A Fair Penitent | Page 8

that I was first led through sheer
poverty. At the age of seventeen years, and possessing (if I may credit
report) remarkable personal charms, I was left perfectly destitute
through the spendthrift habits of my father. I was easily persuaded to
go on the stage, and soon tempted, with my youth and inexperience, to
lead an irregular life. I do not wish to assert that dissipation necessarily
follows the choice of the actress's profession, for I have known many
estimable women on the stage. I, unhappily, was not one of the number.
I confess it to my shame, and, as the chief of sinners, I am only the
more grateful to the mercy of Heaven which accomplished my
conversion.
When I entered the convent, I entreated the prioress to let me live in
perfect obscurity, without corresponding with my friends, or even with
my relations. She declined to grant this last request, thinking that my
zeal was leading me too far. On the other hand, she complied with my

wish to be employed at once, without the slightest preparatory
indulgence or consideration, on any menial labour which the discipline
of the convent might require from me. On the first day of my admission
a broom was put into my hands. I was appointed also to wash up the
dishes, to scour the saucepans, to draw water from a deep well, to carry
each sister's pitcher to its proper place, and to scrub the tables in the
refectory. From these occupations I got on in time to making rope
shoes for the sisterhood, and to taking care of the great clock of the
convent; this last employment requiring me to pull up three immensely
heavy weights regularly every day. Seven years of my life passed in
this hard work, and I can honestly say that I never murmured over it.
To return, however, to the period of my admission into the convent.
After three months of probation, I took the veil on the twentieth of
January, seventeen hundred and twenty-five. The Archbishop did me
the honour to preside at the ceremony; and, in spite of the rigour of the
season, all Lyons poured into the church to see me take the vows. I was
deeply affected; but I never faltered in my resolution. I pronounced the
oaths with a firm voice, and with a tranquillity which astonished all the
spectators,--a tranquillity which has never once failed me since that
time.
Such is the story of my conversion. Providence sent me into the world
with an excellent nature, with a true heart, with a remarkable
susceptibility to the influence of estimable sentiments. My parents
neglected my education, and left me in the world, destitute of
everything but youth, beauty, and a lively temperament. I tried hard to
be virtuous; I vowed, before I was out of my teens, and when I
happened to be struck down by a serious illness, to leave the stage, and
to keep my reputation unblemished, if anybody would only give me
two hundred livres a year to live upon. Nobody came forward to help
me, and I fell. Heaven pardon the rich people of Paris who might have
preserved my virtue at so small a cost! Heaven grant me courage to
follow the better path into which its mercy has led me, and to persevere
in a life of penitence and devotion to the end of my days!
So this singular confession ends. Besides the little vanities and levities
which appear here and there on its surface, there is surely a strong
under-current of sincerity and frankness which fit it to appeal in some
degree to the sympathy as well as the curiosity of the reader. It is

impossible to read the narrative without feeling that there must have
been something really genuine and hearty in Mademoiselle Gautier's
nature; and it is a gratifying proof of the honest integrity of her purpose
to know that she persevered to the last in the life of humility and
seclusion which her conscience had convinced her was the best life that
she could lead. Persons who knew her in the Carmelite convent, report
that she lived and died in it, preserving to the last, all the better part of
the youthful liveliness of her character. She always received visitors
with pleasure, always talked to them with surprising cheerfulness,
always assisted the poor, and always willingly wrote letters to her
former patrons in Paris to help the interests of her needy friends.
Towards the end of her life, she was afflicted with blindness; but she
was a trouble to no one in consequence of this affliction, for she
continued, in spite of it, to clean her own cell, to make her own bed,
and to cook her own food just as usual. One