ination. My mind was made up, and I wrote to say so. When my
goods had been all sold, I left Paris to go and live incognito as a
parlour-boarder in the Convent of the Ursuline nuns of Pondevaux. Here
I wished to try the mode of life for a little while before I assumed the
serious responsibility of taking the veil. I knew my own character--I
remembered my early horror of total seclusion, and my inveterate dislike
to the company of women only; and, moved by these considerations, I
resolved, now that I had taken the first important step, to proceed in
the future with caution.

The nuns of Pondevaux received me among them with great kindness. They
gave me a large room, which I partitioned off into three small ones.
I assisted at all the pious exercises of the place. Deceived by my
fashionable appearance and my plump figure, the good nuns treated me
as if I was a person of high distinction. This afflicted me, and I
undeceived them. When they knew who I really was, they only behaved
towards me with still greater kindness. I passed my time in reading and
praying, and led the quietest, sweetest life it is possible to conceive.

After ten months' sojourn at Pondevaux, I went to Lyons, and entered
(still as parlour-boarder only) the House of Anticaille, occupied by the
nuns of the Order of Saint Mary. Here, I enjoyed the advantage of having
for director of my conscience that holy man, Father Deveaux. He belonged
to the Order of the Jesuits; and he was good enough, when I first asked
him for advice, to suggest that I should get up at eleven o'clock at
night to say my prayers, and should remain absorbed in devotion until
midnight. In obedience to the directions of this saintly person, I kept
myself awake as well as I could till eleven o'clock. I then got on my
knees with great fervour, and I blush to confess it, immediately fell as
fast asleep as a dormouse. This went on for several nights, when Father
Deveaux finding that my midnight devotions were rather too much for me,
was so obliging as to prescribe another species of pious exercise, in
a letter which he wrote to me with his own hand. The holy father, after
deeply regretting my inability to keep awake, informed me that he had
a new act of penitence to suggest to me by the performance of which I
might still hope to expiate my sins. He then, in the plainest terms,
advised me to have recourse to the discipline of flagellation, every
Friday, using the cat-o'-nine-tails on my bare