Ariel glided under my roof in the form of a sylph
who foresaw every want of mine.
"One evening Pauline told me her story with touching simplicity. Her
father had been a major in the horse grenadiers of the Imperial Guard.
He had been taken prisoner by the Cossacks, at the passage of
Beresina; and when Napoleon later on proposed an exchange, the Russian
authorities made search for him in Siberia in vain; he had escaped
with a view of reaching India, and since then Mme. Gaudin, my
landlady, could hear no news of her husband. Then came the disasters
of 1814 and 1815; and, left alone and without resource, she had
decided to let furnished lodgings in order to keep herself and her
daughter.
"She always hoped to see her husband again. Her greatest trouble was
about her daughter's education; the Princess Borghese was her
Pauline's godmother; and Pauline must not be unworthy of the fair
future promised by her imperial protectress. When Mme. Gaudin confided
to me this heavy trouble that preyed upon her, she said, with sharp
pain in her voice, 'I would give up the property and the scrap of
paper that makes Gaudin a baron of the empire, and all our rights to
the endowment of Wistchnau, if only Pauline could be brought up at
Saint-Denis?' Her words struck me; now I could show my gratitude for
the kindnesses expended on me by the two women; all at once the idea
of offering to finish Pauline's education occurred to me; and the
offer was made and accepted in the most perfect simplicity.
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