I learned that no matter how young we may be, we can be kind and useful to those we love. I was born with such a cheerful disposition, I was so naturally happy, that I might easily have become selfish, had I not, from my childhood, thought a great deal about the happiness and peace of those belonging to me, and especially because of their tendency to make themselves miserable, and to disturb their lives by scenes of violence. I formed in my heart an intense desire to care always for the peace and welfare of others.
At nine years of age my character was formed, and I have since then perceived no essential change in my intercourse with others. My first interest in life was centred in my relatives, later, in the people of mark with whom I lived; and I have developed my own personality only so far as it could serve my ardent wish to love, to admire, and to devote myself to others, or to be useful to any cause I espouse and uphold, so long as I deemed it worthy to be fought for and upheld.
My real vocation, in fact, would have been that of an apostle preaching the “good word” and reconciling men among themselves. I was much more ardent in play hours than in study, because I was busy amusing my schoolmates or settling their quarrels. I hated anything clannish, and I especially sought after those girls who stood apart from my group. I led in everything, but I was never captain. When it so happened that there were two camps, I called myself the chief staff officer of the two commanders, and I rode from one to the other giving advice to each.
I was much fonder of being guide than captain, and it was usually owing to me that there were never any defeats, and that neither side got the better of the other. What unmixed joy I used to feel when, after some particular play hours in which I had given myself a great deal of trouble, I was surrounded by a group of little girls saying to me: “What fun you have made for us!”
On rainy days we were obliged to content ourselves in a barn, in which no running about was possible, so I amused my young companions by talking politics to them. I demanded absolute sworn secrecy concerning the things I was going to tell them, and of which they had never heard in their own families. Their ears were wide open to hear my stories about King Louis Philippe. These were the stories my father never lost an opportunity of relating to grandmother in order to make her angry.
At the time of which I speak so very few newspapers found their way into the country, that politics and the government were topics rarely discussed at table by grown people, so I acted as a newspaper, and informed my little friends of what was going on in the world.
My father, whenever he saw me, gave me cuttings from the Democratie Pacifique, and kept me so well posted that events often justified my speeches, and I was asked for “the news.”
We all made up our minds that when we were grown up, we should have a hand in government, and would state our opinions frankly, and that our future husbands should be obliged to be interested in politics.
I read every book I could lay my hands on, and among them I found a volume on the Fronde which delighted me, because the women of those days played leading parts. I told my “disciples” about the book, and, to my delight, they soon came around to all my ideas. I easily persuaded them that we were all “Frondeuses.”
How proud we felt at having ideas of our own, and to belong to a “secret society,” for we bound ourselves not to reveal to any one the opinions we shared. And then, who knew? Things were going so badly that perhaps one day France might have need of our devotion and our capacities, and we loved France. We fancied ourselves to be “the staves of this dais which covered the sacred reliquary of our country.” One of the girls discovered this metaphor and was much applauded.