The Diocese of Beaumont had been so charmed with certain pieces of her
embroidery, that a clergyman who was an archaeologist, and another who
was an admirer of pictures, had come to see her, and were in raptures
before her Virgins, which they compared to the simple gracious figures
of the earliest masters. There was the same sincerity, the same
sentiment of the beyond, as if encircled in the minutest perfection of
detail. She had the real gift of design, a miraculous one indeed, which,
without a teacher, with nothing but her evening studies by lamplight,
enabled her often to correct her models, to deviate entirely from them,
and to follow her own fancies, creating beautiful things with the point
of her needle. So the Huberts, who had always insisted that a thorough
knowledge of the science of drawing was necessary to make a good
embroiderer, were obliged to yield before her, notwithstanding their
long experience. And, little by little, they modestly withdrew into the
background, becoming simply her aids, surrendering to her all the most
elaborate work, the under part of which they prepared for her.

From one end of the year to the other, what brilliant and sacred marvels
passed through her hands! She was always occupied with silks, satins,
velvets, or cloths of gold or silver. She embroidered chasubles, stoles,
maniples, copes, dalmatics, mitres, banners, and veils for the chalice
and the pyx. But, above all, their orders for chasubles never failed,
and they worked constantly at those vestments, with their five colours:
the white, for Confessors and Virgins; the red, for Apostles and
Martyrs; the black, for the days of fasting and for the dead; the
violet, for the Innocents; and the green for fete-days. Gold was also
often used in place of white or of green. The same symbols were always
in the centre of the Cross: the monograms of Jesus and of the Virgin
Mary, the triangle surrounded with rays, the lamb, the pelican, the