Some of my friends indulged in considerable merriment at my expense when they found out my constant attendance at mass.Accordingly,I disguised myself as a boy,when I went to church,to escape observation.My disguise was found out,and the jokes against me were redoubled.Upon this,I began to think of the words of the Gospel,which declare the impossibility of serving two masters.I determined to abandon the service of Mammon.
The first vanity I gave up was the vanity of keeping a maid.By way of further accustoming myself to the retreat from the world which I now began to meditate,I declined all invitations to parties under the pretext of indisposition.But the nearer the Easter time approached at which I had settled in my own mind definitely to turn my back on worldly temptations and pleasures,the more violent became my internal struggles with myself.My health suffered under them to such an extent that I was troubled with perpetual attacks of retching and sickness,which,however,did not prevent me from writing my general confession,addressed to the vicar of Saint Sulpice,the parish in which I lived.
Just Heaven!what did I not suffer some days afterwards,when I united around me at dinner,for the last time,all the friends who had been dearest to me in the days of my worldly life!What words can describe the tumult of my heart when one of my guests said to me,"You are giving us too good a dinner for a Wednesday in Passion Week;"and when another answered,jestingly,"You forget that this is her farewell dinner to her friends!"I felt ready to faint while they were talking,and rose from table pretexting as an excuse,that I had a payment to make that evening,which I could not in honour defer any longer.The company rose with me,and saw me to the door.I got into my carriage,and the company returned to table.My nerves were in such a state that Ishrieked at the first crack of the coachman's whip;and the company came running down again to know what was the matter.One of my servants cleverly stopped them from all hurrying out to the carriage together,by declaring that the scream proceeded from my adopted orphan.Upon this they returned quietly enough to their wine,and I drove off with my general confession to the vicar of Saint Sulpice.
My interview with the vicar lasted three hours.His joy at discovering that I was in a state of grace was extreme.My own emotions were quite indescribable.Late at night I returned to my own house,and found my guests all gone.I employed myself in writing farewell letters to the manager and company of the theatre,and in making the necessary arrangements for sending back my adopted orphan to his friends,with twenty pistoles.Finally,I directed the servants to say,if anybody enquired after me the next day,that I had gone out of town for some time;and after that,at five o'clock in the morning,I left my home in Paris never to return to it again.
By this time I had thoroughly recovered my tranquillity.I was as easy in my mind at leaving my house as I am now when I quit my cell to sing in the choir.Such already was the happy result of my perpetual masses,my general confession,and my three hours'interview with the vicar of Saint Sulpice.
Before taking leave of the world,I went to Versailles to say good-bye to my worthy patrons,Cardinal Fleury and the Duke de Gesvres.From them,I went to mass in the King's Chapel;and after that,I called on a lady of Versailles whom I had mortally offended,for the purpose of making my peace with her.She received me angrily enough.I told her Ihad not come to justify myself,but to ask her pardon.If she granted it,she would send me away happy.If she declined to be reconciled,Providence would probably be satisfied with my submission,but certainly not with her refusal.She felt the force of this argument;and we made it up on the spot.
I left Versailles immediately afterwards,without taking anything to eat;the act of humility which I had just performed being as good as a meal to me.
Towards evening,I entered the house of the Community of Saint Perpetua at Paris.I had ordered a little room to be furnished there for me,until the inventory of my worldly effects was completed,and until Icould conclude my arrangements for entering a convent.On first installing myself,I began to feel hungry at last,and begged the Superior of the Community to give me for supper anything that remained from the dinner of the house.They had nothing but a little stewed carp,of which I eat with an excellent appetite.Marvellous to relate,although I had been able to keep nothing on my stomach for the past three months,although I had been dreadfully sick after a little rice soup on the evening before,the stewed carp of the sisterhood of Saint Perpetua,with some nuts afterwards for dessert,agreed with me charmingly,and I slept all through the night afterwards as peacefully as a child!
When the news of my retirement became public,it occasioned great talk in Paris.Various people assigned various reasons for the strange course that I had taken.Nobody,however,believed that I had quitted the world in the prime of my life (I was then thirty-one years old),never to return to it again.Meanwhile,my inventory was finished and my goods were sold.One of my friends sent a letter,entreating me to reconsider my determination.My mind was made up,and I wrote to say so.When my goods had been all sold,I left Paris to go and live incognito as a parlour-boarder in the Convent of the Ursuline nuns of Pondevaux.Here I wished to try the mode of life for a little while before I assumed the serious responsibility of taking the veil.I knew my own character--I remembered my early horror of total seclusion,and my inveterate dislike to the company of women only;and,moved by these considerations,I resolved,now that I had taken the first important step,to proceed in the future with caution.