Her first year as a student had been disappointing. She had fallen madly in love with her cousin Jacques Champigneulles, and she spent the whole summer forlornly hoping for a reply to the letter she had dared to send him before leaving Paris for the countryside. Moreover, she hardly had a minute to herself: The constant company of family and family friends imposed endless social obligations and left her little time for reading and writing. Trapped in an almost permanent tête-à-tête with her pious Catholic mother, Françoise, who disapproved of her daughter's intellectual interests and ambitions,