with an excellent nature, with a true heart, with a remarkable
susceptibility to the influence of estimable sentiments. My parents
neglected my education, and left me in the world, destitute of
everything but youth, beauty, and a lively temperament. I tried hard to
be virtuous; I vowed, before I was out of my teens, and when I happened
to be struck down by a serious illness, to leave the stage, and to keep
my reputation unblemished, if anybody would only give me two hundred
livres a year to live upon. Nobody came forward to help me, and I fell.

Heaven pardon the rich people of Paris who might have preserved my
virtue at so small a cost! Heaven grant me courage to follow the better
path into which its mercy has led me, and to persevere in a life of
penitence and devotion to the end of my days!


So this singular confession ends. Besides the little vanities and
levities which appear here and there on its surface, there is surely a
strong under-current of sincerity and frankness which fit it to appeal
in some degree to the sympathy as well as the curiosity of the reader.
It is impossible to read the narrative without feeling that there must
have been something really genuine and hearty in Mademoiselle Gautier's
nature; and it is a gratifying proof of the honest integrity of her
purpose to know that she persevered to the last in the life of humility
and seclusion which her conscience had convinced her was the best life
that she could lead. Persons who knew her in the Carmelite convent,
report that she lived and died in it, preserving to the last, all the
better part of the youthful liveliness of her character. She always
received visitors with pleasure, always talked to them with surprising
cheerfulness, always assisted the poor, and always willingly wrote
letters to her former patrons in Paris to help the interests of her