man of the
day, who instantly discovered that the wounds or sores were produced by
the mere application of lunar caustic. He applied to them the usual
remedies. Patrocinio was watched day and night to prevent a
re-application of the caustic, and the openings were soon healed.

On this discovery of the truth, the nun was banished to a convent in one
of the provinces; but a few years afterwards so many and such clever
intrigues were employed, and by such high personages, in her favour, that
she obtained permission to return to the capital, where in her convent
she became the point of attraction and assembly of all that portion of
the clergy most opposed to the constitutional system, and where she
received the constant visits of one of the most exalted personages of the
kingdom. She no longer, however, had recourse to the open sores to
deceive the people, whose eyes have been opened in the way already
described. The extraordinary beauty with which nature had endowed her
person was the means of which she availed herself to enslave the will of
her august protector. The government of General Narvaez, which was then
in power, thought it expedient to put an end to these scandalous scenes;
and the more especially as it was impossible not to see that their
influence was brought directly to bear on the gravest political
questions. Thus was that woman a second time expelled the capital; but a
second time was she permitted to return to it on the fall of Narvaez's
cabinet. Vain beyond all measure with her triumph, she abused this new
era of the victory she had obtained, and founded a convent in that city,
of which she declared herself the superior, and into which no other nuns
were admitted than such as were both young and pretty. This
establishment was the resort and rallying-point of the most elevated of
the clergy and nobility; and to the scandal of the nation, the high
personage already so often alluded to there passed his evenings with his
courtezans, giving rise to the free circulation, and without any
disguise, of anecdotes of the most immoral and yet ludicrous description.
But such unbridled turpitude could not last long without provoking the
activity of the civil authority. The convent was suddenly suppressed,
and Sister Patrocinio was put on the road to Rome, accompanied by her
favourite novice and two of the clergy. The extreme slowness with which
she proceeded on her journey was attributed to a certain delicate s