Is It True? The Convent Incident
“The Convent Fire” AI sketch
One of the difficulties in writing about La Maupin is knowing what is true—what really happened—and what is either rumor and scandal, or fiction created by novelists writing stories about her. As just such an author, let me say that it is true, we make up incidents and details about her because they serve our stories. If they aren't true, well, they should be. We all do that. So far as I know, for instance, no one has suggested that La Maupin—Julie—ever met Chevalier Baltazar—Geneviève Prémoy—before me, but it's just too good a story not to tell. But that's for another day. For now…
Did La Maupin burn down a convent?
One of the most dramatic episodes attributed to La Maupin is the affair of the young marseillaise and the convent. Like her fighting three men at once, it is often dismissed as made up or not included in “serious” works. François Parfaict left it and similar stories out of his 1767 Dictionnaire des Theatres de Paris, saying:
The passion that Mlle Maupin had for the exercise of arms, and the frequent habit she had of dressing as a man, gave rise to various stories—true or false—that are told about her; but as most of these are of a romantic nature, and of little relevance to our subject, we do not deem it proper to recount them.
Still, I think there is reason to believe that it actually happened. Let me explain why.
Strangely, one of the strongest pieces of evidence is that there are three conflicting versions of the story.
The La Maupin Version
The one most often cited involves La Maupin herself and an attractive young woman from Marseille. The earliest version of it that I have found was published in 1775 in Anecdotes dramatiques by Joseph de La Porte and J. M. B. Clément. They write:
Nouvelle Sapho, elle avoit conçu un attachement trop tendre pour une jeune Marseilloise, que ses parens firent mettre dans un Couvent à Avignon : quand Mademoiselle Maupin sut le lieu de la retraite, elle alla s’y présenter en qualité de novice dans le même Monastère, & y fut reçue. Au bout de quelque tems, une Religieuse vint à mourir. Mademoiselle Maupin la déterra, la porta dans le lit de son amie, mit le feu au lit & à la chambre, & profita du tumulte causé par l’incendie, pour enlever la fille qu’elle aimoit. Dès qu’on se fut aperçu de cette évasion, on lui fit son procès ; & sous le nom de d’Aubigny, car elle se faisoit toujours passer pour fille, elle fut condamnée au feu par contumace : mais, comme, dans la suite, la jeune Marseilloise fut retrouvée, & que son amie avoit eu la précaution de s’évader, la sentence ne fut pas mise à exécution.
which in English is more or less:
A modern Sappho, she had formed too tender an attachment to a young woman of Marseille, whom her parents placed in a convent at Avignon. When Mlle Maupin learned where she had been sent, she presented herself as a novice at the same monastery, and was admitted.
After some time, a nun died. Mlle Maupin exhumed the body, placed it in her companion’s bed, set fire to the bed and the room, and used the confusion caused by the blaze to carry off the girl she loved.
Once the escape was discovered, proceedings were brought against her. Under the name d’Aubigny—for she always passed as a girl—she was condemned in absentia to be burned to death. However, as the young woman from Marseille was later found, and her companion had taken care to flee, the sentence was not carried out.
Du Noyer’s version
An older version of this story involves, not La Maupin, but a male lover, one who marries the nun and has children with her. It was first written by Mme. du Noyer in a letter dated 1705 and published later in a collection of her letters, and has been republished several times since then. The story comes to light due to legal battles over the children’s inheritance.
The La Fille Capitaine scandal
Perhaps the most intriguing version of the convent story is told in a police report. It came to light in the mid-19th century when Lieutenant-General of Police René d’Argenson’s notes and papers were collected and published. Gabriel Letainturier-Fradin, in his book La Maupin, 1670-1707, sa vie, ses duels, ses aventures, included a reference to the story, along with the author’s assumption that the woman mentioned was La Maupin:
However, another mention is made in the reports of d’Argenson (L. Larchey – Notes de René d’Argenson, 1866, p. 72) in 1702, which announces to M. de Pontchartrain the seizure of a book by the Chevalier de Mailly titled La Fille Capitaine, the story of a person ‘so well known in Paris by the blue ribbon she wears as a sash and by the most extraordinary outfit she is dressed in.’ The memoirs of this woman—who may be La Maupin—had been entrusted to Sieur de Mailly to turn into a work, now lost.
