Background

Translation notes

FIRST PART

Thérèse tells of her early life

Father Dirrag and Éradice

Mme C*** and the Abbé T***

Madame Bois-Laurier

SECOND PART

MME BOIS-LAURIER'S STORY

Enter the Count

THE STORY OF THERESE CONTINUED

Background

First published in 1748, this novel was one of the most notorious French erotic novels of the eighteenth century; it was, despite its clandestine status, a bestseller. Among its admirers was the Marquis de Sade, who said (in his Juliette) that it was "alone to have achieved happy results from the combining of lust and impiety" and "finally gave us an idea of what an immoral book could be". Sade like many others attributed it to Jean-Baptiste Boyer d'Argens (1703-1771), author of a number of satirical and philosophical works; but Darles de Montigny has also been suggested as its author.

The novel is a curious combination of frank pornography and extended philosophical digressions. It would be interesting to know which period readers found more shocking, since the latter challenge many religious orthodoxies (just as the former tend to star members of the clergy).

The novel's full title is often given as: "Thérèse Philosophe, ou mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de D. Dirrag et de Mademoiselle Éradice" ("Theresa Philosopher, or memoirs to serve as the history of D. Dirrage and Mademoiselle Éradice"). This is a reference to the first sequence in the novel, which is based on a famous scandal, from 1731, involving Marie-Catherine Cadière (1709-?), a young woman with mystic tendancies, and the Jesuit father Jean-Baptiste Girard (1680-1733). Along with witchcraft, the accusations against them included sexual activities. However, both were ultimately acquitted and the relevant portion of this novel is more exuberant satire and fantasy than in any way a retelling of the actual case.

The extended title is also misleading in suggesting that the entire novel is a parody of this case. The second major sequence involves an entirely different pair, a free-thinking abbé and his not-quite-platonic female friend, who educate the heroine in both sexual and philosophical matters. The third introduces a retired courtesan whose main education of Thérèse comes in the form of explicit and largely humorous anecdotes.

The last few pages introduce the count to whom she is telling her story and who, in his way, provides her with a happy ending (multiple puns intended).

Translation notes

Since this novel is set in France, French honorifics and names have been left in French (Thérèse, for instance, is not translated to "Theresa", as it arguably could be.)

The word "philosopher" in eighteenth century France had a slightly different meaning than what we give it today, implying a person who above all took Reason as their guide and challenged or even opposed religion in the process of testing all knowledge against rational standards. It was sometimes considered synonymous with "libertine", although the latter word already also had its modern sense. Thérèse, in her explorations of both erotic and moral matters, incarnates these multiple senses.

The word abbé very literally means "abbott" but in eighteenth century France the term frequently referred to clerics who had been tonsured and wore dark robes and clerical collars but had not necessarily received consecration. The term seems to have sometimes been used loosely; an American reader might think of political figures referred to as "Reverend" despite being primarily active in non-religious activities.

A handful of terms or expressions in this novel were so rare that they cannot be found in print elsewhere; these have been paraphrased as best suggested by context.

The original work is divided into two parts, with a separate title for Bois-Laurier's tale and then for the return to Thérèse's narrative. Titles have been added here for the major sections referred to above.

FIRST PART

Thérèse tells of her early life

What, sir, seriously, you want me to write my story? You want me to tell you of the mystic scenes of Mlle Éradice with the Reverend Father Dirrag, that I inform you of the adventures of Madame C *** with the Abbé T ***? You ask of a girl who has never written details which require organization? You want a tableau where the scenes of which I have spoken, or those in which we were the players, lose nothing of their lasciviousness; while the metaphysical arguments retain all their power? In truth, my dear Count, it seems to me beyond my strength. What is more, Éradice has been my friend, Father Dirrag was my spiritual director, I owe feelings of gratitude to Mme. C*** and to the abbé T***. Shall I betray the trust of people to whom I owe the greatest obligations, since it is the actions of the one and the wise thoughts of the other that, by degrees, have opened my eyes to the prejudices of my youth? But if, you say, the example and the reasoning have made you happy, why not contribute to that of others by the same means, by example and by reasoning? Why be afraid to write truths useful to the good of society? Well my dear benefactor, I resist no more: let us write. My candor will serve me in the place of a pure style for thinking people, and I have little fear of fools. No, you will never be rejected by your tender Thérèse; you will see all the recesses of her heart from earliest childhood, her whole soul will come forth in the details of the little adventures which led, as if despite herself, step by step, to the height of sensual pleasure.

