s prepared rooms in the west tower for
your reception, and to-morrow she hopes to be able to speak with you
herself.' So saying she led them down several passages till she reached
a little door, which she unlocked, and then stood back for them to pass
in. As soon as they were all inside, making their way up the corkscrew
stairs, she swung back the door, and before the men realised what had
happened they heard the key turn in the lock.

For four days they were kept prisoners, with nothing to eat but a very
little bread and water; while every morning the commissioner was
severely flogged till he was almost too weak to move. At length, driven
to desperation, he and his companions contrived to squeeze themselves
through a narrow window, and returned dirty and half-starved to the
abbot.

Powerful as the abbess might be, even her friends and relations thought
she had gone too far, and they were besides very angry with her for
allowing her own young sister, who was a novice in the convent, to be
secretly married there. They therefore informed the abbot of Citeaux
that as far as they were concerned no opposition would be made, and he
instantly started for Maubuisson, sending a messenger before him to tell
the abbess that he was on his way. For all answer the messenger came
back saying that the abbess would listen to nothing; but the abbot, now
thoroughly angry, only pushed on the faster, and thundered at the great
gates. He hardly expected that madame d'Estrees would refuse to see him
when it came to the point, but she _did_; he then, as was his right,
called an assembly of the nuns, and summoned her to attend. Again she
declined; she was ill, she said, and could not leave her bed; so, fuming
with rage, he went back to Paris and told the whole story to the king.

After certain forms of law had been gone through, which took a little
time, the Parliament of Paris issued a warrant for the seizure of the
abbess, and for her imprisonment in the convent of the Penitents in
Paris. On this occasion the abbot took a strong body of archers with
him, but wishing to avoid, if possible, the scandal of carrying off the
abbess by force, he left them at Pontoise. He went alone to the abbey,
and for two days tried by every means he could think of to persuade the
abbess to submit. But she only laughed, and declared she was ill, and at
last he sent for his archers and ordered them to force an entrance.

'Open, in the king's name!' cried their