sudden inspiration from Heaven. Even the
name of Quinault Dufresne is not once
mentioned from one end of her narrative to the
other.

On the twenty-fifth of April, seventeen
hundred and twenty-two (writes Mademoiselle
Gautier), while I was still leading a life
of pleasure—according to the pernicious ideas
of pleasure which pass current in the world—
I happen to awake, contrary to my usual
custom, between eight and nine o'clock in
the morning. I remember that it is my
birthday; I ring for my people; and my
maid answers the bell, alarmed by the idea
that I am ill. I tell her to dress me that I
may go to mass. I go to the Church of the
Cordeliers, followed by my footman, and
taking with me a little orphan whom I had
adopted. The first part of the mass is
celebrated without attracting my attention;
but, at the second part the accusing
voice of my conscience suddenly begins
to speak. "What brings you here?" it
says. "Do you come to reward God for
making you the attractive person that you
are, by mortally transgressing His laws
every day of your life?" I hear that question,
and I am unspeakably overwhelmed by
it. I quit the chair on which I have hitherto
been leaning carelessly, and I prostrate
myself in an agony of remorse on the pavement
of the church.

The mass over, I send home the footman
and the orphan, remaining behind myself,
plunged in inconceivable perplexity. At
last I rouse myself on a sudden; I go to the
sacristy; I demand a mass for my own proper
advantage every day; I determine to attend
it regularly; and, after three hours of agitation,
I return home, resolved to enter on the
path that leads to justification.

Six months passed. Every morning I
went to my mass: every evening I spent in
my customary dissipations.

Some of my friends indulged in considerable
merriment at my expense when they
found out my constant attendance at mass.
Accordingly, I disguised myself as a boy,
when I went to church, to escape observation.
My disguise was found out, and the jokes
against me were redoubled. Upon this, I
began to think of the words of the Gospel,
which declare the impossibility of serving
two masters. I determined to abandon the
service of Mammon.

The first vanity I gave up was the vanity
of keeping a maid. By way of further
accustoming myself to the retreat from the world
which I now began to meditate, I declined
all invitations to parties under the pretext of
indisposition. But the nearer the Easter
time approached at which I had settled in
my own mind definitely to turn my back on
worldly temptations and pleasures, the more
violent became my internal struggles with
myself. My health suffered under them to
such an extent that I was troubled with
perpetual attacks of retching and sickness,
which, however, did not prevent me from
writing my general confession, addressed to
the vicar of Saint Sulpice, the parish in which.
I lived.

Just Heaven! what did I not suffer some
days afterwards, when I united around me
at dinner, for the last time, all the friends
who had been dearest to me in the days of
my worldly life! What words can describe
the tumult of my heart when one of my
guests said to me, "You are giving us too
good a dinner for a Wednesday in Passion
Week;" and when another answered,
jestingly, "You forget that this is her farewell
dinner to her friends!" I felt ready to faint
while they were talking, and rose from table
pretexting as an excuse, that I had a
payment to make that evening, which I could
not in honour defer any longer. The
company rose with me, and saw me to the door
I got into my carriage, and the company
returned to table. My nerves were in such a
state that I shrieked at the first crack of the
coachman's whip; and the company came
running down again to know what was the
matter. One of my servants cleverly stopped
them from all hurrying out to the carriage
together, by declaring that the scream
proceeded from my adopted orphan. Upon this
they returned quietly enough to their wine,
and I drove off with my general confession
to the vicar of Saint Sulpice.

My interview with the vicar lasted three
hours. His joy at discovering that I was in
a state of grace was extreme. My own
emotions were quite indescribable. Late at
night I returned to my own house, and
found my guests all gone. I employed
myself in writing farewell letters to the manager
and company of the theatre, and in making
the necessary arrangements for sending back
my adopted orphan to his friends, with
twenty pistoles. Finally, I directed the
servants to say, if anybody enquired after me
the next day, that I had gone out of town
for some time; and after that, at five o'clock
in the morning, I left my home in Paris
never to return to it again.

By this time I had thoroughly recovered
my tranquillity. I was as easy in my mind
at leaving my house as I am now when I
quit my cell to sing in the choir. Such
already was the happy result of my perpetual
masses, my general confession, and my three
hours' interview with the vicar of Saint
Sulpice.

Before taking leave of the world, I went
to Versailles to say good-bye to my worthy
patrons, Cardinal Fleury and the Duke de
Gesvres. From them, I went to mass in the
King's Chapel; and after that, I called on a
lady of Versailles whom I had mortally
offended, for the purpose of making my
peace with her. She received me angrily
enough. I told her I had not come to justify