It proved to her that she had no heart to be touched: it reminded her where she was impotent and dead.

Never was the distinction between charity and mercy better exemplified than in her.

While devoid of sympathy, she had a sufficiency of rational benevolence: she would give in the readiest manner to people she had never seen--rather, however, to classes than to individuals.

"Pour les pauvres," she opened her purse freely--against _the poor man_, as a rule, she kept it closed.

In philanthropic schemes for the benefit of society at large she took a cheerful part; no private sorrow touched her: no force or mass of suffering concentrated in one heart had power to pierce hers.
Not the agony in Gethsemane, not the death on Calvary, could have wrung from her eyes one tear.
I say again, Madame was a very great and a very capable woman.