France to search for happiness beyond the seas in a foreign land, M.
d'Aubigne had landed in Martinique with his young wife. There
Franchise was born, there passed away the first years of her life.
Once, when a child of three years old, she was bitten by a venomous
serpent, and her life was saved only through the devotion of her
black nurse, who sucked alike poison and death from the wound.
Another time, as she was on a voyage with her parents, the vessel
was in danger of being captured by a corsair; and a third time a
powerful whirlwind carried into the waves of the sea the little
Francoise, who was walking on the shore, but a large black dog, her
companion and favorite, sprang after her, seized her dress with its
teeth, and carried the child back to the shore, where sobbing for
joy her mother received her.

Fate had reserved great things for Francoise, and with all manner of
horrors it submitted the child to probation to make of it a strong
and noble woman.

A severer blow came when her father, losing in gambling all the
property which he had gathered in Martinique, died suddenly, leaving
his family in poverty and want. Another blow more severe still came
when on her return to France, whither her mother was going with her,
she lost this last prop of her youth and childhood. Madame d'Aubigne
died, and her body was committed to the waves; and, as a destitute
orphan, Francoise d'Aubigne touched the soil of France.

And what became of the poor orphan of the Creole of Martinique?

She became the wife of a king, and nearly a queen! For Francoise
d'Aubigne, the widow of Scarron, the governess of the children of