The woman who became the Duchesse d'Angoulême did indeed have painful memories, but she was not only very brave but I would say she had "nerves of steel. " As I wrote in the book, one woman, defeated, one woman, defiant.
As another has well said, to handicap a student by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless is the worst sort of lynching.