rvent and
sincere prayer: 'Thanks, my Creator! thanks!'--Your highness says that
M. Baleinier has often found me in my solitude, a prey to a strange
excitement: yes, it is true; for it is then that, escaping in thought
from all that renders the present odious and painful to me, I find
refuge in the future--it is then that magical horizons spread far before
me--it is then that such splendid visions appear to me, as make me
feel myself rapt in a sublime and heavenly ecstasy, as if I no longer
appertained to earth!"

As Adrienne pronounced these last words with enthusiasm, her countenance
appeared transfigured, so resplendent did it become. In that moment, she
had lost sight of all that surrounded her.

"It is then," she resumed, with spirit soaring higher and higher, "that
I breathe a pure air, reviving and free--yes, free--above all, free--and
so salubrious, so grateful to the soul!--Yes, instead of seeing my
sisters painfully submit to a selfish, humiliating, brutal dominion,
which entails upon them the seductive vices of slavery, the graceful
fraud, the enchanting perfidy, the caressing falsehood, the contemptuous
resignation, the hateful obedience--I behold them, my noble sisters!
worthy and sincere because they are free, faithful and devoted because
they have liberty to choose--neither imperious not base, because they
have no master to govern or to flatter--cherished and respected, because
they can withdraw from a disloyal hand their hand, loyally bestowed.
Oh, my sisters! my sisters! I feel it. These are not merely consoling
visions--they are sacred hopes."

Carried away, in spite of herself, by the excitement of her feelings,
Adrienne paused for a moment, in order to return to earth; she did not
perceive that the other actors in this scene were looking at each other
with an air of delight.

"What she says there is excellent," murmured the doctor in the
princess's ear, next to whom he was seated; "were she in league with us,
she would not speak differently."

"It is only by excessive harshness," added D'Aigrigny, "that we shall
bring her to the desired point."

But it seemed as if the vexed emotion of Adrienne had been dissipated by
the contact of the generous sentiments she had just uttered. Addressing
Baleinier with a smile, she said: "I must own, doctor, that there
is nothing more ridiculous, than to yield to the current of certain
thoughts, in the presence of persons incapable of understanding them.
This