The library.
The refectory.
The kitchen.
The community.
A certain number of lay sisters were associated with them in these employments, which only occupied a limited number of hours, and did not interfere with accomplishments, but formed the greatest contrast with them, as well as with the aristocratic names of the young ladies. Mesdemoiselles de la Roche Aymon and de Montbarrey could be seen carefully arranging the piles of napkins and sheets in the presses, while Mesdemoiselles de Chauvigny and de Nantouillet laid the cloth; Mesdemoiselles de Beaumont and d’Armaillé added up the accounts; Mademoiselle d’Aiguillon mended a chasuble; Mademoiselle de Barbantanne was on duty at the gate; Mademoiselle de Latour-Maubourg gave out the sugar and the coffee; Mesdemoiselles de Talleyrand and de Duras were at the orders of the community; Mademoiselle de Vogüé had a particular talent for cooking; and Mesdemoiselles d’Uzès and de Boulainvilliers superintended the sweeping of the dormitories, under the direction of Madame de Bussy, irreverently nicknamed by the pupils la mère Graillon; finally, Mesdemoiselles de Saint Simon and de Talmont were responsible for repairs; and Mesdemoiselles d’Harcourt, de Rohan-Guéménée, de Brassac, and de Galaar lighted the lamps, under the supervision of Madame de Royaume, whom they called the Mother of Light.
After having acted the part of Esther in a dress embroidered with diamonds and pearls worth a hundred thousand écus,[53] Hélène returned to the Convent, and, resuming her little black frock again, prepared decoctions and poultices in the dispensary.
Such an education may appear strange to us, but it unquestionably prepared excellent housekeepers and accomplished women of the world.
“I was very anxious,” Hélène says, “that we should not be separated, and that we should be placed together in the dispensary. On the contrary, I was sent to the abbey-house, and Mademoiselle de Choiseul to the record office. Mesdemoiselles de Conflans, who did not know how to hold a needle, were sent to the sacristy. This made us very cross.
“However, if Mademoiselle de Choiseul had been with me, I should have been very happy at the abbey-house, where the Lady Abbess[54] ruled with the greatest gentleness and justice. She had taken a great liking to me; she considered that I did her commissions with intelligence. I was quick, and when she rang I was always the first to come; I knew her books, her papers, her work, and was always the one she sent to fetch what she required from her desk, her bookshelf, or her chiffonier.”
Hélène’s companions at the abbey-house were apparently amiable, judging by the record she has left us.