another letter from my Aunt Louise. She is certainly the most intriguing
little Carmelite in the kingdom." The Court went to visit her about three
times a year, and I recollect that the Queen, intending to take her
daughter there, ordered me to get a doll dressed like a Carmelite for her,
that the young Princess might be accustomed, before she went into the
convent, to the habit of her aunt, the nun.--MADAME CAMPAN]

Madame Victoire, good, sweet-tempered, and affable, lived with the most
amiable simplicity in a society wherein she was much caressed; she was
adored by her household. Without quitting Versailles, without sacrificing
her easy chair, she fulfilled the duties of religion with punctuality,
gave to the poor all she possessed, and strictly observed Lent and the
fasts. The table of Mesdames acquired a reputation for dishes of
abstinence, spread abroad by the assiduous parasites at that of their
maitre d'hotel. Madame Victoire was not indifferent to good living, but
she had the most religious scruples respecting dishes of which it was
allowable to partake at penitential times. I saw her one day exceedingly
tormented by her doubts about a water-fowl, which was often served up to
her during Lent. The question to be determined was, whether it was
'maigre' or 'gras'. She consulted a bishop, who happened to be of the
party: the prelate immediately assumed the grave attitude of a judge who
is about to pronounce sentence. He answered the Princess that, in a
similar case of doubt, it had been resolved that after dressing the bird
it should be pricked over a very cold silver dish; if the gravy of the
animal congealed within a quarter of an hour, the creature was to be
accounted flesh; but if the gravy remained in an oily state, it might be
eaten without scruple. Madame Victoire immediately made the experiment:
the gravy did not congeal; and this was a source of great joy to the
Princess, who was very partial to that sort of game. The abstinence which
so much occupied the attention of Madame Victoire was so disagreeable to