Do not be disturbed by the complaints made to you [by the mistresses]
of your children; think only of training their hearts to piety,
integrity, simplicity, candour, sincerity, honesty, and courage, and
you will one day see, if it pleases God, that they are far removed
from the children you now write of.
Do not notice all the faults of the Yellows and Blues; have patience;
all will come right in time, and the sisters will be better convinced
by their own experience than by anything we can say to them. As for
what you have done about silence, nothing could be better. I only
beg you, as I have already said, to preach it without expecting
to fully obtain it. You will never succeed in keeping sixty girls
together without a word from one of them. You must see things as they
are, and not attack a small infringement like a vice. Regularity and
silence are necessary for the quiet, the order, and the propriety of
the house; but the essential part of the education of your girls is
that they shall bear with them and always practise the virtues I have
named to you. Those virtues do not show to persons who merely see a
march in the choir or a silent recreation in the class-room; but it
is this sincerity of purpose that I ask of you; God will reward it
magnificently.
I should be afraid to write all this to certain of the Dames, who,
with very good intentions, pass from one extreme to the other at the
least word said to them, and who on the strength of this letter would
cease to attend to regularity or silence; but I hope that you at least
will understand me better.
I have been without news from Saint-Cyr for several days. The king is
well, I am very well, but the Prince of Orange is ill.
_To one of the mistresses._