I wrote some days ago to a lady of my acquaintance at Caen, to beg she
would procure me some information relative to this extraordinary female,
and I subjoin an extract of her answer, which I have just received:
"Miss Corday was a native of this department, and had, from her earliest
years, been very carefully educated by an aunt who lives at Caen. Before
she was twenty she had decided on taking the veil, and her noviciate was
just expired when the Constituent Assembly interdicted all religious vows
for the future: she then left the convent, and resided entirely with her
aunt. The beauty of her person, and particularly her mental
acquisitions, which were superior to that of French women in general,
rendered an object of much admiration. She spoke uncommonly well, and
her discourse often turned on the ancients, and on such subjects as
indicated that masculine turn of mind which has since proved so fatal to
her. Perhaps her conversation was a little tinctured with that pedantry
not unjustly attributed to our sex when they have a little more knowledge
than usual, but, at the same time, not in such a degree as to render it
unpleasant. She seldom gave any opinion on the revolution, but
frequently attended the municipalities to solicit the pensions of the
expelled religious, or on any other occasion where she could be useful to
her friends.
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