Her presentation, and the circumstances which preceded it, left a strong impression on her mind.

"I was then fifteen," she says; "my father felt some regret at yielding me up at so early an age to the jealousies of the Court.

The day on which I first put on my Court dress, and went to embrace him in his study, tears filled his eyes, and mingled with the expression of his pleasure.

I possessed some agreeable talents, in addition to the instruction which it had been his delight to bestow on me.

He enumerated all my little accomplishments, to convince me of the vexations they would not fail to draw upon me." Mademoiselle Genet, at fifteen, was naturally less of a philosopher than her father was at forty.