Pierre Louÿs, who had been involved with the collecting of d’Argenson’s report, however, had a different insight. He recognized that there was another woman in Paris who fit the description much better: Chevalier Baltazar—Geneviève Prémoy. As we can see in the pictures of Baltazar, she dresses just as d’Argenson described. A decorated (woman) captain in the King’s service, she wears a military jacket and a woman’s skirt. The Order of St. Louis is fastened to a sash that she wears. She is la Fille Capitaine. It was her biography that De Mailly had been hired to punch up.
D’Argenson describes one of the outrageous stories that de Mailly added to La Fille Capitaine:
…the abduction of a nun, carried out by a woman who exhumed the body of another recently deceased nun, placed it in the abducted woman’s bed, set fire to the cell, and then wandered the world for several years.
It is worth noting that, while La Maupin traveled throughout Provence and the Loire valley singing for her supper, Baltazar did not. She served for decades, taking time out only when she was too badly injured to travel.
Who burned the Convent?
So, there we have it. De Mailly adds the story to Baltazar’s autobiography. Du Noyer has the nun herself exhume the body and set the fire, then clamber over the wall to her lover’s awaiting arms. De la Porte and J. M. B. Clément tell the story about La Maupin, fitting it into her wandering days between her time with the Marseille Opera and her meeting Maréchal, d’Albert and Thévenard.
It is possible that all three made up the story, that no one ever set a convent on fire as cover for running away with a novice or nun, but why does the same story keep getting told? Why is part of la Maupin’s life—her time on the road—added to Baltazar’s biography along with it? Well, perhaps she didn’t spend time on the road. But then, where did she meet Maréchal, d’Albert and Thévenard?
To me, at least, it seems that the simplest explanation is that Julie d’Aubigné, La Maupin, the bisexual, cross-dressing, sword-wielding, opera diva, known for fighting duels, assaulting landlords and cooks, traveling the countryside singing for her supper, disturbing Monsieur’s Ball and such, might have come up with a hair-brained scheme to cover her tracks when running off with a girl whose parents sent her to a nunnery to keep them apart. This is not a story that she would want circulating, since only the intercession of Monsieur le Grand and/or the King kept her from paying for the crime. Still, the story would be known in some circles even if not attributed to her. De Mailly borrowed it to spice up the story of a brave soldier passing for a man.
Of course, this leaves us with the question of why Madame du Noyer tells the story about a man and a woman instead of two women? But, that’s a question for another day, or another venue. For now, let’s have a look at the actual sources, the grist for my mill as I work on La Maupin, Mistress of the Sword.
Various Sources
Over the years, I've accumulated several versions of the convent story from different sources. In this section, I'll present them as excerpts from those sources in chronological order of original publication. Thus, though the version of René d'Argenson's police report on Mme. Auroy's complaint against Chevalier de Mailly comes from the 1866 collection of those reports, it is presented first, since his original report was written in 1702.
René d’Argenson’s Report, 1702
Acts of Violence Committed by a Man of Letters — 30 April 1702
A woman named Auroy, a bookseller, told me that she had taken the liberty of submitting her complaint to you against an insolent author who calls himself the Chevalier de Mailly — and her complaints are well founded. She had engaged him to write a short work in the form of a historical novella, under the title La Fille Capitaine, and entrusted him with the memoirs of the subject — a woman so well known in Paris for the blue ribbon she wears as a sash, and for the extraordinary clothes in which she appears. She even claims that Madame the Duchess of Burgundy herself had assigned her this task.
But instead of limiting himself to a simple and discreet narrative, the Chevalier included several stories so outrageous that even the least modest sense of decency could not tolerate them. Among them: the death of the Chevalier de La Basinière, caught with a woman he loved and killed in a manner that too closely resembles the punishment of talion [lex talionis — retaliation in kind, an eye for an eye]; and the abduction of a nun, carried out by a woman who exhumed the body of another recently deceased nun, placed it in the abducted woman’s bed, set fire to the cell, and then wandered the world for several years. These episodes are described in such indecent terms that one cannot help but feel a just horror at them.
Madame Auroy, who had paid him fifty écus for the work, could neither persuade him to remove this filth, nor obtain from him any reply other than blasphemies and insults. I attempted to reason with him, but I gathered from his remarks that he takes pride in having none. I have also learned that he is a man accustomed to distributing libels to the public and sending to Holland those manuscripts rejected by the Seal for their indecency. He is credited with La Vestale amoureuse ou La Religieuse en chemise (The Amorous Vestal, or The Nun in Her Shift), Le Comte de Clare (The Count of Clare), Les Entretiens des cafés (Conversations in the Coffeehouses), and a host of short pieces circulating in that milieu.
