house, yet my adopted mother was not a widow. Her stone-cutter husband worked in Paris, and he had not returned to the village since I was old enough to notice what was happening around me. Occasionally, he was sent news by some companion who returned to the town, for many peasants were employed as stone cutters in the city.

“Mother Barberin,” the man would say, “your husband is quite well, and he told me to tell you that he’s still working and to give you this money. Will you count it?”

That was all. Mother Barberin was satisfied; her husband was well, and he had work.

Because Barberin was away from home, it must not be thought that he was not on good terms with his wife. He stayed in Paris because his work kept him there. When he was old, he would return and live with his wife with the saved money.

One November evening, a man stopped at our gate. I was standing on the doorstep, breaking sticks. He looked over the top bar of the gate and called to me to find out if Mother Barberin lived there. I shouted yes and told him to come in. He pushed open the old gate and came slowly up to the house. I had never seen such a dirty man. He was covered with mud from head to foot. It was easy to see that he had come a distance on bad roads. Upon hearing our voices, Mother Barberin ran out.

“I’ve brought some news from Paris,” said the man.

Something in the man’s tone alarmed Mother Barberin.