nestness. The Cardinal Rochefoucauld, or rather the Jesuits
who drew him on, insisted on a great deal of outward decency. Shall we
say, then, that all entrance into the convents was forbidden? One man
only went in every day, not only into the house, but also, if he
chose, into each of the cells; a fact made evident from several known
cases, especially that of David at Louviers. By this reform, this
closing system, the door was shut upon the world at large, on all
inconvenient rivals, while the director enjoyed the sole command of
his nuns, the special right of private interviews with them.

What would come of this? The speculative might treat it as a problem;
not so practical men or physicians. The physician Wyer tells some
plain stories to show what did come of it from the sixteenth century
onwards. In his Fourth Book he quotes a number of nuns who went mad
for love. And in Book III. he talks of an estimable Spanish priest
who, going by chance into a nunnery, came out mad, declaring that the
brides of Jesus were his also, brides of the priest, who was a vicar
of Jesus. He had masses said in return for the favour which God had
granted him in this speedy marriage with a whole convent.

If this was the result of one passing visit, we may understand the
plight of a director of nuns when he was left alone with them, and
could take advantage of the new restrictions to spend the day among
them, listening hour by hour to the perilous secret of their
languishings and their weaknesses.

In the plight of these girls the mere senses are not all in all.
Allowance must be made for their listlessness of mind; for the
absolute need of some change in their way of life; of some dream or
diversion to relieve their lifelong monotony. Strange things are
happening constantly at this period. Travels, events in the Indies,
the discovery of a world, the invention of printing: what romance
there is everywhere! While all this goes on without, putting men's
minds into a flutter, how, think you, can those within bear up against
the oppressive sameness of monastic life--the irksomeness of its
lengthy services, seasoned by nothing better than a sermon preached
through the nose?

* * * * *

The laity themselves, living amidst so many distractions, desire, nay
insist, that their confessors shall absolve them for their acts of
inconstancy. The priests, on their side, are drawn or forced on, step
by step. There grows