It was in company with my friend Leandro, with whose private history you are well acquainted,[35] that I often met the unfortunate Maria Francisca. His efforts to dissuade her from the rash step she was going to take, and the warm language in which he spoke to her father on that subject, had made her look upon him as a warm and sincere friend. The unhappy girl on the eve of the day when she was to take the veil, repaired to church, and sent him a message, without mentioning her name, that a female penitent requested his attendance at the confessional. With painful surprise he found the future novice at his feet, in a state bordering on distraction. When a flood of tears had allowed her utterance, she told him that, for want of another friend in the whole world to whom she could disclose her feelings, she came to him, not, however, for the purpose of confession, but because she trusted he would listen with pity to her sorrows. With a warmth and eloquence above her years, she protested that the distant terrors of eternal punishment, which, she feared, might be the consequence of her determination, could not deter her from the step by which she was going to escape the incessant persecution of her mother. In vain did my friend volunteer his assistance to extricate her from the appalling difficulties which surrounded her: in vain did he offer to wait upon the archbishop, and implore his interference: no offers, no persuasions could move her. She parted as if ready to be conveyed to the scaffold, and the next day took the veil.
The real kindness of her aunt, and the treacherous smiles of the other nuns, supported the pining novice through the year of probation. The scene I beheld when she was bound with the perpetual vows of monastic life, is one which I cannot recollect without an actual sense of suffocation. A solemn mass, performed with all the splendour which that ceremony admits, preceded the awful oaths of the novice. At the conclusion of the service, she approached the superior of the order. A pen, gaily ornamented with artificial flowers, was put into her trembling hand, to sign the engagement for life, on which she was about to enter. Then, standing before the iron grate of the choir, she began to chaunt, in a weak and fainting voice, the act of consecration of herself to God; but, having uttered a few words, she fainted into the arms of the surrounding nuns. This was attributed to mere fatigue and emotion. No sooner had the means employed restored to the victim the powers of speech, than, with a vehemence which those who knew not her circumstances attributed to a fresh impulse of holy zeal, and in which the few that were in the painful secret saw nothing but the madness of despair; she hurried over the remaining sentences, and sealed her doom for ever.