enderly and esteem each other. Far from the
noisy fuss of Madame de Stael, far from political strifes, she jokes
about Camille Maupin, that junior of George Sand (whom she calls her
brother Cain), whose recent fame has now eclipsed her own. Mademoiselle
des Touches admires her fortunate rival with angelic composure, feeling
no jealousy and no secret vexation.

Until the period when this history begins, she had led as happy a life
as a woman strong enough to protect herself can be supposed to live.
From 1817 to 1834 she had come some five or six times to Les Touches.
Her first stay was after her first disillusion in 1818. The house was
uninhabitable, and she sent her man of business to Guerande and took a
lodging for herself in the village. At that time she had no suspicion of
her coming fame; she was sad, she saw no one; she wanted, as it were, to
contemplate herself after her great disaster. She wrote to Paris to have
the furniture necessary for a residence at Les Touches sent down to her.
It came by a vessel to Nantes, thence by small boats to Croisic, from
which little place it was transported, not without difficulty, over the
sands to Les Touches. Workmen came down from Paris, and before long
she occupied Les Touches, which pleased her immensely. She wanted to
meditate over the events of her life, like a cloistered nun.

At the beginning of the winter she returned to Paris. The little town of
Guerande was by this time roused to diabolical curiosity; its whole talk
was of the Asiatic luxury displayed at Les Touches. Her man of business
gave orders after her departure that visitors should be admitted to view
the house. They flocked from the village of Batz, from Croisic, and from
Savenay, as well as from Guerande. This public curiosity brought in an
enormous sum to the family of the porter and gardener, not less, in two
years, than seventeen francs.

After this, Mademoiselle des Touches did not revisit Les Touches for two
years, not until her return from Italy. On that occasion she came by
way of Croisic and was accompanied by Conti. It was some time before
Guerande became aware of her presence. Her subsequent apparitions at Les
Touches excited comparatively little interest. Her Parisian fame did not
precede her; her man of business alone knew the secret of her writings
and of her connection with the celebrity of Camille Maupin. But at the
period of which we are now writing the contagion of the new ideas had
made so