She feared for me the usual fate of young men, who believe their fortunes made, and who find themselves their own masters early in life.

It was not likely that my father, born in 1606, would live long enough to ward off from me this danger; and my mother repeatedly impressed on, me how necessary it was for a young man, the son of the favourite of a King long dead,--with no new friends at Court,--to acquire some personal value of his own.

She succeeded in stimulating my courage; and in exciting in me the desire to make the acquisitions she laid stress on; but my aptitude for study and the sciences did not come up to my desire to succeed in them.

However, I had an innate inclination for reading, especially works of history; and thus was inspired with ambition to emulate the examples presented to my imagination,--to do something and become somebody, which partly made amends for my coldness for letters.
In fact, I have always thought that if I had been allowed to read history more constantly, instead of losing my time in studies for which I had no aptness, I might have made some figure in the world.
What I read of my own accord, of history, and, above all, of the personal memoirs of the times since Francis I., bred in me the desire to write down what I might myself see.

The hope of advancement, and of becoming familiar with the affairs of my time, stirred me.