Stupid mortals! You think yourselves masters of the passions that Nature has placed in you. They are the work of God. You want to destroy them, these passions, restrain them within certain limits. Mad men! You claim then to be second creators, more powerful than the first? Do you never see that everything is as it should be, and that all is well; that all comes from God, nothing from you, and it is as difficult to create a thought as to create an arm or an eye?

The course of my life is undeniable proof of these truths. From my earliest childhood, we only spoke of the love of virtue and the hatred of vice. "You will only be happy, I was told, so long as you practice Christian virtues and morality. Everything that moves away from it is vice, and vice draws contempt upon us and contempt breeds the shame and remorse which accompany it." Convinced of the sound nature of these lessons, until the age of twenty-five years I tried in good faith to conduct myself by these principles. We will see how I have succeeded.

I was born in the province of Vencerop. My father was a good citizen, a merchant of ***, a pretty little town where everything inspires joy and pleasure. Gallantry there seems to be society's only interest. We love at first thought there and only think to ease the way to tasting the sweetness of love. My mother, who was ***, added to the liveliness of spirit of women in a province, near that of Vencerop, the happy temperament of a Venceropaless. My father and my mother lived off the budget of a low income and the proceeds of their small business. Their work could not change the state of their fortunes. My father paid a young widow, a merchant in his neighborhood, his mistress, my mother was paid by her lover, a very rich gentleman who was kind enough to honor my father with his friendship. Everything was done with admirable order: we knew what to expect from both sides, and never did a household appear more united.

After ten years of so praiseworthy an arrangement my mother became pregnant, she gave birth to me. My birth left her with a discomfort that was perhaps even worse than death would have been. An effort during the delivery caused a rupture that put her in the hard necessity of forever renouncing the pleasures that gave me life.

Everything changed in the paternal home. My mother became devout, the Superior of the Capuchins replaced the constant visits of the Marquis de ***, who was dismissed. The depths of my mother's affection only changed their object: and she gave by necessity to God what she had given to the Marquis by taste and temperament.

My father died and left me still in the cradle. My mother, I do not know why, went to Volnot, a famous seaport. From the most gallant of women, she became the most modest and perhaps the most virtuous that ever was.

I was barely seven years old when this tender mother, constantly occupied with the care of my health and my education, realized that I was visibly losing weight. A skilled doctor was called to be consulted about my illness: I had a voracious appetite, no fever, I felt no pain, yet my spirit was lost, my legs could barely carry me. My mother, fearing for my life, did not leave me and made me sleep with her. What was her surprise when one night, thinking I was asleep, she saw that I had my hand on the part that distinguishes us from men where, by a benign rubbing, I procured the pleasures rarely known to a girl of seven years, and very common among those of fifteen. My mother could hardly believe what she saw. She gently lifted the blanket and sheet, took a lamp that was lit in the room, and a prudent woman, and connoisseur, awaited the outcome of my action. It was as it should be: I stirred, I trembled and the pleasure woke me. My mother, at first, soundly scolded me, she asked me who had taught me the horrors she had witnessed. I replied with tears that I did not know how I might have angered her, that I did not know what she wanted to say in speaking of touching, of immodesty, of mortal sin. The naivety of my answers convinced her of my innocence, and I went to sleep: new stirrings on my side, new complaints from my mother. Finally, after several nights of careful observation, it was decided that it was the strength of my temperament that drove me, while asleep, to that which is used for relief by many poor nuns laying awake. It was decided to closely bind my hands so that it would be impossible for me to continue my nightly diversions.

Soon I recovered my health and my first strength. The habit fell away, but the temperament increased. By the age of nine to ten, I felt a trouble, desires whose purpose I did not know. We often gathered, girls and boys of my age, in an attic or in some side room. There, we played little games: one of us was elected schoolmaster, the slightest mistake was punished by whipping. The boys undid their pants, the girls tucked up skirts and shirts, they looked closely, you would have seen five to six small asses admired, fondled and flogged in turn. What we called the boys' guigui served us as a toy, a hundred times we ran and reran our hands over it, we took it in our whole hand, we made dolls out of it, we kissed the little tool whose use and price we were very far from knowing. Our little buttocks were kissed in turn. Only the center of pleasure was neglected. Why this omission? I cannot say, but such were our games, simple Nature guided them, an exact truth tells me of them.

