Convinced of these melancholy truths, Madame de Fleury was determined not to add to the number of those imprudent or ostentatious patrons, who sacrifice to their own amusement and vanity the future happiness of their favourites.  Victoire’s verses were not handed about in fashionable circles, nor was she called upon to recite them before a brilliant audience, nor was she produced in public as a prodigy; she was educated in private, and by slow and sure degrees, to be a good, useful, and happy member of society.  Upon the same principles which decided Madame de Fleury against encouraging Victoire to be a poetess, she refrained from giving any of her little pupils accomplishments unsuited to their situation.  Some had a fine ear for music, others showed powers of dancing; but they were taught neither dancing nor music—­talents which in their station were more likely to be dangerous than serviceable.  They were not intended for actresses or opera-girls, but for shop-girls, mantua-makers, work-women, and servants of different sorts; consequently they were instructed in things which would be most necessary and useful to young women in their rank of life.  Before they were ten years old they could do all kinds of plain needlework, they could read and write well, and they were mistresses of the common rules of arithmetic.  After this age they were practised by a writing-master in drawing out bills neatly, keeping accounts, and applying to every-day use their knowledge of arithmetic.  Some were taught by a laundress to wash and get up fine linen and lace; others were instructed by a neighbouring traiteur in those culinary mysteries with which Sister Frances was unacquainted.  In sweetmeats and confectioneries she yielded to no one; and she made her pupils as expert as herself.  Those who were intended for ladies’ maids were taught mantua-making, and had lessons from Madame de Fleury’s own woman in hairdressing.

Amongst her numerous friends and acquaintances, and amongst the shopkeepers whom she was in the habit of employing, Madame de Fleury had means of placing and establishing her pupils suitably and advantageously:  of this, both they and their parents were aware, so that there was a constant and great motive operating continually to induce them to exert themselves, and to behave well.  This reasonable hope of reaping the fruits of their education, and of being immediately rewarded for their good conduct; this perception of the connection between what they are taught and what they are to become, is necessary to make young people assiduous; for want of attending to these principles many splendid establishments have failed to produce pupils answerable to the expectations which had been formed of them.

During seven years that Madame de Fleury persevered uniformly on the same plan, only one girl forfeited her protection—­a girl of the name of Manon; she was Victoire’s cousin, but totally unlike her in character.