AMUSEMENTS.

Above the refectory door was painted in large black letters the following prayer, which was called the "White Paternoster," and which had the virtue of leading persons straight to Paradise.

"Little white Paternoster, which God made, which God said, which God placed in Paradise. At night, when I went to bed, I found three angels at my bed,—one at the foot, two at the head, and the good Virgin Mary in the middle,—who told me to go to bed and fear nothing. The Lord God is my father, the good Virgin is my mother, the three apostles are my brothers, the three virgins are my sisters. My body is wrapped up in the shirt in which God was born: the cross of Saint Marguerite is written on my chest. Madame the Virgin weeping for the Lord went into the fields and met there M. St. John. 'Monsieur St. John, where do you come from?' 'I have come from the Ave Salus'. 'You have not seen the Lord, have you?' 'He is on the tree of the cross, with hanging feet, nailed-up hands, and a little hat of white-thorn on his head.' Whosoever repeats this, thrice at night and thrice in the morning, will gain Paradise in the end."[1]

In 1827, this characteristic orison had disappeared beneath a triple coat of whitewash, and at the present day it is almost effaced from the memory of those who were young girls then, and old women now.

A large crucifix fastened to the wall completed the decoration of this refectory, whose only door opened on the garden. Two narrow tables, with wooden benches on each side, formed two long parallel lines from one end to the other of the refectory. The walls were white, the tables black; for these two mourning colors are the sole variations in convents. The meals were poor, and the food of even the children scanty; a single plate of meat and vegetables or salt-fish was the height of luxury. This ordinary, reserved for the boarders alone, was, however, an exception. The children ate and held their tongues under the guardianship of the mother of the week, who, from time to time, if a fly dared to move or buzz contrary to regulation, noisily opened and closed a wooden book. This silence was seasoned with the "Lives of the Saints," read aloud from a little desk standing at the foot of the crucifix, the reader being a grown-up pupil appointed for the week. At regular distances on the bare table there were earthen-ware bowls, in which the pupils themselves washed their cups and forks and spoons, and sometimes threw in a piece of hard meat or spoiled fish; but this was severely punished. Any child who broke the silence made a cross with her tongue. Where? On the ground: she licked the stones. Dust, that finale of all joys, was ordered to chastise these poor little rose-leaves that were guilty of prattling. There was in the convent a book of which only one copy was printed, and which no one was allowed to read,—the "Rule of St. Benedict,"—a mystery which no profane eye must penetrate. Nemo regulas seu constitutiones nostras externis communicabit. The boarders succeeded one day in getting hold of this book and began perusing it eagerly, though frequently interrupted by a fear of being surprised, which made them close the book hurriedly. They only derived a slight pleasure from the danger they incurred; for the most interesting portion was a few unintelligible pages about the sins of lads.

They played in a garden walk bordered by a few stunted fruit-trees. In spite of the extreme watch and the severity of the punishment, when the wind shook the trees they at times succeeded in picking up furtively a green apple, or a spoiled apricot, or a wasp-inhabited pear. I will here let a letter speak which I have before me, a letter written by an ex-boarder five-and-twenty years ago, who is now the Duchesse de ——, and one of the most elegant women in Paris. I quote exactly. "We hide our pear or our apple as we can. When we go up to lay our veil on the bed before supper we thrust it under a pillow, and eat it at night in bed; and when that is not possible we eat it in the closet." This was one of their liveliest pleasures. On one occasion, at a period when the archbishop was paying a visit at the convent, one of the young ladies, Mademoiselle Bouchard, who was related to the Montmorencys, laid a wager that she would ask him for a holiday,—an enormity in such an austere community. The wager was taken, but not one of those who took it believed in it. When the moment arrived for the archbishop to pass before the boarders, Mademoiselle Bouchard, to the indescribable horror of her companions, stepped out of the ranks and said, "Monseigneur, a holiday." Mademoiselle Bouchard was fresh and tall, and had the prettiest pink-and-white face in the world. M. de Quélen smiled, and said,—"What, my dear child, a day's holiday! Three, if you like; I grant three days." The prioress could do nothing, as the archbishop had said it. It was a scandal for the convent, but a joy for the boarding-school. Just imagine the effect!

"SHE GLIDED ALONG RATHER THAN WALKED."

