Doubtless her books deserved Madame Guizot’s criticism, “_toujours bien et jamais mieux_”. She is discursive, even garrulous, and often loses the thread of the story in moral dialogues; but there are tales in the _Veillées du Château_ that suggest her own enjoyment of the “delicious life” with her children; and if none of them betray her love of mischief and adventure, it is but a fresh proof that she was acting a part, that she could not move freely under the cloak of the Infallible Parent. For in actual life she could take either side in a moral contrast, bear her part in the maddest pranks, assume every virtue of a heroine and hide with complete success a thousand faults.