After two years spent in this innocent debauchery, my mother put me in a convent. I was then about eleven years old. The first task of the superior was to prepare me to make my first confession. I presented myself to this court without fear, because I was without remorse. I recited to the old custodian of the Capuchins, my mother's spiritual director, who listened to me, all the nonsense, the peccadilloes of a girl my age. Once I had accused myself of the crimes of which I thought myself guilty:

"One day you will be a saint," said this good father, "if you continue to follow, as you have done, the principles with which your mother has inspired you. In particular, avoid listening to the demon of the flesh. I am your mother's confessor; she had alarmed me with the taste she believes you to have for impurity, the most infamous of vices. I am quite glad that she was mistaken in the idea she had conceived of the disease you had four years ago. Without her care, my dear child, you would have lost your body and your soul. Yes, I am sure now that the touchings in which she surprised you were not voluntary, and I am convinced that she erred in the conclusion she drew from these for your salvation.

Alarmed by what my confessor told me, I asked him what I had done that might have given my mother a bad idea of me. He did not hesitate to inform me, in the most measured terms, of what had happened and the precautions that my mother had taken to correct in me a defect whose consequences, he said, it was desirable I should never know.

These reflections led me gradually to make others on our amusements in the attic, which I have just mentioned. My face turned red, I lowered my eyes in shame, struck dumb, and I thought I saw for the first time the crime in our pleasures. The father asked me the cause of my silence and my sadness; I told him everything. What details did he demand from me! My naivety on the terms, the attitudes and the nature of the pleasures to which I admitted, further served to persuade him of my innocence. He criticized these games with a prudence rare in the ministers of the Church. But his expressions showed clearly enough the idea he had of my temperament.

Fasting, prayer, meditation, sackcloth, were the weapons he prescribed me to fight my passions from then on.

- Never bring, he said, your hand or even your eyes to that shameful part with which you pee, which is nothing other than the apple that seduced Adam, who brought the condemnation of the human race by original sin. It is inhabited by the devil, it is his residence, it is his throne. Do not let yourself be surprised by that enemy of God and men. Nature will soon cover this part with an ugly hair, like that which serves to cover wild animals, to mark by this punishment that shame, darkness and oblivion should be its share. Beware even more carefully this piece of flesh of young boys your age, with which you toyed in your attic: it is the snake, my daughter, which tempted Eve, our common mother. Let your eyes and your touchings never be soiled by that ugly beast, sooner or later it will sting you and devour you, without fail.

- What! Can it be possible, my father, I replied with much emotion, that this is a snake and as dangerous as you say? Alas jt seemed so sweet! It has not bitten any of my companions. I assure you it had a very small mouth and no teeth, I saw it quite well...

- Come, my child, my confessor said, interrupting me, believe what I say. The snakes that you had the temerity to touch were still too young, too small to do the evils of which they are capable. But they will stretch, they will swell, they will shoot forward against you; it is then you must fear the effect of the venom they shoot with a sort of fury, and which will poison your body and soul .

Finally, after some more lessons of this sort, the good father sent me away, leaving me in a strange perplexity.

I retired to my room, my imagination struck by what I had heard, but far more affected by the idea of the nice snake than by the remonstrances and threats he made to me about it . However I performed in good faith what I promised: I resisted the efforts of my temperament and became a model of virtue.

How many battles, my dear Count, I had to fight until the age of twenty-three, at which time my mother took me from this cursed convent! I was barely sixteen when I fell into a state of languor that was the fruit of my meditations. They made me see sharply the two passions in me, which it was impossible to reconcile: on one hand I loved God in good faith, I wished with all my heart to serve him in the way I was assured he wanted to be served, on the other hand I felt violent desires whose purpose I could not decipher. This tiresome snake showed itself incessantly to my mind and remained there despite myself, waking or sleeping. Sometimes, all worked up, I brought my hands to it, I caressed it, I admired its noble, proud air, its solidity, though I did not yet know its use. My heart beat with astonishing speed and, at the height of my ecstasy or of my dream, always marked by a tremor of delight, I hardly knew myself: my hand took hold of the apple, my finger replaced the snake. Excited by the forerunners of pleasure, I was incapable of any further thought: Hell opening before my eyes would not have had the power to stop me. My remorse powerless, I brought pleasure to its peak!

What troubles then! Fasting, sackcloth, meditation were my recourse, I burst into tears. These remedies, in knocking the organism off-track, in truth cured all at once of my passion, but they ruined both my temperament and my health. I fell into a state of languor which was visibly leading me to the grave, when my mother took me from the convent.

