by the sanctuary lamp. Through the open window came the perfume of
honeysuckle and the songs of the birds. There was a charm, a mystery
and a solemn calm about everything, such as she had never before
experienced. "I do not know what was taking place within me," she said,
when describing this, later on, "but I breathed an atmosphere that was
indescribably delicious, and I seemed to be breathing it in my very
soul. Suddenly, I felt a shock through all my being, a dizziness came
over me, and I seemed to be enveloped in a white light. I thought I
heard a voice murmuring in my ear: _'Tolle Lege.'_ I turned round, and
saw that I was quite alone. . . ."

Our modern _psychiatres_ would say that she had had an hallucination of
hearing, together with olfactory trouble. I prefer saying that she
had received the visit of grace. Tears of joy bathed her face and she
remained there, sobbing for a long time.

The convent had therefore opened to Aurore another world of sentiment,
that of Christian emotion. Her soul was naturally religious, and the
dryness of a philosophical education had not been sufficient for it. The
convent had now brought her the aliment for which she had instinctively
longed. Later on, when her faith, which had never been very enlightened,
left her, the sentiment remained. This religiosity, of Christian form,
was essential to George Sand.

The convent also rendered her another eminent service. In the _Histoire
de ma vie_, George Sand retraces from memory the portraits of several of
the Sisters. She tells us of Madame Marie-Xavier, and of her despair
at having taken the vows; of Sister Anne-Joseph, who was as kind as an
angel and as silly as a goose; of the gentle Marie-Alicia, whose
serene soul looked out of her blue eyes, a mirror of purity, and of the