, and, disdaining the arts of
a society of which she saw only the fatal and hopeless corruption, held
her sway over the daring and ardent men who gathered about her by the
unassisted force of her clear and vigorous intellect.

It would be interesting to trace the career of the thoughtful and
precocious child known as Manon or Marie Phlipon, who sat in her
father's studio with the burin of an engraver in one hand and a book in
the other, eagerly absorbing the revolutionary theories which were to
prove so fatal to her, but it is not the purpose here to dwell upon
the details of her life. In the solitude of a prison cell and under the
shadow of the scaffold she told her own story. She has introduced us
to the simple scenes of her childhood, the modest home on the Quai de
l'Horloge, the wise and tender mother, the weak and unstable father. We
are made familiar with the tiny recess in which she studies, reads, and
makes extracts from the books which are such strange companions for her
years. We seem to see the grave little face as it lights with emotion
over the inspiring pages of Fenelon or the chivalrous heroes of Tasso,
and sympathize with the fascination that leads the child of nine years
to carry her Plutarch to mass instead of her prayer book. She portrays
for us her convent life with its dreams, its exaltations, its romantic
friendships, and its ardent enthusiasms. We have vivid pictures of the
calm and sympathetic Sophie Cannet, to whom she unburdens all her hopes
and aspirations and sorrows; of the lively sister Henriette, who years
afterward, in the generous hope of saving her early friend, proposed to
exchange clothes and take her place in the cells of Sainte-Pelagie. In
the long and commonplace procession of suitors that files before us,
one only touches her heart. La Blancherie has a literary and philosophic
turn, and the young girl's imagination drapes him in its own glowing
colors. The opposition of her father separates them, but absence only
lends fuel to this virgin flame. One day she learns that his views are
mercenary, that he is neither true nor disinterested, and the charm is
broken. She met him afterward in the Luxembourg gardens with a feather
in his hat, and the last illusion vanished.

There is an idyllic charm in these pictures so simply and gracefully
sketched. She sees with the vision of one lying down to sleep after
a life of pain, and dreaming of the green fields, the blue skies,
the running br