er than his mistress.

The children born of this marriage were very numerous. One of
them, Louis-Deshayes, married a handsome peasant girl,
Marie-Madeleine Marra, who appears to have been somewhat too
intimate with a neighbouring squire, but who gave birth a few
years after to a daughter, of whose paternity there could not
be the smallest doubt, seeing that she grew up into a speaking
likeness of her maternal grandmother, the erstwhile Mdlle. Anne
du Mesnil d'Argentelles. Fate ought to have had a better lot in
store for beautiful Marie Deshayes than a marriage with a poor
pedlar like Marin Plessis; but the latter was very handsome,
and, notwithstanding the opposition of the family, she became
his wife. On the 15th of January, 1824, the child which was to
be immortalized as "La Dame aux Camelias" saw the light, in a
small village in Lower Normandy.--EDITOR.]

There were few of us who, during Alphonsine Plessis' lifetime, were so
interested in her as to have gone to the length of such a psychological
analysis of her pedigree. Nevertheless, most men were agreed that she
was no ordinary girl. Her candour about her early want of education
increased the interest. "Twenty or twenty-five years ago," said Dr.
Veron, one day, after Alphonsine Plessis had left the dinner table, "a
woman of her refinement would not have been phenomenal in her position,
because at that period the grisette, promoted to the rank of femme
entretenue, had not made her appearance. The expression 'femme
entretenue' was not even known. Men chose their companions, outside
marriage, from a different class; they were generally women of education
and often of good family who had made a faux pas, and, as such,
forfeited the society and countenance of their equals who had not
stumbled in that way, at any rate not in the sight of the world. I
confess, Alphonsine Plessis interests me very much. She is, first of
all, the best-dressed woman in Paris; secondly, she neither flaunts nor
hides her vices; thirdly, she is not always talking or hinting about
money; in short, she is a wonderful courtesan."

The result of all this admiration was very favourable to Alexandre Dumas
_fils_ when he brought out his book about eighteen months after her
death. It was in every one's hands, and the press kept whetting the
curiosity of those who had not read