the Rue St. Dominique, in the Faubourg St. Germain. Attached to the
convent were rooms in which ladies of rank might make a retreat, or
practically occupy chambers. {79}

About this convent and its inmates, Grimm writes as follows:

'The unfortunate Prince Charles, after leaving the Bastille [really
Vincennes] lay hidden for three years in Paris, in the rooms of
Madame de Vasse, who then resided with her friend, the celebrated
Mademoiselle Ferrand, at the convent of St. Joseph. To Mademoiselle
de Ferrand the Abbe Condillac owed the ingenious idea of the statue,
which he has developed so well in his treatise on "The Sensations."
The Princesse de Talmond, with whom Prince Charles was always much in
love, inhabited the same house. All day he was shut up in a little
garderobe of Madame de Vasse's, whence, by a secret staircase, he
made his way at night to the chambers of the Princesse. In the
evening he lurked behind an alcove in the rooms of Mademoiselle
Ferrand. Thus, unseen and unknown, he enjoyed every day the
conversation of the most distinguished society, and heard much good
and much evil spoken of himself.

'The existence of the Prince in this retreat, and the profound
mystery which so long hid him from the knowledge of the world, by a
secret which three women shared, and in a house where the flower of
the city and the Court used to meet, seems almost miraculous. M. de
Choiseul, who heard the story several years after the departure of
the Prince, could not believe it. When Minister of Foreign Affairs
he wrote to Madame de Vasse and asked her for the particulars of the
adventure. She told him all, and did not conceal the fact that she
had been obliged to get rid of the Prince, because of the too lively