“We went into her room, but she looked at us with so severe an air that I got pale, and Choiseul, bold as she is, trembled. However, she handed her the request. Madame de Rochechouart asked if the girls were in the schoolroom. We said ‘No.’ ‘Then,’ said she, ‘I can listen to nothing from them. You may go and bring your complaints to the Abbess, or anybody you like, for I won’t have anything to do with it. You have taken the best possible means of disgusting me for ever with such pupils, who are far more suited to enlist in some army or other, than to acquire the modesty and gentleness which are a woman’s greatest charm.’ We were in a dreadful state; Mademoiselle de Choiseul, who had more courage than I, threw herself at her feet and said that a word from Madame de Rochechouart would always have for her the force of a sovereign command, and that she had no doubt but that all the others felt the same in this matter; but that, in an affair of honour one would rather die than seem to betray or abandon one’s companions.’ ‘Well, then,’ said Madame de Rochechouart, ‘you may speak to whoever you like, for, for my part, I am no longer your mistress.’” They went thereupon to the Abbess, but with not much better result. The Abbess, indeed, promised a general amnesty if the rebels should return, but insisted on the retention of Madame de Saint Jérôme, a condition which the “peace delegates” felt they could not accept. They returned therefore to the rebels’ quarters with no very encouraging news. But, for the present, what these warriors were thinking of most was their supper. This, it seems, was a very gay affair, and was followed by games until what should have been bed-time—but wasn’t on this occasion for the good reason that there were no beds. It is true they gathered some straw from the poultry yard, and offered to make a bed from it for Madame Saint Sulplice, the young nun they held as a hostage, but she refused it, and said they should put the little ones in it, as being the more delicate. “We wrapped their heads round with napkins and clean dusters and dish-cloths,” says Hélène, “for fear they might catch cold.” The others spent the night as best they could, “partly in talking, and partly in sleeping.”