Near a fortnight had elapsed without producing any appearance of
hostility from the marquis, when one night, long after the hour of
repose, Julia was awakened by the bell of the monastery. She knew it
was not the hour customary for prayer, and she listened to the sounds,
which rolled through the deep silence of the fabric, with strong
surprise and terror. Presently she heard the doors of several cells
creak on their hinges, and the sound of quick footsteps in the
passages--and through the crevices of her door she distinguished
passing lights.
The whispering noise of steps increased, and every
person of the monastery seemed to have awakened. Her terror
heightened; it occurred to her that the marquis had surrounded the
abbey with his people, in the design of forcing her from her retreat;
and she arose in haste, with an intention of going to the chamber of
Madame de Menon, when she heard a gentle tap at the door. Her enquiry
of who was there, was answered in the voice of madame, and her fears
were quickly dissipated, for she learned the bell was a summons to
attend a dying nun, who was going to the high altar, there to receive
extreme unction.
She quitted the chamber with madame. In her way to the church, the
gleam of tapers on the walls, and the glimpse which her eye often
caught of the friars in their long black habits, descending silently
through the narrow winding passages, with the solemn toll of the bell,
conspired to kindle imagination, and to impress her heart with sacred
awe. But the church exhibited a scene of solemnity, such as she had
never before witnessed. Its gloomy aisles were imperfectly seen by the
rays of tapers from the high altar, which shed a solitary gleam over
the remote parts of the fabric, and produced large masses of light and
shade, striking and sublime in their effect.
While she gazed, she heard a distant chanting rise through the aisles;
the sounds swelled in low murmurs on the ear, and drew nearer and
nearer, till a sudden blaze of light issued from one of the portals,
and the procession entered. The organ instantly sounded a high and
solemn peal, and the voices rising altogether swelled the sacred
strain. In front appeared the Padre Abate, with slow and measured
steps, bearing the holy cross. Immediately followed a litter, on which
lay the dying person covered with a white veil, borne along and
surrounded by nuns veiled in white, each carrying in her hand a
lighted taper. Last came the friars, two and two, cloathed in black,
and each bearing a light.