ABSTRACT
Joachim Cognot, a physician, residing at Bar sur Seine, married, when in his sixtieth year, Mary Nassier, a woman of reputable parents, then about twenty-nine years old. They had several children, who all died very soon after their birth, except Claude Cognot, who was the last born before a temporary separation of the parents. Seven months after Madame Cognot rejoined her husband, she was delivered of a daughter, who is the subject of this history. The Doctor, already disposed to suspect his wife’s fidelity, and perhaps having heard something of her conduct, during his absence, that displeased him, imagined that this infant had no right to call him father, or to share with his son, of whom he was passionately fond, the fortune he now saw a probability of raising.
