I slept very little and was troubled by frightful dreams, which almost always took me back to the Tour d'Antin, and the dangers I had undergone there, or, what was still worse, I read and worked and prayed with my mother, and then waked to an intolerable sense of want and desolation. I told Father Martien of these dreams. He looked grave, pronounced them direct temptations of the devil, and said he feared I had some sin or some concealment yet upon my conscience which gave the evil spirit power over me. I assured him that such was not the case; but he still looked grave, bade me search my conscience anew, advised a retreat, and gave me to read the "Four Weeks' Meditations of Saint Ignatius." This retreat and course of study were to be my final preparation for the public profession which I was to make. In the course of it, I secluded myself entirely in my room, which was so far darkened that I had only light enough to read. I fasted rigorously, saw no company, was allowed no recreation, and no employment save my rosary and my book of meditations. And such meditations—full of the grossest and most material images of death and its consequences—the decay of the senses, the desolation of the sick-room and the dying-bed, the corruption of the body, the flames and brimstone, the wheels and spits of purgatory and hell! In the midst of all this, the penitent is invited to pause and resolve seriously upon his or her vocation, just at the time and in the state when she is most incapable of judging reasonably of anything. No wonder the book has been instrumental in leading so many into the cloister. I finished my month's retreat and was admitted into the fold of the Holy Catholic Church, as she dares to call herself, in the chapel of the king himself, who had taken a great interest in my story. I should like to give my reader an account of this important passage of my life, but in truth I remember very little about it. I have an indistinct recollection of knocking at a closed door and requesting admission to the church, of various chants and prayers, of censers and waxen tapers, but it is all like a confused dream. In fact, I was already very ill, though nobody suspected it. I recollect receiving a great many congratulations, and being saluted by the king himself, who, having been converted himself (save the mark), took a great interest in all converts. The next morning found me in the stupor of such a fever as I had suffered in Jersey, and for two or three weeks I lay between life and death, unconscious of everything. At last, however, the disease took a turn, and I was pronounced out of danger.