Sublime

Marie Souvestre, the founder and headmistress, was the daughter of the French philosopher and novelist Émile Souvestre. A committed feminist, she believed passionately in educating women to think for themselves, to challenge accepted wisdom, and to assert themselves. These were subversive doctrines to patriarchal Victorians, yet Allenwood

Marie Souvestre’s goal was to make her students “cultivated women of the world,” and Eleanor blossomed under her tutelage. If ER had a fault, it was her seriousness.

indignities