re him at
church. There the sonorous organ's lengthened peal, uniting with the
voices of the youthful nuns, completed the excess of her ecstacy. The
Catholic religion has every mysterious fascination for the senses, and
pleasure for the imagination. A novice took the veil during her
residence in the convent. Her presentation at the entrance, her white
veil, her crown of roses, the sweet and soothing hymns which directed
her from earth to heaven, the mortuary cloth cast over her youthful and
buried beauty, and over her palpitating heart, made the young artist
shudder, and overwhelmed her with tears. Her destiny opened to her the
image of great sacrifices, and she felt within herself by anticipation
all the courage and the suffering.

IV.

The charm and custom of these religious feelings were never effaced from
her mind. Philosophy, which soon became her worship, dissipated her
faith, but left the impression it had created. She could not assist at
the ceremonies of a worship whose mysteries her reason had repudiated,
without feeling their attraction and respect. The sight of weak men
united to adore and pray to the Father of the human race affected her
sensibly. The music raised her to the skies. She quitted these Christian
temples happier and better; so much are the recollections of infancy
reflected and prolonged even in the most troubled existence.

This impassioned taste for infinity and pious sentiment continued their
influences over her after her return to her father's house. "My father's
house had not," she writes, "the solitary tranquillity of the convent,
still plenty of air, and a wide space on the roof of our house near the
_Pont Neuf_, were before my dreamy and romantic imagination. How many
times from my window, which looked northward, have I contemplated with
emotions the vast deserts of heaven, its glorious azure vault, so
splendidly framed from the blue dawn of morning, behind the
_Pont-du-Change_, until the golden sunset, when the glorious purple
faded away behind the trees of the Champs Elysees and the houses of
Chaillot. I did not fail thus to employ some moments at the close of a
fine day; and quiet tears frequently stole deliciously from my eyes,
whilst my heart, throbbing with an inexpressible sentiment, happy thus
to beat, and grateful to exist, offered to the Being of beings a homage
pure and worthy of him."

Alas! when she wrote these lines, she no longer saw but in her mind that
narrow str