I heard this curious dialogue which made me laugh then, and makes me laugh now as I write it. I offered to help in Adelaide’s education, but Madame Soavi laughed, and said,—
“Fox, you have deceived so many tender pullets, that I don’t like to trust you with this one, for fear of your making her too precocious.”
“I did not think of that, but you are right.”
Adelaide became the wonder of Bologna.
A year after I left the Comte du Barri, brother-in-law of the famous mistress of Louis XV., visited Bologna, and became so amorous of Adelaide that her mother sent her away, fearing he would carry her off.
Du Barri offered her a hundred thousand francs for the girl, but she refused the offer.
I saw Adelaide five years later on the boards of a Venetian theatre. When I went to congratulate her, she said,—
“My mother brought me into the world, and I think she will send me out of it; this dancing is killing me.”
In point of fact this delicate flower faded and died after seven years of the severe life to which her mother had exposed her.
Madame Soavi who had not taken the precaution to settle the six thousand francs on herself, lost all in losing Adelaide, and died miserably after having rolled in riches. But, alas! I am not the man to reproach anyone on the score of imprudence.