Henri yielded the point, and the child was allowed to remain at Thonars, under his mother’s care. At the end of her first year of widowhood, however, Madame de la Trémoille, in obedience to the repeated commands of the King, repaired to Paris, leaving her children at Thonars. The mother’s heart was doubtless not a little cheered during this enforced separation by the letters which reached her from her little daughter, who was now about six years old. “In the midst,” says her biographer, “of grave family documents relating to the family of de la Trémoille—side by side with parchments filled with pompous titles, or lengthy enumerations of estates and seignorial rights—one feels a curious stirring of the heart at sight of the big round-hand characters, written on ruled paper, which commemorate the first attempts of a child destined to do great deeds.” Here is one of the letters:— “MADAME,—Since you have been gone, I have become very good, God be thanked. You will also find that I know a great deal. I know seventeen Psalms, all Pibrac’s quatrains, and the verses of Zamariel: and more than that, I can talk Latin. My little brother[2] is so pretty, that he could not be more so; and when people see him, they are able to talk of nothing else but of him. It seems a long time since we had the honour of seeing you. Madame, I pray you to love me. Monsieur de Saint Christophe tells me that you are well, for which I have thanked God. I pray heartily to God for you. I humbly kiss the hands of my good aunt, and of my little cousins. Footnote 2: The Count de Laval. “I am, Madame, your very humble and very obedient and good daughter, “CHARLOTTE DE LA TRÉMOILLE.” In learning the Psalms by heart, Charlotte was taught to follow the custom of all Protestant families of the time. For her Latin attainments she had doubtless to thank the still older custom of teaching the language to quite young children, in order that they should be able to follow the celebration of the Mass and the other services of the Roman Church; and though for young Huguenots the knowledge for this purpose was not necessary, Latin was still regarded as indispensable to the polite education of both sexes. The children of Madame de la Trémoille occasionally accompanied her in her frequent absences from Thonars at this time, but generally they remained at home when she resided at Court or visited her relations in Holland. Yet, although separated from them, she took care to be informed of all their doings, so that she knew about their faults as well as the progress they made; for when she is at the Hague, in 1609, her daughter, then no more than eight years old, writes to her as follows:—