Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/18

Rh carriages was occupied by Mme. de Stael, Benjamin Constant, Mme. de Boigne, Adrien de Montmorency, etc. During the drive a series of accidents occurred — tempest, thunder and lightning, hindrances and delays of all kinds. On arriving at Aix the persons in the carriage found the people of the hotel grouped at the door, very anxious and inquiring. But they, the travellers, had seen nothing, and noticed nothing of the accidents without, for Mme. de Stael had talked the whole time, and her topic was the Letters of Mile, de Lespi- nasse and M. de Guibert, who had been her own first lover.

The life of Mile, de Lespinasse began early in being a romance, and more than a romance. She was the natural daughter of the Comtesse d'Albon, a lady of condition in Burgundy, whose legitimate daughter had married the brother of the Marquise du Deffand. It was at the house of this brother, the Marquis de Yichy-Chamrond, in Burgundy, that Mme. du Deffand found the young girl, then twenty years of age, oppressed, assigned to inferior domestic duties, and kept in a condition that was wholly dependent. She took a fancy to her at once ; or rather, they took a fancy to each other, and we can readily conceive it ; if we look only to the value of minds, it is seldom that chance brings together two more distinguished.

Mme. du Deffand had no peace until she had drawn the young girl from her province and installed her with herself at the convent of Saint-Joseph, as her companion and reader, intending to make of her a perpetual resource. The family of the young girl's mother had, however, a strong fear, namely : that she might profit by her new position and the protectors she would find in society to claim the name of Albon and her share of the inheritance. She might have done so, in fact ; for she was born during the lifetime of M. d'Albon, the husband of her mother, and the law recognizes