only favour the royal nun requested at Saint
Denis, was, that as she had been accustomed
to the easy stairs of palaces, she might have
rope balustrades put to the convent stairs,
for fear she should sometimes become giddy
and fall.

When the princess crossed the convent
threshold, she said she felt as if she had
already set foot in heaven. The nuns shed
tears at her affability and humility, and she
cast herself at their feet. Her servants were
astonished when she suddenly dismissed
them at the gate, and that evening her sisters
received the first intimation of the step she
had taken, and fainted at the news.

In compliment to the superior the
devotee took his name, and henceforward
became Sister Theresa of Saint Austin. She
now entered on all the humiliating and
irksome duties of a postulant. She read
and served in the refectory; she was the
earliest at all common exercises; it was her
duty to be the first to open and shut the choir
door; she lighted the nuns at night to the
dormitories. She had, moreover, to scrape
and rub the floors, clean the candlesticks,
and wash the dishes. In a rose-coloured
silk bedgown, she scrubbed a dirty kettle,
till she became black as a kitchen drudge,
and gave the convent her dirty gown as a
relic, to show that a princess had fulfilled
the meanest offices of the Carmelites. The
zealous postulant suffered much from the
frequent fasts required by the order, but
would accept no indulgence. The
princesses, her sisters, who came to see her at
supper, were horrified to see Louisa eating
stewed potatoes and cold milk, with alacrity
and appetite. The king too came, and
was likewise shocked at her simple meals
and hard bed. The postulant suffered most
from leaving off her high-heeled shoes and
taking to flat slippers. She also found
the absence of her watch, a special deprivation.
She refused to let an artist take
her portrait, and she shed tears because
toadying nuns would select the best
vegetables for her and dress them in a better
manner than usual. At first the princess
could not kneel long together, without
intense pain; but nine days' prayers to Saint
Louis of Gonzaga of course relieved her of
this infirmity.

Convent life grew more and more
delightful to the devotee. " At Versailles,"
she used to say, " I had a sumptuous bed,
but I slept ill. Exquisite dainties were
set on my table, but I had no appetite.
Here, I have almost scruples at the pleasure
I feel in eating beans and carrots; and on
my straw bed I sleep miraculously well.
At five o'clock in the afternoon at Versailles
I used to be summoned to the card-room.
Here, I go to mental prayer. At nine
o'clock the bell calls me to service; at
Versailles it was the hour for the comedy.
Then, I used to waste hours on my toilet;
here, I am not two minutes in dressing.
My bed is three boards and a straw
mattress; I have no dress but serge and
woollen; I have every day seven hours'
choir." And yet the invalid princess soon
ceased to spit blood, which she had been in
the habit of doing, and grew fat and ruddy.
On the day of her arrival at the convent the
princess gave the prioress five hundred
pounds. Her pension was one thousand
pounds a year, and the king endowed the
convent with revenues sufficient for forty
nuns.

The princess took the full vows, and
received the black veil from the Countess
of Provence in 1771. She told those who
came to see her, that the nuns were angels,
and that she owed all her happiness to
them. Soon after her public profession, the
princess was chosen mistress of the novices,
in right (of course again) of her character
for prudence, wisdom, mildness, and sound
judgment. She often secretly executed the
tasks of the other novices. When
discovered, she would throw herself at the
nuns' feet, kiss their hands, and pray them
to allow her to complete her task. One day .
she found a novice weeping in one of the
little garden oratories, and saying: "Always
sweeping, always rubbing the floors! I
shall never be able to hold out." The
princess soothed her, and helped her to
finish her service: exclaiming, " Yes;
always mortifying ourselves; but you and
I will hold out, and till death." If a
novice dreaded the moment when her hair
was to be cut off, the princess would do
it with her own hands which must have
been a great comfort to the novice. She
underwent penance for those who were
proud. She threw away a lock of her
mother's hair because, as she said, with
the spirit of a true devotee, it showed an
attachment too human for a Theresan.
To her great mortification, two years after
profession the princess was elected prioress
of St. Denis for three years. She grew
more vigilant, unselfish, and zealous. She
nursed the sick and dressed wounds. She
attended the dying, and gave the last
kiss of charity to the dead. Though
prioress, she continued to sweep the stairs
and wash the dishes; and if a lay sister