This nun was named Duda; she had sinned with a priest named Humbert. The latter denied the charge, but the two guilty persons were overwhelmed by the evidence. It was in fact proved that they had two accomplices, two nuns named Bertha and Erprède. The punishment awarded by the council deserves to be set on record: for three years Duda was to be flogged on the back with rods in the presence of the abbess and the other nuns, in order to expiate by the pains of the flesh, the faults which the pleasures of the flesh had made her commit. For the next three years she was authorised to share the prayers with the other sisters; however, she was not to be in the choir with them, but behind the door or in such other place as the abbess would indicate. The seventh year, she might go to the offering, but after the others, and at the end of the year she might receive the body and blood of Our Lord if she were really penitent. She was warned never to forget the sin, and to move always with downcast eyes, and to make the sign of the cross whenever she was tormented with impure thoughts. As to the two accomplices, the council imposed a penitence of three years and a half, during which time they were to be flogged for not having divulged their sister’s secret to those who could have prevented so grave a scandal. We have sometimes been reproached for using in our various writings terms which really belong to medicine: it is amusing to see ourselves justified by a theologian, the Abbé Thiers, who is accusing a colleague of having erred in that direction. ‘There is nothing to be said against medical men, when speaking of parts of the human body, using the most proper and natural terms to explain what modesty forbids us to name on other occasions: the necessity of their profession compels them so to do; but that a priest, a doctor of theology, writing a history which might well be written without the admission of impure facts, yet admits many which have no bearing on this subject, this, I feel, is beyond excuse.’ The worthy Abbé Boileau, who is hinted at here, has however denied having written an immoral work. Has he not proclaimed that the usage of lower discipline (he could hardly have been more discreet in his expression) is nearly always not only unprecedented, new, and useless, but even bad, infamous, and very shameful? It would be unjust not to admit that it was this custom he combatted and tried to abolish. Although he was in a position to know of all the excesses which are committed in monasteries, he has nevertheless not drawn aside all the veil; there are others who have not had the same scruples, and those who are in love with truth have reason therefore to congratulate themselves.