courte * was presented to her, and in the garden by the
light of the illuminations and to the sound of music talked to her for a
long time of the love of God, of Christ, of the Sacred Heart, and of the
consolations the one true Catholic religion affords in this world and
the next. Helene was touched, and more than once tears rose to her eyes
and to those of Monsieur de Jobert and their voices trembled. A dance,
for which her partner came to seek her, put an end to her discourse with
her future directeur de conscience, but the next evening Monsieur de
Jobert came to see Helene when she was alone, and after that often came
again.

* Lay member of the Society of Jesus.

One day he took the countess to a Roman Catholic church, where she knelt
down before the altar to which she was led. The enchanting, middle-aged
Frenchman laid his hands on her head and, as she herself afterward
described it, she felt something like a fresh breeze wafted into her
soul. It was explained to her that this was la grace.

After that a long-frocked abbe was brought to her. She confessed to
him, and he absolved her from her sins. Next day she received a box
containing the Sacred Host, which was left at her house for her to
partake of. A few days later Helene learned with pleasure that she had
now been admitted to the true Catholic Church and that in a few days the
Pope himself would hear of her and would send her a certain document.

All that was done around her and to her at this time, all the attention
devoted to her by so many clever men and expressed in such pleasant,
refined ways, and the state of dove-like purity she was now in (she wore
only white dresses and white ribbons all that time) gave her pleasure,
but her pleasure did not cause her for a moment to forget her aim. And
as it always happens in contests of cunning that a stupid person gets
the better of cleverer ones, Helene--having realized that the main
object of all these words and all this trouble was, after converting her
to Catholicism, to obtain money from her for Jesuit institutions (as to
which she received indications)-before parting with her money insisted
that the various operations necessary to free her from her husband
should be performed. In her view the aim of every religion was merely
to preserve certain proprieties while affording satisfaction to
human desires. And with this aim, in one of her talks with her Father
Confessor, she insisted on an answer to t