Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE TjlTTJjE MEETINGS. On the way to his shop Berthelot fell in with a bird of his own feather. It was Robert Daniel, a young brother of the celebrated lawyer, Francis Daniel at Orleans. He had come to Paris to see the world, and the shoe-maker was able to lead him into some of its darkest corners. As they had not met for some time, they had much to relate, and having told of a few late frays, Berthelot inquired,
Has your sister really taken the veil?

Yes, and the giddy creature will find that she has made a great mistake. She loves the world as much as I do, but her teachers made her believe that it was a very romantic thing to bury herself in a nunnery.

She would have found much more romance in our lively circles. It grieves me to think that I shall never dance with her again, unless I break into the convent some night and bring her out into freedom. Why did not her friends reason with her?

That is all the trouble. They reasoned in the wrong way They persuaded her to be a nun. Even my brother, the advocate, did not oppose it, ifshe would only take the veil willingly and not by constraint.
What could have possessed them?

I can tell you. It was their fear that she would become a heretic. She was an ardent admirer of the Queen of Navarre, and they began to write letters to each other. The queen sent her a Testament and some of her religious poems. My sister could not keep from showing them, and then her teachers began with their crafty arts.

Just tell me when you learn that she is tired of her gloomy cage, and I will find a way to let the bird go free, said Berthelot on reaching the door of his shop. Robert would have gone on, but a glance showed him that the older Milon was out and young Coiffard was in, waiting for just such …