“Madame, I do not forget—­I remember, like other people; that is all.  I had no relation of whom I could ask an asylum.  I wished to live alone.  I wished to enjoy my revenues—­because I chose rather to spend them myself, than to see them wasted by M. Tripeaud.”

“Madame,” cried the baron, “I cannot imagine how you can presume—­”

“Sir!” said Adrienne, reducing him to silence by a gesture of overwhelming lordliness, “I speak of you—­not to you.  I wished to spend my income,” she continued, “according to my own tastes.  I embellished the retreat that I had chosen.  Instead of ugly, ill-taught servants, I selected girls, pretty and well brought up, though poor.  Their education forbade their being subjected to any humiliating servitude, though I have endeavored to make their situation easy and agreeable.  They do not serve me, but render me service—­I pay them, but I am obliged to them—­nice distinctions that your highness will not understand, I know.  Instead of seeing them badly or ungracefully dressed, I have given them clothes that suit their charming faces well, because I like whatever is young and fair.  Whether I dress myself one way or the other, concerns only my looking-glass.  I go out alone, because I like to follow my fancy.  I do not go to mass—­but, if I had still a mother, I would explain to her my devotions, and she would kiss me none the less tenderly.  It is true, that I have raised a pagan altar to youth and beauty, because I adore God in all that He has made fair and good, noble and grand—­because, morn and evening, my heart repeats the fervent and sincere prayer:  ’Thanks, my Creator! thanks!’—­Your highness says that M. Baleinier has often found me in my solitude, a prey to a strange excitement:  yes, it is true; for it is then that, escaping in thought from all that renders the present odious and painful to me, I find refuge in the future—­it is then that magical horizons spread far before me—­it is then that such splendid visions appear to me, as make me feel myself rapt in a sublime and heavenly ecstasy, as if I no longer appertained to earth!”

As Adrienne pronounced these last words with enthusiasm, her countenance appeared transfigured, so resplendent did it become.  In that moment, she had lost sight of all that surrounded her.

“It is then,” she resumed, with spirit soaring higher and higher, “that I breathe a pure air, reviving and free—­yes, free—­above all, free—­and so salubrious, so grateful to the soul!—­Yes, instead of seeing my sisters painfully submit to a selfish, humiliating, brutal dominion, which entails upon them the seductive vices of slavery, the graceful fraud, the enchanting perfidy, the caressing falsehood, the contemptuous resignation, the hateful obedience—­I behold them, my noble sisters! worthy and sincere because they are free, faithful and devoted because they have liberty to choose—­neither imperious not base, because they have no master to govern or to flatter—­cherished and respected, because they can withdraw from a disloyal hand their hand, loyally bestowed.  Oh, my sisters! my sisters!  I feel it.  These are not merely consoling visions—­they are sacred hopes.”