In spite of her many extravagances, however, Eugénie’s youth was marked by a gay thoughtlessness and daring that were most attractive. Her self-reliant nature could brook no restraint. She scorned prudence and yielded rashly to every impulse. The attention she attracted could not fail to furnish food for gossip, and malicious tongues were soon busy with her reputation—a fact which did not deter her in the least from pursuing her fondness for adventure. This indifference to public opinion also led her, unfortunately, to defy custom and snap her fingers at the strict etiquette prescribed at court. At last she went out alone one evening with one of the young pages for a long walk. Whispers of this romantic promenade soon reached the ears of Queen Isabella, who, though setting the worst possible example herself in regard to morals, insisted on the strictest propriety in the behavior of her ladies; and both culprits were summarily dismissed from her service. Like all Spanish girls, Eugénie had been brought up from her earliest years a devout Catholic, with the deepest reverence for the Pope and the Roman religion, a devotion that in time became almost fanaticism and furnished her enemies with a weapon of attack against which she was powerless to defend herself. After her dismissal from court she began to reflect on the difference between a religious life and one of idle pleasure. While at the convent, the contrast between the unselfish devotion of the nuns and the atmosphere of her parents’ disordered household made a deep impression on the young girl’s mind, and the Church seemed a blissful refuge from the storms of life. Now—feeling more and more conscious of the void within her—a passion for religion seized her, a longing to escape from the world of lies and slander in which she lived, into a purer atmosphere, a new field of activity. The Church held out its arms to her, and in them she determined to seek relief and to find strength to devote her life to the poor and suffering. It is said that when Eugénie went to the convent prepared to take the vows, an old half-witted nun approached, gazed at her with dull, vacant eyes, and suddenly exclaimed, “My daughter, do not seek shelter behind our walls. You are destined to adorn a throne!” In her state of religious ecstasy these words could not fail to impress Eugénie deeply. It seemed a voice from heaven, speaking to her through the nun and consecrating her to the world. The Countess Montijo, too, did all she could to strengthen her daughter in this conviction, and persuaded her at length, instead of burying herself in a cloister, to travel abroad with her again. Chapter II Eugénie’s Marriage to Louis Napoleon