ree sisters of her convent. The populace of Nantes, during
the last days of the Terror, tore down the chateau, seized the nuns and
Mademoiselle des Touches, and threw them into prison on a false charge
of receiving emissaries of Pitt and Coburg. The 9th Thermidor released
them. Felicite's aunt died of fear. Two of the sisters left France, and
the third confided the little girl to her nearest relation, Monsieur de
Faucombe, her maternal great-uncle, who lived in Nantes.

Monsieur de Faucombe, an old man sixty years of age, had married a young
woman to whom he left the management of his affairs. He busied himself
in archaeology,--a passion, or to speak more correctly, one of those
manias which enable old men to fancy themselves still living. The
education of his ward was therefore left to chance. Little cared-for by
her uncle's wife, a young woman given over to the social pleasures
of the imperial epoch, Felicite brought herself up as a boy. She
kept company with Monsieur de Faucombe in his library; where she read
everything it pleased her to read. She thus obtained a knowledge of life
in theory, and had no innocence of mind, though virgin personally. Her
intellect floated on the impurities of knowledge while her heart was
pure. Her learning became extraordinary, the result of a passion for
reading, sustained by a powerful memory. At eighteen years of age she
was as well-informed on all topics as a young man entering a literary
career has need to be in our day. Her prodigious reading controlled her
passions far more than conventual life would have done; for there the
imaginations of young girls run riot. A brain crammed with knowledge
that was neither digested nor classed governed the heart and soul of the
child. This depravity of the intellect, without action upon the chastity
of the body, would have amazed philosophers and observers, had any one
in Nantes even suspected the powers of Mademoiselle des Touches.

The result of all this was in a contrary direction to the cause.
Felicite had no inclinations toward evil; she conceived everything by
thought, but abstained from deed. Old Faucombe was enchanted with her,
and she helped him in his work,--writing three of his books, which the
worthy old gentleman believed were his own; for his spiritual paternity
was blind. Such mental labor, not agreeing with the developments of
girlhood, had its effect. Felicite fell ill; her blood was overheated,
and her chest seemed threatened