starts--resolved to renounce the world. Toward
the end of the holy week of 1718, she asked and obtained her father's
permission to spend Easter at Chelles; but at the end of that time,
instead of returning to the palais, she expressed a wish to remain as a
nun.

The duke tried to oppose this, but Mademoiselle de Chartres was
obstinate, and on the 23d of April she took the vows. Then the duke
treated with Mademoiselle de Villars for the abbey, and, on the promise
of twelve thousand francs, Mademoiselle de Chartres was named abbess in
her stead, and she had occupied the post about a year.

This, then, was the abbess of Chelles, who appeared before her father,
not surrounded by an elegant and profane court, but followed by six nuns
dressed in black and holding torches. There was no sign of frivolity or
of pleasure; nothing but the most somber apparel and the most severe
aspect. The regent, however, suspected that he had been kept waiting
while all this was preparing.

"I do not like hypocrisy," said he, sharply, "and can forgive vices
which are not hidden under the garb of virtues. All these lights,
madame, are doubtless the remains of yesterday's illumination. Are all
your flowers so faded, and all your guests so fatigued, that you cannot
show me a single bouquet nor a single dancer?"

"Monsieur," said the abbess in a grave tone, "this is not the place for
fetes and amusements."----"Yes," answered the regent, "I see, that if
you feasted yesterday, you fast to-day."

"Did you come here, monsieur, to catechise? At least what you see should
reply to any accusations against me."

"I came to tell you, madame," replied the regent, annoyed at being
supposed to have been duped, "that the life you lead displeases me; your
conduct yesterday was unbecoming an abbess; your austerities to-day are
unbecoming a princess of the blood; decide, once for all, between the
nun and the court lady. People begin to speak ill of you, and I have
enemies enough of my own, without your saddling me with others from the
depth of your convent."

"Alas, monsieur, in giving entertainments, balls, and concerts, which
have been quoted as the best in Paris, I have neither pleased those
enemies, nor you, nor myself. Yesterday was my last interview with the
world; this morning I have taken leave of it forever; and to-day, while
still ignorant of your visit, I had adopted a determination from which I
will never depart."

"And what is it?" asked the