She could receive her friends as she pleased; her literary reputation stood very high; the Duchesse de Chartres was still infatuated about her; while the DukeAs to her writings, then so much in vogue, they were mostly works intended either to explain, assist, or illustrate the system of education which was the hobby of her life and which, if one may judge by Adle et Thodore, one of the most important of her tales, can only be called preposterous.