This Chapter, filled up exclusively from the ranks of rich and high-born women, while the Abbess, nominated by the Sovereign, assumed the title of Princess of Nivelles, led a devout and frivolous life, passing strange.

Not only might these semi-nuns go out walking whenever they thought fit, they had a right to live at home for a certain part of their time, and might even marry after obtaining the consent of the Abbess.
In the morning those who chose to reside in the Abbey put on a monastic habit during the services; then their religious duties ended; they doffed the convent livery, dressed in splendid attire, the hoops and bows and farthingales and ruffs that were then the fashion, and sat in the parlour where visitors poured in.
The unhappy Marie loathed the dissipation of a life which hindered her from ever being alone with her God.

Bewildered by the gossip and ashamed of wearing clothes that were offensive to her, compelled to steal away before daylight, disguised as a waiting-woman, to pray in a deserted church far from all this turmoil, she at last pined away with sorrow, and was dying of grief at Nivelles.
At this juncture a certain Father Bernard de Montgaillard, Abbot of Orval, of the Cistercian Order, came to the town.

She flew to him, and besought him to rescue her; and this monk, enlightened by a truly divine spirit, understood that she was born to be a victim of expiation, to atone for the insults offered to the Holy Eucharist in churches.

He gave her comfort, and announced to her her vocation as a Carmelite.