with perpetual attacks of retching and sickness, which, however, did not prevent me from writing my general confession, addressed to the vicar of Saint Sulpice, the parish in which I lived.

the morning. I remember that it is my birthday; I ring for my people; and my maid answers the bell, alarmed by the idea that I am ill. I tell her to dress me that I may go to mass. I go to the Church of the Cordeliers, followed by my footman, and Just Heaven! what did I not suffer some taking with me a little orphan whom I had days afterwards, when I united around me adopted. The first part of the mass is cele- at dinner, for the last time, all the friends brated without attracting my attention; but, who had been dearest to me in the days of at the second part the accusing voice of my my worldly life! What words can describe conscience suddenly begins to speak. "What the tumult of my heart when one of my brings you here?" it says. "Do you come guests said to me, "You are giving us too to reward God for making you the attractive good a dinner for a Wednesday in Passion person that you are, by mortally transgress- Week;" and when another answered, jesting His laws every day of your life? I ingly, "You forget that this is her farewell hear that question, and I am unspeakably dinner to her friends! I felt already to overwhelmed by it. I quit the chair on faint while they were talking, and rose from which I have hitherto been leaning carelessly table pretexting as an excuse, that I had a and I prostrate myself in an agony of re- payment to make that evening, which I could morse on the pavement of the church. not in honor defer any longer. The company. rose with me, and saw me to the door. I got into my carriage, and the company returned to table. My nerves were in such a state that I shrieked at the first crack of the coachman's whip; and the company came running down again to know what was the matter. One of my servants cleverly stopped them from all hurrying out to the carriage together, by declaring that the scream proceeded from my adopted orphan. Upon this they returned quietly enough to their wine, and I drove off with my general confession to the vicar of Saint Sulpice.

The mass over, I send home the footman and the orphan, remaining behind myself, plunged in inconceivable perplexity. At last I rouse myself on a sudden; I go to the sacristy; I demand a mass for my own proper advantage every day; I determine to attend it regularly; and, after three hours of agitation, I return home, resolved to enter on the path that leads to justification.

Six months passed. Every morning I went to my mass; every evening I spent in my customary dissipations.

Some of my friends indulged in considerable merriment at my expense when they found out my constant attendance at mass. Accordingly, I disguised myself as a boy, when I went to church, to escape observation. My disguise was found out, and the jokes against me were redoubled. Upon this I began to think of the words of the Gospel, which declares the impossibility of serving two masters. I determined to abandon the service of Mammon.

The first vanity I gave up was the vanity of keeping a maid. By way of further accustoming myself to the retreat from the world which I now began to meditate, I declined all invitations to parties under the pretext of indisposition. But the nearer the Easter time approached at which I had settled in my own mind definitely to turn my back on worldly temptations and pleasures, the more violent became my internal struggles with myself. My health suffered under them to such an extent that I was troubled

My interview with the vicar lasted three hours. His joy at discovering that I was in a state of grace was extreme. My own emotions were quite indescribable. Late at night I returned to my own house, and found my guests all gone. I employed myself in writing farewell letters to the manager and company of the theatre, and in making the necessary arrangements for sending back my adopted orphan to his friends, with twenty pistoles. Finally, I directed the servants to say, if anybody inquired after me the next day, that I had gone out of town for some time; and after that, at five o'clock in the morning, I left my home in Paris never to return to it again.

By this time I had thoroughly recovered my tranquility. I was as easy in my mind at leaving my house as I am now when I quit my cell to sing in the choir. Such already was the happy result of my perpetual masses, my general confession, and my three

1

hours' interview with the vicar of Saint made up, and I wrote to say so.
Sulpice.

goods had been all sold, I left Paris to go Before taking leave of the world, I went and live incognito as a parlor-boarder in the to Versailles to say good-bye to my worthy Convent of the Ursuline nuns of Pondevaux. patrons, Cardinal Fleury and the Duke de Here I wished to try the mode of life for a Gesvres. From them, I went to mass in the little while before I assumed the serious reKing's Chapel and after that, I called on a sponsibility of taking the veil. I knew my lady of Versailles whom I had mortally own character-I remembered my early offended, for the purpose of making my horror of total seclusion, and my inveterate peace with her. She received me angrily dislike to the company of women only; and, enough. I told her I had not come to justify moved by these considerations, I resolved, myself, but to ask her pardon. If she granted now that I had taken the first important it, she would send me away happy. If she step, to proceed in the future with caution. declined to be reconciled, Providence would probably be satisfied with my submission, but certainly not with her refusal. She felt the force of this argument; and we made it up on the spot.

to the discipline of flagellation, every Friday, using the cat-o'-nine-tails on my bare shoulders for the length of time that it would take to repeat a Miserere. In conclusion, he informed me that the nuns of Anticaille would probably lend me the necessary instrument of flagellation; but, if they made any difficulty about it, he was benevolently ready to furnish me with a new and special cat-o'-nine-tails of his own making.

