quite unusual. Her father was a lieutenant in the French army. His
grandmother had been the natural daughter of Marshal Saxe, who was
himself the illegitimate son of Augustus the Strong of Poland and
of the bewitching Countess of Konigsmarck. This was a curious
pedigree. It meant strength of character, eroticism, stubbornness,
imagination, courage, and recklessness.

Her father complicated the matter by marrying suddenly a Parisian
of the lower classes, a bird-fancier named Sophie Delaborde. His
daughter, who was born in 1804, used afterward to boast that on
one side she was sprung from kings and nobles, while on the other
she was a daughter of the people, able, therefore, to understand
the sentiments of the aristocracy and of the children of the soil,
or even of the gutter.

She was fond of telling, also, of the omen which attended on her
birth. Her father and mother were at a country dance in the house
of a fellow officer of Dupin's. Suddenly Mme. Dupin left the room.
Nothing was thought of this, and the dance went on. In less than
an hour, Dupin was called aside and told that his wife had just
given birth to a child. It was the child's aunt who brought the
news, with the joyous comment:

"She will be lucky, for she was born among the roses and to the
sound of music."

This was at the time of the Napoleonic wars. Lieutenant Dupin was
on the staff of Prince Murat, and little Aurore, as she was
called, at the age of three accompanied the army, as did her
mother. The child was adopted by one of those hard-fighting,