perceived by a friend, a man, who consoled her without personal
after-thought, or, at any rate, he concealed any such motive if he had
it. In him Felicite believed she found the heart and mind which were
lacking to her former lover. He did, in truth, possess one of the most
original minds of our age. He, too, wrote under a pseudonym, and his
first publications were those of an adorer of Italy. Travel was the
one form of education which Felicite lacked. A man of genius, a poet
and a critic, he took Felicite to Italy in order to make known to her
that country of all Art. This celebrated man, who is nameless, may be
regarded as the master and maker of "Camille Maupin." He bought into
order and shape the vast amount of knowledge already acquired by
Felicite; increased it by study of the masterpieces with which Italy
teems; gave her the frankness, freedom, and grace, epigrammatic, and
intense, which is the character of his own talent (always rather
fanciful as to form) which Camille Maupin modified by delicacy of
sentiment and the softer terms of thought that are natural to a woman.
He also roused in her a taste for German and English literature and
made her learn both languages while travelling. In Rome, in 1820,
Felicite was deserted for an Italian. Without that misery she might
never have been celebrated. Napoleon called misfortune the midwife of
genius. This event filled Mademoiselle des Touches, and forever, with
that contempt for men which later was to make her so strong. Felicite
died, Camille Maupin was born.

She returned to Paris with Conti, the great musician, for whom she
wrote the librettos of two operas. But she had no more illusions, and
she became, at heart, unknown to the world, a sort of female Don Juan,
without debts and without conquests. Encouraged by success, she
published the two volumes of plays which at once placed the name of
Camille Maupin in the list of illustrious anonymas. Next, she related