hat unless it would even go the length of
banishing the saints, it seemed to me impossible that the government
would attack such a man. I asked myself likewise, cui bono; a
question I have always put to myself whenever any action of Napoleon
was in discussion. I know that he will, without hesitation, do all
the evil which can be of use to him for the least thing; but I do
not always conjecture the lengths to which his prodigious egotism
extends in all directions, towards the infinitely little, as well as
the infinitely great.

Although the prefect had made me be told that he recommended me not
to travel in Switzerland, I paid no attention to an advice which
could not be made a formal order. I went to meet M. de Montmorency
at Orbd, and from thence I proposed to him, as the object of a
promenade in Switzerland, to return by way of Fribourg, to see the
establishment of female Trappists, at a short distance front that of
the men in Val-Sainte.

We reached the convent in the midst of a severe shower, after having
been obliged to come nearly a mile on foot. As we were flattering
ourselves with being admitted, the Procureur of la Trappe, who has
the direction of the female convent, told us that nobody could be
received there. I tried, however, to ring the bell at the gate of
the cloister; a nun appeared behind the latticed opening through
which the portress may speak to strangers.

"What do you want?" said she to me, in a voice without modulation as
we might suppose that of a ghost. "I should wish to see the interior
of your convent."--"That is impossible."--"But I am very wet, and
want to dry myself."--She immediately touched a spring which opened
the door of an outer apartment, in which I was allowed to rest
myself; but no living creature appeared. I had hardly been seated a
few minutes, when becoming impatient at being unable to penetrate
into the interior of the house, I rung again; the same person again
appeared, and I asked her if no females were ever admitted into the
convent; she answered that it was only in cases when any one had the
intention of becoming a nun. "But," said I to her, "how can I know
if I wish to remain in your house, if I am not permitted to examine
it."--"Oh, that is quite useless," replied she, "I am very sure
that you have no vocation for our state," and with these words
immediately shut her wicket. I know not by what signs this nun had
satisfied herself of my worldly dispositions; it is possi