Quotation from: Villette

Written by: Charlotte Bronte


Her demeanour to the eldest girl was equally characteristic in another
way. This was a vicious child. "Quelle peste que cette Desiree! Quel
poison que cet enfant la!" were the expressions dedicated to her,
alike in kitchen and in schoolroom. Amongst her other endowments she
boasted an exquisite skill in the art, of provocation, sometimes
driving her _bonne_ and the servants almost wild. She would steal
to their attics, open their drawers and boxes, wantonly tear their
best caps and soil their best shawls; she would watch her opportunity
to get at the buffet of the salle-a-manger, where she would smash
articles of porcelain or glass--or to the cupboard of the storeroom,
where she would plunder the preserves, drink the sweet wine, break
jars and bottles, and so contrive as to throw the onus of suspicion on
the cook and the kitchen-maid. All this when Madame saw, and of which
when she received report, her sole observation, uttered with matchless
serenity, was:

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