more grateful to the mercy of Heaven which accomplished my conversion.

When I entered the convent, I entreated the prioress to let me live in
perfect obscurity, without corresponding with my friends, or even with
my relations. She declined to grant this last request, thinking that my
zeal was leading me too far. On the other hand, she complied with my
wish to be employed at once, without the slightest preparatory
indulgence or consideration, on any menial labour which the discipline
of the convent might require from me. On the first day of my admission
a broom was put into my hands. I was appointed also to wash up the
dishes, to scour the saucepans, to draw water from a deep well, to carry
each sister's pitcher to its proper place, and to scrub the tables in
the refectory. From these occupations I got on in time to making rope
shoes for the sisterhood, and to taking care of the great clock of the
convent; this last employment requiring me to pull up three immensely
heavy weights regularly every day. Seven years of my life passed in
this hard work, and I can honestly say that I never murmured over it.

To return, however, to the period of my admission into the convent.

After three months of probation, I took the veil on the twentieth of
January, seventeen hundred and twenty-five. The Archbishop did me the
honour to preside at the ceremony; and, in spite of the rigour of the
season, all Lyons poured into the church to see me take the vows. I was
deeply affected; but I never faltered in my resolution. I pronounced
the oaths with a firm voice, and with a tranquillity which astonished
all the spectators,--a tranquillity which has never once failed me since
that time.

Such is the story of my conversion. Providence sent me into the world