Edme Castaing, born at Alencon in 1796, was the youngest of the three sons of an Inspector-General in the department of Woods and Forests. His elder brother had entered the same service as his father, the other brother was a staff-captain of engineers. Without being wealthy, the family, consisting of M. and Mme. Castaing and four children, was in comfortable circumstances. The young Edme was educated at the College of Angers—the Alma Mater of Barre and Lebiez—where, intelligent and hard working, he carried off many prizes. He decided¹ to enter the medical profession, and at the age of nineteen commenced his studies at the School of Medicine in Paris. For two years he worked hard and well, living within the modest allowance made him by his father. At the end of that time this young man of two or three-and-twenty formed a passionate² attachment³ for a lady, the widow of a judge, and the mother of three children. Of the genuine depth and sincerity⁴ of this passion for a woman who must have been considerably⁵ older than himself, there can be no doubt. Henceforth the one object in life to Castaing was to make money enough to relieve the comparative poverty of his adored mistress, and place her and her children beyond the reach of want. In 1821 Castaing became a duly qualified⁶ doctor, and by that time had added to the responsibilities of his mistress and himself by becoming the father of two children, whom she had brought into the world. The lady was exigent, and Castaing found it difficult to combine his work with a due regard to her claims on his society. Nor was work plentiful⁷ or lucrative⁸. To add to his embarrassments⁹ Castaing, in 1818, had backed a bill for a friend for 600 francs. To meet it when it fell due two years later was impossible, and desperate were the efforts made by Castaing and his mother to put off the day of reckoning. His father,

分享到：