They had, it is true, supported me
during the journey, but left me nothing at the end of it, and I
arrived at Turin without money, clothes, or linen, being precisely
in the situation to owe to my merit alone the whole honor of that
fortune I was about to acquire.
I took care in the first place to deliver the letters I was
charged with, and was presently conducted to the hospital of the
catechumens, to be instructed in that religion, for which, in
return, I was to receive subsistence. On entering, I passed an
iron-barred gate, which was immediately double-locked on me; this
beginning was by no means calculated to give me a favorable opinion of
my situation. I was then conducted to a large apartment, whose
furniture consisted of a wooden altar at the farther end, on which was
a large crucifix, and round it several indifferent chairs, of the same
materials. In this hall of audience were assembled four or five
ill-looking banditti, my comrades in instruction, who would rather
have been taken for trusty servants of the devil than candidates for
the kingdom of heaven. Two of these fellows were Sclavonians, but gave
out they were African Jews, and (as they assured me) had run through
Spain and Italy, embracing the Christian faith, and being baptized
wherever they thought it worth their labor.
Soon after they opened another iron gate, which divided a large
balcony that overlooked a courtyard, and by this avenue entered our
sister catechumens, who, like me, were going to be regenerated, not by
baptism but a solemn abjuration.
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