“A few days afterwards we played another trick. The bell-ropes, called ‘The Gondi,’ because they had been blessed by the Archbishop of Paris of that name, are used to ring for the services on working days, and are placed behind the choir, the larger and more important bells being in another belfry above the choir. These ropes pass through a gallery situated behind the Abbess’s throne. We therefore went up into this gallery and tied our handkerchiefs tightly to the bell-ropes. When the novice who had to ring for Matins came, she pulled in vain. She thought she was ringing; but when the rope came to the knots it stopped, and the bells did not move, so that the ladies who were waiting for the first stroke of Matins to come down never came, and the novice was exhausted with ringing. At last some of the nuns, seeing that the hour for Matins was going by, came down to see why no bells were ringing. They found the nun half dead with pulling the ropes. Then, perceiving that something must be wrong with the bells, they went up into the gallery and found the handkerchiefs. Unfortunately our initials were on them, H. M., J. C. They were, therefore, taken to Madame de Rochechouart, who inquired next day when she came into the schoolroom to whom belonged the handkerchiefs marked H. M. and J. C. Then we hung our heads. Madame de Rochechouart ordered us in a severe tone to leave our stalls, so we came to her, trembling all over, and knelt at her feet. She asked us if we imagined these ladies were made to be the butt of our practical jokes; she begged us not to exert our ingenuity in tormenting them, and said that, in order to remember this, we should kneel in our night-caps the following Sunday in the middle of the choir during High Mass, as an apology to the ladies for having amused ourselves at their expense; and also, that, as we were answerable to God for the prayers which had not been said that day, Matins having been curtailed, we should have to recite out loud, during recreation, the seven penitential Psalms. “Some ill-disposed nuns, having excited the Lady Abbess on the subject of these pranks, she sent for Madame de Rochechouart, and charged her with the disorders committed by the class, and with their wicked and spiteful behaviour. Madame de Rochechouart said it was false; that no doubt some of the pupils played tricks, but that as far as spite was concerned, nothing had come to her ears, and, moreover, that she had immediately punished the offenders. Then the Lady Abbess cited the tampering with the holy water as an act of impiety. Madame de Rochechouart, who was very quick tempered and hated mummeries, replied that the deed was dark, because it was a question of ink, but that it was impossible for her to see it in any other light than that of a child’s frolic, carried rather too far she admitted, whereupon she left the Lady Abbess in a tolerably bad temper.