Detesting her superiors in rank and position, she soon
managed to cut off Aurore from all intercourse with her father's family,
and thus to frustrate every prospect of her marriage in the sphere for
which she had been so carefully educated. She was even forbidden to
visit her old friends at the convent, and was eventually placed by her
mother with a family nearly unknown to both, whose pity had been excited
by her friendless condition and unhappy countenance. Aurore's mother
seems to us, _du reste_, the perfect type of a Parisian lorette, the
sort of woman so keenly attractive with the bloom of youth and the
eloquence of passion,--but when these have passed their day, the most
detestable of mistresses, the most undesirable of companions. Men of all
ranks and ages acknowledge their attraction, endure their tyranny, and
curse the misery it inflicts. Marriage and competency had protected this
one from the deteriorations which almost inevitably await those of
her class, but they could not save her from the natural process of an
undisciplined mind, an ungoverned temper, and a caprice verging on
insanity. This self-torment of caprice could be assuaged only by
constant change of circumstance and surroundings; her only resource was
to metamorphose things about her as often and as rapidly as possible.
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