went to take
a walk at some of the public parks, rather from excess of vanity to
show myself than to take the pleasure of the place. Oh, my Lord! how
didst Thou make me sensible of this fault? But far from punishing me in
letting me partake of the amusement, Thou didst it in holding me so
close to Thyself, that I could give no attention to anything but my
fault and Thy displeasure. After this I was invited with some other
ladies to an entertainment at St. Cloud. Through vanity and weak
compliance, I yielded and went. The affair was magnificent; they,
though wise in the eye of the world, could relish it. I was filled with
bitterness. I could eat nothing, I could enjoy nothing. Oh, what tears!
For beyond three months my Beloved withdrew His favoring presence, and
I could see nothing but an angry God.

I was on this occasion, and in another journey which I took with my
husband into Touraine, like those animals destined for slaughter. On
certain days people adorn them with greens and flowers, and bring in
pomp into the city before they kill them. This weak beauty, on the eve
of decline, shone forth with new brightness, in order to become the
sooner extinct. I was shortly after afflicted with the smallpox.

One day as I walked to church, followed by a footman I was met by a
poor man. I went to give him alms; he thanked me but refused them and
then spoke to me in a wonderful manner of God and of divine things. He
displayed to me my whole heart, my love to God, my charity, my too
great fondness for my beauty and all my faults; he told me it was not
enough to avoid Hell, but that the Lord required of me the utmost
purity and height of perfection. My heart assented to his reproofs. I
heard him with silence and respect, his words penetrated my very soul.
When I arrived at the church I fainted away. I have never seen the man
since.

CHAPTER 14

My husband enjoying some intermission of his almost continual ailments,
had a mind to go to Orleans, and then into Touraine. In this journey my
vanity made its last blaze. I received abundance of visits and
applauses. But how clearly did I see the folly of men who are so taken
with vain beauty! I disliked the disposition, yet not that which caused
it, though I sometimes ardently desired to be delivered from it. The
continual combat of nature and grace cost me no small affliction.
Nature was pleased with public applause; grace made me dread it. What
augmented the temptation was