“From the duties of the tower I passed on to those of the community. I could have spent a long time in this department without feeling dull if only I had been left there. I was with Mademoiselle de Talleyrand, who was pretty, amiable, and very popular, and Mademoiselle de Périgord, her sister, also pretty; Mademoiselle de Duras, pretty, and rather amiable; and finally, Mademoiselle de Spinola, who was awkward, ill-natured, but very handsome. “Among the ladies who attended to these duties was an old nun named Madame de Saint Charles; although seventy-five years old, she was lively, and nothing disturbed her; we might make any noise around her, she did not mind it. There were always about fifty people in the community-room, busy at all kinds of needlework. Talleyrand played the harpsichord and I the harp, and we sang; these concerts greatly amused the nuns. “This room was hung all round with full-length portraits of the Abbesses of the Abbaye-aux-Bois; nearly all of them had their coats of arms painted on an escutcheon at their feet. In this way one could tell who they were. Mother Saint Charles told us of an adventure that occurred during her novitiate, which I will relate here. “On one occasion a certain Madame de Saint Ange came to propose her daughter as novice to Madame de la Trémouille, at that time Abbess of the Abbaye-aux-Bois. The young lady seemed of a gentle disposition, and, moreover, the mother offered a pension and dowry suitable for a girl of good family. She was therefore accepted, and entered the next day, and soon every one in the Convent was enchanted with her grace, her wit, and her gentleness. She was novice together with several others, including Madame de Saint Charles, who sometimes said to her: ‘Mademoiselle de Saint Ange, it is incredible that a young lady so modest and well-bred as you are should have the gestures and manners that you sometimes have; for when you are standing before the fireplace you spread your feet in an odd manner, and when you move up your chair you often seem about to take hold of it between your knees; in fact, it is extraordinary to see, in the same person, an air of modesty verging on constraint, occasionally combined with the gestures of a musketeer.’ Mademoiselle de Saint Ange blushingly replied that she had been brought up with a brother, whose manners she used to copy as a child, and that she had never quite got rid of them. “One night, during a terrible thunderstorm, Madame de Saint Charles, who at that time was Mademoiselle de Ronci, came and knocked at the cell of Mademoiselle de Saint Ange, and begged her to open the door.