Answer, deceitful or ignorant theologians who create our crimes at your leisure, who is it that put in me the two passions that I fought, the love of God and that of the pleasure of the flesh? Is it Nature or the devil? Choose. But would you dare suggest that the one or the other is more powerful than God? If they are subordinate, then it was God who had allowed these passions to be in me, it was his work. But, you answer, God gave you reason to enlighten you. Yes, but not to choose for me. Reason had indeed made me see the two passions with which I was agitated, it is through it that I later understood that, having everything from God, I had from him those passions with all their strength. But this same reason that enlightened me did not in the least help me choose. God however, you continue, left you mistress of your will, you were free to decide for good or for evil. Pure wordplay. This will and this so-called freedom only have degrees of strength, only act, in proportion to the degrees of strength of the passions and desires which pull at us. I seem, for example, to be free to kill myself, to throw myself out the window. Not at all: whenever the urge to live is stronger in me than death, I do not kill myself. Such a man, you say, is the master of giving to the poor, to his indulgent confessor, a hundred pounds of gold he had in his pocket. Not in the least: the desire he has to keep his money is stronger than that of obtaining a useless absolution for his sins, he will necessarily keep his money. Finally, anyone can prove to you that Reason only serves to make known to Man the degree of desire he has to do or avoid certain things, combined with the pleasure and displeasure which he must get from these. From this knowledge acquired through Reason, comes what we call will and determination. But this will and determination are also fully subject to the degree of passion or desire as a weight of four pounds necessarily determines the side of a scale that has only two pounds to raise in its other bowl.

But, will say a thinker who only sees the surface, am I not free to drink with my dinner a bottle of Burgundy or Champagne? Am I not free to choose for my walk the avenue of the Tuileries or the Feuillant terrace?

I agree that in all cases where the soul is in a perfect indifference on its choice, that the circumstances where the desire to do certain things is in equal balance, in a just equilibrium, we cannot see this lack of freedom: it is a distance in which we do not discern objects. But go a little closer to them, these objects, we soon see clearly the mechanism of our lives' action and once we know one, we know all, since Nature acts by the same principle.

Our reasoner sits down to the table, he is served oysters: this dish makes him choose Champagne. But, it will be said, he was free to choose Burgundy. I say no; it is quite true that another reason, another desire more powerful than the first could induce him to drink that wine. Well, in this case, the latter would also have forced his supposed freedom.

Our same reasoner, on entering the Tuileries, sees a pretty woman he knows on the terrace of the Feuillants: he decides to join her, unless some other reason of profit or pleasure leads him to the broad paths. But whichever side he chooses, it will always be a reason, a desire that inevitably leads him to take one side or another, that constrains his will.

To admit that Man was free, we must suppose that he decides by himself. But if he is led by the degree of passion by which Nature and feeling affect him, he is not free, a degree of more or less intense desire decides him as inevitably as a weight of four pounds takes up one of three.

I ask the person I am speaking with to tell me what prevents him from thinking like me on the subject in question here, and why I can not bring myself to agree with him on this same subject . I answer without doubt that his ideas, concepts, feelings force him to think as he does. But for this reflection, which shows that he is not internally master of having the will to think as I do nor I to think like him, he must agree that we are not free to think in such or such way. But if we are not free to think, how would we be free to act, as thought is the cause and action is the effect? And can a free effect result from a cause that is not free? This implies a contradiction.

To finish convincing ourselves of this truth, let us be helped by the torch of experience. Gregory, Damon and Philinte are three brothers raised by the same masters until the age of twenty-five years. They have never been apart, they received the same upbringing, the same lessons of morality and religion. However Gregory loves wine, Damon loves women, Philinte is devout. Who is it who has determined the three different wills of these three brothers? This cannot be either the acquired, nor the knowledge of moral good and evil since they have received the same precepts from the same masters. Each had in him different principles, different passions which have determined these different desires despite the uniformity of their acquired knowledge. I say further: Gregory, who loved wine, was the most honest man, the most sociable, the best friend when sober, but once he had tasted this enchanting liquor, he was slanderous, unpleasant, quarrelsome, he would cut his best friend's throat for fun. But was Gregory master of this change of will which suddenly came on him? Certainly not, since in cold blood he hated the things he had been forced to commit while drunk. Some fools, however, admired the spirit of chastity in Gregory, who did not like women, the sobriety of Damon, who did not like wine, and the piety of Philinte, who liked neither women nor wine but enjoyed the same pleasure as the first two through his taste for devotion. Thus, most men are fooled by the idea that they have vices and human virtues.

