" Félicité knew neither father nor mother, and was her own mistress from childhood. . . . Chance thrust her into the fields of science and the imagination and the world of literature, instead of loaving her in the small, tight circle of frivolous education traced for women - a mother's instruction in how to dress, in the hypocritical proprieties of society, in the arts of hunting a man. "

― Honoré de Balzac , Béatrix