religious houses,--of which eighty-seven owed their existence
to her,--and Maria was left in the hands of her maternal relations.
The pious labors of the "Blessed Mother of Chantal" were acknowledged
by the head of the church, and her name now fills a place in the
calendar, among the saints. The guardianship of the young baroness
devolved on her uncle, Christophe de Coulanges, abbe de Livry.

Most men would have shrunk from the task of personally superintending
the education of a young girl, and would, in conformity to the
customs of the times, have consigned her to a convent, where she
would have been taught to read, to write, to dance, and to
embroider; and then her education would have been deemed complete.
It is no slight evidence of the good sense of her uncle that he
retained her in his own house. The decision was a fortunate one for
posterity; for her faculties, which the formal training of the
convent would have cramped, were called into exercise and expanded
by an unusual indulgence in the range of reading, and probably by a
familiar intercourse with the men of letters who sought her uncle's
society. Under his instructions she doubtless acquired a knowledge
of the Latin and Italian languages, and something of the Spanish.
All this, however, is to some extent matter of inference, for we
have no record of her early life. She tells us in her "Letters" that
she was brought up at court, and there she formed her manners and
her tastes--fortunately without the corruption of her morals.

From the accounts given by her witty and profligate cousin Bussy-Robertin,
we can obtain a tolerably correct idea of her appearance when she entered
as an actor upon the scene of life. She was somewhat tall for a woman; had
a good shape, a pleasing voice, a fine complexion, brilliant eyes, and a
profusion of light hair; but her eyes, though brilliant, were small,
and, together with the eyelashes, were of different tints: her lips,
though well colored, were too flat, and the end of her nose too
square. De Bussy tells us that she had more shape than grace, yet
danced well; she had also a taste for singing. He makes to her the
objection that she was too playful "for a woman of quality."

Not beautiful, but highly attractive, of cordial manners, and with a
lively sensibility, at one moment dissolved in tears, and at another
almost dying with laughter,--Mademoiselle de Robertin, then eighteen
years old, was married to the Marquis de Sevi