Saint Amulfia lived in the seventeenth century. Her parents were French petits bourgeois, uneducated, poor, almost peasants. From her earliest childhood, she was greatly attracted by convent life, and always nursed the dream of one day becoming a nun. Her relations tried to dissuade her from this project, and wished her to marry. Amulfia, however, found all men repulsive, and the very thought of marriage filled her with horror and disgust. For a long time, lacking the dower without which no one is accepted in Catholic convents, she was unable to join the order she had chosen. At last, however, after the death of her parents, their small capital being divided among the children, she took her portion to the convent, and was received as a novice.

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From the very first days of her entry, she astonished all the nuns by her humility, and the fervency of her prayers. At night, in her cell, she chastised herself with ropes, ran needles into her fingers, and covered herself with wounds. As always happens when the organism is weakened by torture and privation and a constant state of nervous exaltation, she began to see visions. Christ appeared to her, and she spoke with Him, as with her heavenly bridegroom, who claimed her as exclusively His own, and forbade her to continue even her friendly relations with a good and kind young nun for whom she had felt a special sympathy on entering the convent. “Si elle ne se retirait pas des créatures,” threatened the Heavenly Bridegroom, “Il saurait se retirer d’elle,” and the saint obeyed, and turned away from her friend.

These visions were known to the whole convent, but did not astonish anybody. The other nuns also held converse with God, and sometimes on the most trifling subjects. For instance, there was one who greatly disliked cheese which, for this very reason, her[149] superior had once ordered her to eat, as a penance. So she went to church, threw herself on her knees before the Crucifix, and prayed for five hours, with tears and sobs, for strength to eat her little piece of cheese. At last, she heard a voice, ordering her to arise, and make yet one more effort. She obeyed, and the miracle was accomplished: although with shudders of disgust, she yet succeeded in swallowing the cheese.

Not only God, however, but also Satan played a great part in the lives of the nuns. On one occasion, for instance, an absent-minded novice fell down the stairs, but managed not to hurt herself. She told of her experience in the following words: “Satan pushed me at the top, but a guardian angel was waiting at the bottom, and caught me in his arms.”

There was only one nun in the convent who saw no visions. This was Sister Jeanne, the matron of the hospital, a busy, active, energetic woman, devoted to the sick who were brought to the hospital from the village. Saint Amulfia’s biographer spoke of this[150] sister with great severity. “She so completely exhausted her charity in favour of the sick whom she tended,” he said, “that she had none left for the sisters who were her subordinates in this work.”

Having received Saint Amulfia as assistant nurse, Sister Jeanne constantly scolded her for her clumsy carelessness. Saint Amulfia, indeed, had spent so great a part of her time in conversation either with God or with Satan, and had grown so absent-minded, that she was completely incapable of giving a patient a spoonful of medicine, or a cup of beef-tea, without spilling t............