“Mademoiselle de Saint Ange kept her waiting a few moments, and then opened. ‘Ah,’ said Mademoiselle de Ronci, ‘I am horribly frightened in my cell; you must let me sleep in yours till the storm is gone by.’ But Mademoiselle de Saint Ange would not hear of it, telling her the holy rules forbade it, and begged her to go away. At last Mademoiselle de Ronci, seeing she was determined not to let her remain in her cell, went away, highly displeased at this want of good nature.
“When Mademoiselle de Saint Ange had been doing her novitiate for three months, her mother came one day to the Lady Abbess, to say that her daughter felt no longer any vocation for a religious life, and to beg that she might be restored to her. Mademoiselle de Saint Ange departed, to the grief of the whole Convent, who regretted her very much. Some days after, Madame de Saint Ange wrote to the Lady Abbess, to ask her pardon for the deception she had practised on her. She informed her that she had had in her establishment her son instead of her daughter. The young man having had the misfortune to kill his adversary in a duel, she had made him wear his sister’s clothes, and had put him in the Abbaye-aux-Bois, that being the only plan she could devise for sheltering him from the severity of the law.
“The Lady Abbess replied that since the thing was done, she congratulated herself that by this means the life had been saved of one who, during his stay in her house, had given her such a good impression of his character. Madame de Saint Charles told us that Mademoiselle de Saint Ange would often inadvertently speak of herself in the masculine gender.
“The Library.
“At length I was sent to the library, to the great satisfaction of Madame de Mortemart. I was seated quietly reading in the kitchen when they came to tell me that I was appointed to the library. I quickly ran to find Madame de Sainte Delphine; as soon as she saw me she said: ‘At last you come to me; I hope we shall spend our lives together.’ Indeed I hardly left her; she was nearly always at her sister’s and I with her.
“She took no more notice of what happened to the books than if they had not existed, and yet she was fond of reading; when she wanted a book she would ask Madame de Saint Joachim for it.
“Sometimes when she was in the library, and saw that when books were fetched or returned Madame de Saint Joachim noted them down, she would express her astonishment at so much trouble being taken.
“I spent the morning doing commissions for her, and generally went to her immediately after appearing before Madame de Rochechouart at morning class.
“After going to prime[62] she had gravely returned to bed, and thought no more of getting up; when I went in I used to say: ‘Madame, it is half-past eight o’clock.’
“‘Ah, good heavens, is it possible? I cannot believe it!’