France, of whom we also have much to learn; for simple, homely virtues
and the charm of womanliness may still be studied with advantage on the
cherished soil of France. 

Marie-Therese Blanc, nee Solms--for this is the name of the author who
writes under the nom de plume of Madame Bentzon--is considered the
greatest of living French female novelists.  She was born in an old
French chateau at Seine-Porte (Seine et Oise), September 21, 1840.  This
chateau was owned by Madame Bentzon's grandmother, the Marquise de Vitry,
who was a woman of great force and energy of character, "a ministering
angel" to her country neighborhood.  Her grandmother's first marriage was
to a Dane, Major-General Adrien-Benjamin de Bentzon, a Governor of the
Danish Antilles.  By this marriage there was one daughter, the mother of
Therese, who in turn married the Comte de Solms.  "This mixture of
races," Madame Blanc once wrote, "surely explains a kind of moral and
intellectual cosmopolitanism which is found in my nature.  My father of
German descent, my mother of Danish--my nom de plume (which was her
maiden-name) is Danish--with Protestant ancestors on her side, though she
and I were Catholics--my grandmother a sound and witty Parisian, gay,
brilliant, lively, with superb physical health and the consequent good