She remembered perfectly the customs of the _Ancien Regime_, and she enjoyed telling about them, as well as about the Revolution, the Reign of Terror, and the times that followed.

Her family was ruined by the Revolution and the slight, frail, young girl undertook to earn her living by giving lessons in French, on the pianoforte--the instrument was a novelty then--in singing, painting, embroidery, in fact in everything she knew and in much that she did not.

If she did not know, she learned then and there so that she could teach.

Afterwards, she married one of her cousins.

As she had no children of her own, she brought one of her nieces from Champagne and adopted her.