Henry of Guise; or, The States of Blois (Vol. 3 of 3)

Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: http://archive.org/details/henryofguiseorst03jame (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) 2. Table of Contents added by transcriber.
The convent of the Black Penitents was a very different building indeed, and a very different establishment altogether from that which the imagination of the reader may have raised up from the images furnished by dark and mysterious tales of Italian superstition. It was certainly intended to be, and was, in some degree, a place of voluntary penitence for women who conceived that they had led a peculiarly sinful life: but there were two classes of nuns confined there by their own good will,--one of which consisted of persons who had mingled long with the world, and really led an irregular life therein; while the other comprised a number of young women of high rank, who had never known any thing, either of the pleasures or the vices which the others now fled from, but who, either by a natural feeling of devotion, or the urgency of relations, had devoted themselves at an early period to the cloister.
In point of diet, fasts, prayers, and penances the order was certainly very strict; but the building in itself was any thing but a gloomy one, and a considerable portion of it, attached to the dwelling of the superior, was set apart for the occasional boarders, who took up their abode there, or for such ladies of high rank and station as might wish to absent themselves for a time from the cares and vanities of the world, and retire to a more intimate communion with God and their own heart, than they could enjoy in such a capital as that of France.
Such was the original intention of these apartments, and the destination of the institution altogether; but we well know how every thing entrusted to human management here is corrupted in process of time. The rooms which at first had been furnished simply, were soon decked with every sort of ornament; the visiter's table, as it was called, was separated from the ordinary board of the refectory; cooks and wine-growers did their best to gratify the palate; and, with the exception of the vowed nuns, those who sought shelter in the convent of the Black Penitents were condemned to but little abstinence, and knew only this difference from the world in general, that they had an opportunity of escaping obtrusive society when they thought fit.