Pauline had been bred to the hard forcing-school of the _ancien regime_. Her mother had left France on the terrible death of her beloved queen, Marie Antoinette, and had passed from the high post of _dame d'honneur_, to poverty and exile in America. The sale of her magnificent jewels and massive silver, had enabled her to lease an old roomy mansion, deserted by its owners, and to live in peace and retirement. Here, with the recollection of the horrors of the revolution fresh within her memory, while her heart was still bleeding with the wounds it had received; while she still had before her the mangled remains of her sovereigns--the bleeding head of her husband, torn from her in the days of their early love; in the midst of these agonizing thoughts, she gave birth to a posthumous child--the heroine of our story. Clasping her babe to her breast, Madame Dumesnil bitterly recalled the many plans of happiness her murdered husband had made in anticipation of its coming--his affection for _her_--his anxiety for her safety--their parting, and the subsequent news of his execution. Those lips were mute whose words of tenderness were to soothe her in her hour of suffering; that hand was cold that would have rested on her brow; that heart was still that would have bounded with a father's love at sight of the tiny, helpless creature that lay upon her arm. Madame Dumesnil, the young, the lovely, and the gentle, became silent, reserved, and harsh. Nothing could swerve her from a determination made, and with feelings of the deepest parental affection for her daughter, she had crushed and broken her spirit in the sweet spring-time of her childhood. From the time Pauline was old enough to form a desire, she learned to hear it opposed. "_Une petite fille attend qu'on lui donne se qui lui faut_," was the invariable reply to all her childish longings. According to the old French system, every slight offence was followed by her mother's "_Allez vous coucher, mademoiselle_;" so that half her life was spent in bed, while she lay awake with the bright, broad daylight around her, the hour when other children are strengthening their little limbs in the active enjoyment of God's free, fresh air. As she grew older, she was taught that "_une demoiselle bien elevee n'a pas d'opinions_," that her parents judged and decided for her; and while she sat erect upon a high stool, accomplishing her daily tasks in silence, her heart nearly burst with the pent-up feelings of her young imagination. Wherever she went her mother's old waiting-woman was behind her. "Miss Pauline, hold yourself straight; Miss Pauline, turn out your feet--your head, mademoiselle--your arms!" Poor girl! she was well-nigh distracted with these incessant admonitions.