Varina Howell was sent to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for her education, where she studied at Madame Deborah Grelaud's French School, a prestigious academy for young ladies.[8] Grelaud, a Protestant Huguenot, was a refugee from the French Revolution and had founded her school in the 1790s.[8] One of Varina's classmates was Sarah Anne Ellis, the daughter of extremely wealthy Mississippi planters. (After the Civil War, Sara Ellis Dorsey, by then a wealthy widow, helped financially support the Davis couple.)