“When this apartment has to be cleaned, which is only twice a year, for no one ever occupies it, five or six people go in at the same time to sweep. There are I know not how many rooms of an immense size, all opening into each other, and it is dangerous to be there alone. The apartment is only opened for strangers, to show them the ceilings, which are beautifully painted, and the magnificent high warp tapestry on the walls, representing the histories of Esther and Judith. It is said that these tapestries are the finest the Gobelin manufactory have ever produced.” Madame d’Orléans had left cruel memories of her stay at the Abbaye-aux-Bois. “It was said,” continues the young Princess, “that in the time of Madame d’Orléans, who was a monster of cruelty, she had caused some of the nuns to be nearly beaten to death; others she had had shut up; and sometimes she made them chant the services the whole night through. “Meanwhile M. le Régent would come to her rooms, and she would spend the night in laughing and amusing herself, eating and perpetrating all sorts of follies before the young nuns she had chosen as her companions. She said that she made the ladies spend their nights in prayer in order to expiate the sins she committed. It is also said that she used to take off all her clothes, and send for the nuns to admire her, for she was the most beautiful woman of her time. She took baths of milk, and the next day had it distributed among her nuns at the refectory, ordering them by their vows of obedience to drink it. “At last her excesses reached such a point that the nuns made a formal complaint, and they were told she would be transferred to the Abbaye of Chelles. “M. le Régent came himself to bring her the king’s commands, and told her that ‘she had so persecuted her unfortunate nuns that their complaints had reached the ear of the king; and that, notwithstanding his tenderness for her, he felt compelled to move her to another abbey, for the public feeling would be aroused if he did not do justice to these ladies.’ Then Madame d’Orléans was in despair; she wept, she implored her father to let her remain at the Abbaye-aux-Bois, and promised that henceforth her rule should be as gentle as it had hitherto been cruel and despotic. But the Regent was inexorable, and told her she must be ready to leave for Chelles in a few days. When she saw that she could not win him over, she called the Chapter together, and going down on her knees before the nuns, entreated them to petition Government in her behalf, promising them that they should never again have to complain of her conduct.