first day of my admission a
broom was put into my hands. I was appointed also to wash up the dishes,
to scour the saucepans, to draw water from a deep well, to carry each
sister's pitcher to its proper place, and to scrub the tables in the
refectory. From these occupations I got on in time to making rope
shoes for the sisterhood, and to taking care of the great clock of the
convent; this last employment requiring me to pull up three immensely
heavy weights regularly every day. Seven years of my life passed in this
hard work, and I can honestly say that I never murmured over it.

To return, however, to the period of my admission into the convent.

After three months of probation, I took the veil on the twentieth of
January, seventeen hundred and twenty-five. The Archbishop did me the
honour to preside at the ceremony; and, in spite of the rigour of the
season, all Lyons poured into the church to see me take the vows. I was
deeply affected; but I never faltered in my resolution. I pronounced the
oaths with a firm voice, and with a tranquillity which astonished all
the spectators,--a tranquillity which has never once failed me since
that time.

Such is the story of my conversion. Providence sent me into the
world with an excellent nature, with a true heart, with a remarkable
susceptibility to the influence of estimable sentiments. My parents
neglected my education, and left me in the world, destitute of
everything but youth, beauty, and a lively temperament. I tried hard to
be virtuous; I vowed, before I was out of my teens, and when I happened
to be struck down by a serious illness, to leave the stage, and to keep
my reputation unblemished, if anybody would only give me two hundred
livres a year to live upon. Nobody came forward to help me, and I fell.

Heaven pardon the rich people of Paris who might have preserved my
virtue at so small a cost! Heaven grant me courage to follow the better
path into which its mercy has led me, and to persevere in a life of
penitence and devotion to the end of my days!

So this singular confession ends. Besides the little vanities and
levities which appear here and there on its surface, there is surely a
strong under-current of sincerity and frankness which fit it to appeal
in some degree to the sympathy as well as the curiosity of the reader.
It is impossible to read the narrative without feeling that there must
have been something really genuine and hearty in Mademoiselle Gautier's