To conclude. The arrangement of bodies, the dispositions of the fibers, a certain movement of liquors produce the kind of passions, the degrees of strength with which they move us, constrain reason, determine the will in the smallest as in the largest actions of our life. This is what makes it so that the passionate man, the wise man, the madman is not less free than the first two since he acts according to the same principles; Nature is consistent. Assuming that Man is free and he chooses by himself, is to make him equal to God.

To return to what concerns me. I said that at twenty-three years, my mother took me almost dying from the convent where I was. The whole organism languished, my complexion was yellow, my lips livid, I looked like a living skeleton. In a word devotion was about to make me murder myself when I went to my mother's house. A skilled doctor, sent on her behalf to my convent, had first known the principle of my illness: the divine liquor which gives us the only physical pleasure, the only one which can be tasted without bitterness, that liquor, I say, whose flow is also necessary for some temperaments as that which comes from the food we eat, had flowed from its own vessels into others foreign to it, which threw the whole mechanism into disorder.

They advised my mother to find me a husband as the only remedy that could save my life. She spoke to me gently. But I was infatuated with my prejudices, I told her bluntly that I would rather die than offend God by a despicable state, that He would only tolerate as a result of His great kindness. Nothing she could say could shake me, weakened Nature left me no kind of desire for this world, I only envisioned the happiness promised in the other.

Father Dirrag and Éradice

So I continued my exercises of piety with all imaginable fervor. I had heard a lot about the famous father Dirrag: I wanted to see him. He became my spiritual director, and Mlle Éradice, his most tender penitent, was soon my best friend.

You know, my dear Count, the story of these two famous characters. I will not repeat to you all that the public knows and has said. But a singular feature, which I witnessed, might amuse you and serve to convince you that, although Mlle Éradice finally knowingly gave herself up to the embraces of this humbug, it is no less certain that she was long duped by his holy lechery.

Éradice had developed the most tender friendship for me, she confided to me her innermost thoughts, the harmony of mood, practice, piety, perhaps even temperament, that existed between us, made us inseparable. Both virtuous, our ruling passion was to have the reputation of being holy, with an inordinate desire to achieve miracles. This passion dominated her so strongly that she would have suffered, with a constancy worthy of martyrs, all the torment imaginable if she had been persuaded that they could resurrect a second Lazarus. And Father Dirrag had, above all, the talent of making her believe whatever he wanted.

Éradice had said several times, with a sort of vanity, that the father never completely confided in anyone but her, that in private conversations they often had together at her place, he had assured her that she had only a few steps to take to achieve the holiness that God had thus revealed to him in a dream in which he clearly knew she was on the verge of achieving the greatest wonders if she continued to be led by the degrees of virtue and mortification necessary.

Jealousy and envy are, of all states, that to which the devotee is perhaps the most susceptible.

Éradice noticed that I was jealous of her happiness, and even that I seemed not to believe what she was saying. Indeed, I had shown myself all the more surprised at what she told me of her private conversations with Father Dirrag in that he had always avoided having similar ones with me, in the house of one of his penitents, my friend, who was stigmatized, like Éradice. Without doubt my sad face and my yellowish complexion had not appeared to the reverend to be a restorative to excite the taste necessary for his spiritual work. I was caught up in the game, no stigmata! no private conversation for me. My mood showed, I pretended to believe nothing. Éradice, stung, offered the next morning to let me witness her happiness:

- You will see," she said eagerly, the strength of my spiritual exercises, and by what degrees of penance the good father leads me to become a great saint. And you will no longer doubt the ecstasies, the delights, which are an effect of these exercises. May my example, my Thérèse, said she, softening, effect in you, as a first first miracle, the power of your mind to completely detach your spirit from matter through the great virtue of meditation, to only place it on God alone!

I went the next day at five o'clock in the morning to Éradice's, as we had agreed. I found her praying, a prayer book in hand.

- The holy man is coming," she said, and God with him. Hide in this little closet, where you can hear and see just how far God is willing to extend goodness to his vile creature through the pious care of our director.

A moment later someone knocked softly at the door. I fled into the closet, from which Éradice removed the key. A hole as large as a hand, which was in the door of this closet covered with a very light old Bergamo tapestry, let me freely see the room in its entirety, without being noticed.

The good father came in.

- Hello, my dear sister in God! he said to Éradice. May the Holy Spirit and St. Francis be with you!

She tried to throw herself at his feet, but he raised her and made her sit beside him.

