ized that to connect herself with that ecclesiastic
was something imperfect, she was more reserved. This much displeased
the worthy ecclesiastic, and embittered him against Father La Combe
and me, and this was the source of all the persecutions that befell
me. The noise in my room ceased when that commenced. This
ecclesiastic, who heard confession in the House, no longer regarded
me with a good eye.

He began secretly to speak of me with scorn. I knew it, but said
nothing to him, and did not for that cease confessing to him. There
came to see him a certain monk who hated Father La Combe in
consequence of his regularity. They formed an alliance, and decided
that they must drive me out of the House, and make themselves
masters of it. They set in motion for this purpose all the means
they could find. The ecclesiastic, seeing himself supported, no
longer kept any bounds. They said that I was stupid, that I had a
silly air. They could judge of my mind only by my air, for I hardly
spoke to them. This went so far that they made a sermon out of my
confession, and it circulated through the whole diocese. They said
that some people were so frightfully proud that, in place of
confessing gross sins, they confessed only peccadillos; then they
gave a detail, word for word, of everything I had confessed.

I am willing to believe that this worthy priest was accustomed only
to the confessions of peasants, for the faults of a person in the
state which I was, astonished him; and made him regard what were
really faults in me, as fanciful; for otherwise assuredly he would
not have acted in such a manner. I still accused myself, however, of
a sin of my past life, but this did not content him, and I knew he
made a great commotion because I did not accuse myself of more
notable sins. I wrote to Father La Combe to know if I could confess
past sins as present, in order to satisfy this worthy man. He told
me, no, and that I should take great care not to confess them except
as passed, and that in confession the utmost sincerity was needed.

A few days after my arrival at Gex by night I saw in a dream (but a
mysterious dream, for I perfectly well distinguished it) Father La
Combe fixed on a cross of extraordinary height. He was naked in the
way our Lord is pictured. I saw an amazing crowd who covered me with