injured, the child grew up crooked. A long
and dangerous illness followed. The nuns
made a vow that if the young princess
recovered, she should, in honour of the
Virgin to whom they had offered up their
prayers, be clothed in white for a whole
year. The child recovered, the vow was
kept, and the future nun was thenceforward
told to regard herself as under the Virgin's
special protection.

According to the Abbé her biographer,
the princess grew up generous, amiable,
charitable, sagacious, discreet, prudent, and,
above all, deeply devoted to religious
exercises. She gradually corrected a habit of
sarcasm, for which the superior had chidden
her, and she punished herself for any
accidental indulgence in the fault. One
day a waiting maid, who had only one eye,
reproached her for something she had not
done. The princess answered: "If you
could make use of both your eyes, you
would not see me doing things which I
don't do." " Madame," replied the servant,
"one eye is sufficient to enable me to see
clearly that you are very proud." The
princess instantly softened, and said: " You
are right; pride made me speak so; forgive
me, and I must also ask pardon of God."

Her fits of anger, too, were often sudden
and violent. Offended with a workwoman,
she said to her, haughtily: " Am I not the
daughter of your king?" " And I,
madame," replied the woman, calmly: " am I
not the daughter of your God?" The
princess replied: "You are right, and I
was in the wrong. I beg your pardon."
At ten years old, the young devotee had to
be reproved for spending too much time in
writing out her confessions.

It is hardly surprising that the princess,
in her fourteenth year, returned to court
utterly indisposed to resume the duties
of her high station. She astonished the
maids of honour by devoting all her
allowance to charity, and by always losing
at cards from want of due attention to
what she was doing. Her one great amusement
was hunting. One day, following the
king, her father, through the forest at
Compiegne, her horse reared up and threw her
almost under the feet of the horses of her
sister's carriage, which was following at full
gallop. Hailing this as a second miraculous
preservation, the princess re-mounted her
horse, in spite of her gentleman usher, and
spurred and subdued him. The future nun,
soon wearied of court etiquette, went to the
theatre only from complaisance, and
generally fell asleep there from sheer indifference.
She also complained that late hours
heated her blood.

Secretly the young devotee's inclinations
for the convent matured. She obtained the
Rule of Saint Theresa, and kept it locked in
a little silver box. Denying herself all delicate
dishes, she still affected to be very
particular about her eating, to conceal her
mortifications. She passed hours together in the
severest winters without fire, and privately
obtained a woollen shift from the prioress of
Compiegne, which she wore under her court
dress, to accustom herself to the austerity of
a religious order. She deliberately pained
herself in trifles, with all the zeal of a
Hindoo Fakir. Detesting the smell of
tallow, and dreading that the smoke of a
common candle would make her faint, she
caused a charwoman of the palace to buy her
tallow candles, which she lighted at night
when her attendants had left her. Every
day she addressed a prayer to Saint Theresa,
beseeching her to open to the royal suppliant
a cloistered path to heaven. At last, the
Archbishop of Paris, yielding to her
entreaties, consented to inform the king that
the princess had been called to a religious
life. The king, who, with all his faults,
was very fond of his children, received the
news with great emotion, holding his head
between his hands, and exclaiming, " How
cruel, how cruel!" But still he said he
would not oppose God's wish, and in a
fortnight he gave his consent, with many
tears: saying that if his daughter must
become a nun, he preferred to see her a
Theresan rather than the abbess or sister
of any mitigated or lax order. The
princess first resolved to enter the retreat at
Grenelle; but she thought that the guns,
fired every time the king entered Paris,
would distract her mind. She at last fixed
on the very poor and regular community
of Saint Denis, having ascertained that
her father would have no repugnance to
visit her in a place so near the graves of the
kings of France. The convent of Saint Denis
was at this time in great distress; the baker
having refused to provide any more bread,
and the wood merchant having threatened
to claim the revenues, and suppress the
house. To avert these evils, the nuns were
engaged in nine days' prayers to the Virgin,
when the news of the princess's determination
reached them. The superior of Saint
Denis, the Abbé Bertin, reasoned much
with the royal devotee, begging her to enter
the less austere order of the Benedictines,
or to help to educate children with the
daughters of Saint Francis of Sales. The