It is said he is the son of a servant at the Hôtel de Mailly who, when she became pregnant, took pride in declaring the child to be from one of the noble sons of the house. Though this was much in doubt, Madame the Marquise de Mailly agreed to take on the child after having expelled the mother. But his bad heart — and the lazy, cowardly temperament that has kept him idling in Paris for so long — betrayed any claim to noble birth. He devoted himself to books and gossip instead. That path led him into extreme poverty, as is common, and into various unpleasant affairs where he has shown little courage.
Some time ago, he slapped the daughter of a bookseller in the great hall of the Palais, over a manuscript of his that she would not pay for to his satisfaction. On another occasion, he stabbed a provincial man from behind — the day after the man failed to applaud some bad verses the Chevalier had recited in a café. Five or six such incidents have made him a notorious figure in the world of bookselling, and I would think a citizen of such character deserves to be banished forty or fifty leagues from Paris — or else imprisoned in the Fort-l’Évêque until he has returned to Madame Auroy the fifty écus she should never have had to advance him.
Du Noyer, c. 1705
A nun fell in love with a gentleman who had whispered his reasons through the grille. She resolved to scale the convent walls to run after him. Love, they say, is just as violent under a veil as under a cowl. So, the little nun tried every means she could imagine to gain her freedom. She told her plan to her lover, who found many difficulties in the execution. But what can’t love overcome? You’ll see what it inspired in our nun.
She told her lover to be at a designated place the following night, caring for nothing except to bring good horses. She told him that this time, she had found the perfect means to escape—and even to keep it hidden from the world—and begged him not to ask how, but only to prepare for their journey. Then she left to put her plan in motion.
Here is what she did, which I find very bold. That day, one of her fellow nuns had been buried. Since the grave had not yet been closed, she went down into it while the convent was asleep, carried the corpse to her cell, laid it on her bed, and set the place on fire. Using a ladder she had prepared (and arranged to have removed afterward), she climbed over the garden wall and threw herself into the arms of her impatiently waiting lover. They fled the place immediately, and since no one suspected pursuit, their journey was completely successful. The fire had alarmed the convent, and all the nuns rushed to the burning cell. Finding the dead nun dressed and half-burned, they assumed the fugitive had perished in the flames. The poor sisters mourned her and prayed for the repose of her soul—while she was, perhaps, engaged in quite the opposite kind of business. In the end, by this trick, she secured her escape and preserved her reputation.
Once the lovers were safely away, they married—under different names. The gentleman entered trade and made a fortune. They had several children who would have been very wealthy if their mother’s scruples hadn’t exposed them to ruin by the lawsuit now under discussion. After the death of her beloved husband, she was so stricken with grief that she chose to die to the world and entered a convent. But her remorse over her past led her to confess it—something her children would gladly have done without. By admitting she had once been a nun, she rendered them illegitimate, and therefore unable to inherit. The deceased’s relatives, on this basis, claimed the estate—while the children naturally resist having to give it up. Both parties must now await the judgment of the Parliament of Toulouse, assuming the case is indeed sent there, as is rumored. We will know more after the recess.
Anecdotes Dramatiques, 1775
A modern Sappho, she had formed too tender an attachment to a young woman of Marseille, whom her parents placed in a convent at Avignon. When Mlle Maupin learned where she had been sent, she presented herself as a novice at the same monastery, and was admitted.
After some time, a nun died. Mlle Maupin exhumed the body, placed it in her companion’s bed, set fire to the bed and the room, and used the confusion caused by the blaze to carry off the girl she loved.
Once the escape was discovered, proceedings were brought against her. Under the name d’Aubigny—for she always passed as a girl—she was condemned in absentia to be burned. However, as the young woman from Marseille was later found, and her companion had taken care to flee, the sentence was not carried out.
Fétis, 1837
[A] scandalous affair forced Mlle Maupin to leave the stage and withdraw from Marseille. The parents of a young woman, having discovered the passion this actress had conceived for her, hastened to send their daughter to a convent in Avignon. Mlle Maupin presented herself there as a novice. A few days later, a nun died; the actress placed the corpse in her lover’s bed, set fire to the room, and amid the tumult caused by the blaze, carried off the object of her affections.
