in a perpetual struggle between my natural feelings and beliefs and the
vicious habits of mind which I there contracted. Several superior men
took pleasure in developing in me that liberty of thought and contempt
for public opinion which do tear from a woman her modesty of soul,
robbed of which she loses her charm. Alas! my subsequent misfortunes
have failed to lessen the faults I learned through opulence. My father,"
she continued, with a sigh, "the Duc de Verneuil, died, after duly
recognizing me as his daughter and making provisions for me by his will,
which considerably reduced the fortune of my brother, his legitimate
son. I found myself one day without a home and without a protector. My
brother contested the will which made me rich. Three years of my late
life had developed my vanity. By satisfying all my fancies my father
had created in my nature a need of luxury, and given me habits of
self-indulgence of which my own mind, young and artless as it then was,
could not perceive either the danger or the tyranny. A friend of my
father, the Marechal Duc de Lenoncourt, then seventy years old, offered
to become my guardian, and I found myself, soon after the termination of
the odious suit, in a brilliant home, where I enjoyed all the advantages
of which my brother's cruelty had deprived me. Every evening the old
marechal came to sit with me and comfort me with kind and consoling
words. His white hair and the many proofs he gave me of paternal
tenderness led me to turn all the feelings of my heart upon him, and
I felt myself his daughter. I accepted his presents, hiding none of my
caprices from him, for I saw how he loved to gratify them. I heard one
fatal evening that all Paris believed me the mistress of the poor old
man. I was told that it was then beyond my power to recover an innocence
thus gratuitously denied me. They said that the man who had abused my
inexperience could not be lover, and would not be my husband. The week
in which I made this horrible discovery the duke left Paris. I was
shamefully ejected from the house where he had placed me, and which did
not belong to him. Up to this point I have told you the truth as though
I stood before God; but now, do not ask a wretched woman to give account
of sufferings which are buried in her heart. The time came when I found
myself married to Danton. A few days later the storm uprooted the mighty
oak around which I had thrown my arms. Again I was plunged into the
worst