- I must," said the holy man, repeat to you the principles by which you must guide all actions of your life. But speak to me first of your stigmata. That you have on your chest is still in the same state? Let's see.

Éradice started to uncover her left nipple, beneath which it was.

- Ah sister! Stop," said the father, stop: cover your breasts with this handkerchief (he held one out). Such things are not made for a member of our society: it is enough that I see the wound that St. Francis has stamped there. Ah! it remains. Well, he says, I'm happy: St. Francis still loves you, the wound is crimson and pure. I have taken care to bring with me still the holy piece of cord, we shall need it in pursuing our exercises.

- I told you before, my sister," continued the father, I distinguish you from all my penitents, your companions, because I see that God himself distinguishes you from his holy flock, as the Sun is distinguished from the moon and other planets. For this reason I am not afraid to reveal his most hidden mysteries. I have told you, my dear sister, forget yourself and accept what comes. God only wants from men the heart and mind. It is in forgetting the body that one is able to unite with God, to become holy, to work miracles. I can not conceal from you, my little angel, that in our last exercise, I noticed that your mind was still on the flesh. What! can you not imitate some of these blessed martyrs who have been scourged, racked, roasted, without suffering any pain because their imaginations were so busy with the glory of God in them that there was no particle of mind that was not occupied with this purpose? It is a sure mechanism, my dear daughter; we feel, and we only have an idea of physical good and evil, as of the moral good and evil, by way of the senses. As soon as we touch, we understand, we see, etc., an object, particles of spirit flow in the small cavities of the nerves that will inform the soul. If you have enough passion to collect, by force of meditation on the love that you owe to God, all the particles of mind that you are applying to this object, it is certain that none will remain to alert the soul to any blows that your flesh will receive: you will not feel them. See this hunter: imagination filled with the pleasure of forcing the game he pursues, he does not feel the thorns or needles by which he is torn by pushing through the forests. Weaker than him in a purpose a thousand times more interesting, will you feel weak blows of discipline if your soul is firmly occupied with the happiness that awaits you? This is the touchstone that leads us to work miracles, it must be the state of perfection which unites us to God.

- We shall begin, my dear daughter, continued the father: Do your duty well and be sure that, using the cord of St. Francis and your meditation, this pious exercise will end in a torrent of indescribable delight. Go to your knees, my child, and learn the parts of the flesh which are the reasons for God's wrath: the mortification they will experience will intimately unite your mind to him. I repeat: forget yourself and accept what comes.

Mlle Éradice immediately obeyed without a word. She knelt on a prayer stool, a book before her. Then, lifting her skirts and shift up to the waist, she revealed two buttocks white as snow and in perfect ovals, supported by two admirably proportioned thighs.

- Lift your shift higher," said the father, it is not right ... There, that's it. Now join your hands and raise your soul to God, fill your mind with the idea of the eternal happiness which you are promised. Then the father drew up a stool on which he knelt behind and slightly to her side. Under his robe, which he lifted and tucked into his belt, was a long, thick handful of rods, which he presented to his penitent to kiss.

Mindful of the progression of this scene, I was filled with holy horror, I felt a shudder that I can not describe. Éradice was silent. The father ran eyes full of fire over the buttocks offered to his view, and as he held his eyes on them, I half-heard him say in a low voice, in an admiring tone:

- Ah the lovely bosom! what lovely breasts! Then he stooped and rose at intervals, muttering some verses. Nothing escaped his lechery. After a few minutes, he asked his penitent if her heart had entered into contemplation.

- Yes, my most reverend father, she said: I feel that my mind is detached from the flesh and I beg you to begin the holy work.

- Enough," said the father, your spirit will be content. He recited a few prayers, and the ceremony began with three strokes of the rods which he applied fairly lightly on the rear. These three blows were followed by a verse he recited, and subsequently three other strokes of the rod a bit stronger than the first.

After five or six verses recited and interrupted by this sort of diversion, what was my surprise when I saw Father Dirrag, unbuttoning his pants, let rise an aroused shaft similar to the fatal snake that had drawn the reproaches of my former director! This monster had acquired the length, size and firmness predicted by the Capuchin, it made me shudder. Its ruddy head seemed to threaten Éradice's buttocks which had become of the most beautiful crimson. The father's face was on fire.

- You must presently be, he said, in the most perfect state of contemplation, your soul must be detached from the senses. If my daughter does not deceive my holy hopes, she no longer sees, she no longer hears, she no longer feels.

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