To conclude, I was turned out of the registry, with the additional ignominy of being pronounced a fool by all Mr.Masseron's clerks, and fit only to handle a file.
My vocation thus determined, I was bound apprentice; not, however, to a watchmaker, but to an engraver, and I had been so completely humiliated by the contempt of the register, that I submitted without a murmur.

My master, whose name was M.Ducommon, was a young man of a very violent and boorish character, who contrived in a short time to tarnish all the amiable qualities of my childhood, to stupefy a disposition naturally sprightly, and reduce my feelings, as well as my condition, to an absolute state of servitude.

I forgot my Latin, history, and antiquities; I could hardly recollect whether such people as Romans ever existed.

When I visited my father, he no longer beheld his idol, nor could the ladies recognize the gallant Jean Jacques; nay, I was so well convinced that Mr.and Miss Lambercier would scarce receive me as their pupil, that I endeavored to avoid their company, and from that time have never seen them.

The vilest inclinations, the basest actions, succeeded my amiable amusements and even obliterated the very remembrance of them.
I must have had, in spite of my good education, a great propensity to degenerate, else the declension could not have followed with such ease and rapidity, for never did so promising a Caesar so quickly become a Laradon.
The art itself did not displease me.