e throne she was one day to sap.
Lodged in the attics with one of the female domestics of the Chateau,
she was a close observer of this royal luxury, which she believed was
paid for by the misery of the people, and that grandeur of things
founded on the servility of courtiers. The lavishly spread tables, the
walks, the play, presentations--all passed before her eyes in the pomp
and vanity of the world. These ceremonious details of power were
repugnant to her mind, which fed on philosophy, truth, liberty, and the
virtue of the olden time. The obscure names, the humble attire, of the
relatives who took her to see all this, only procured for her mere
passing looks and a few words, which meant more protection than favour.
The feeling that her youth, beauty, and merit, were unperceived by this
crowd, who only adored favour or etiquette, oppressed her mind. The
philosophy, natural pride, imagination, and fixedness of her soul were
all wounded during this sojourn. "I preferred," she says, "the statues
in the gardens to the personages of the palace." And her mother
inquiring if she were pleased with her visit--"Yes," was her reply, "if
it be soon ended; for else, in a few more days I shall so much detest
all the persons I see, that I should not know what to do with my
hatred." "What harm have they done you?" inquired her mother. "To make
me feel injustice, and look upon absurdity." As she contemplated these
splendours of the despotism of Louis XIV., which were drooping into
corruption, she thought of Athens, but forgot the death of Socrates, the
exile of Aristides, the condemnation of Phocion. "I did not then
foresee," she writes, in melancholy mood, as she pens these lines--"that
destiny reserved me to be the witness of crimes such as those of which
they were the victims, and to participate in the glory of their
martyrs, after having professed their principles."

Thus, the imagination, character, and studies of this girl prepared her,
unknown to herself, for the republic. Her religion alone, then so
powerful over her, restrained her within the bounds of that resignation
which submits the thoughts to the will of God. But philosophy became her
creed, and this creed formed a portion of her politics. The emancipation
of the people united itself in her mind with the emancipation of ideas.
She believed, by overturning thrones, that she was working for man; and,
by overthrowing altars, that she was labouring for God. Such is the
conf