In this state of anxiety we passed the winter of 1814 to 1815, during which I began my first lessons in shooting, in spite of my mother's unwillingness.
My mother had positively forbidden Montagnon to give me the famous single-barrelled gun; but Montagnon thought me so skilful in handling guns that he had no sympathy with my poor mother's terrors; so he gave me (not the forbidden gun, for he was a native of Auvergne to the tips of his fingers, and was too honest a man to break his word; but) another single-barrelled gun that he had himself made for his son, and, consequently, felt able to guarantee its safe working. Moreover, as one could not go shooting without powder and without shot, he provided me with ammunition, and let me go abroad in the parterre.
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