The extraordinary adventures of Michel Gérard d'Emberménil. First episode: the family cradle.

1st episode: the family cradle.
My name is Michel Gérard d'Embermenil.
I had an extraordinary life, full of travels and adventures ...
I went to the ends of the earth and even beyond ...
I have met crowned heads and people poorer than Job ...
I came close to ecstasy and death more often than my turn ...
I have lived many lives and many stories,
and from memory, I will tell them to you.
I was born near Lunéville in Lorraine on April 5, 1850, in a family of small nobility, whose origin dates back to Charlemagne, you know the one who has a flowery beard and who was crowned emperor of the West in the year 800.
My youth was happy and carefree.
Little gifted for studies, apart from history and geography, I preferred to participate in work in the fields with the peasants on the scarce land we had left.
I also liked to do long rides on Marengo, my thoroughbred Arab, which bore the name of a Napoleon victory, but also the name of his most famous horse, which he rode as far as Waterloo ...