been more.

She thinks mostly of herself, and intense selfishness is apparent even
in her humility. The tragedy of her life lay in that she had a surplus
of time and a plethora of money, and these paved the way for
introspection and fatty enlargement of the ego. Let her tell her own
story:

My God: Since you wish me to write a life so worthless and
extraordinary as mine, and the omissions I made in the former have
appeared to you too considerable to leave it in that state, I wish
with all my heart, in order to obey you, to do what you desire of
me.

I was born, according to some accounts, on Easter Even, Thirteenth
of April--although my baptism was not until the Twenty-fourth of
May--in the year Sixteen Hundred Forty-eight, of a father and mother
who made profession of very great piety, particularly my father, who
had inherited it from his ancestors; for one might count, from a
very long time, almost as many saints in his family as there were
persons who composed it.

I was born, then, not at the full time, for my mother had such a
terrible fright that she brought me into the world in the eighth
month, when it is said to be almost impossible to live.

I no sooner received life than I was on the point of losing it, and
dying without baptism.

My life was only a tissue of ills. At two and a half years, I was
placed at the Ursulines, where I remained some time. Afterwards they
took me away. My mother, who did not much love girls, neglected me
and abandoned me too much to the care of women who neglected me
also: yet you, O my God, protected me, for accidents were
incessantly happening to me, occasioned by my extreme vivacity; I
fell. A number of accidents happened to me which I omit for brevity.

I was then four years old, when Madame the Duchess of Montbason came
to the Benedictines. As she had much friendship for my father, she
asked him to place me in that House when she would be there, because
I was a great diversion to her. I was always with her, for she much
loved the exterior God had given me. I do not remember to have
committed any considerable faults in that house. I saw there only
good examples, and as my natural disposition was toward good, I
followed it when I found nobody to turn me aside from it. I loved to
hear talk about God, to be at church, and to be dressed as a nun.