“I was never genuinely religious. It was the glamour and mystery and, above all, the tranquillity surrounding the life of a cloistered nun that attracted me. I should have run away from the Convent before many weeks.”
Young Sarah was tremendously high-spirited and constantly in trouble. The nuns were always sending despairing reports to her mother.
Once, during a presentation of prizes, she pretended to faint and acted the part so realistically that even the Superior was deceived and believed her pupil to be dead. It gave her such a shock that the poor lady was ill for days. Sarah was sent to her bedroom in disgrace.
“I spent the time reading forbidden books and eating bonbons that the concierge had smuggled in to me,” she said, in telling me the story.
On another occasion she organised a flight from the Convent. In the dead of night she and six other girls of a similarly adventurous disposition climbed down torn and knotted sheets from their dormitory windows to the ground. Clambering over the high wall surrounding the Convent grounds, they took to their heels and were caught only at noon the next day, when in the act of throwing stones at horses of the Royal Dragoons.
For this exploit she was expelled, but was allowed to return on her promise never to give trouble again.
Scarcely two months afterwards, however, she was discovered by the mother-superior on top of the Convent wall, imitating the Bishop of Versailles, whom the day before she had seen conducting the Burial Service at a graveside. Expelled again!
On still another occasion she was caught flirting with a young soldier, who had tossed his cap over the wall. When the nuns tried to catch her, she climbed the wall and stayed there for hours, until long after dark. On this occasion she caught a chill which nearly resulted in her death, and when she had recovered she left the Convent for good.