Chaque sens eut ainsi sa mortification propre.' Enough had by this time transpired of the extraordinary graces with which she had been favoured in her secular state, to alarm her modesty; these graces were redoubled now as her virtues increased. Et Dieu sembla jaloux de la dédommager par lui-même de tout ce qu'elle eut à endurer du côté du démon et de ses autres ennemis; jusques-là que J. C. LUI APPARUT EN PERSONNE ET LUI PARLA à PLUSIEURS REPRISES, comme nous le verrons dans la suite de son recueil!

A light like hers was not intended to be hidden under a bushel, and notwithstanding her modesty and her care, the Abbé assures us, that God permitted her extraordinary favours to be visible to a certain degree. Certain directors and missionary priests, to whom at different times she had revealed the secrets of her interior life, agreed, with her consent, that M. Audoin, who was at that time director of the convent, and in whom she had great confidence, should commit to writing the extraordinary things which God had imparted to her concerning the fate of the universal church, and that of France in particular. The Abbé believes that those writings, which have never appeared, contained much fuller prophecies concerning the revolution than were delivered to him. M. Audoin communicated his notes to M. L'Article, who was director of the Ursuline nuns in the same town; this person had at first been disposed to consider the sister in a favourable light; but he was startled now by her predictions that the church of France would be shaken and its pillars thrown down, and considering her as one who was the dupe of her own imagination, told her that she was in danger of heresy. Luther, he said, and others of that stamp, had in like manner predicted the fall of the church :-She was either, like them, in error, or she was mad. Sister Nativity was alarmed at this; suspected, for a moment, that she was in truth deceived, and prevailed on M. Audoin to burn her notes. Audoin died soon afterwards, and the sister was exposed to a cruel series of chagrins and humiliation. The nuns had discovered something concerning the nature of her communications with M. Audoin, and regarding her either as a hypocrite or a visionary, sought to mortify her in all ways. She had not less to endure from her new directors, to none of whom she could venture to unbosom herself of the subject which filled her mind; and lastly, God himself (it is the Abbé's language!) seemed now to have abandoned her to herself and to her enemies; heaven, as if it had become of brass, appeared leagued with earth and even with hell to afflict her.

But these displeasures and this insupportable aridity were not all that she had to endure; bodily afflictions of the severest

kind were superadded to her trials. After suffering in the head and in the chest, an enormous tumour appeared upon her knee: it was removed by an operation, which left a cancerous sore, and deprived her of the use of the limb. She prevailed upon her director to say for her a mass in honour of the Passion, and of the Griefs of the Virgin at the foot of the Cross; the nuns also performed a novene for her with the same intention, and during that novene she was miraculously healed. One heavier misfortune was yet in store, (if sufferings which she herself solicited from Heaven may be called misfortunes;)-an exertion which she made beyond her strength produced hernia, and endangered her life. She did not fear death, but the thought of submitting to an operation which would have offended her delicacy was insupportable. The Sorbonne was consulted to know whether a nun was bound in conscience to undergo any such operation for the sake of saving her life, and the decision was, that she might let the disease take its course if she pleased. Accordingly she trusted her case to Providence alone. Ainsi cette fille généreuse s'éleva au-dessus de toute considération par la crainte et à la seule apparence de ce qui POUVOIT DÉPLAIRE AUX YEUX INFINIMENT PURS DE SON DIVIN ÉPOUX!

More than thirty years were past in these trials; latterly, however, she was persuaded that she had not been deceived in her first imagination; and at last she was fortunate enough to have an abbess and a director, who saw that something might be made of her. In the summer of 1790 the Abbé Genet was appointed director of these nuns, very unexpectedly, he assures us, on his own part, but not so on that of Sister Nativity, who assured him afterwards that this appointment had been revealed to her. The superior, Mademoiselle Pelagie Brunel des Séraphines, in giving the new director the list of nuns who were to be under his spiritual care, told him there was one among them who had particular reasons for wishing to unburthen her heart to him. Her predictions, as she said, had formerly made some noise, and in consequence she had not been seen in the parlour for fifteen years. This was by her own choice. And as a further proof of her exemplary virtues, the superior said that she ate nothing but the leavings of the other sisters, and wore no other clothes than what they had cast off,-which would scarcely have been saleable in Rag Fair; for, according to the rules of that sisterhood, every nun wore the same habit seven years by day, and then seven years by night, after which the rags were made up for the poor. But Sister Nativity preferred one of these patched habits to any other, and if she did not wear one outwardly, always used it for her under garment till the last tatter. The lady-superior upon seeing

her thus attired could not help saying in her heart, Behold the livery of virtue! the ornaments of humility! But the Abbé would see her, and learn how to appreciate her by the relation which she would give him of herself.

After these preliminaries the new director had his first interview with Sister Nativity.

She was waiting for me,' he says, 'alone, and with a pensive air, in the place to which I repaired at the hour appointed. After we had saluted, she asked leave to be seated, and seated herself immediately. It was the first time that we had seen each other. I confess that I was struck with that venerable and meagre countenance, with that veiled forehead, with those eyes wherein modesty was painted, and, above all, with that air of predestination which cannot be expressed, but which infinitely surpasses every thing that is called beauty and personal merit in persons of the world; a stature of the most advantageous height, with limbs proportioned to it, high shoulders, a negligent and somewhat rustic deportment, a trembling head, a lengthened figure, and features. strongly marked, were all that I could remark of her physique; but still to represent this stamp of holiness, I had almost said of divinity, which sometimes impressed upon her form a certain image of the beauty of her soul, she should be painted at the Communion Table.'

