Our Mother-Superior, Madame de Montchevreuil, has given me a most agreeable commission, Mademoiselle, in charging me to assure you once more of the pleasure which your visit has afforded us, and also to express the esteem with which you have inspired all the inhabitants of our house. She wishes to convince you of the sincerity of these sentiments, and she suggests Monday or Tuesday next as the day for the second visit with which you propose to honour us. But, Mademoiselle, as it is always well to hasten the enjoyment of that which affords us legitimate pleasure, we trust that your choice will fall on Monday.... I remind you of your promise, which you cannot fail to fulfil without being untrue to yourself. As for myself, who had the honour of being in attendance on you and of seeing you more frequently, I beg to assure you that to my esteem and admiration for the Chevalier d’Eon I add my attachment to Mademoiselle.... On reading this letter d’Eon was full of gratitude to these saintly women and of humility towards himself. He remembered that in his youth his knowledge of Holy Writ had won for him the degree of Doctor of Canon Law, and his answer to the invitation he had received was couched in the language of an earnest, devout and repentant person. In a few pages, the writing of which must have afforded him the keenest enjoyment (he kept three copies of this letter), d’Eon succeeded in judging himself with an impartiality that would have been meritorious in any other circumstance. ... I purpose going alone (he wrote), so that nothing shall divert my attention whilst on my way to the house of the Lord’s elect, and that I may be the better able to benefit by the holiness of your discourse, which is the living expression of the purity of your lives, and of the peace that reigns in your hearts. When I compare the happiness of the solitude you enjoy, which I have ever delighted in without being able to experience its pleasure, with my terribly restless life in the world and in the various armies and courts of Europe during the last forty years, I feel how far I have been removed from the God of humility and consolation by the demon of glory. Like a foolish virgin I have been running after the shadows of things, while you, wise virgins, possess the substance through steadfastly abiding in the house of the Lord, and in the path of virtue. _Erravi a viâ justitiae et sol intelligentiae non luxit in me._ I pray that God may preserve all our sex from the passion of vainglory. I alone know what it has cost me to rise above myself! Alas! what restless nights I have passed for the sake of a few brilliant and happy days! It is better to admire from afar the example I have set than to imitate it....