450 PRÆTERITA-II

to confession once a year, and that some of them, to spare their memories, write their sins,-which, however, they cannot deliver on paper to the confessor, but must read them aloud. Louise appeared much horror-struck at the idea which such a procedure admits, of ‘losing one’s sins’; and of their being found by some one who was not a confessor. She spoke with great pleasure of the Capucins who come sometimes; said they were such delightful confessors, and made ‘des morales superbes,’ and that they preached so well that everybody listened with all their might, so that you might tap them on the back and they would never turn round. Of the Jesuits she spoke with less affection, saying that in their great general confessions, which took several days, two or three commandments at a time, they would not allow a single sin to be committed by the persons coming to them in the meantime, or else they refused them absolution-refusal which takes place sometimes for less cause. They had a poor old servant, who could only speak patois; the priest couldn’t understand her, nor she him, so that he could not find out whether she knew her catechism. He refused absolution, and the poor old creature wept and raved about it, and was in a passion with all the world. She was afterwards burnt in the great fire here! I went to mass, to hear how they preached: the people orderly, and church perfectly full. The sermon by a fat stuttering curé, was from the ‘Receive not the grace of God in vain,’ on the Sacraments. ‘Two of these called Sacremens des Morts, because they are received by persons in a state of spiritual death; the five others called Sacramens des Vivants, because they presume, in those who receive them, a state of spiritual life. The three sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Orders, can only be received once; because they impress an indelible seal, and make men what they were not; and what, after they are once,

[Version 0.04: March 2008]