operation which had been rendered necessary by a fall from his Horse—and instead of a succession of opulence, left his affairs in the greatest disorder. Your Father, my Mother often said to me, could never be made to distrust anyone; he believed every person to be good and honest like himself—and the state of his accounts at the time of his death showed it." Not only were all his affairs in confusion, but it was found he was surety for the debts of others to the amount of one million francs. Friends and lawyers advised her to renounce the succession, Bruté writes, "but she, very justly, regarded an honourable name, as of more importance than wealth, and in order to preserve this to us, she determined to take upon herself the management of his affairs, even at the sacrifice of her own property." She worked day and night until she got the accounts in order, and owing to her diligence and management, all the debts were paid, with the losses much less than they would otherwise have been. Upon the death of her second husband, Madame Bruté obtained the reversion of Francis Vatar's title of printer to the King and Parliament. This occupation afforded her only support for the family. The books edited at her office chiefly concerned law and jurisprudence, and her stock of books was valued at 130,000 francs when it was rendered obsolete by the Constituent Assembly's abolition of all local laws and customs; new publications had to be rushed to press to preserve her business from complete destruction. During the height of the French Revolution, she made young Bruté work in the print shop, learning to composite type and set pages, to save him from being enrolled in a regiment of boys aged 14 to 16 named "the Hope of the country." Despite his mother's efforts to shield him from the Reign of Terror and other horrors, the aristocratic youth still witnessed many disturbing scenes, including the trials and executions of priests and nobles. He frequented the prisons and made friends with the guards, who admitted him to the cells, where he received and delivered letters for the clergy incarcerated there. Disguised as a baker's assistant, Bruté would bring the Eucharist to imprisoned priests. The baker was, in reality, a priest in hiding. Bruté began studying medicine in 1796 and graduated in 1803, though he never