Page 856 - les-miserables

CHAPTER IX

CENTURY UNDER

A GUIMPE

A
Since we are engaged in giving details as to what the con-
vent of the Petit-Picpus was in former times, and since we
have ventured to open a window on that discreet retreat,
the reader will permit us one other little digression, utterly
foreign to this book, but characteristic and useful, since it
shows that the cloister even has its original figures.
In the Little Convent there was a centenarian who came
from the Abbey of Fontevrault. She had even been in soci-
ety before the Revolution. She talked a great deal of M. de
Miromesnil, Keeper of the Seals under Louis XVI. and of
a Presidentess Duplat, with whom she had been very inti-
mate. It was her pleasure and her vanity to drag in these
names on every pretext. She told wonders of the Abbey of
Fontevrault,— that it was like a city, and that there were
streets in the monastery.
She talked with a Picard accent which amused the pupils.
Every year, she solemnly renewed her vows, and at the mo-

856 Les Miserables