“My child, I was told, would be brought up in the Convent de la Croix at St. Benis. It was a Convent in which the Cardinal had a special interest and the Mother Prioress was well-known to him. It was too one of the richest and most aristocratic Convents in all of his Diocese. My mother informed me drily that my daughter was exceptionally lucky. Only influence could obtain her a place in such an exclusive community. I tried to protest, I tried to say I intended to keep my child, but really there was nothing I could do.
“There were indeed only two alternatives, to kill myself and the child or to agree to the arrangements that my father had made with the Cardinal. Everything was planned to the very last detail. Only the Mother Prioress, I learned, was to be informed that the Cardinal had a s
