e has just given birth
to an infant.

"La jeune princesse en est a sa quatrieme nourrice. . . . Jai appris
a cette occasion que tout se fait par forme a la cour, suivant un
protocole de medecin, en sorte que c'est un miracle d'elever un prince
et une princesse. La nourrice n'a d'autres fonctions que de donner a
teter a l'enfant quand on le lui apporte; elle ne peut pas lui toucher.
Il y a des remueuses et femmes preposees pour cela, mais qui n'ont
point d'ordre a recevoir de la nourrice. Il y a des heures pour remuer
l'enfant, trois ou quatre fois dans la journee. Si l'enfant dort, on le
reveille pour le remuer. Si, apres avoir ete change, il fait dans ses
langes, il reste ainsi trois ou quatre heures dans son ordure. Si une
epingle le pique, la nourrice ne doit pas l'oter; il faut chercher
et attendre une autre femme; l'enfant crie dans tons ces cas, il se
tuurmente et s'echauffe, en sorte que c'est une vraie misere que toutes
ces ceremonies."

(Madame de Genlis, "Souvenirs de Felicie," p.74. Conversation with
Madame Louise, daughter of Louis XV., and recently become a Carmelite).

"I should like to know what troubled you most in getting accustomed to
your new profession?

"You could never imagine," she replied, smiling. "It was the descent
of a small flight of steps alone by myself. At first it seemed to me a
dreadful precipice, and I was obliged to sit down on the steps and slide
down in that attitude."--"A princess, indeed, who had never descended
any but the grand staircase at Versailles, leaning on the arm of her
cavalier in waiting and surrounded by pages, necessarily trembled on
finding herself alone on the brink of steep winding steps. (Such is) the
education, so absurd in many respects, generally bestowed on persons of
this rank; always watched from infancy, followed, assisted, escorted and
everything anticipated, (they) are thus, in great part, deprived of the
faculties with which nature has endowed them."

Madame Campan, "Memoires," I. 58, 28.

"Madame Louise often told me that, although twelve years of age, she had
not fully learned the alphabet. . . .

"It was necessary to decide absolutely whether a certain water-bird was
fat or lean. Madame Victoire consulted a bishop. . . . He replied
that, in a doubt of this kind, after having the bird cooked it would be
necessary to puncture it on a very cold silver dish and, if the juice
coagulated in one-quarter of an hour, the bird might be considered fat