Never was woman more amazed or more angry than I, when I first read this letter. "What!" cried I to myself, "does this man seriously recommend me to lash my own shoulders? Just heaven, what impertinence! And yet, is it not my duty to put up with it? Does not this apparent insolence proceed from the pen of a holy man? If he tells me to flog my wickedness out of me, is it not my bounden duty to lay on the scourge with all my might immediately? Sinner that I am! I am thinking remorsefully of my plump shoulders and the dimples on my back, when I ought to be thinking of nothing but the cat-o'-nine-tails and obedience to Father Deveaux? "

These reflections soon gave me the resolution which I had wanted at first. I was ashamed to ask the nuns for an instrument of flagellation; so I made one for myself of stout cord, pitilessly knotted at very short intervals. This done, I shut myself up while the nuns were at prayer, uncovered my shoulders, and rained such a shower of lashes on them, in the first fervor of my newly-awakened zeal, that I fairly flogged myself down on the ground, flat on my nose, before I had repeated more of the Miserere than the first two or three lines.

away at the sight of him. His imposing ex-
terior had such an effect on me that I could
only humbly entreat him to excuse me from
inflicting a second flagellation on myself.
He smiled benignantly, and granted my re-
quest with a saintly amiability.
"Give me
the cat-o'-nine-tails," he said, in conclusion,
"and I will keep it for you till you ask me
for, it again. You are sure to ask for it
again, dear child-to ask for it on your
bended knees! "

Pious and prophetic man! Before many days had passed his words came true. had persisted severely in ordering me to flog myself, I might have opposed him for months together; but, as it was, who could resist the amiable indulgence he showed towards my weakness? The very next day after my interview, I began to feel ashamed of my own cowardice; and the day after that I went down on my knees, exactly as he had predicted, and said, "Father Deveaux, give me back my cat-o'-nine-tails." From that time I cheerfully underwent the discipline of flagellation, learning the regular method of practising it from the sisterhood, and feeling, in a spiritual point of view, immensely the better for it.

The nuns, finding that I cheerfully devoted myself to every act of self-sacrifice prescribed by the rules of their convent, wondered very much that I still hesitated about taking the veil. I begged them not to mention the subject to me till my mind was quite made up about it. They respected my wish, and said no more; but they lent me books to read which assisted in strengthening my wavering resolution. Among these books was Life of Madame de Montmorenci, who, after the shocking death of her husband, entered I burst out crying, shedding tears of spite the Order of St. Mary. The great example against myself when I ought to have been of this lady made me reflect seriously, and I shedding tears of devotional gratitude for the communicated my thoughts, as a matter of kindness of Father Deveaux. All through course, to Father Deveaux. He assured me the night, I never closed my eyes, and in the that the one last greatest sacrifice which remorning I found my poor shoulders (once so mained for me to make was the sacrifice of generally admired for their whiteness) striped my liberty. I had long known that this with all the colors of the rainbow. The was my duty, and I now felt, for the first sight threw me into a passion, and I pro- time, that I had courage and resolution fanely said to myself while I was dressing, enough boldly to face the idea of taking the "The next time I see Father Deveaux, I will veil. give my tongue full swing, and make the hair of that holy man stand on end with terror!" A few hours afterwards, he came to the convent, and all my resolution melted

While I was in this happy frame of mind, I happened to meet with the history of the famous Rancé, founder or rather reformer, of the Order of La Trappe.. I found a

strange similarity between my own worldly | known many estimable women on the stage.
errors and those of this illustrious penitent. I, unhappily, was not one of the number. I
The discovery had such an effect on me, that confess it to my shame, and, as the chief of
I spurned all idea of entering a convent sinners, I am only the more grateful to the
where the rules were comparatively easy, as mercy of Heaven which accomplished my
was the case at Anticaille, and determined, conversion.
when I did take the veil, to enter an Order
whose discipline was as severe as the disci-
pline of La Trappe itself. Father Deveaux
informed me that I should find exactly what
I wanted among the Carmelite nuns; and,
by his advice, I immediately put myself in
communication with the Archbishop of
Villeroi. I opened my heart to this worthy
prelate, convinced him of my sincerity, and
gained from him a promise that he would
get me admitted among the Carmelite nuns
of Lyons. One thing I begged of him at
parting, which was, that he would tell the
whole truth about my former life and about
the profession that I had exercised in the
world. I was resolved to decieve nobody,
and to enter no convent under false pretences
of any sort.

