I could not resist the tide. And yet my soul was too ardent--forgive
this pride--not to feel that their minds had withered their hearts;
and the life I led resulted 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.
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