Page:An account of a savage girl.djvu/42

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14
The History of

gether since the commencement of our acquaintance, from which I shall endeavour to form some probable conjectures about her native country, and the adventures that may have brought her into Champagne.—But to return to her history.

The squeaking cries she utter'd thro' her throat, by way of language, were, I believe not the least occasion of the harsh treatment she sometimes underwent: They were indeed frightful, those of anger or fear especially, which I could easily conceive from a specimen exhibited by her in my presence, of one of the most moderate, expressive of her joy or friendship, and at which, had I not been put on my guard beforehand, I should have been heartily frightened. The most terrible of all were utter'd by her on the approach of any unknown person, with an intention to take hold of her, at which she discovered a horror that appeared altogether extraordinary. Of this she once gave a strong instance in the house of M. de Beaupré, at present a counsellor of state, but at that time intendant of the province of Champagne, to whom she had been brought soon after, being placed in the hospital general of St. Maur at Chalons, which, by the certificate of her baptism, is fix'd to the 30th of October 1731. A man who had heard of her abhorrence of being touched, resolved neverthe-less