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What had happened was this. After the visit of the musician and the
philosopher, Jean Jacques, to sustain his reputation and to increase it,
had decided to visit that Normandy from which his people had come at the
time of Frontenac. He set forth with much 'eclat' and a little innocent
posturing and ritual, in which a cornet and a violin figured, together
with a farewell oration by the Cure.
In Paris Jean Jacques had found himself bewildered and engulfed. He had
no idea that life could be so overbearing, and he was inclined to resent
his own insignificance. However, in Normandy, when he read the names on
the tombstones and saw the records in the baptismal register of other
Jean Jacques Barbilles, who had come and gone generations before, his
self-respect was somewhat restored. This pleasure was dashed, however, by
the quizzical attitude of the natives of his ancestral parish, who walked
round about inspecting him as though he were a zoological specimen, and
who criticized his accent--he who had been at Laval for one whole term;
who had had special instruction before that time from the Old Cure and a
Jesuit brother; and who had been the friend of musicians and
philosophers!
His cheerful, kindly self-assurance stood the test with difficulty, but
it became a kind of ceremonial with him, whenever he was discomfited, to
read some pages of a little dun-coloured book of philosophy, picked up on
the quay at Quebec just before he sailed, and called, "Meditations in
Philosophy.
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