He admired, yet he wished to be admired; he was humble, but he wished all people and things to be humble with him.

When he halted he wanted the world to halt; when he entered a cathedral--Notre Dame or any other; or a great building--the Law Courts at Rouen or any other; he simply wanted people to say, wanted the cathedral, or at least the cloister, to whisper to itself, "Here comes Jean Jacques Barbille." That was all he wanted, and that would have sufficed.

He would not have had them whisper about his philosophy and his intellect, or the mills and the ash-factory which he meant to build, the lime-kilns he had started even before he left, and the general store he intended to open when he returned to St.Saviour's.

Not even his modesty was recognized; and, in his grand tour, no one was impressed by all that he was, except once.

An ancestor, a grandmother of his, had come from the Basque country; and so down to St.Jean Pied de Port he went; for he came of a race who set great store by mothers and grandmothers.