sures, and an unswerving aspiration towards the highest ideal her art could offer her.
Like so many women in her profession, who live on shadows and unrealities, when she did choose among the crowd of worshippers that surrounded her, she chose unwisely. Many are the different versions given o£ the affair, which threw the Paris of her day into a ferment. Suffice it to say, she found the man to whom she entrusted her heart, one of her own nationality, unworthy of her confidence, and was compelled to discard him. His method of revenge was one happily rare even among the basest of his sex. He made known the whole affair to the world, and published her letters. Many refused to believe the story of her dishonour, especially coming from such a source; but others, whom envy or interested motives had made her enemies—and they were not few—sided against the young girl (she was only twenty at the time) and gave currency to the scandal.
It is less difficult, we are told, for a woman to become famous by her genius than to be pardoned for it. Rachel did not even solicit forgiveness. With the reckless pride and almost "ferocity" of her nature, she did not attempt to defend herself, and, partly out of pique, partly because driven to bay, she cast appearances to the winds, and formed a connection with Count Walewski, a natural son of Napoleon by a Polish lady. In 1844 she bore him a son, whom the father openly acknowledged. In those days the social anomaly of Mademoiselle Rachel Félix et son fils was not permitted, and society banished her from its ranks.
She might sometimes still be met in the literary and artistic circle of the beautiful Madame de Girardin,
