"My family name is D----, and my own is Julie. My mother was lost in a
boat in attempting to leave our native island during an insurrection of
the blacks. I was washed ashore and saved by a black woman, who took
care of me for several years, and then delivered me over to my father.
He brought me to France when I was six years old, with an elder sister,
and a short time after he died in poverty and exile in the house of
some poor relations, who had hospitably received us in Brittany. The
second mother whom I had found in exile provided for my education until
her death, and, at twelve years old, I was adopted by the government as
being the daughter of a man who had done some service to his country.
"I was brought up in all the luxurious splendor, and amid the choice
friendships of those sumptuous houses, in which the State receives the
daughters of those who die for their country. I grew in years, in
talent, and also, it was said, in beauty. Mine was a grave and saddened
grace, like the flower of some tropical plant blooming awhile beneath a
foreign sky.
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