Oh! you must know
the tortures that your child suffered; yes, my lady, while in the midst of
your opulence you were dreaming of a crown, your child--your own little
child, covered with rags, went at night to beg in the streets, suffering
with cold and hunger. During the winter nights, she shivered on a little
straw in the corner of a garret, and then, when the horrible woman who
abused her was tired of beating the poor little thing, only thinking how
she could torture her, do you know what she did, madame? She drew out some
of her teeth!"
"Oh! would that I could die! this is bitter agony!"
"Listen again. Escaping at length from the hands of La Chouette, wandering
without bread, without shelter, hardly eight years of age, she was arrested
as a vagabond, and put in prison. Oh! these were the happiest days of your
daughter, madame. Yes, in the prison-house, each night she thanked God that
she suffered no more from cold and hunger, and was beaten no more. And it
was in a prison that she spent the most precious years of a young girl's
life, those years which a tender mother always surrounds with so jealous
and pious a solicitude; yes, instead of being protected with maternal care,
your daughter has only known the brutal indifference of jailers; and then
one day, society, in its cruel carelessness, cast her, innocent and pure,
beautiful and ingenuous, into the filth and mire of this great city.
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