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"Honorinde had her buried at Fontevrault, and over her tomb, at the end of the year, she built a convent, to which her immense property was given, where she retired herself as a simple nun, and of which she was appointed first abbess by the Pope who reigned at the time.
"Sire," added the Abbess de Fontevrault, "I have three nuns in my convent who take the Holy Communion every other day, and whom my predecessor could never bring herself to absolve for some old piece of nonsense of twenty years back." "Do you think you will be able to manage them, madame?" asked the King, laughing. "I am afraid not," replied my sister.
Madame Victoire attributed certain paroxysms of terror, which she was never able to conquer, to the violent alarms she experienced at the Abbey of Fontevrault, whenever she was sent, by way of penance, to pray alone in the vault where the sisters were interred. A gardener belonging to the abbey died raving mad.
"Have you invited the Benedictine Fathers to your fete in the wood?" the King asked me, smiling. "We had no power, Sire," I answered. "There are many young ladies being educated with the nuns of Fontevrault. The parents of these young ladies respectful as they are to these monks, would have looked askance at the innovation. The Fathers never go in there.
He woke up refreshed, and at his weekly Saturday Confession deeply blamed himself for some hesitation he had felt, when baleful advice was given him. A little after this the Abbess of Fontevrault came to see him. The King's mother Eleanor, her guest, had been sent for in a hurry. The king had been hurt.
The great liberty which we enjoyed at Fontevrault, compared with the interminable bondage of Saint Germain or Versailles, made the abbey ever seem more agreeable to me; and Madame de Thianges asked me in sober earnest "if I no longer loved the King." "Of course I do," was my answer; "but may one not love oneself just a little bit, too?
In a short time we entered the forest of Fontevrault, and my spirits rose high at the thought that in a brief space I would be in Poitiers, where Montluc lay, and my mission accomplished.
The Serenade. The Abbey of Fontevrault. Family Council. Duchomania. A Letter to the King. The Bishop of Poitiers. The Young Vicar. Rather Give Him a Regiment. The Fete at the Convent. The Presentation. The Revolt. A Grand Example.
My second sister, Mademoiselle de Mortemart, was so unfortunate as to fall in love with a young Knight of Malta, doomed from his birth and by his family to celibacy. Such was Mademoiselle de Mortemart's grief that life became unbearable to her. Beautiful, witty, and accomplished, she quitted the world where she was beloved, and, at the, age of seventeen, took the veil at Fontevrault.
On the opposite side is a Purbeck marble sarcophagus, said to be that of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, but her effigy is at Fontevrault, where the monastic annals prove that she took the veil after the murder of Prince Arthur. Henry II. left five hundred marks by his will for his burial in the Temple Church, but was also buried at Fontevrault.
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