“Such were the thoughts which importuned the mind of Natalie when she left Brussels, at the end of February, 1843, in order to return with her sisters to Paris, having resolved to ask the consent of her mother to her becoming a Catholic, and fully expecting that this permission would not be withheld.“ Natalie’s father died when she was fifteen years old. Evidently he had not felt any hostility to the Catholic Church, for he was a great admirer of the Jesuits. Madame Narischkin was not prejudiced, as is shown by the fact that she never at any time was averse to the perpetual intercourse kept up by her family, and especially by Natalie, with the most cultivated and devoted Catholics of Europe, such as the La Ferronays family, and never hindered her daughters from attending all kinds of services in Catholic churches. She undoubtedly looked on the Greek and Catholic churches as essentially identical with each other, and therefore could not see any reason for passing from the communion of the one to that of the other. She supposed that her daughter’s reasons were rather sentimental than conscientious. She naturally felt unwilling to have her take a step which would prevent her from ever again receiving communion at the same altar with the other members of the family. And she was, moreover, decidedly opposed to any act which would expose the family to the emperor’s displeasure. It is not to be wondered at, then, that she positively refused permission to Natalie to be received into the Catholic Church. Natalie was at this time twenty-three years of age, perfectly well educated, and fully instructed in the grounds of the distinctive, exclusive claim which is made by the Roman Church upon the obedience and submission of all baptized Christians. She was competent to decide for herself, and in possession of a complete right to act according to her conscience. It was thought proper, therefore, by the priest who was her spiritual director, and by her friends of the La Ferronays family, that she should be privately received into the church at Paris. An accident frustrated their plan, and Natalie was obliged to leave Paris with her mother without having accomplished her intention. The nuncio and other priests of high position at Paris, when they were informed about the matter, disapproved of the course which M. Aladel had advised, and reproved severely the ladies who had been concerned in the unsuccessful attempt to put it in execution.