While these events were taking place at the château, Dolores, immured in the convent at Arles, was patiently awaiting the termination of the imprisonment she had voluntarily imposed upon herself. After a sojourn of several months in this saintly house, she experienced a great relief. Solitude had calmed her sorrow. She still suffered, she would always suffer, but she gathered from her faith and from noble resolutions bravely accomplished that peace and resignation which a merciful Heaven bestows upon all sad hearts that appeal to it of aid.
Dolores, as we have said before, entered the convent not as a novice, but as a boarder. From the founding of the institution, that is to say, from the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Carmelite nuns of Arles, in obedience to the wishes of their foundress, to whose liberality they owed the building and grounds which they occupied, had offered an asylum to all gentlewomen who, from one cause or another, desired to dwell in the shelter of those sacred walls without obeying the rules of the order. Disconsolate widows, mothers mourning the loss of their children, and orphans affrighted by the world found a peaceful home there and a quiet life which was not unfrequently a step towards the cloister.
When Dolores went to live at the convent, the boarders were seven in number, all older than herself. They accorded a cordial welcome to the young girl, who was soon at ease in their midst. Their life was very simple. They lived in the convent, but not within the cloister. Rising at six in the morning, they attended service in the chapel with the nuns from whom they were separated by a grating. Between the hours of morning and evening service they were at liberty to spend their time in whatever way they chose. They all ate at the same table. Dolores spent her time in working for the needy and for the institution. She made clothing for poor children; she embroidered altar cloths for the chapel; she visited the sick and destitute. Thus her life was peacefully devoted to prayer and good works. She frequently received tidings from the château, sometimes through letters written by the Marquis, sometimes through Coursegol, who came to see her every month. She took a lively interest in all that pertained to those whom she had left only to give them a new proof of her affection and devotion. When Coursegol visited her, she invariably spoke of her longing to return to Chamondrin. She hoped that Philip and Antoinette would soon be married, and that she would be able to go back to the loved home in which her happy childhood had been spent. These hopes were never to be realized; that beloved home she was destined never to behold again.
Early in June, Coursegol, in accordance with his usual habit, left the château to pass a few days in Arles. He reached the city on the fourteenth, and, after visiting Dolores, left for home on the morning of the sixteenth.
He made the journey on foot. The sky was slightly veiled by fleecy, white clouds that tempered the heat of the sun. The road between Arles and Nîmes is charming, and Coursegol walked blithely along, inhaling with delight the fresh morning breeze that came to him laden with the vivifying fragrance of the olive and cypress. As he approached Beaucaire, a pretty village on the bank of the Rhone, he noticed that an unusual animation pervaded the place. Groups of peasants stood here and there, engaged in excited conversation; every face wore an expression of anxiety. He thought at first that these people must be going or returning from some funeral; but he soon noticed that many were armed, some with guns, some with scythes. On reaching the centre of the town, he found the market-place full of soldiers; officers were giving excited orders. It looked as if the town were arming to defend itself.
"What does all this mean?" inquired Coursegol, addressing a little group of townspeople.
"Why, do you not know what has happened?" one man replied, in evident astonishment.
"I have heard nothing. I have just arrived from Arles."
"Nîmes has been pillaged. The peasantry from the Cevennes have descended upon the city and massacred three hundred people—laborers, bourgeois, priests and nuns. They are now masters of the place, and it is feared that a detachment of them is coming in this direction. We are making ready to receive them."