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The year after the convent was completed, Maria de Agreda, who was then eighteen, and her mother, took the veil at the same time and retired from the vanity of the world. In seven years the young girl was made the mother superior of the institution, and, beginning from that date, she was subject to frequent visions of a most surprising character.
The Agreda family, belonging to the lesser nobility, lived on the frontiers of Aragon, and there, in their city of Agreda, they had founded in 1619 a convent, following a pretended revelation which had directed them to this holy undertaking.
At their approach the iron instruments which I had taken for spades or mattocks were lowered, and I had the inexpressible joy of seeing a volley fired at the Spanish carabineers. Instantly turning, they took flight towards Agreda, as it seemed, with two of their number wounded. 'The newcomers, then, are French! I exclaimed.
As I entered the village I had these lanes and the vineyards on my right. This is important to the understanding of my story. Everybody was asleep in Agreda; the moment was favourable for going through it. Besides, I had some hope feeble, it is true that when I reached the farther end I might perhaps see the fires of Marshal Ney's advance guard.
The soldier who had deserted me while I was engaged with the carabineers in the streets of Agreda had quickly reached the vines; thence, leaping across the vine stocks, ditches, rocks, and hedges, he had very quickly run the distance which lay between him and the place where we had left M. Tassin's picket.
We can understand certain ideas of the Abbess of Agréda who declares that She was exempt from the defilements inflicted on women; we see what St. Thomas meant who asserted that Her beauty purified instead of agitating the senses. Her age is indeterminate; She is not a woman, yet She is no longer a child.
The famous beata Maria de Agreda has written many volumes, wherein she records the continuous revelations with which she was favoured, and her familiar conversations with the Saviour, to whom she always gives the title of spouse. On one occasion, when sweeping the cloisters of her convent, she being unable through debility to take up the dust, the infant Jesus came to perform that office for her.
FALSE MIRACLES, RELICS, AND RELIGIOUS IMPOSITIONS—Veneration of crucifixes and statues or images—Their power of healing—Picture at Cadiz—Lignum Crucis—Veronica—Bodies of saints—How procured—Inscriptions—Lives of saints—Maria de Agreda—St Francis—Scandalous representation of the appearance of the Virgin to a saint—Fray Diego de Cadiz—Beata Clara—Her fame and downfall—The nun, Sister Patrocinio—Her success, detection, confession, and expulsion—She returns, and is protected by a high personage—She is again expelled, but again returns and founds a convent—Its disgraceful character and suppression—Her flight towards Rome—Occurrences on the road—Her return to Spain.
He knew that we were barely two leagues from Agreda, but did not know of which side that town was in possession. This was perplexing for me. The infantry detachment would return in a few hours, and if I went back with it, when it might be that in another league I should fall in with Ney's column, I should be giving a poor display of courage, and laying myself open to reproach from Lannes.
Of course, persons who have travelled or have had a liberal education do not speak in this way, and a respectable foreigner will find reasonable Spaniards as he will find reasonable Turks and Englishmen. On the second night of my journey I slept at Agreda, a small and ugly town, or rather village.
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