Colombey, 1861
She had developed a most peculiar affection for a young girl of ravishing beauty. But the girl had parents who saw clearly, and they placed the wall of a convent between her and La Maupin. The latter was not the sort to accept defeat: she set fire to the convent and carried off the novice. Once the deed was done, she had to slip away from the grasp of justice, which was simply looking to burn her.
Clayton, 1863
A foolish girl of the city saw the supposed M. d'Aubigny on the stage, and, struck with his appearance, fell in love with him. Mdme. la Maupin, for a whim, encouraged this predilection; but the friends of the young lady, rightly disapproving of the acquaintance, placed her in a convent at Avignon. The actress followed her admirer, and, resuming the feminine robes which she had discarded, applied to be received as a novice, being determined to carry off the young lady whom she had pursued. An opportunity soon presented itself. One of the nuns died, and was buried within the precincts of the convent; La Maupin with her own hand disinterred the corpse, laid it on the bed of the young Marseillaise, set fire to the chamber, and in the confusion made her escape with the infatuated girl. Immediately on the discovery of this double crime, Mdme. la Maupin was arraigned in her theatrical name, and condemned to be burnt for contumacy in default of appearing. She ran away to Provence, and the silly Marseillaise girl was restored to her friends
Louÿs, 1904
A Book and a Heroine Rediscovered. — René d’Argenson wrote to M. de Pontchartrain on April 30, 1702:
The wife of a man named Auroy, a bookseller, told me that she had taken the liberty of lodging a complaint against an insolent author who calls himself the Chevalier de Mailly, and her complaints are very well founded.
She had commissioned him to write a short work in the form of a historical novella, under the title La Fille Capitaine [“The Girl Captain”], and had entrusted him with the memoirs of a woman known in Paris for wearing the blue cord as a sash and for her extraordinary attire. She claimed that Madame the Duchess of Burgundy had tasked her with this, but the Chevalier de Mailly, instead of limiting himself to a simple and modest account, introduced several episodes that even the most lax sense of propriety could not tolerate: the death of the Chevalier de la Bazinière, surprised with a woman he loved and killed in a manner that too closely resembled retribution; the abduction of a nun who then unburied another, set fire to her cell, and roamed the world for several years. These adventures are even described in such indecent terms that one cannot help but be justly horrified. The aforementioned Auroy, who had given him fifty écus for the work, could not get him to remove these obscenities, nor extract from him anything but blasphemies and insults.
Bibl. Nat. Mss., f. fr. 8,123, fol. 230. — Pierre Clément, La Police sous Louis XIV, 1866, p. 456. — Larchey, Notes de René d’Argenson, 1866, p. 71,
Following this scandal, the Chevalier de Mailly was banished from Paris and retired to Rouen, where he lived until 1711. That year, having returned without permission after nine years in exile, he was taken to the Châtelet prison for a month. On September 15, 1711, René d’Argenson sent a new report to M. de Pontchartrain, in which he repeated almost word for word the circumstances behind the earlier one:
I shall take the liberty of reminding you that he was accused by the wife of a bookseller of having composed a little work in the form of a historical novella, under the title: “The Girl Captain,” by misusing the memoirs she had entrusted to him, solely to weave together the adventures of that extraordinary woman who was so well known in Paris for the blue ribbon she wore as a sash and for the hybrid costume she affected.
René d’Argenson, Rapports inédits, published by Paul Cottin. Paris, 1891, p. 277.
Who was this woman?
What became of the manuscript recounting her adventures?
These two mysteries have often intrigued curious minds since the initial publication some forty years ago. I had the pleasure of discovering the answer some time ago, but limited myself to communicating the solution to the learned editor of d’Argenson’s Reports, M. Paul Cottin, in the hope that he might eventually record it in the complete edition we hope he will one day produce.
If I now decide to write a full article on this matter, whose interest is admittedly anecdotal, it is because a rather unexpected hypothesis was recently proposed, one that might mislead an inattentive reader. A recent historian, first noting that Mailly’s work is “untraceable,” suggested that its heroine “might be la Maupin.” (1)
Well no, it’s not la Maupin. If in 1904 a celebrated actress cannot obtain the red ribbon, then all the more so in 1702, Mlle Maupin could not have received the blue cord. The Order of Saint-Louis was not created for singers, but for officers, and the only woman who wore it was indeed a captain in the Turbilly regiment. Her name was Geneviève Prémoy, and she was a dragoon.
