turn
of Louis Philippe the St. Memins returned to France and I
became a teacher in the school of Madame Nau. Here I studied
and taught. On me fell all the burden of the school while
Madame Nau amused herself with harp and piano. For this I
had only $150 a year. To further assist my family I knit
woolen jackets. They were a great deal of trouble to me and
I was very grateful to Madame Isaac Iselin, the mother of
Mr. Adrain Iselin, who always found purchasers to give me
excellent prices. Ah, I was young then. I thought that I
earned that money. Now I know that it was only her delicate
manner of doing me a service. Madame Iselin bought my
jackets and then gave them away.

Feeling that I was worth much to Madame Nau, and that I must
do more to relieve my brother Marc, my brother Gustave
having gone to sea with Captain de Peyster, I begged Madame
Nau to give me $250. This she refused. Her reply, "Me navra
le coeur," overwhelmed me. It was Saturday. I started home
in great distress and met on the way the dear admirable Miss
Sophy Hay to whom I told my sorrow.

"Miss Hay," I exclaimed, "I will open a school for myself."
She tapped me on the forehead. "Do, dear Eloise, and God
will help you."

How all difficulties were smoothed away! The dear Madame
Iselin took charge of all my purchases, advancing the money.
They were very simple, those splint chairs and carpets and
tables, for we were simpler-minded then. On the 1st of May
1814 I opened my school on Greenwich Street with sixteen
pupils. Good M. Roulet gave me his two wards. I received
several scholars from a convent just closed and I had my
nieces Ameline and Laura Berault de St. Maurice and Clara
the daughter of Marc [Desabaye], who afterward married Ponty
Lemoine, the lawyer in whose office Charles O'Conor studied.
Thus was my school started, and I take this occasion to
express my gratitude to those who confided in so young an
instructress--for I was only twenty-two--the education of
their daughters, and I pray God to bless them and their
country....

Many well-known women were educated at this school, and one of the first
pupils was Miss Sarah Morris, the granddaughter of Lewis Morris, the
Signer, and the mother of the senior Mrs. Hamilton Fish. A younger
sister of Mrs. Fish, Christi