American towns, whose growth and development have been free and
untrammeled as that of a favorite child, appreciate the blessings that
have been theirs. How true the lines of Goethe: "America, thou art much
happier than our old continent; thou hast no castles in ruins, no
fortresses; no useless remembrances, no vain enemies will interrupt the
inward workings of thy life!"

We passed through Moissac, with its celebrated organ, a gift of Mazarin;
through Castle Sarrazin, founded by the Saracens in the eighth century;
through Montauban, that stronghold of the early Protestants, which
suffered martyrdom for its religious faith; through Grisolles, built on
a Roman highway, and, at last, in the dusk of the evening, we reached
"the Capital of the South," that city of learning--curious, interesting
old Toulouse.

Laura Curtis Bullard, in her sketch of me in "Our Famous Women," says:
"In 1882, Mrs. Stanton went to France, on a visit to her son Theodore,
and spent three months at the convent of La Sagesse, in the city of
Toulouse." This is quite true; but I have sometimes tried to guess what
her readers thought I was doing for three months in a convent. Weary of
the trials and tribulations of this world, had I gone there to prepare
in solitude for the next? Had I taken the veil in my old age? Or, like
high-church Anglicans and Roman Catholics, had I made this my retreat?
Not at all. My daughter wished to study French advantageously, my son
lived in the mountains hard by, and the garden of La Sagesse, with its
big trees, clean gravel paths, and cool shade, was the most delightful
spot.

In this religious retreat I met, from time to time, some of the most
radical and liberal-minded residents of the South. Toulouse is one of