FORE:She was therefore very badly off, though her [456] writings were always quite successful enough to provide for her, but she could not be happy without perpetually adopting children: even now she had not only Casimir, who was always like a son to her, but an adopted daughter called Stphanie Alyon, and another whom she sent back to Germany.The Comtesse de Noailles was a most unfortunate choice to have made for the post in question; for although a woman of the highest character, religious, charitable, and honourable, she was so stiff, precise, [187] and absolutely the slave of every detail of court etiquette that she only tormented and estranged the young girl, who was ready to be conciliated, and whom she might have influenced and helped. The Dauphine, however, an impetuous, thoughtless girl of fifteen, accustomed to the freedom of her own family life at the court of Vienna, hated and ridiculed the absurd restrictions of the French Court, called the Countess Madame lEtiquette, and took her own way.
