given her. She drove the child to study with unrelenting ardour, teaching her things beyond her age, and encouraging her at the same time further to exercise her intelligence by listening to conversations on all sorts of subjects. The consequence was that at eleven Germaine's conversational powers were already stupendous. On being introduced to a child of her own age, a little Mademoiselle Hüber, who was her cousin, she amazed her new acquaintance by the questions she put to her. She asked what were her favourite lessons; if she knew any foreign languages; if she often went to the theatre. The little cousin confessing to having profited but rarely by such an amusement, Germaine was horror-stricken, but promised that henceforward the deficiency should be remedied, adding that on their return from the theatre they should both proceed to write down the subject of the pieces performed, with suitable reflections; that being, she said, her own habit. In the evening of this first day's acquaintance, Mademoiselle Hüber, already sufficiently awe-struck, one must think, was further a witness to the attention paid to Germaine by her mother's most distinguished guests.
"Everybody addressed her with a compliment or a pleasantry. She answered everything with ease and grace.... The cleverest men were those who took most pleasure in making her talk. They asked what she was reading, recommended new books to her and... talked to her of what she knew, or of what she had yet to learn."
From her tenderest years Germaine wrote portraits and éloges. At fifteen she made extracts from the Esprit de Lois, with annotations, and about the same time the Abbé Raynal was very anxious that she should
