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In sharp contrast to the happy summer visits were those paid every autumn to the home of Madame D’Ayen’s father, who lived at Fresnes. He was old and deaf and wished the children to be so repressed, that had Madame D’Ayen not made the visits as short as she could there would doubtless have been some disastrous outbreak in their ranks.

For the other months of the year, life at the Hotel de Noailles was a charmed existence for the children, especially for nature-loving Adrienne, who spent most of her time in the beautiful garden surrounding the house,–a garden celebrated throughout Paris for its marvellously kept flower beds, separated by winding, box-bordered paths. A flight of steps led from the house into this enchanting spot, and on either side three rows of great trees shed their long shadow over the near-by walks, while from the foot of the garden could be seen the wonderful panorama of the Tuileries. The garden was indeed an enchanted land, and the children played all sorts of games in its perfumed, wooded depths, only pausing when their mother passed through the garden, when with cries of joy they would cling to her skirts and tell her eager stories of their doings. And so, in happy play, in hours of education by her mother’s side, in busy days of learning all the useful arts, seldom taught in those days to children of such high social rank, Adrienne grew to be fourteen years old. She was a reserved, well-informed, shy girl with great beautiful brown eyes, which grew large and dark when she was pleased with anything, and her finely chiselled features were those of a born aristocrat, while her good disposition was clearly visible in her expression, which was one of winning charm.

At that time in France it was customary for parents to receive proposals of marriage for their daughters at a very early age, sometimes even before the proposition had any meaning to the girl herself, and so it happened that before Adrienne D’Ayen was twelve years old, the guardian of the young Marquis de Lafayette had begged Madame D’Ayen to give her daughter in marriage to his ward, who was but seventeen, and often was one of the merry party of young people who frequented the Hotel de Noailles,–in fact Adrienne felt for him the real affection which she might have given to a brother.

The family of the young Marquis was one of the oldest and most famous in France, famous for “bravery in battle, wisdom in counsel, and those principles of justice and right which they ever practised.” Young Lafayette had been left an orphan when he was eleven years old, also the possessor of an enormous fortune, at that time, of course, in the care of his guardian. He had been a delicate child, and not especially bright, but always filled with a keen desire for liberty of thought and action, and when he became old enough to choose between the only two careers open to one of his rank, he chose to be a soldier rather than a courtier, as life at the Court did not appeal to one of his temperament. Notwithstanding this, being a good looking, wealthy young man, he was always welcome at Court and made the object of marked attentions by the young Queen and her companions. Such was the young Marquis, who for reasons diplomatic and political his guardian wished to marry to a daughter of Madame D’Ayen, but Madame objected, saying that she feared his large fortune, in the hands of one so headstrong as the young Lafayette, might not make for his own and her daughter’s happiness. However, her family and friends begged her not to make the mistake of refusing an alliance with a family of such distinction as the Lafayettes, and finally, although this was as yet unknown to the girl whose future it was to so closely touch, Madame withdrew her objections, and so was decided the fate of little Adrienne D’Ayen, whose name was to be in consequence linked thereafter with great events in history.