My wishes were scrupulously fulfilled; and the nuns were dreadfully frightened when they heard that I had been an actress at Paris. But the Archbishop promising to answer for me, and to take all their scruples on his own conscience, they consented to receive me. I could not trust myself to take formal leave of the nuns of Anticaille, who had been so kind to me, and towards whom I felt so gratefully. So I wrote my farewell to them after privately leaving their house, telling them frankly the motives which animated me, and asking their pardon for separating myself from them in

secret.

On the fourteenth of October, seventeen hundred and twenty-four, I entered the Carmelite convent at Lyons, eighteen months after my flight from the world, and my abandonment of my profession-to adopt which, I may say, in my own defence, that I was first led through sheer poverty. At the age of seventeen years, and possessing (if I may credit report) remarkable personal charms, I was left perfectly destitute through the spendthrift habits of my father. I was easily persuaded to go on the stage, and soon tempted with my youth and inexperience, to lead an irregular life. I do not wish to assert that dissipation necessarily follows the choice of the actress' profession, for I have

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 labor 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 honor to preside at the ceremony; and, in spite of the rigor 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 tranquility which astonished all the spectators,-a tranquility which has never once failed me since that time.

Such is the story of my conversion. Providence sent me into the world 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 every thing 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, | vinced her was the best life that she could and to keep my reputation unblemished, if lead. Persons who knew her in the Carmeanybody would only give me two hundred lite convent, report that she lived and died livres a year to live upon. Nobody came in it, preserving to the last, all the better forward to help me, and I fell. Heaven part of the youthful liveliness of her charpardon the rich people of Paris who might acter. She always received visitors with have preserved my virtue at so small a cost! pleasure, always talked to them with surHeaven grant me courage to follow the better prising cheerfulness, always assisted the path into which its mercy has led me, and to poor, and always willingly wrote letters to persevere in a life of penitence and devotion her former patrons in Paris to help the into the end of my days! terests of her needy friends. Towards the So this singular confession ends. Besides end of her life, she was afflicted with blindthe little vanities and levities which appear ness; but she was a trouble to no one in here and there on its surface, there is surely consequence of this affliction, for she cona strong under-current of sincerity and tinued, in spite of it, to clean her own cell, frankness which fit it to appeal in some to make her own bed, and to cook her own degree to the sympathy as well as the curios- food just as usual. One little characteristic ity of the reader. It is impossible to read vanity-harmless enough, surely?-remained the narrative without feeling that there with her to the last. She never forgot her must have been something really genuine own handsome face, which all Paris had and hearty in Mademoiselle Gautier's nature; admired in the bygone time; and she conand it is a gratifying proof of the honest trived to get a dispensation from the Pope integrity of her purpose to know that she which allowed her to receive visitors in the persevered to the last in the life of humility convent parlor without a veil. and seclusion which her conscience had con

DEATH OF THE LAST SLAVE IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK-Margaret Pine, a slave belonging to the family of Wynant Van Zandt, deceased, formerly of Little Neck, L. I., departed this life on the 4th inst, aged 79 years. She was born in Westchester county, in the year 1778. She was presented to Mr. Van Zandt by his father, in her comparative infancy. She remained in the family until the year 1813, at which period, she not being willing to remain in the country, Mr. Van Zandt gave her a release to the follow-lived and he willingly consented. ing effect:

She had acted in the capacity of nurse to the whole family of sons, there having been born eleven of them, and six of whom are now living, the eldest being sixty-nine years of age. It is a singular fact, that having so many children, Mrs. Van Zandt never had a daughter. Margaret refused to be manumitted. She told her master when he proposed to do so, that he had her services for the best part of her life, and that she wished him to take care of her as long as she

"The bearer, Margaret Pine is my servant. She has lived in my family from her infancy. She is sober, honest and faithful, but is averse to living in the country. She has my permisson to go to New York, for the purpose of going out to service and to receive her wages, until this permission is revoked by me, of which due notice will be given to any person or persons in whose employ she may be. I further declare that it is my wish, and I am now willing to manumit her according to law.

"Given under my hand at Little Neck Farm, this 16th day of September, 1813.

"WYNANT VAN ZANDT.

"To all whom it may concern."

Dr. Charles A. Van Zandt, of our city, superintended the whole arrangements of the funeral, and buried her in his family burial ground at Greenwood, as the Doctor says she had a black skin but a pure soul. When she was asked if she would have a physician, she replied no, that Jesus was her physician. She was also asked if she had any particular place that she wished her body to be placed: she replied no, it was but of little consequence about the body if the soul was safe: said she was tired of travelling, and if it was the will of her Heavenly Master to take her home, she was ready and willing to go. She lived like a sincere Christian, and died like one, cheerful, and without a struggle to the last. -Brooklyn Star.