The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-04-27 00:00:00

"NO, I WON'r BE A NUN."

The fashionable talk of our salons is almost exclusively
clnfined to the impending appeal made by the Marquise de
Guerry agairtt the sentence of the court which condemned
her to the loss of the twelve hundred thousand francs she
had brought as dower to the convent of Piessus, near the
Rue St Antoine. Berryer is to plead for the Marquise,
and bets run high as to the success of her cause. The

history; of the eise is this :__The Marquise de Guerry, in
a fit of disgust at the ingratitude of the world, resolved to
retire into the solitu!e of a convent, and chose the Per-
petual Adoration of Piessus. The do'tver expected at the
convent is high, and it is considered one of the richest in
Paris ; but Madame de Guorry, in her newly adopted
ardour, and with the impression that she should never

grow weary of the peace and holy calm of the Convent
of Piessus, insisted upon making over the whole of her
large fortune to the sisterhood, and 11)r some time all went
well, and she rejoiced in the step she had taken. But,
alas 1 even the lire of a convent does not always satisfy,
and at the end of two months, Madame de Guerry beheld
with terror that she had utterly mistaken her vocation,
and that if she really did love devotion and solitude,
it could not he _ those of Pleases. The rules of

_ - . ---- -
the convent cried out for reform. For— an amateur
nun like Madame de Guerry, the discipline was too
lax ; and she became so ardent in her endeavours to
improve the state of things- in the convent, that she
suceeded in drawing after her, forty of the ladies, and,
with them, retired to a large house at the Barriere de
Clichy, where she proceeded to put in practice the system
by which she had been inspired during her stay with
the ladies of the Perpetual Adoration. For about a year
the communi! y at the Barriere de Clichy flourished under
its new discipline; when lo! in the month of Gabber last
comes an orOr from the Pope, enjoining the immediate
closing of the house proclaiming the establishment as,
illegal, and commanding, under pain of excommunication,
the immediate return of the ladies to the fold of Piessus,
whence they had so r( belliously strayed. At the same
time, the Superior of the Perpetual Adoration, actuated
by a truly Christian feeling, addressed her dissenting
flock with words of pardon and reconciliation, promising
forgetfulness of the past and a restoration to favour. AU
accepted theee terms with grati,ude, and returned to the
convent, save Madame de Guerry, who refuses to seek
shelter in the bosom of the Superior, and, moreover,•
insists upon the restoration of her dower. She has lost
her cause before the Tribunal, and now addresses herself

to the Court of Appeal, with no less a personage than
Berryer for her interpreter. The argument of the Sipe.
rior still holds good, and we are curious ,to see by what
ingenuity Berryer will set it aside. " Oar house,"
says the venerable lady, " refuses not to receive Madame
de Guerry. She has not been cast out from amongst us
—far from it; we are ready to• receive her with the
same love and affection we have ever testified towards
her. Why, then, should she seak to cast upon us this
shame and this disgrace ?"• The cause. which comes on
before the end of the month, promises to attract immense
crowds to the audience, and the Paris bar is so divided,
in opinion upon the subject, that the excitement' has
become most intense. 'The cause, coming on just at the
moment when an enquiry is being made into the revenues
of the various religious communities established through..
out France, gives rise to the most bitter arguments on
both sides, as it is proved that the wealth accumulated
by most of these convents has grown to gigantic import-
ance. The Jesuits alone figure in the list for twenty
miltiards of francs and three hundred and fifty merchant
vessels.! The grey sisters of St. Joseph, the ladies of
Piessus, and those of the Sacre Coeur, are all amongst
the wealthiest communities in the world, and yet the
boast of them all is, the fact of this wealth being honestly
acquired;. and when reproached with this vast accumula-
tion of riches, they defy the world to prove that one
single accusation of bribery or fraud, or unjust dealings
has ever been brought against:them.—Paris Correspondent.

STOCK ExcumE.—There exists at the Stock Exchange
a fund for decayed members, for the benefit of which a
dinner is given every year. Mr. Louis Cohen having con-
sented this year to take the chair, it hal been agreed that
the repast should be prepared according to. the Jewish
rites, so that the Jewish guests, should be able to partake
of it in common with their colleagues oc the Christian
religion. Thn dinner will take pl4ce on the 19th of May.
—Jewish Chronicle,