It was at that time that two hundred persons fell victims to the atrocities of Aldao, among whom were twenty of Sarmiento's own friends. But such is the elasticity of youth, that while a prisoner in his own house in Mendoza, to escape Aldao, an opportunity offering to study French with a soldier of Napoleon, who did not know Spanish nor the grammar of his own language, in six weeks from the beginning he had made such progress as to have translated twelve volumes.
He kept his books upon the dining-table (it was the sight of a French library in the place that had awakened his zeal), removed them at meal times, extinguished his candle at two in the morning, or when the reading absorbed him entirely, passed two or three days in succession, seated, with his dictionary by his side. Fourteen years afterward, on visiting France, he learned to pronounce the language.
It was after these events that with his family and those of the most prominent citizens of San Juan, he emigrated to Chili, to escape the fearful tyranny described in the work now published. At first he kept school in Los Andes, then was a shopkeeper in Pocuro, with a small capital provided by his family, afterwards a commercial clerk in Valparaiso, then majordomo of mines in Copiapo. While in Valparaiso, earning an ounce a month, he paid half of it to Rickard, the English professor, and two reals a week to the watchman of the ward, to wake him at two in the morning for his English studies. Saturday nights he passed without sleep, to eke out the leisure of Sunday. After he had taken lessons six weeks, Rickard told him that he only wanted the pronunciation, which he did not acquire,
however, till very lately.
