Two very strict Duchesses, Mesdames de Choiseul and de Serent, frequently visited the community, doubtless by virtue of their privilege as _Magnates Mulieres_, and terribly frightened the boarders. When the two old ladies passed, all the poor girls trembled and let their eyes fall. M. de Rohan was, besides, unwittingly the object of attention among the boarders. He had just been appointed, while waiting for a bishopric, Grand Vicar of the Archbishop of Paris, and it was one of his habits to serve mass in the chapel of the Little Picpus Convent. Not one of the young recluses could see him, on account of the baize curtain; but he had a soft and rather shrill voice, which they had managed to recognize and distinguish. He had been a Mousquetaire; and besides, he was said to be somewhat of a dandy, had fine chestnut hair curled round his head, wore a wide scarf of magnificent moire, and his black cassock was cut in the most elegant style. He greatly occupied all their youthful imaginations. No external sound penetrated the convent, and yet one year the sound of a flute reached it. It was an event, and the boarders of that day still remember it. It was a flute which some one was playing in the neighborhood: it was the same tune, one now very aged, "Ma Zétulbé, viens regner sur mon âme," and it was heard two or three times a day. The girls spent hours in listening, the vocal mothers were upset, brains were at work, and punishments were constant. This lasted several months; the boarders were more or less enamoured of the unknown musician, and each fancied herself Zétulbé. The sound of the flute came from the direction of the Rue Droit-mur. They would have given anything, compromised anything, attempted anything, in order to see, if only for a moment, the young man who played the flute so exquisitely, and at the same time played on all their minds. Some of them slipped out through a back door and ascended to the third story looking out of the street, in order to try and see him through the grating; but it was impossible. One went so far as to pass her arm between the bars and wave her white handkerchief. Two others were even bolder; they managed to climb on to the roof, and at length succeeded in seeing the "young man." It was an old émigré gentleman, blind and ruined, who played the flute in his garret in order to kill time.