convince them of their error and the aberration of their sympathies. Thus, at the boarding-school, I loved to desperation William Percy, a young English lord (the same who almost drowned me) without ever daring to show him, otherwise than by a brotherly affection, the ardour with which I was consumed for him. On leaving Bodemberg Schloss, when I met thee, Blandine, I hoped through my love for thee, to enter again into the common order. But, unfortunately for us both, this encounter was only an accident in my sexual life. In spite of loyal and heroic efforts, and a determined concentration of will, to fix my affections on the best and most desirable of women, the promptings of my flesh soon turned away from thee and I no longer loved thee Blandine save with my whole soul! At this period some remains of Christian, or rather Biblical scruples, caused me to feel disgusted with myself. I felt horror at my own being and verily believed that I was curséd, possessed, and destined to the fires of Sodom!
"Then the injustice, the iniquity of my destiny, reconciled me tacitly to myself. I arrived at the pitch of accepting in my innermost heart nothing except the testimony of
