onvent of the Visitation of
St. Mary's, in a suburb of St. Antoine. I received it with a
tranquillity which surprised the bearer exceedingly. He could not
forbear expressing it, having seen the extreme sorrow of those who were
only banished. He was so touched with it as to shed tears. And although
his order was to carry me off directly, he was not afraid to trust me,
but left me all the day, desiring me to repair to St. Mary's in the
evening. On that day many of my friends came to see me, and found me
very cheerful, which surprised such of them as knew my case. I could
not stand, I was so weak, having the fever every night, it being only a
fortnight since I was thought to be expiring. I imagined they would
leave me my daughter and maid to serve me.

CHAPTER 20

On January 29, 1688, I went to St. Mary's. There they let me know I
must neither have my daughter nor a maid to serve me, but must be
locked up alone in a chamber. Indeed it touched me to my heart when my
daughter was taken from me. They would neither allow her to be in that
house, nor anybody to bring me any news of her. I was then obliged to
sacrifice my daughter, as if she were mine no longer. The people of the
house were prepossessed with so frightful an account of me, that they
looked at me with horror. For my jailer they singled out a nun, who,
they thought, would treat me with the greatest rigor, and they were not
mistaken therein.

They asked me who was now my confessor. I named him; but he was seized
with such a fright that he denied it; though I could have produced many
persons who had seen me at his confessional. So then they said they had
caught me in a lie; I was not to be trusted. My acquaintance then said
they knew me not, and others were at liberty to invent stories, and say
all manner of evil of me. The woman, appointed for my keeper, was
gained over by my enemies, to torment me as an heretic, an enthusiast,
one crackbrained and an hypocrite. God alone knows what she made me
suffer. As she sought to surprise me in my words, I watched them, to be
more exact in them; but I fared the worse for it. I made more slips and
gave her more advantages over me thereby, beside the trouble in my own
mind for it. I then left myself as I was, and resolved, though this
woman would bring me to the scaffold, by the false reports she was
continually carrying to the prioress, that I would simply resign myself
to my lot; so I re-entered into my former condi