On the 26th of November, 1798, the Queen of Sardinia took her cousin to the convent, and saw her enter on the mode of life she had so ardently desired for herself, but from which she had been severed. And here Louise began to lead at once a life of hardship and austerity. Earnest in all things by character, she threw herself into the practice of her rule, and became a model to all the novitiates. She counted the months as they passed which should bring her to her profession day; but it was not to be. God saw fit to purify her by many sufferings, by long anxieties, before she should find rest in his house. She was to be the instrument for a great work for his glory, and by many vicissitudes she was to be trained and fitted for it. {111} The French Directory had declared war against Piedmont, the princess's presence endangered the whole of her community, and she hastened to quit their roof and take refuge temporarily at the convent of the Annonciades, from whence, as she was only a boarder, she could fly at any moment; but before leaving her convent she cut off her hair. As a witness to herself, she wrote of the firm resolution she had taken of living for God only. No one but God, she said long afterward, could tell what her sufferings were at having to leave her convent; but she adds: "The graces that God poured upon me in that holy house gave the necessary strength to my soul to bear the long trials which I had to pass through for so many years!" Few recitals are more touching than the sufferings of this poor novice, thus roughly torn away from her beloved convent. Shortly after she took up her abode with the Annonciades, a profession of one of their novices took place, and the ceremony made the poor princess feel her disappointment more bitterly. According to the custom of the order, the novice wore a crown of flowers, and her cell and her bed were both decked with them, and the sight moved Louise de Condé to tears, and, when the novice pronounced her vows, her sobs almost stifled her. She said to herself that _she_ was unworthy to become the spouse of Christ, and therefore these obstacles had arisen; and, humbling herself at the feet of her Lord, she bewailed the follies of her life in the world, of which she took a far harsher view than those did who knew how it had been passed, and she implored him to have mercy on her and others, to attain a perfect resignation to his will.