Now Angelique's inward struggles took a different turn; she no longer desired to be free of her vows, but rather to carry them out to the utmost of her power, and to persuade her nuns to do so likewise. For some time she met with little encouragement. Another friar of the order of the Capuchins, to whom she opened her heart when he came to preach on Whit Sunday, was a man of no sense or tact, and urged such severe and instant reforms that the poor nuns were quite frightened. Then the prioress, whom Angelique also consulted, told her that she was not well, and excited, and that in three months' time she would think quite differently; all of which would have been true of a great many people, but was a mistake as regarded Angelique. Thus disappointed in both her counsellors, the abbess longed to resign her post, and to become a simple nun in some distant convent; but she dared not disobey her newly awakened conscience, which told her to stay where she was and do her work. * * * * * It is to be noted that, unlike most reformers, Angelique took care that her reforms began at the right end--namely, with herself. Again and again we see that when she made a new rule or revived an old one she practised it secretly herself long before she asked any of her nuns to adopt it. At this time she was torn between the advice of two of the Capuchin monks, one of whom urged her to lay down her burden and to enter as a sister in some other convent; while the other, the father Bernard, who had alarmed the nuns by his zeal, at last seemed to understand the position of Angelique, and told her that, having put her hand to the plough, she must not draw back. Angelique was only sixteen and in great trouble of mind, and in her sore distress she did some foolish things in the way of penances which she afterwards looked on with disapproval, for she never encouraged her nuns to hurt their bodies so as to injure their minds. Indeed, her character was too practical for her to adopt the follies which were the fashion in some of the religious houses not wholly given over to worldly pleasures. She had no wish to become famous or to be considered a saint when she knew how far she was from being one, and prayed earnestly and sensibly never to be allowed to see visions--the visions which she was well aware were often the result first of fasting, and next the cause of vanity, with its root in the praise of men. * * * * *