Anne Barroy, a cousin and poor relative of Le Ber’s, who acted as attendant to the recluse and was the only one who ever came into personal contact with Jeanne Le Ber, headed the priestly faction in the house. Anne was an exaggerated example of the extreme opinions that obtained in Ville Marie at that date. She had a stealthy way of moving about, with eyes cast down and hands folded meekly in front of her, as with pious ostentation she groaned aves and paters. Nanon boldly declared that Mam’selle Anne had eyes in the back of her head, and a nose long enough to reach the utmost limits of everybody’s business. This good woman entertained profound convictions of the worthlessness and wickedness of the world in general; she also deeply disapproved of the Marquise and her niece, and evinced a principle of active antagonism to Nanon, whose powers of sharp retort, audacity, and sauciness rendered her a formidable adversary. Her mind was forever dwelling upon their iniquities. “They revel with fontanges and panniers, coquetry and late suppers,” she lamented, “forgetful of the promises of their baptism; like the unhappy Pretexta spoken of by our holy Bishop, who had her hands suddenly withered and who died five months afterwards, and was precipitated into hell because by order of her husband she curled the hair of her niece after a worldly fashion.” In reality Anne Barroy was a dull, narrow-minded woman, desperately loyal to her convictions, yet with sufficient cunning to know that her own claims to distinction rested upon the pretensions of her charge to superior sanctity; and these she determined to uphold at all costs. “They feast, those sinners, while that angel eats only the food left by the servants, and that, too, after it has become mouldy. She suffers from cold and hears the mass with arms outstretched in the form of a cross. What her reward will be we all know. Their punishment I leave in the hands of God and the saints.” A young Frenchman of noble family, who had been sent out to Canada by his relations on a _lettre de cachet_, was also a member of Jacques Le Ber’s household. Louis de Thevet, Sieur d’Ordieux, had lost his father and was in hopes of succeeding him as _Lieutenant-Genéral des Eaux et des Forêts_, of the Duchy of Valois, an hereditary office in the family. His uncle and step-brothers induced him to sell it, promising that the Duke de Gusore would give him a lieutenancy in the infantry. The prospect failing him, he was afterwards sent to Canada, where he was left by his relatives entirely without resources. An effort had been made to send him to Louisiana, but he resolutely refused to serve as a private soldier, because, as he maintained, he was of noble birth. Backed by Le Ber’s powerful influence, he had contrived so far successfully to elude all efforts to dispose of him contrary to his own inclinations.