midnight
He belonged to the Order of the Jesuits ; and he was good enough , when I first asked him for advice , to suggest that I should get up at eleven o'clock at night to say my prayers , and should remain absorbed in devotion until midnight . In obedience to the directions of this saintly person , I kept myself awake as well as I could till eleven o'clock . I then got on my knees with great fervour , and I blush to confess it , immediately fell as fast asleep as a dormouse . This went on for several nights , when Father Deveaux finding that my midnight devotions were rather too much for me , was so obliging as to prescribe another species of pious exercise , in a letter which he wrote to me with his own hand . The holy father , after deeply regretting my inability to keep awake , informed me that he had a new act of penitence to suggest to me by the performance of which I might still hope to expiate my sins . He then , in the plainest terms , advised me to have recourse to the discipline of flagellation , every Friday , using the cat-o ' - nine-tails on my bare shoulders for the length of time that it would take to repeat a Miserere . In conclusion , he informed me that the nuns of Anticaille would probably lend me the necessary instrument of flagellation ; but , if they made any difficulty about it , he was benevolently ready to furnish me with a new and special cat-o ' - nine-tails of his own making .