The Sun.
London, England, 1851-04-24 00:00:00

APRIL 24, 1851.

" A scarcely audible no' dropped from her lips.
" It now becomes my painful duty,' said Mr. L--,
' to tell you that there is too much retson to tear that
you have been an impostor from first to last.'
" Marie raised her eyes, and without manifesting the
slightest emotion, gently said, It is too true, sir.'
" The whole party looked at one another in amen-
ment at her unparalleled self-control.
6" Well, then,' said Mr. L--, ' it only remains for
you to tell us who you are, where you came from, and
what have been your motives for acting in so extraordi-
a way ?'
" With groat firmness Marie replied that there were
some circumstances connected with her early history
which she must decline to communicate. Indeed, she
would rather die than reveal the circumstances under
which she had left her family. Thus much she would
say, that she was a native of M--; that ber father
was a surgeon; that he and her mother died when she
was young, leaving her to the care of an only brother:
he treated her unkindly, and she had long since left him.
For two years before coming to London she had had a
situation at
of two little girls. Their mother and father dying, they
were sent to the care of their guardian. Being again
thrown upon the world, she had had recourse to the ex-
pedient of going into a convent. Growing tired of its
discipline, and having beard of Mr. L— in the north, as
man of benevolence and kindness, on coming to London,
she determined to find him out.
"' Well,' said Mr. L—, 'if I were to express what I
think of your conduct, it would only give you pain, and
under present circumstances do little good. I presume
that you have no uncle?'
"'No.'

" ' How were his letters managed?'
"' I wrote them all myself in your house, andjhad them
translated and rewritten by Mr. --, a teacher of
languages in street.' "
The teacher of languages was applied to, and the
following was his explanation:—
"' I have called on you,' said Mr. L— , in refer-
ence to some letters which have been sent to my house,
written by Miss G—, and translated here.'
" Oh, it is Mr. L— I suppose?'
" Yes.'
" ' Well, lam glad to see you. I was.thinking of call-
ing upon you to know if you can tell me about Miss
Cliff )rd, as she has not been here for some time.'
"' It is a Miss G—, not a Miss CliffJrd,' said Mr.
L—. _ _

