talent
and her influence were unquestioned. She posed in turn as a saint, an
intrigante, and a femme d'esprit, with marked success in every one of
these roles. But it was not a comedy she was playing for the amusement
of the hour. Beneath the velvet softness of her manner there was a
definite aim, an inflexible purpose. With the tact and facility of a
Frenchwoman, she had a strong, active intellect, boundless ambition,
indomitable energy, and the subtlety of an Italian.

An incident of her early life, related by Mme. du Deffand, furnishes a
key to her complex character, and reveals one secret of her influence.
Born of a poor and proud family in Grenoble, in 1681, Claudine
Alexandrine Guerin de Tencin was destined from childhood for the
cloister. Her strong aversion to the life of a nun was unavailing, and
she was sent to a convent at Montfleury. This prison does not seem to
have been a very austere one, and the discipline was far from rigid. The
young novice was so devout that the archbishop prophesied a new light
for the church, and she easily persuaded him of the necessity of
occupying the minds of the religieuses by suitable diversions. Though
not yet sixteen, this pretty, attractive, vivacious girl was fertile in
resources, and won her way so far into the good graces of her superiors
as to be permitted to organize reunions, and to have little comedies
played which called together the provincial society. She transformed the
convent, but her secret disaffection was unchanged. She took the final
vows under the compulsion of her inflexible father, then continued
her role of devote to admirable purpose. By the zeal of her piety, the
severity of her penance, and the ardor of her prayers, she gained the
full sympathy of her ascetic young confessor, to whom she confided her
feeling of unfitness for a religious life, and her earnest desire to be
freed from the vows which sat so uneasily upon her sensitive conscience.
He exhorted her to steadfastness, but finally she wrote him a letter in
which she confessed her hopeless struggle against a consuming passion,
and urged the necessity of immediate release. The conclusion was
obvious. The Abbe Fleuret was horrified by the conviction that this
pretty young nun was in love with himself, and used his influence
to secure her transference to a secular order at Neuville, where as
chanoinesse, she had many privileges and few restrictions. Here she
became at once a favorite, as before, c