far from
going astray, that would have made me return to you.

I was jealous of my brother, for on every occasion I remarked the
difference my mother made between him and me. However, he behaved
always right, and I always wrong. My mother's servant-maids paid
their court by caressing my brother and ill-treating me.

It is true I was bad, for I had fallen back into my former defects
of telling lies and getting in a passion; with all these defects I
nevertheless willingly gave alms, and I much loved the poor. I
assiduously prayed to you, O my God, and I took pleasure in hearing
you well spoken of. I do not doubt you will be astonished, Sir, by
such resistance, and by so long a course of inconstancy; so many
graces, so much ingratitude; but the sequel will astonish you still
more, when you shall see this manner of acting grow stronger with my
age, and that reason, far from correcting so irrational a procedure,
has served only to give more force and more scope to my sins.

It seemed, O my God, that you doubled your graces as my ingratitude
increased. There went on in me what goes on in the siege of towns.
You were besieging my heart, and I thought only of defending it
against your attacks. I put up fortifications to that miserable
place, redoubling each day my iniquities to hinder you from taking
it.

When it seemed you were about to be victorious over this ungrateful
heart, I made a cross-battery; I put up barriers to arrest your
bounties and to hinder the course of your graces. It required
nothing less than you to break them down, O my divine Love, who by
your sacred fire were more powerful than even death, to which my
sins have so often reduced me.

My father, seeing that I was grown, placed me for Lent with the
Ursulines, in order that I should have my first communion at Easter,
when I should complete eleven years of age. He placed me in the
hands of his daughter, my very dear sister, who redoubled her cares
that I might perform this action with all possible preparation. I
thought only, O my God, of giving myself to you once for all.

I often felt the combat between my good inclinations and my evil
habits. I even performed some penance. As I was almost always with
my sister, and the boarders of the grown class with whom I was,
although I was very far from their age, we