" ' No, it was a Mrs. or Miss Clifford who came here,
and the letters were sent to Miss
" Mr. and Mrs. L— looked perplexed and puzzled.
" She was a short stout young lady,' said Mr. —,
and she came to me, and said she wanted some letters
translated for her niece, a Miss G—, at Mr. L---'s,
C— terrace. She asked me if I was a Catholic. I
said, "if you come to me on business I will attend to
you, but if it is about religion, I have no time to talk on
that subject." She said it did not matter, only she
thought if I were a Catholic I could better enter into
the feelings with which she wrote these letters.'
":Mr. and Mrs. L-- could not 3st make it out. Here
was a new character appearing on the stage in the shape
of a Miss Clifford.
Mr. -- proceeded, She told me that her niece
had apostatized from the Catholic Church, and that she
had been so angry with her at first that she had declared
she would never write to her again, but latterly she had
relented, tied wished to try to bring her back to the true
Church. Her niece did not speak English, so she wished
the letters to be in French; besides which she should
save her word by our writing them.' He then 'produced
two packets, one of Marie's English originals, and the
other her orders to him to translate them. ' I did them
up,' he added, in
_case I might he out, as she said she
was going to call; and I wrote the account outside, 131
pages at Is. a page, 61. Ils.'
" But these letters were from a gentleman, a priest,'
said Mr. and Mrs. L—; 'not from a young lady.'
" Mr. was puzzled in his turn. He rang for his
French assistant, a tall, grave, young man, and they be-
gan to chatter away in French.
"' Those letters, Miss Clifford's letters, were from a
priest,' said
" A priest! no,' said the young Frenchman. They
were from a lady
" Why, how could you translate these letters and
think they were from a lady?' said Mrs. L—; and
she eagerly seized one of Marie's copies to show the im-
possibility of understanding the writer to be a lady.
She ran her eye down a page. There is frequent
mention of the General,' said she, the General of the
Jesuits.'
"' It does not say what general,' they replied, it
might be a father or brother, a military general.'
" ' Here he talks of keeping his retreat, she said again.
" Ladies have retreats, too,' they replied.
"And true enough, as she looked down page after page,
she saw that they would suit equally with either of
Marie's assumed characters, an aunt or an uncle."
Having thus discovered the imposture, Mr. and Mrs.
L. determined to institute some inquiries at the con-
vents of I. and S. The following is the account of
the interview with the authorities of the two convents.
The first visit was to 1., where the following collo-
quy took place:—
" Mrs. L.—' We called to make some inquiries about a
young person who was educated here. bhe was after-
wards a governess in the family of some friends of ours,
and left on account of ill health. It is necessary that
she should find another home ; and as our friends were
not fully satisfied, we thought that, perhaps, you would
favour us with a little information respecting her.'
" S.—' What is her name ?'
" Mrs. L.—' M--- L--
" Mrs. L.—' Perhaps she was here before you?'
" S.—' Oh, no! I have been Superioress of this con-
vent for a number of years. lam quite sure that we
have had no one here of that name.'
" Mrs. L.—' She states that she was twice here: on
one occasion for a period of two years; and that she has
been seventeen years in a convent of your order. She
~a vs that she used to write letters fur Madame D'H--'
(Very Reverend Mother).
S.—' That cannot be, for Madame D'H-- never
has any one but a religious person to write for her. She
cannot speak English, and she never comes to Englan
" Mrs. L.—' It is just possible that this young person
may have changed her name. Perhaps you may recog-
nise the handwriting,' producing a specimen.
" S.—' This is the handwriting taught in our schools,
certainly.'
" Mrs. L.—' She says that Madame de la R--, who
died last June, and who joined your community when
she became a widow, was her aunt.'
" S.—' Madame de la R-- was never married, and she
is still living.'
" Mrs. L.—'Perhaps you would know this young per-
son's portrait. I have brought it with me.'
" S.—' No ; Ido not know this face. I am sure she
was never here.'
" After a pause the Superioress added, "Perhaps you
will allow me to take it out of the room for a few
minutes, to see if any one else can recognise it.'
" The lady,left the room—the piano ceased, the voices
in the hall dropped, and a quiet debate appeared to be
going on. In a few minutes she reappeared.
" No, we do not know the person; bat we think that
Madame (Reverend Mother), who is now at
S--, would be able to tell you. She may have been
brought up there.'
"Mrs. L.—' I did not know that there was any school
at S--, except the poor school.'
"S.—' Oh, yes! there is a very large school for an
inferior class of pupils to those who are brought up
here. Madame will be hero to-morrow, or you
could see her at 5-- this evening, if more con-
venient.'
" They thanked her, and returned to town by the next
train. They went back to Mr. K—'s, and thence
hastened to S--.
" It was nearly eight o'clock when they entered the
outer gate in the street, by the side of the Catholic
chapel; and pasing through the little court, or garden
to another entrance, they rang the bell. A novice in
her white cap drew back the little sliding panel, and in-
quired their business.
"' We wish to see Madame . We will not de-
tain her many minutes. We have been to I—, ex-
pecting to find her there, or we would not have come at
so late an hour.'
" The novice withdrew, and presently another came,
unlocked the door, and showed them into a little room
close to the gate. The floor was covered with oil-cloth,
and there were a few wooden chairs.
"Presently a third person appeared, and led them into
another little room adjooining the first. It was carpeted,
and a little better furnished than the other. It looked
out into the large court yard, where several nuns with
measured steps were passing to and fro. A large range
of buildings surrounded this court; but they had scarcely
observed thus much when another messenger came up
to ask the name of each. The names were given, and
she withdrew.
"Finally Madame --, the Reverend Mother, ap-
peared. Mrs. L-- again stated the case as at I—,
and asked if Madame could oblige her with any
particulars respecting Marie.
" 0 yes! She was with us for a month about a year
and a half ago.
" Only a month ! She says that she was seventeen
years in convents of your Order, and that she bad been
for the two last years a postulant.'
" She was not with us longer than a month or five
weeks. She was introduced to me by the Reverend
, a priest in Liverpool, as a
young person who
bad become a Catholic, and was very
much persecuted
home and wanted an asylum, and he said that w
by her Protestant friends. She was obliged
itto leaveould
be kind if I would take her.'
"h e
sad say says
twoth yearsat sh e
convent,Bwatals._six weeks in your Liverpool
night, and w
same
beCause thee
" She never set foot in our Liverpool convent. I
brought her to town with me the
made her up a bed in the little parlour,
house was full. She wanted to go to I
there for one, day, but I sent her back again, for we have
—7, a_nd she was
none but young ladies there, and we only employ per-
sons of confidence.'
at "uroux C earron
Amiens, Manotte, Chatea g
" She says that she has been in convents of your Order
Nice, and Limerick.'
" 'lt is very true that we have convents at all these
places, but she has never
" I should like to be quite sure that the
same.
been in them.'
"' 0 yes! That is she certainly.'
Do you know this portrait?'
• Will you kindly tell me why she left you?'
" Yes. After she had been with us a little while she
became restless, and said that her temporal affairs re.
quired ber return to her Mends. She showed me some
sort
and a lawyer's letter, and said that she
s
lase eher property if she did not go.'
should
lodf
" And how did she go?'
• She said that a friend of her family lived in ---
Street, and that. if she went to her, she knew that she
could soon gat back to her relations in the north. I
ton4.but probably the 44 Jai mood, for no non per.