It was she who, aged forty and covered in wounds, having fought since she was sixteen in the armies of the King and perhaps sensing that her military career was drawing to a close, had begun writing her memoirs.
The Duchess of Burgundy, her patron, had the manuscript delivered to Madame Amable Auroy, a bookseller on the Quai des Augustins, near the Pont Saint-Michel. Madame Auroy, seeking to give a more literary form to this work from an inexperienced hand, paid fifty écus to M. de Mailly to rewrite it.
What M. de Mailly returned, it seems, was so libertine that the poor bookseller dared not, at first, have it printed. But one would be quite mistaken in assuming that, after having the scoundrel banished, she simply wrote off the fifty écus as a loss and threw the manuscript into the fire.
On the contrary, eager to see it published, she apparently went through the manuscript herself, crossed out certain scenes, softened some passages, (2) and scattered throughout the narrative various protestations of propriety that strike the reader as particularly comical given where they appear. And, as an added precaution, she changed the title of the very book she had herself denounced and submitted it—without a word—to His Lordship the Chancellor for approval.
Her dispute with Mailly had taken place in April. By August 23, the manuscript was back at the bookshop with this note:
I have read, by order of His Lordship the Chancellor, the manuscript entitled Histoire de la Dragone (“The History of the She-Dragoon”), and I believe its printing may be permitted.
August 23, 1702 — Pavillon.
Note the extreme restraint of the formula: “I believe its publication may be permitted.” The censor, the poet Étienne Pavillon — author of The Metamorphosis of Iris’s Arse into a Star — was not, however, a severe man, at least if one is to judge by his own works. But despite the summary expurgation to which The Girl Captain had been subjected, The History of the She-Dragoon remained highly improper.
It is, in 614 pages, the tale of Geneviève Prémoy’s amorous exploits with all the young women she encountered during her adventurous life—women who took her for a dashing officer. Each affair begins with glances and notes, and ends invariably in bed. And it is there that the good bookseller imagines she has saved everything by replacing a licentious page with two lines of “decorum.”
After fulfilling the formalities of the publishing privilege (October 1) and registration (October 13), the book was printed and finally released on January 15, 1703, under the following title:
The History of the She-Dragoon, containing the Military Actions and Adventures of Geneviève Prémoy, under the name of Chevalier Balthazar. — Dedicated to the King. — In Paris, at Amable Auroy’s, at the entrance to the Quai des Augustins, on the side of Pont Saint-Michel, at the sign of the great Saint-Jérôme. — MDCCIII. You have already read above how René d’Argenson described “this extraordinary woman so well known in Paris for the blue cord she wore as a sash and for the heteroclite outfit in which she was dressed.” Here is how The History of the Dragoon describes her attire:
Since being recognized as a woman, and by order of the King, she wears a skirt at court and in Paris: it is often made of scarlet, trimmed with gold braid, but the rest of her outfit is that of a distinguished officer: with this attire, she wears a Spanish-style wig, sometimes brown, sometimes blond; a gold-trimmed hat with a white plume (sometimes another color); a scarlet doublet richly adorned with gold braid, though not always the same color. But what adorns her and distinguishes her more than any finery is the Order of Saint-Louis, which she is privileged to wear as a sash… An officer wearing a skirt with her military uniform must have indeed caused quite a sensation in the streets of Paris.
This is not the place to recount her full story. Moreover, L’Intermédiaire has already addressed Geneviève Prémoy. One of our contributors even found her death certificate in the parish registers of Saint-Sulpice (vol. VI, p. 457). This document is valuable in that it authenticates the person, her address, rank, and decoration. Without it, one might wonder if The History of the Dragoon were not a mere novel. I wrote to the Archives Department of the Ministry of War to request her service records, and I was kindly informed that no trace of them remains.
Pierre Louÿs
(1) Letainturier Fradin. - La Maupin. 1904. p. 41.
(2) One example at random: Geneviève, dressed as a man, undoes part of her clothing in order to show a woman “the evident marks of her sex.” Mme Amable Auroy prints the phrase with some hesitation, but she adds in a footnote: “Her breast.”
