lighted one day during the cosmography class.

Oh, sweet recollections, how dear you are to me! Charming details of a
calm and holy life, with what happiness do I recall you! Time in
separating you from me seems only to have brought you nearer in
recollection. I have seen life, alas! during these six long months, but,
in acquiring a knowledge of the world, I have learned to love still more
the innocent ignorance of my past existence. Wiser than myself, you have
remained in the service of the Lord; you have understood the divine
mission which had been reserved for you; you have been unwilling to step
over the profane threshold and to enter the world, that cavern, I ought
to say, in which I am now assailed, tossed about like a frail bark during
a tempest. Nay, the anger of the waves of the sea compared to that of the
passions is mere child's play. Happy friend, who art ignorant of what I
have learned. Happy friend, whose eyes have not yet measured the abyss
into which mine are already sunk.

But what was I to do? Was I not obliged--despite my vocation and the
tender friendship which called me to your side--was I not obliged, I say,
to submit to the exigencies imposed by the name I bear, and also to the
will of my father, who destined me for a military career in order to
defend a noble cause which you too would defend? In short, I obeyed and
quitted the college of the Fathers never to return again.

I went into the world, my heart charged with the salutary fears which our
pious education had caused to grow up there. I advanced cautiously, but
very soon recoiled horror-stricken. I am eighteen; I am still young, I
know, but I have already reflected much, while the experience of my pious
instructors has imparted to my soul a precocious maturity which enables
me to judge of many things; besides my faith is so firmly established and
so deeply rooted in my being, that I can look about me without danger. I
do not fear for my own salvation, but I am shocked when I think of the
future of our modern society, and I pray the Lord fervently, from a heart
untainted by sin, not to turn away His countenance in wrath from our
unhappy country. Even here, at the seat of my cousin, the Marchioness
K------de C------, where I am at the present moment, I can discover
nothing but frivolity among the men, and dangerous coquetry among the
women. The pernicious atmosphere of the period seems to pervade even the
highest rank of the French aristocra