The great fault we seem to find in Madame de Genlis as an educationist is that she failed to make true religion the foundation of it. Though she insisted on devoting a large portion of her pupils’ time-table to the study of the Catechism, and reserved for herself, as the most important of her duties, their preparation for First Communion, and their religious instruction, she failed signally to make them realise that they were created and placed in this world for one end and aim only: “to know God, to love Him, and serve Him, and by that means to gain everlasting life.” The system of morality which she taught them was founded less on the knowledge and love and service of God than on that curious code of external ethics called _Les Convenances_. The strange thing about this was that she, herself, was an ardent, not to say a noisy, protagonist of religion, and enjoyed nothing more than a tilt with the _Philosophes_. But, somehow, one thinks of religion as an element a little fortuitous in the heterogeneous collection of ingredients which went to the making of her character—and when she failed to make it the foundation of her own conception of life, it is not to be wondered at that she failed equally in respect of her pupils. Louis Philippe and Madame Adélaïde were worse than indifferent in the matter of religion. And it is sufficient to say of Pamela that though she was reconciled to the Church before her death, and died, as one has reason to believe, truly penitent, she seems to have given up the practice of her religion immediately after her marriage with Lord Edward, without the slightest qualm of conscience. “_Les Convenances_,” external appearances, it was these Madame de Genlis kept steadily in view in educating her pupils. The consequence was that she made them think of life as an act played on a stage for the benefit of spectators, whose applause determined the success of the actor, rather than a solemn business between God and each lonely human soul. To have their bodies trained to the highest degree of strength, and grace, agility and efficiency; to have their minds adorned with all useful and agreeable knowledge, to be adepts and connoisseurs of the fine arts: painting, and music, poetry and literature—this was the educational ideal she set before herself. If the hearts of her pupils withered a little under the neglect which they necessarily suffered—if the lessons of “love, and pain and death” were missing from this positive and modernist education, who can wonder that the results in poor Pamela’s case at least were disastrous? * * * * *