The next item in the day’s programme is morning prayers in the schoolroom. And here our little girl shows how “reasonable” she is by her devotion and attention. _She_ is not the sort of little girl who giggles, and whispers, and tries to distract her companions—not she, for she knows that there is nothing more serious than praying to God. Prayers are followed by breakfast—and as it is as important to eat well as it is to do anything else well, nothing pleases Madame better than to hear of a little girl thoroughly enjoying her breakfast. It would seem that at Saint-Cyr, there was sometimes permission to talk at breakfast, while sometimes silence was enforced. Madame de Maintenon, who likes to give her girls a reason for the rules to which they are subjected, explains on another occasion (Instruction to the “Jaunes,” July, 1703) why these times of silence were prescribed: “The first reason is to teach you _to hold your tongues_; nothing is so ugly in a girl as to be always talking, even if she were a genius, and said the wittiest and cleverest things possible. The Saint-Cyr girls have always been accused of this fault. Another reason is to give you time to _think_, for we know that, if you employ it well, nothing will contribute so much to your advantage.” At eight o’clock our little girl goes to Mass (here a hint is slipped in as to her behaviour in Church—she must see her companions well seated before taking her own place, and during Mass-time she must not turn her head to see who is coming out; she must follow the parts of the Mass with all the respect and devotion of which she is capable, for nothing is so sacred as the Mass). Classes occupy the time from 8.30 until 12; and I know you will be interested to know what our little friend learns at them. The programme of instruction for the “Rouges” included reading, writing, and arithmetic, the elements of grammar, Catechism and Bible History. If she were a little advanced, she could help the others, and Madame de Maintenon loved to see her little friends doing the mother to their younger companions. According to her, a little girl could not too soon begin to make herself useful to others. In an “Entretien” with the nuns, dated 1701, on the “necessity of avoiding useless fatigues,” we catch a glimpse of a little girl comfortably seated, with a little new-comer, to whom she is teaching her “ba bé,” kneeling at her feet. As Madame de Maintenon is such a disciple of Fénélon (in matters of education) one is glad to think that the little Saint-Cyriennes learned their “ba bé,” not in a Latin Psalter, as was the general habit of the time, but in “the prettily-bound book, with gilt edges and nice pictures,” which he recommends.