Their education did not go beyond the limits imposed by confessors,
who were chosen by their mother from the strictest and least tolerant
of the Jansenist priests. Never were girls delivered over to their
husbands more absolutely pure and virgin than they; their mother
seemed to consider that point, essential as indeed it is, the
accomplishment of all her duties toward earth and heaven. These two
poor creatures had never, before their marriage, read a tale, or heard
of a romance; their very drawings were of figures whose anatomy would
have been masterpieces of the impossible to Cuvier, designed to
feminize the Farnese Hercules himself. An old maid taught them
drawing. A worthy priest instructed them in grammar, the French
language, history, geography, and the very little arithmetic it was
thought necessary in their rank for women to know. Their reading,
selected from authorized books, such as the "Lettres Edifiantes," and
Noel's "Lecons de Litterature," was done aloud in the evening; but
always in presence of their mother's confessor, for even in those
books there did sometimes occur passages which, without wise comments,
might have roused their imagination. Fenelon's "Telemaque" was thought
dangerous.

The Comtesse de Granville loved her daughters sufficiently to wish to
make them angels after the pattern of Marie Alacoque, but the poor
girls themselves would have preferred a less virtuous and more amiable
mother. This education bore its natural fruits. Religion, imposed as a
yoke and presented under its sternest aspect, wearied with formal
practice these innocent young hearts, treated as sinful. It repressed
their feelings, and was never precious to them, although it struck its
roots deep down into their natures. Under such training the two Maries
would either have become mere imbeciles, or they must necessarily have