No child could have reproached Madame de Genlis with never playing at anything. She had an extraordinary childhood, and her early years in the quiet Château of St. Aubin were filled with unusual interests.[81] At eight years old she dictated little romances and comedies to her governess, and amused herself by playing schoolmistress to some Burgundian peasant children who came to cut rushes under her window; at eleven she was the chief attraction of her mother’s theatrical fêtes. It was characteristic of the society of the day to seek refuge in private theatres from political and social realities; most owners of country houses had their own companies composed of friends and neighbours, and thus Félicie, before her twelfth year, had mixed freely with gentlefolk and villagers, and had shown the aptitude for teaching and acting which marked her whole career. Her dramatic talent, indeed, might be said to cover all her other activities, for with her, teaching was little more than a favourite and particularly successful rôle. She was active, curious and enterprising as any child; before her marriage she was an accomplished harpist and fluent writer; afterwards she acquired a knowledge of literature, anatomy, music and flower-painting; but there were other occupations which fitted her even better to be the exponent of Rousseau’s theories. Writing in the _Memoirs_ of her early married life, “I endeavoured”, she says, “to gain some insight into field-labour an gardening. I went to see the cider made. I went to watch all the workmen in the village at work, the carpenter, the weaver, the basket maker”.