twenty years of age--without ever leaving the
domestic zone where the rigid maternal eye controlled them. Up to that
time they had never been to a play; the churches of Paris were their
theatre. Their education in their mother's house had been as rigorous as
it would have been in a convent. From infancy they had slept in a room
adjoining that of the Comtesse de Granville, the door of which stood
always open. The time not occupied by the care of their persons, their
religious duties and the studies considered necessary for well-bred
young ladies, was spent in needlework done for the poor, or in walks
like those an Englishwoman allows herself on Sunday, saying, apparently,
"Not so fast, or we shall seem to be amusing ourselves."

Their education did not go beyond the limits imposed by confessors, who
were chosen by their mother from the strictest and least tolerant of
the Jansenist priests. Never were girls delivered over to their husbands
more absolutely pure and virgin than they; their mother seemed to
consider that point, essential as indeed it is, the accomplishment of
all her duties toward earth and heaven. These two poor creatures had
never, before their marriage, read a tale, or heard of a romance; their
very drawings were of figures whose anatomy would have been masterpieces
of the impossible to Cuvier, designed to feminize the Farnese Hercules
himself. An old maid taught them drawing. A worthy priest instructed
them in grammar, the French language, history, geography, and the very
little arithmetic it was thought necessary in their rank for women
to know. Their reading, selected from authorized books, such as the
"Lettres Edifiantes," and Noel's "Lecons de Litterature," was done aloud
in the evening; but always in presence of their mother's confessor, for
even in those books there did sometimes occur passages which,
without wise comments, might have roused their imagination. Fenelon's
"Telemaque" was thought dangerous.

The Comtesse de Granville loved her daughters sufficiently to wish to
make them angels after the pattern of Marie Alacoque, but the poor girls
themselves would have preferred a less virtuous and more amiable mother.
This education bore its natural fruits. Religion, imposed as a yoke and
presented under its sternest aspect, wearied with formal practice these
innocent young hearts, treated as sinful. It repressed their feelings,
and was never precious to them, although it struck its roots deep down