The first was: "Sophocles, from the Shades, writes to Racine to console him for the failure of Athalie"; the other: "Suppose that, after the first performance of Esther, Mme. de Sévigné is writing to Mme. de La Fayette to tell her how much she regretted her absence." Now Gisèle, in an excess of zeal which ought to have touched the examiners' hearts, had chosen the former, which was also the more difficult of the two subjects, and had handled it with such remarkable skill that she had been given fourteen marks, and had been congratulated by the board.