“I remember myself very early, from the age of one and a half years. This, of course, will seem incredible to everyone, but, really, I’m not exaggerating anything. My mother was always amazed at my memory when I told her some incident that amazed me in childhood, and she always confessed the truth of my story. My very first memory is that I almost fell out of the window where one of my aunts sat me to look at the illuminations. The window was closed by a persienne, which had not been opened for several years; it was blocked by a stone outside. Then suddenly this stone fell down and the persienne dissolved - as soon as my aunt managed to grab me, and I well remember my tears of fright and my aunt’s horror. This happened in the city of Saint-Mihiel, where my parents lived then...”