insatiable invader, were not likely to inspire the
old nobility of Piedmont with much love for the new order of things,
nor was love the feeling with which the Marquise regarded it, but she
had the insight to see what few of her class perceived, that the hour
of day cannot be turned back; the future could not be as the past had
been. When Prince Camillo Borghese was appointed governor of Piedmont
(on account of his being the husband of Napoleon's sister, the
beautiful Pauline Bonaparte, who was the original of Canova's Venus),
the Marquise Philippine was commanded to accept the post of _dame
d'honneur_ to the Princess. A refusal would have meant the ruin of
both the Cavours and her own kin, the De Sales, whose estates in Savoy
were already confiscated. She bowed to necessity, and in a position
which could not have been one of the easiest, she knew how to preserve
her own dignity, and to win the friendship of the far from demure
Pauline, whom she accompanied to Paris for the celebration of the
marriage of Napoleon with Marie Louise. It is characteristic of the
epoch that in the French capital the Marquise took lessons in the art
of teaching from a French pedagogue then in repute, to qualify her to
begin the education of her little grandchildren, Gustave and Camille.

These two boys were the sons of the Marquis Michele Benso; who had
married a daughter of the Count de Sellon of Geneva. While on a tour
in Switzerland to recover his health from a wound received in the
French service, the Marquis met the Count and his three daughters, of
whom he wished to make the eldest, Victoire, his wife; but on his suit
not prospering with her, he proposed to and was accepted by the second
daughter, Adele. After an unfortunate first marriage, Victoire became
the Duchess de Clermont Tonnerre, and the youngest sister, Henriette,
married a Count d'Auzers of Auvergne. All these relatives ended by
taking up their abode in the Palazzo Cavour at Turin. Victoire was the
cleverest, but her sisters as well as herself were what even in these
days would be considered highly educated. She became a Roman Catholic,
a step followed by Adele after the birth of her second child, Camille,
but Henriette remained true to the rigid Protestantism of Geneva. At
the christening of Camille de Cavour the Prince and Princess Borghese
officiated as sponsors, the Marquis Benso holding at that time a post
in the Prince's household which he owed to the good graces enjo