When her first baby was born, she being already divorced from her husband, it died at once; and her relations, knowing how susceptible she was and fearing that this news might kill her, changed her dead child for one who had been born that night in the same house in Petersburg, the daughter of a chef at a palace.
Después de divorciarse de su marido dio a luz a un niño, que murió a poco de nacen Los parientes de madame Stal, conociendo su sensibilidad y temiendo que la noticia la matase, suplantaron el niño muerto por una niña que había nacido la misma noche en San Petersburgo y que era hija del cocinero de la Corte.