"No, not I; say rather, that certain persons who are interested in me, notably yourself, wished to force me to take orders; but personally, I have never had a particularly earnest vocation for the Church." "But you were educated for a religious life?" "Yes, sister; and I believe I have piously profited by that fact." "No sacrilege, monsieur; do not joke on sacred subjects." "I am not joking, dear sister; I am simply stating facts. Look you; you sent me to the Minim brethren at Angoulème to prepare for the priesthood." "Well?" "I studied diligently there. I know Greek like Homer, Latin like Cicero, and theology like John Huss. Having nothing more to learn among those worthy monks, I left their establishment, still following out your wishes, and went to the Carmelites at Rouen, to make profession of faith." "You forget to say that I had promised you a yearly allowance of a hundred pistoles, and that I kept my promise. A hundred pistoles for a Carmelite was more than enough, I should say." "I don't deny it, my dear sister; but the convent always claimed my allowance on the pretext that I was not yet a Carmelite." "Even so, did you not, when you consecrated your life to the Church, take a vow of poverty?" "If I did make such a vow, dear sister, I give you my word that I have faithfully lived up to it; no one was ever poorer than I." "But how did you leave the convent?" "Ah! there you are! In the same way that Adam left the earthly paradise; it was knowledge that undid me, sister; I knew too much." "What's that? you knew too much?" "Yes. Imagine, if you can, that among the Carmelites, who have not the reputation of being Erasmuses or Descartes, I was looked upon as a prodigy,--of learning, be it understood. The result was that when Monsieur le Duc de Longueville came to Rouen to urge that city to declare in favor of the parliament, I was sent to harangue Monsieur de Longueville; the which I did in such elegant and well-chosen language, that Monsieur de Longueville not only expressed himself as well pleased with my eloquence, but asked me if I would be his secretary. This happened just as I was about to take the vows." "Yes, I remember; and on the pretext that you were saying farewell to the world, you asked me for a hundred pistoles, which were given into your own hands." "And they are the only ones I received, on the word of a gentleman!" "But you were to renounce the world." "Yes, such was my intention; but such was not the intention of Providence, which probably had other plans for me. It made a different disposition of me through the medium of Monsieur de Longueville; it was not its will that I should remain a monk. I therefore conformed to the will of a merciful Providence, and I am free to say that I do not repent having done so." "Then you are no longer in the Church?"