Still, M. Héger can scarcely be pleased by the ludicrous figure he is
so often made to cut in the novels by having members of his school set
forth as stupid, animal, and inferior, "their principles rotten to the
core, steeped in systematic sensuality," by having his religion styled
"besotted papistry, a piece of childish humbug," and the like.

Something of the displeasure of the family was revealed in the course of
our conversation with Mademoiselle Héger, but the specific causes were
but cursorily touched upon. She could have no personal recollection of
the Brontés; her knowledge of them is derived from her parents and the
teachers,--presumably the "repulsive old maids" of Charlotte's letters.
One of the present teachers in the _pensionnat_ had been a classmate of
Charlotte's here. The Brontés had not been popular with the school.
Their "heretical" religion had something to do with this; but their
manifest avoidance of the other pupils during hours of recreation,
Mademoiselle thought, had been a more potent cause,--Emily, in
particular, not speaking with her school-mates or teachers except when
obliged to do so. The other pupils thought them of outlandish accent and
manners and ridiculously old to be at school at all,--being twenty-four
and twenty-six, and seeming even older. Their sombre and
grotesquely-ugly costumes were fruitful causes of mirth to the gay
young Belgian misses. The Brontés were not especially brilliant
students, and none of their companions had ever suspected that they were
geniuses. Of the two, Emily was considered to be, in most respects, the
more talented, but she was obstinate and opinionated. Some of the pupils
had been inclined to resist having Charlotte placed over them as
teacher, and may have been mutinous. After her return from Haworth she
taught English to M. Héger and his brother-in-law. M. Héger gave the
sisters private lessons in French without charge, and for some time
preserved their compositions, which Mrs. Gaskell copied. Mrs. Gaskell