After some introductory compliments, by which it appears that she expected in him a director who was disposed to give her credit for her pretensions, and that he was prepared to deal with her as if he did, she told him that she felt inspired to make her final appeal to his tribunal, and submit wholly to his decision, upon all the points which disquieted her. According to what she saw he would be the last director of that convent, and it was her full wish that he should be hers; she should die content in his hands when he should have heard the details of her life, and of all that God had wrought with her-in a word, when she should have discharged her conscience upon him. I shall furnish you with a subject whereon to exercise your zeal, my father,' said she, for my wants are great, and I shall give you some work.' 'Je puis ussurer,' says the Abbé in this place- qu'en cela, du moins, elle ne s'est pas trompée.' Reminding him then that his business in the convent would not allow him leisure for devoting his time to her at present, she proposed a second interview after eight days, and requested him in the mean time to look over a paper containing certain practices of piety to which she had bound herself, saying she would explain to him hereafter how and by whom they had been presented to her.

This paper had been written by the abbess, at her dictation, during her last illness. It began thus:- Praised, adored, loved and thanked be Jesus Christ in Heaven, and in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar.' The sister then promised to make as many

visits to the Holy Sacrament as there were hours in the day, from five in the morning till nine at night, at every hour making some reflection upon the interior of the sacred heart of Christ, and meditating in regular succession upon the mysteries of his life and glory. All these visits were to be in heart and mind, not in body, except at those hours when she should be attending chapel with the community. She engaged never to pass a quarter of an hour without thinking of the person or presence of God, unless she was asleep, or surprized by some pressing occupation, or some extraordinary and unforeseen interruption. M. Audoin had permitted her to bind herself to these observances for her whole life, by vow; mais sous condition que si jamais cette promesse venoit à lui causer du trouble et de l'inquiétude, elle ne subsisteroit plus, and that the confessor should always have the power of explaining, restricting or annulling it, as he might think expedient. The Abbé in like manner permitted her to renew it, but sans s'y obliger sous peine de pécher. In other words, her priests permitted her to make this vow, with a saving clause that she was at liberty to observe it just as much or as little as she pleased. Had their church dealt always thus considerately with religious enthusiasm and religious madness, how much of the guilt and misery which its vows have occasioned would have been spared!

This interview was followed by forty or fifty others, the details of which M. Genet presents to the Christian reader in the name of that Being whom, he says, he believes to be the sole author of what he thus brings forward, and to whom, according to all appearance, Christianity is beholden for it. With this solemnity the gross and palpable imposture is introduced! One sister only, beside the abbess, was privy to their meetings, and that sister soon afterwards became abbess herself. In the course of the second meeting, Sister Nativité complained grievously of certain internal struggles, and told the Abbé she had heard most distinctly a voice in the depth of her soul, which said,

'Oh, my child, seest thou not that this is the devil, who always performs his part, and seeks only to oppose my designs? The simple means which thou hast for resisting this terrible enemy is by obedience to my church. Go then, and inform the director whom I have sent thee of thy situation; he will speak to thee in my name, and deliver thee from perplexities from which thou canst not free thyself; be docile to his voice, and take, without hesitation, the course which he will indicate on my part.'

Upon this M. Genet gives her an infallible test whereby to distinguish truth from error, and real inspiration from delusion: it was simply to ask herself whether she professed an inviolable attachment and blind obedience to the person of Christ, the word

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of Christ, and the church of Christ; for this the devil could not imitate, and feared to counterfeit. Every suggestion which tended to make us in any thing oppose the laws and decisions of the true church, (to wit, the church of Rome,)-to withdraw us from the yoke of its obedience, and make us break the unity of the faith,any such suggestion could be nothing but pure error, and proceed only from the father of lies. The object of every inspiration always discovered its origin, and by considering whither it tended we might infallibly know from whom it came. 'Mon père,' exclaimed the nun, ah! quel trait de lumière!... c'est l'évidence même.' After some length of discourse, in which the director explained how the devil had been attempting to seduce her into the two abominable heresies of Jansenism and Pelagianism, assured her that all heresies involved the most palpable absurdities and contradictions, and that the respectful and religious silence, which was at least more apparent in heretical places of worship than in Roman Catholic churches, was an artifice of the devil's, he exhorted her to persevere in believing the impressions which she felt; and she assured him that God had said to her before all that he said now, and almost in the same words-(Oui, mon père, tout cela Dieu me l'avoit dit auparavant: ce sont les mêmes pensées, et presque les mêmes termes.) In the third interview she informed him that Christ had often appeared to her in the human form which he had borne upon earth. The Abbé assures his readers that what is now to follow exceeds in sublimity and beauty all that philosophers and moralists of all ages have produced.

'Let us,' he says, 'prepare to hear her as an oracle of Heaven; let us open our ears to her voice, and if the Comforter (l'esprit consolateur) makes use of her to make himself understood by us, let us beware of opposing any obstacle to his grace. "To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts!" Let us regard what she is about to say to us like a new apocalypse." Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear, the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein, for the time is at hand.”’

She now desired him to insert these words at the head of what he wrote By Jesus and Mary, in the name of the most Holy Trinity, I obey!' Christ, she said, had desired that an epigraph should be affixed, thus to denote that he was the author of this work. Her orders were, she said, to begin by speaking of the Trinity, and she relates accordingly in what manner it had been manifested to her! how she had seen it! In this revelation she had also seen what man would have been if Paradise had not been lost, how innocence and purity would have clothed our bodies with a certain light as with a garment-sous laquelle, comme sous le rempart de l'aimable pudeur, ils eussent été à l'abri de toute indécence.'