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
her betrayed and deluded love in a short novel, one of the
masterpieces of that period. This book, of a dangerous example, was
classed with "Adolphe," a dreadful lamentation, the counterpart of
which is found in Camille's work.
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