Rogers, 1928
Out of a sky that Séranne had no reason to believe aught but clear, his belle amie fell violently in love with a gently beautiful young Marseillaise, followed her to a convent in Avignon, managed to steal her away from her godly duress by outrageous means, and never more returned to him or to the agonized and hysterical Gaultier. Three months later the ravished novice returned to her parents to be received with lamentations, and an edict condemning the “sieur” D’Aubigny to death by fire was published abroad through the South. Ostensively to punish the sacrilege of the kidnaping of her friend from the convent, the erroneous prefix was a tactful and delicate denial of the more shocking circumstance of the proceeding. Bending her steps once more towards her beloved Paris, however, La Maupin laughed the tribunal’s admonitions to scorn.
Gilbert, 1932
Unfortunately the Maupin was endowed with a dual personality, and held very definite views concerning male and female beauty. One day she decided she was sick of men in general and of Serannes in particular. What a piquant contrast it would be if a virile woman like herself were to show herself about town in company with some blond-tressed maiden. How it would show up her dark-hued charms. This dubious idea the Maupin was for putting into immediate execution.
It was in the first tier of boxes at the theater where she was singing that Mademoiselle Maupin discovered the ideal, the faultless blonde of whom she was in search.
This was a young lady who went to the theater with her father and mother and was to be seen several times a week in the costliest boxes of the Opera. She seemed to look at la Maupin with an expression in which admiration and passionate affection were equally intermingled.
Mademoiselle Maupin quickly sensed the promptings of love which began to ferment within her and immediately the masculine attributes slumbering in her female breast were aroused to activity.
After a while she succeeded in discovering the fair one’s address, schemed to get a word with her, obtained an interview and bewildered the poor child with her passionate declarations. The parents soon discovered the unwholesome flame which was consuming their child, and accordingly put sudden stop to her theater-going. That troubled la Maupin but little, for she arranged to meet the young woman at a friend’s house.
However, the parents deemed it advisable to cut the whole connection, and all possibility of its renewal, by taking the young person to Avignon and placing her in a convent there.
Two days later Mademoiselle Maupin had found out the road which her beloved had taken, thrown up her appointment at the Academy of Music and, dressed in men’s clothes, was galloping along the banks of the Rhone, making post-haste for Avignon.
Once in the City of the Popes, la Maupin readily discovered her inamorata’s retreat. She was in safe keeping at the Visitandines, a very rigid order to whose house there was no admission save for the unquestionably devout.
La Maupin knocked at the gate of the Visitandines and convinced them of her piety. With this object she had discarded her male attire and donned the modest raiment of the pious devotee.
She told the prioress a most touching story, in which was not a word of truth, said that she was a young orphan, and that she had come to Avignon there to await the arrival of an uncle of hers who was to take her to Burgundy. Fearful of the snares and pitfalls of life in a great city, she had come to ask the prioress to be so kind as to let her wait for her uncle in the peace and quietude of her holy house.
The good sister was deeply moved by all this candor and humility, and taking the penitent’s clasped hands in hers, drew her to her bosom, imprinted a kiss upon her chaste brow and promised her aid and succor as long as she remained in the City of the Popes.
Thereupon the Maupin was led away to a whitewashed cell, in which she lived for a whole week betraying every sign of ardent devotion.
Our heroine’s virtues were the one topic of conversation among the Sisters. She lay low, embalmed in litanies, incense and holy water.
But the wolf was soon to awaken. Indeed he had awakened, but in secret, and no one knew anything about it. The wolf had found out the sheep once more, but within their lay-sisters’ habit, their gestures were so edifying and their attitude so modest that the most knowing among them would never have divined the storms that were raging within those two bosoms. Alas, the Maupin soon began to feel a longing to get away. This love-making in a convent somehow seemed to lack a tang. That is how it was she conceived the idea of burning the place down.
A young nun having died, the Maupin carried the corpse into her friend’s cell, and having despoiled her of her habit, destroyed all trace of her profanation. She put it in the bed of her “lover” and set fire to the bedding.
In a very short time the cell was in flames as well as the passage that led to it, and a little later the whole place was in an uproar, nothing but screaming, shouting, running hither and thither. While panic thus reigned in the convent, la Maupin and her friend were scouring along the king’s highway.
When the fire had been put out at the Visitandines, the nuns discovered the cruel trick that had been played on them.
It is not recorded where the two women went to hide their shameful passion, but we know that la Maupin was condemned to be burned alive on a contumacy.
But who would have recognized in the brilliant cavalier who rode alone one fine morning into Paris, the pious orphan of the Visitandines of Avignon. Her accomplice had disappeared, abandoned by her seducer, and in pitiable plight was compelled to creep back to the bosom of her family.