Alphonse was sent at an early age to a secular school at Lyons, the religious orders not being restored. His mother thus writes:
“November 9, 1801.--To-day I am at Lyons to bring Alphonse back to school. My heart bleeds. I went to Mass this morning. I was continually looking for his beautiful fair hair in the midst of all those little heads. My God! how frightful to thus root up this young plant from the heart where it germinated, and cast it into these mercenary institutions. I was sick at heart as I came away.”
In October, 1803, she says: “I have with difficulty obtained permission from my husband and his brothers to take Alphonse away from the school at Lyons, and place him at the Jesuits’ College at Belley, on the borders of Savoy. I came with him myself. I was too much distressed to write yesterday after confiding him to these ecclesiastics. I passed half the night weeping.
“October 27.--I went this morning to look through the _guichet_ of the court of the Jesuits’ College at my poor child. I afterward saw him at Mass in the midst of the students. He says he is satisfied with his reception from the professors and his comrades. I went to-day to see the Abbé de Montuzet, the former prior of my Chapter of Canonesses at Salles. In the evening I left for Mâcon. In passing before the college I could see the boys from the carriage playing in the yard, and heard their joyous shouts. Happily, Alphonse did not approach the _guichet_ and see my carriage. He would have felt too badly, and I also. It is better not to soften these poor children destined to become men. Leaning back in the carriage, I wept all alone under my veil a part of the day.”
She loved to read the _Confessions of St. Augustine_, and, like St. Monica, she followed her son with her prayers and tears all through the vagaries of his early life, trembling for his rich gifts and susceptible nature. And with how much reason is evident from his own account. How much more she continually desired his spiritual welfare than his success in the world is evident throughout this work. In the first flush of his fame as a poet, she writes:
“January 6, 1820.--Nothing new at Paris, except I am told Alphonse is received with distinction in the best society, where his appearance and talents have excited, according to my sister, Madame de Vaux, a kind of enthusiasm. She mentions the names of many whose mothers I knew in my youth who overwhelm him with cordiality--the Princess de Talmont, the Princess de la Trémouille, Madame de Raigecourt (the friend of Madame Elizabeth), Madame de St. Aulaire, the Duchess de Broglie (Madame de Staël’s daughter), Madame de Montcalm (the Duke de Richelieu’s sister), Madame de Dolomieu, whom I knew so well at the Duchess of Orleans’; then there are many eminent men who eagerly proffer their friendship to him who was so obscure but yesterday--the young Duke de Rohan, the virtuous Mathieu de Montmorency, M. Molé, M. Lainé, said to be such a great orator, M. Villemain, the pupil of M. de Fontanes, whom he sees at M. Decazes’, the king’s favorite, and a thousand others. Thou knowest, O my God! how proud I am of this unexpected cordiality toward my son, but thou knowest also that I ask not for him what the world calls glory and honor, but to be an upright man, and one of thy servants like his father: the rest is vanity, and often worse than vanity!”