CHAPTER IX.

A CENTURY UNDER A WIMPLE.

As we are giving details of what was formerly the Little Picpus convent, and have ventured to let in light upon this discreet asylum, the reader will perhaps permit us another slight digression, which has nothing to do with the story, but is characteristic and useful in so far as it proves that a convent can have its original people. There was in the little convent a centenarian, who came from the Abbey of Fontevrault, and before the Revolution she had even been in the world. She talked a good deal about M. de Miromesnil, keeper of the seals under Louis XVI., and the wife of a President Duplat, who had been a great friend of hers. It was her pleasure and vanity to drag in these two names on every possible occasion. She told marvels about the Abbey of Fontevrault, which was like a town, and there were streets in the convent. She spoke with a Picard accent which amused the boarders; every year she renewed her vows, and at the moment of taking the oath would say to the priest: "Monseigneur St. Francis took it to. Monseigneur St. Julien, Monseigneur St. Julien took it to Monseigneur St. Eusebius, Monseigneur St. Eusebius took it to Monseigneur St. Procopius, etc., etc., and thus I take it to you, father." And the boarders would laugh, not in their sleeves, but under their veils,--a charming little suppressed laugh, which made the vocal mothers frown.

At other times the centenarian told anecdotes. She said that in her youth the Bernardines took precedence of the Musqueteers; it was a century that spoke, but it was the 18th century. She described the Champenois and Burgundian custom of the four wines before the Revolution. When a great personage, a marshal of France, a prince, a duke and peer, passed through a town of Champagne or Burgundy, the authorities addressed and presented him with four silver cups filled with four different sorts of wine. On the first cup was the inscription "ape-wine," on the second "lion-wine," on the third "sheep-wine," and on the fourth "hog-wine." These four mottoes expressed the four stages of intoxication,--the first that enlivens, the second that irritates, the third that dulls, and the fourth that brutalizes.

She had a mysterious object, to which she was greatly attached, locked up in a cupboard, and the rule of Fontevrault did not prohibit this. She would not show it to anybody; she locked herself in, which her rule also permitted, and hid herself each time that a desire was expressed to see it. If she heard footsteps in the passage she closed the cupboard as hastily as she could with her aged hands. So soon as it was alluded to, she, who was so fond of talking, held her tongue; the most curious persons were foiled by her silence, and the most tenacious by her obstinacy. This was a subject of comment for all the idlers and gossips in the convent. What could this precious and hidden thing be which was the centenarian's treasure? Of course some pious book or unique rosary, or well-tried relic. On the poor woman's death they ran to the cupboard, more quickly perhaps than was befitting, and opened it. They found the object under three folds of linen; it was a Faenza plate representing Cupids flying away, and pursued by apothecaries' apprentices armed with enormous squirts. The pursuit is full of comical grimaces and postures; one of the charming little Cupids is already impaled; he writhes, flutters his wings, and strives to fly away, but the assassin laughs a Satanic laugh. Moral,--love conquered by a colic. This plate, which is very curious, and perhaps had the honor of furnishing Molière with an idea, still existed in September, 1845; it was for sale at a curiosity shop on the Boulevard Beaumarchais. This good old woman would not receive any visitors, "because," as she said, "the parlor is too melancholy."