d the
names of her high-born ancestry--and those names were ever upon her
lips--she was listened to with the greatest respect. Jane contrasted
the reception which this illiterate descendant of nobility enjoyed
with the reception which her grandmother encountered in the visit to
Madame De Boismorel, and it appeared to her that the world was
exceedingly unjust, and that the institutions of society were highly
absurd. Thus was her mind training for activity in the arena of
revolution. She was pondering deeply all the abuses of society. She
had become enamored of the republican liberty of antiquity. She was
ready to embrace with enthusiasm any hopes of change. All the games
and amusements of girlhood appeared to her frivolous, as, day after
day, her whole mental powers were engrossed by these profound
contemplations, and by aspirations for the elevation of herself and of
mankind.

CHAPTER III.

MAIDENHOOD.

1770-1775

First emotions of love.--A youthful artist.--Maiden timidity.--Number
of suitors.--Jane as a letter writer.--Her sentiments adopted by
the French ministry.--A rich meat merchant proposes for Jane's
hand.--Conversation between Jane and her father about
matrimony.--Views of Jane in regard to marriage.--Jane's objections
to a tradesman.--She is immovable.--The young physician as a
lover.--Curious interview.--The physician taken on trial.--The
connection broken off.--Illness of Jane's mother.--The jeweler.--Jane's
views of congeniality between man and wife.--Her mother's death.--Jane's
father becomes dissipated.--Meekness of her mother.--Excursion to
the country.--Delusive hopes.--Death of Madame Phlippon.--Effects
upon Jane.--Recovery of Jane.--Character of her mother.--Jane's
melancholy.--She resorts to writing.--Development of character.--Letter
from M. Boismorel.--Reply to M. De Boismorel.--Translation.--Character
of M. De Boismorel.--Jane introduced to the nobility.--Jane's contempt
for the aristocracy.--Her good taste.--M. Phlippon's progress
in dissipation.--Jane's painful situation.--Jane secures a small
income.--Consolations of literature.

A soul so active, so imaginative, and so full of feeling as that of
Jane, could not long slumber unconscious of the emotion of love. In
the unaffected and touching narrative which she gives of her own
character, in the Journal which she subsequently wrote in the gloom of
a prison, she alludes to the first rising of that mysterious passion
in her bosom.