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206
Recollections of
[Ch. XVII.

during the day in the same prison that had been the scene of my nocturnal encounter. Having excited my father's ire for some mischievous trick, and for which, in spite of Napoleon's remonstrances, I was to be condemned to a week's imprisonment, I was taken to my cell every morning, and released at night only to go to bed. The emperor's great amusement during that time was to converse with me through my grated window, and he generally succeeded in making me laugh, by mimicking my dolorous countenance. He was much surprised and amused to find me, on the third day of my imprisonment, busily employed making myself a dress; and was more astonished still when I told him it was a voluntary act; that I had, in a fit of desperation at the dullness of my séjour in the cellar, begged my old black nurse, Sarah, to give me some work. I regret that my fit of industry did not survive the term of my incarceration.

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