[290] A famous hermit of the sixth century, who came on the
eve of every Good Friday to give the sacrament to St. Mary the
Egyptian, in a desert cave on the banks of the river Jordan. See
the Lives of the Fathers of the Desert.
[291] Courage, my heart! disdain all human weakness.
And now the moment arrived in which her prayers are heard; the happy
moment that was to separate her for ever from her native land; she
follows the law of the Gospel; she leaves all to follow Christ.
In the mean time, however, her family missed her, and finding she did
not return to dinner, sent to all the churches in the neighborhood;
she was not there. They supposed she would return at night; no
tidings were heard of her. They now begin to be uneasy, the servants
are all questioned, they can give no account of her further than
that she had taken her foot-boy with her. “She must certainly be at
her country-house.” No. “Where can she possibly be?” A messenger is
dispatched to the Curé of St. Jacques-du-Haut-Pas; the curé says he has
not had the direction of her conscience for a considerable time; for,
being a simple, honest man, and having observed her full of strange
chimerical ideas of religion, he would have nothing to do with her.
Every one was now at a loss what to think; two, three, four days, a
week passed, still no news of her; at length her friends thought of
sending to some of the sea-ports, and, by mere accident, found her at
Rouen, on the point of setting out for Dieppe, and from thence to the
other extremity of the globe. They secure her, and bring her back, a
little disconcerted at being disappointed of her journey: