o its innocent pleasures. When quite a child she was in the
habit of accompanying her mother in her visits to the convent of the
Carmelites at Paris. For though still possessing great personal
attractions, Madame de Conde had become serious and of a somewhat
demonstrative piety. Those visits, which were frequent, strengthened
Anne's gentle and susceptible mind in its tendency to devotion. The
impression, too, which somewhat later the tragic fate of her uncle, the
unfortunate Duke de Montmorency,[2] left on her memory, inspired her
with the resolution to quit the outer world at the earliest possible
moment, and, renouncing all its pomps and grandeurs, hide beneath the
veil her budding attractions. Although her mother opposed an inflexible
resistance to her embracing that holy vocation, and strove to combat by
forcible arguments the cold and disdainful demeanour exhibited by her
daughter when mixing in gay society, the fair girl persevered from the
age of thirteen to seventeen in her longing to embrace the life of the
cloister. Futile for a time were the parental arguments, unfruitful
every effort! Anne Genevieve would not consort with worldlings,
persisted in her distaste for mundane pleasures, and continued to
cherish persistently her desire for conventual seclusion. At length the
princess, in 1636, having resolved upon the adoption of more energetic
measures, suddenly ordered her daughter to make preparations for
appearing at a Court ball, and that, too, in three days. With what
despair did the young princess hear the cruel sentence! What affliction,
too, befell the Carmelite nuns when they heard of the fatal mandate.
What a flood of sighs and tears and prayers! The good sisters gathered
themselves together to take counsel one with another, and decided that,
since Mdlle. de Bourbon could not avoid the wretched fate that awaited
her, before going through the trying ordeal she should indue her lovely
form with an undergarment of hair-cloth (commonly called a _cilice_),
and, protected by such armour of proof, she might then fearlessly submit
herself to all the temptations lurking beneath the ensnaring vanities of
her Court attire. The _cilice_, however, did not, it seems, prove
invulnerable as the aegis of Minerva, for the subtle shafts winged by
homage and admiration pierced through that slight breast-plate to a
heart which in truth was by nature framed to inspire and welcome both.
The Princess de Conde rejoiced greatly at