Angelique was one of those beautiful unfortunates whose amorous youth was sacrificed to the horrors of a cloister because of the ridiculous vanity of a mother who wanted to appear young at fifty and who wished to keep with her only a young boy of ten whom she worshiped and who passed as her eldest son.

It had been scarcely one month since the mother had come out of mourning, the year since the death of her husband having expired, when, reentering the world, her great attributes attracted the eyes of several suitors. One of them, who was after her wealth rather than herself, whose birth and good looks she must have taken into consideration, flattered her one day that she was still young. Believing that it would be to become young in effect, she sent away a girl of nineteen whose age contradicted the sentiments of the admirer and whose growing charms would soon eclipse the remains of a painted beauty.