It will be understood that all these particulars, as well as many others, preceding and subsequent to this adventure, of which I have supprest several, were not recounted by Le Blanc, till after she had learnt to express herself in French. But as to the principal fact, the quarrel between the two girls, it is one of the first of which she gave an account. Two having been seen swimming across the river, as we have said above, the people could hardly fail to enquire, by signs at least, at Le Blanc, very soon after she was seized, when the thing must have been fresh in her memory, what was become of her companion. To which she answered, partly by signs, and partly by words, (suggested to her, no doubt, at the time) that she had made her red, meaning that she had drawn her blood. Of this expression, tho' much talk'd of at the time, no mention is made, in a letter dated from Chalons the 9th of December 1731, about two months after she was taken, and printed in the Mercury of France. According to the writer of that letter, she only knew then a few French words ill articulated, some of which he mentions.
I Have been able to discover nothing certain with regard to the companion of Madamoiselle Le Blanc. M. de L, formerly preceptor to M. d'Epinoy's children, says, that when he first
became
