She attributed the sorrows of her second marriage and the misfortunes of her son to a just retribution by which God was compelling her to expiate the errors and pleasures of her youth.

This opinion soon became a certainty in her mind.

The poor woman went, for the first time in forty years, to confess herself to the Abbe Gaudron, vicar of Saint-Paul's, who led her into the practice of devotion.

But so ill-used and loving a soul as that of Madame Clapart's could never be anything but simply pious.

The Aspasia of the Directory wanted to expiate her sins in order to draw down the blessing of God on the head of her poor Oscar, and she henceforth vowed herself to works and deeds of the purest piety.