love and care to her parents. Her father, Gratien Phlipon, by trade an engraver, was an ambitious, frivolous, and discontented man. Her mother, a pure-minded, large-hearted woman, possessing rare worth and intelligence, early instilled into the mind of her child those principles of conscientious virtue which afterward added such lustre to the genius of that child—which made her strong and brave in the face of a terrible death, and which made hers the purest public character developed by the Revolution of ‘93.
Although the little "Manon" (a pet name for Marie) was from earliest childhood extremely fond of study, and anxious to devote most of her time to her books, yet Madame Phlipon, with a discretion rare in the mother of an only and idolized child, did not allow these to engross her mind to the exclusion of household duties and moral lessons. She was also taught by her father, at a very early age, the art of engraving, and was encouraged to exhibit her proficiency therein by preparing with her own
