Various people assigned various reasons for the strange
course that I had taken. Nobody, however, believed that I had quitted
the world in the prime of my life (I was then thirty-one years old),
never to return to it again. Meanwhile, my inventory was finished and
my goods were sold. One of my friends sent a letter, entreating me to
reconsider my determination. My mind was made up, and I wrote to say
so. When my goods had been all sold, I left Paris to go and live
incognito as a parlour-boarder in the Convent of the Ursuline nuns of
Pondevaux. Here I wished to try the mode of life for a little while
before I assumed the serious responsibility of taking the veil. I knew
my own character--I remembered my early horror of total seclusion, and
my inveterate dislike to the company of women only; and, moved by these
considerations, I resolved, now that I had taken the first important
step, to proceed in the future with caution.
The nuns of Pondevaux received me among them with great kindness. They
gave me a large room, which I partitioned off into three small ones. I
assisted at all the pious exercises of the place. Deceived by my
fashionable appearance and my plump figure, the good nuns treated me as
if I was a person of high distinction. This afflicted me, and I
undeceived them. When they knew who I really was, they only behaved
towards me with still greater kindness.
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