This harsh convent, however, was not so well walled in but that the passions of the outer world, the dramas, and even the romance of life, entered it. To prove this, we will briefly describe a real and incontestable fact, though it is in no way connected with the story which we are narrating. We mention the fact in order to complete the physiognomy of the convent in the reader's mind. About this period, then, there was in the convent a mysterious personage, who was not a nun, but was treated with great respect, and called Madame Albertine. Nothing was known about her except that she was mad, and that in the world she was supposed to be dead. It was said that behind the story were certain monetary arrangements necessary for a grand marriage. This woman, who was scarce thirty years of age and a rather pretty brunette, looked vacantly around with her large black eyes. Did she see? It was doubted. She glided along rather than walked; she never spoke, and people were not quite sure whether she breathed. Her nostrils were pinched up and livid, as if she had drawn her last sigh: touching her hand was like touching snow, and she had a strange spectral grace. Wherever she entered she produced a chill; and one day a sister seeing her pass, said to another, "She is supposed to be dead." "Perhaps she is," the other replied. A hundred stories were current about Madame Albertine, and she was the eternal object of curiosity with the boarders. There was in this chapel a gallery called "L'œil de Bœuf," and it was in this place that Madame Albertine attended service. She was usually alone there, because, as the gallery was high, the preacher could be seen from it, which was prohibited to the nuns. One day the pulpit was occupied by a young priest of high rank, le Duc de Rohan, Peer of France, officer in the Red Musqueteers in 1815, when he was Prince de Leon, and who died about 1830, a cardinal, and Archbishop of Besançon. It was the first time that this M. de Rohan preached at the Little Picpus. Madame Albertine usually sat in perfect calmness through the service; but on this day, so soon as she perceived M. de Rohan, she half rose, and cried aloud, "Why, it is Auguste!" The whole community looked round in stupefaction, the preacher raised his eyes, but Madame Albertine had fallen back into her apathy; a breath from the outer world, a flash of light, had momentarily passed over this set face, then faded away, and the maniac became once again a corpse. This remark, however, made everybody in the convent who could speak, talk incessantly. What revelations were contained in this "Why, it is Auguste!" It was evident that Madame Albertine had moved in the highest society, since she knew M. de Rohan, spoke about so great a nobleman in such a familiar way, and was at least a near relation of his, since she knew his Christian name.

Two very strict Duchesses, Mesdames de Choiseul and de Serent, frequently visited the community, doubtless by virtue of their privilege as Magnates Mulieres, and terribly frightened the boarders. When the two old ladies passed, all the poor girls trembled and let their eyes fall. M. de Rohan was, besides, unwittingly the object of attention among the boarders. He had just been appointed, while waiting for a bishopric, Grand Vicar of the Archbishop of Paris, and it was one of his habits to serve mass in the chapel of the Little Picpus Convent. Not one of the young recluses could see him, on account of the baize curtain; but he had a soft and rather shrill voice, which they had managed to recognize and distinguish. He had been a Mousquetaire; and besides, he was said to be somewhat of a dandy, had fine chestnut hair curled round his head, wore a wide scarf of magnificent moire, and his black cassock was cut in the most elegant style. He greatly occupied all their youthful imaginations. No external sound penetrated the convent, and yet one year the sound of a flute reached it. It was an event, and the boarders of that day still remember it. It was a flute which some one was playing in the neighborhood: it was the same tune, one now very aged, "Ma Zétulbé, viens regner sur mon âme," and it was heard two or three times a day. The girls spent hours in listening, the vocal mothers were upset, brains were at work, and punishments were constant. This lasted several months; the boarders were more or less enamoured of the unknown musician, and each fancied herself Zétulbé. The sound of the flute came from the direction of the Rue Droit-mur. They would have given anything, compromised anything, attempted anything, in order to see, if only for a moment, the young man who played the flute so exquisitely, and at the same time played on all their minds. Some of them slipped out through a back door and ascended to the third story looking out of the street, in order to try and see him through the grating; but it was impossible. One went so far as to pass her arm between the bars and wave her white handkerchief. Two others were even bolder; they managed to climb on to the roof, and at length succeeded in seeing the "young man." It was an old émigré gentleman, blind and ruined, who played the flute in his garret in order to kill time.

CHAPTER VI.