She was so distressed to find that she no longer had strength to resist her pride.

She took it from the depths of the chest of drawers, turned over its leaves, whispered to herself at each page the lowness of her birth, so eager was she in her need of humility.
Father and mother unknown; no name; nothing but a date and a number; a complete neglect, like that of a wild plant that grows by the roadside! Then crowds of memories came to her: the rich pastures of the Mievre and the cows she had watched there; the flat route of Soulanges, where she had so often walked barefooted; and Maman Nini, who boxed her ears when she stole apples.

Certain pages specially attracted her by their painful associations:--those which certified every three months to the visits of the under-inspector and of the physician, whose signatures were sometimes accompanied by observations or information, as, for instance, a severe illness, during which she had almost died; a claim from her nurse on the subject of a pair of shoes that had been burnt; and bad marks that had been given her for her uncontrollable temper.

It was, in short, the journal of her misery.

But one thing disturbed her above all others--the report in reference to the breaking of the necklace she had worn until she was six years of age.