to throw off all thoughts respecting such a system of horrors as this? for, truly, the more a poor soul endeavours to set itself at rest by meritorious duties, such as the holy church enforces, the more it feels itself bewildered and perplexed."

In reply to all this I heaved a deep long sigh, and then said, "Do you suppose that the mass of the sisters in this establishment are as miserable as you describe yourself to be?"

"No!" replied Pauline; “no, because they are not formed either for misery or happiness. I could enumerate a dozen or more of these good honest bodies who never think at all. They trust the concerns of their souls to Father Joachim, and do as he bids them without inquiry; and as to the rest, they amuse themselves as best they may; and when one or more of them can escape observation, presently all their heads are under one hood, and then, eh! comme on jase-and oh, what little matters serve them for discourse: I have known the pattern of an embroidered stool suffice for that purpose from one morn to another. Well, and such as these are of the right stuff for nuns, granting that they can sit, or stand, or kneel in one posture, without qualms, for a sufficient length of time. No one should ever be a religieuse who has either warmth of feeling or susceptible nerves," added the lively girl; "but if it must be so, it must.'

We thought, at this instant, that we heard a step. Pauline immediately drew her veil over her face, and threw herself back; "If they come in, say I am fainting; for your life don't repeat what I have said ;" and we both remained quite still till the step had passed. Pauline, then springing up, said, "Don't follow me; shall not be seen again till I can appear at the other end of the garden;" and she rushed out of the grotto, leaving me more sad, if possible, than she had found me.

健

CHAPTER III.

A CONVENT LIFE.

I WILL not unnecessarily abridge my history, yet at the same time I would avoid being tedious; I should, however, wish to give one outline of a day spent according to the rules of our house, before I enter upon more active and, I trust, more interesting scenes; but I will not be more minute than necessary.

I shall begin with a call which I received while still meditating in the grotto, to the service called vespers, supposed to be a little before sunset; this service occupied us about one hour, and consisted of an anthem to the Virgin and several prayers. From vespers we went to supper in the refectory, or eating apartment; our supper was simple, and we all sat at one long table, according to our degrees in the establishment. I looked in vain, during this meal, for a figure answering to what I had heard of the sorrowful but beautiful Clarice. One of the sisters read during the meal from the "Lives of the Saints," which are arranged for all the days of the year. I remember that it was the history of St. Herbert and St. Claude which was read that evening. The superieure took occasion, at the termination of the lecture, to derive such morals from these lectures as she thought them most proper to convey; and these deductions, of course, all tended to prove that we ought to imitate, and even, if possible, to excel, these holy persons in the austerity of their lives, and in the intenseness of their self-imposed sufferings.

Oh! who can describe the misery inflicted by the apostate church on her unhappy children. With all her gaudy external trappings, there exists not on earth a tyrant so severe as this; and the more sincere her votary, the more cruel, bloody, and severe her pressure upon him; but let me proceed with the account of this my first twenty-four hours within the rules of the house. VOL. VII.-C

Supper being finished, we again proceeded to the chœur, to the service called complines, after which we retired to bed; this was about nine o'clock; but I had hardly fallen asleep, before la Mère Genefride, knocking at my door, called me to the officium nocturnum. I hurried on my clothes, half-asleep as I was, and stepping out into the gallery, where a lamp was always burning, I saw the dark figures of the sisters passing down to the ante-chœur, in which we always assembled. The poorest captive in a dungeon, thought I, sleeps in peace during the hours of darkness; but I rejected the blasphemous thought, and accompanied my companions into the chœur. The church was lighted up, and the solemn anthem, intonated by the officiating priest, and taken up by the sisters, revived, for a time, my sinking spirits, for I felt that I had in my haste taken upon me an intolerable burthen; but the service was not very long, and I returned to my bed and slept again till just before sunrise, when I was called to the laudes; I laid down a very little while after this service. At half-after five we all arose and made our beds, according to the rules of the house, but my broken sleep had not refreshed me, and my spirits were deeply dejected. At six o'clock we were all again in the choeur; the superieure then read a passage to us from a selection taken from the gospel; it was, "Mary hath chosen the better part ;" this passage, she informed us, applied to the Virgin, and was spoken of her, though by the heretics referred to Mary the sister of Lazarus; and having thus delivered herself of this false application of Scripture, we were all to meditate upon it for an hour, kneeling on our knees, and having nothing to lean against; according to the principle of the church, “the more pain the more merit." I know not how the other sisters felt themselves, or how their meditations proceeded, but for my part I could think of nothing but of the pain in my back and knees, and the sickness of my stomach: to be sure, habit does much, but I have known many sisters who could never go through this exercise without extreme suffering; but what was the use of complaining? all that ever could be got by complaining was this cold remark, "If the Almighty does not choose to render this duty easy to you, you must submit to his will; he can give strength, and he can withhold it; and if it is his will to exercise you with suffering here, you may hope that you will be

