(December, 1790.) “I went to dine with my mother and grandfather.  Although I am delighted to dine often with my mother, I am deeply sorry to give only three days out of the seven to my dear Bellechasse [that is, to Mme. de Genlis].”

(January, 1791.) “Last evening, returned to my friend [Mme. de Genlis]; remained there until after midnight; I was the first one to have the good fortune of wishing her a ‘Happy New Year.’  Nothing can make me happier; I don’t know what will become of me when I am no longer with her.”

(January, 1791.) “Yesterday, I was at the Tuileries.  The queen spoke to my father, to my brother, and said nothing to me—­neither did the king nor Monsieur, in fact, no one.  I remained at my friend’s until half-past twelve.  No one in the world is so agreeable to me as is she.” (February, 1791.) “I was at the assembly at Bellechasse, dined at the Palais-Royal, I was at the Jacobins, returned to Bellechasse, after supper went to my friend’s.  I remained with her alone; she treated me with an infinite kindness; I left, the happiest man in the world.”  Such language speaks for itself.

No sons of a nobleman ever received a finer, more typically modern education than did her pupils.  She was, possibly, the first teacher to use the natural method system, teaching German, English, and Italian by conversation.  The boys were compelled to act, in the park, the voyages of Vasco da Gama; in the dining room the great historical tableaux were presented; in the theatre, built especially for them, they acted all the dramas of the Theatre d’Education.  She taught them how to make portfolios, ribbons, wigs, pasteboard work, to gild, to turn, and to do carpentering.  They visited museums and manufactories, during which expeditions they were taught to observe, criticise, and find defects.  This was the first step taken in France in the eighteenth century toward a modern education.  Although it was superficial, in consequence of its great breadth, yet this education inculcated manliness and courage.

In 1778 Mme. de Genlis published her moral teachings in Adele et Theodore, a work which created quite a little talk at the time, but which eventually brought upon her the condemnation of the philosophers and Encyclopaedists, because in it she opposed liberty of conscience.  When, on the occasion of the first communion of the Duc de Valois, she wrote her Religion Considered as the Only True Foundation of Happiness and of True Philosophy, all the Palais-Royal place hunters, philosophers, and her political enemies, in a mass, opposed and ridiculed her.  Rivarol declared that she had no sex, that heaven had refused the magic of talent to her productions, as it had refused the charm of innocence to her childhood.

One of the best portraits of her is in the memoirs of the Baroness d’Oberkirch (it was she who disturbed Mme. de Genlis and the Duc d’Orleans while they were walking in the gardens one night):