roof. The father had taken upon himself the education of his sons,
leaving that of the daughters to his wife. He saw less danger for
women than for men in the application of his wife's oppressive system.
The two Maries, destined as women to endure tyranny, either of love or
marriage, would be, he thought, less injured than boys, whose minds
ought to have freer play, and whose manly qualities would deteriorate
under the powerful compression of religious ideas pushed to their
utmost consequences. Of four victims the count saved two.

The countess regarded her sons as too ill-trained to admit of the
slightest intimacy with their sisters. All communication between the
poor children was therefore strictly watched. When the boys came home
from school, the count was careful not to keep them in the house. The
boys always breakfasted with their mother and sisters, but after that
the count took them off to museums, theatres, restaurants, or, during
the summer season, into the country. Except on the solemn days of some
family festival, such as the countess's birthday or New Year's day, or
the day of the distribution of prizes, when the boys remained in their
father's house and slept there, the sisters saw so little of their
brothers that there was absolutely no tie between them. On those days
the countess never left them for an instant alone together. Calls of
"Where is Angelique?"--"What is Eugenie about?"--"Where are my
daughters?" resounded all day. As for the mother's sentiments towards
her sons, the countess raised to heaven her cold and macerated eyes,
as if to ask pardon of God for not having snatched them from iniquity.

Her exclamations, and also her reticences on the subject of her sons,
were equal to the most lamenting verses in Jeremiah, and completely
deceived the sisters, who supposed their sinful brothers to be doomed
to perdition.