Yet I must not omit to mention that at the time when her aunt was Abbess, the Prior, thinking that his ugliness was the cause of her refusal, had caused Sister Marie to be tempted by a handsome young monk, in the hope that if she yielded to this man through love, he himself might afterwards obtain her through fear.  The young monk aforesaid spoke to her in a garden with gestures too shameful to be mentioned, whereat the poor maiden ran to the Abbess, who was talking with the Prior, and cried out—­

“Mother, they are not monks, but devils, who visit us here!”

Thereupon the Prior, in great fear of discovery, began to laugh, and said—­

“Assuredly, mother, Sister Marie is right.”

Then, taking Sister Marie by the hand, he said to her in presence of the Abbess—­

“I had heard that Sister Marie spoke very well, and so constantly that she was deemed to be worldly-minded.  For this reason I constrained myself, contrary to my natural inclination, to speak to her in the way that worldly men speak to women—­at least in books, for in point of experience I am as ignorant as I was on the day when I was born.  Thinking, however, that only my years and ugliness led her to discourse in so virtuous a fashion, I commanded my young monk to speak to her as I myself had done, and, as you see, she has virtuously resisted him.  So highly, therefore, do I think of her prudence and virtue, that henceforward she shall rank next after you and shall be Mistress of the Novices, to the intent that her excellent disposition may ever increase in virtue.”

This act, with many others, was done by this worthy monk during the three years that he was in love with the nun.  She, however, as I have said, gave her brother in writing, through the grating, the whole story of her pitiful fortunes; and this her brother brought to her mother, who came, overwhelmed with despair, to Paris.  Here she found the Queen of Navarre, only sister to the King, and showing her the piteous story, said—­

“Madam, trust no more in these hypocrites.  I thought that I had placed my daughter within the precincts of Paradise, or on the high road thither, whereas I have placed her in the precincts of Hell, and in the hands of the vilest devils imaginable.  The devils, indeed, do not tempt us unless temptation be our pleasure, but these men will take by force when they cannot win by love.”

The Queen of Navarre was in great concern, for she trusted wholly in the Prior of St. Martin’s, to whose care she had committed her sisters-inlaw, the Abbesses of Montivilliers and Caen. (7) On the other hand, the enormity of the crime so horrified her and made her so desirous of avenging the innocence of this unhappy maiden, that she communicated the matter to the King’s Chancellor, who happened also to be Legate in France. (8)