greatest of living French female novelists. She was born in an old
French chateau at Seine-Porte (Seine et Oise), September 21, 1840. This
chateau was owned by Madame Bentzon's grandmother, the Marquise de Vitry,
who was a woman of great force and energy of character, "a ministering
angel" to her country neighborhood. Her grandmother's first marriage was
to a Dane, Major-General Adrien-Benjamin de Bentzon, a Governor of the
Danish Antilles. By this marriage there was one daughter, the mother of
Therese, who in turn married the Comte de Solms. "This mixture of
races," Madame Blanc once wrote, "surely explains a kind of moral and
intellectual cosmopolitanism which is found in my nature. My father of
German descent, my mother of Danish--my nom de plume (which was her
maiden-name) is Danish--with Protestant ancestors on her side, though she
and I were Catholics--my grandmother a sound and witty Parisian, gay,
brilliant, lively, with superb physical health and the consequent good
spirits--surely these materials could not have produced other than a
cosmopolitan being."

Somehow or other, the family became impoverished. Therese de Solms took
to writing stories. After many refusals, her debut took place in the
'Revue des Deux Mondes', and her perseverance was largely due to the
encouragement she received from George Sand, although that great woman
saw everything through the magnifying glass of her genius. But the
person to whom Therese Bentzon was most indebted in the matter of
literary advice--she says herself--was the late M. Caro, the famous
Sorbonne professor of philosophy, himself an admirable writer, "who put
me through a course of literature, acting as my guide through a vast
amount of solid reading, and criticizing my work with kindly severity."
Success was slow. Strange as it may seem, there is a prejudice against
female writers in France, a country that has produced so many admirable
women-authors. However, the time was to come when M. Becloz found one of