Twenty years ago, now, I attempted (but was not especially successful in the task) to establish upon the personal knowledge that my own residence as a pupil in the historical Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle, at Bruxelles gave me of the facts of Charlotte Brontë's relationships to Monsieur and Madame Heger, right impressions about the experiences and emotions she underwent between 1842 and 1846, and that supply the key and clue to the right interpretation of her genius. Every opinion I then ventured to state, not upon the authority of any special power of divination or of psychological insight of my own, but solely upon the authority of this personal knowledge of Monsieur and Madame Heger in my early girlhood, and also of the information I owed to the friendship and kind assistance given me, in my endeavour to rectify false judgments, by the Heger family, has quite recently, not only been confirmed, but established upon entirely incontrovertible evidence, by the generous gift made to English readers throughout the world of the key needed to unlock once and for ever the tragical but romantic 'Secret' of Charlotte Brontë.

Latest episodes of the podcast Secret of Charlotte Brontë by Frederika Richardson Macdonald

• PART I CHAPTER I THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË, CREATED BY A FALSE CRITICAL METHOD
• PART I CHAPTER II THE KEY TO THE PROBLEM
• PART I CHAPTER III CHARLOTTE'S LAST YEAR AT BRUXELLES, 1842-43
• PART I CHAPTER IV THE CONFESSION AT STE. GUDULE
• PART I CHAPTER V THE LEAVE-TAKING—THE SCENE IN THE CLASS-ROOM—'MY HEART WILL BREAK'
• PART I CHAPTER VI THE LOVE-LETTERS OF A ROMANTIC
• PART II CHAPTER I THE HISTORICAL DIFFICULTY: TO DISENTANGLE FACT FROM FICTION
• PART II CHAPTER II MY FIRST INTRODUCTION TO CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S PROFESSOR
• PART II CHAPTER III MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER AS I SAW THEM: AND BELGIAN SCHOOLGIRLS AS I KNEW THEM
• PART II CHAPTER IV MY SECOND INTERVIEW WITH M. HEGER. THE WASHING OF 'PEPPER.' THE LESSON IN ARITHMETIC
• PART II CHAPTER V THE STORY OF A CHAPEAU D'UNIFORME
• PART II CHAPTER VI MADAME HEGER'S SENTIMENT OF THE JUSTICE OF RESIGNATION TO INJUSTICE