spared in proportion hereafter." A service followed this hour of meditation, after which, those who chose to breakfast found it prepared in the refectory, but I soon perceived that the most strict of the sisters never took any refreshment at this time. There was half an hour's recreation after this, and some of us walked in the garden; but on the day I am describing, I went up to my cell and indulged in a fit of weeping, which somewhat relieved my bursting heart. Oh! how did I lament my own precipitancy. But this half-hour being over, we assembled again, and all proceeded, in threes and fours, to occupy ourselves with the affairs of the house; to some was given the care of the sacristy, to others the linen, to others the clothes; formerly, when there had been pupils in the establishment, some of the sisters had been accustomed to give them instruction at these hours, but there were none at that time; those sisters who had none of these peculiar employments occupied themselves in various works during this period, each in her own cell, as was supposed, although it often happened that we, who were novices, contrived to get two or three together, feeling sure that la Mère Genefride would not be very severe if she detected us, for although she never failed to reprove us on these occasions, perhaps to satisfy her own conscience, yet we never heard any more of her displeasure. The works with which we occupied ourselves at this time were various; some of us made sweetmeats, and dried them in the sun; others artificial flowers; some made purses, and bags, and covers of books, adorned with beads,these were sent to Turin and sold; others embroidered the dresses of the priests; some dressed little Virgins of wax, and placed infant Christs in their arms, and made shrines for them of card-board and straw; and others cut out and emblazoned those little lace-like papers which you must all have seen.

Some of these hours which I spent thus quietly in my cell, with Pauline by my side, my dear warmhearted Pauline, were the happiest I ever experienced in the convent; and I trust that they were not all without profit :-but to go on with my journal,—at nine we were called again into the chœur, to adore the sacrament or host. At ten we dined all together, as we had supped, in the refectory, some one reading aloud a book approved by the church, the nature of which may be

easily conceived; after which we were left to ourselves, although under close surveillance, till noon. Then came another service called sextes, after which each of us read apart some book put into our hands by the superieure, till two o'clock, when we were assembled at the slight repast called gouté; then came the service designated nones, after which it was the custom of the family to assemble in the presence of the superieure, to receive her instruction and give an account of what each had read during the morning. Thus have I come round again to nearly the same hour of the day from which I set out, viz. the hour before vespers, at which time I was summoned with the rest into the presence of madame. I was introduced into a large Gothic hall, hung round with various paintings, representing those transactions in the supposed life of the Virgin whereupon her feasts are founded, beginning with her nativity and ending with her assumption; which tablets, in all their blasphemous absurdities, were at that time as venerable in my eyes as if the very patterns of them had been exhibited to the artist in the same manner as that of the tabernacle to Moses: for it must be remembered that at that period I had never opened a Bible. The floor of this apartment was covered with fine matting. Madame sat at a table on a sort of dais, at the upper end of the room-such was the pompous solemnity of those days-and all the members of the household, that is, all whom I had already seen, were ranged according to their respective stations and standing in the family, round the room; Pauline, as the next above me in rank, being close by my side.

It must be observed that I had not yet seen Clarice, and it was natural for me, on this occasion, to look anxiously for her; but there was not a single face on which my eye could rest for a moment with the idea that it beheld this interesting person. In the mean time the superieure, after a short dry cough and a muttered prayer, addressed us all in these words-" My daughters, remember that you have a God to adore, a Jesus Christ to imitate, all the angels to honour, the holy virgins and the saints to pray to, a soul to save, virtues to exercise, sins to expiate, a paradise to gain, an eternity to consider, a world to understand, devils to fear, passions to conquer, death to suffer, and the judgment to undergo." This I afterward found was a regular