The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1870-11-13
The Sacre Ceur.

entitled, "School Days at the Sacred
Heart" describing convent life as it exists
now at Manhattanville, New York, caused
q writer in the November mum Der of the
80 Galary" to recount her experience in the
mother establishment in Paris, long before
q single convent of that order existed on
this side of the Atlantic:
To girl barely in her teens, educated
in the Congregational Church, in one of
the strictest of New England boarding
look upon the Roman Catholic Church as
the scarlet woman of the Revelation, the
change was something miraculous.
There were assembled nearly two hun
dred young girls, varying in age from seven
to eighteen, and representing nearly all
the noble houses in France, to say nothing
of several members of the Scotch and Irish
nobility, and three Protestants two
Americans and the third an English gill of
rank. We were shortly summoned to the
refectory to dinner, and as it happened to
be half-holiday, we were allo we'd, after
finishing our repast, to go at once into the
superb park or garden, which extended
from the rear of the house to the adjacent
parallel street, and seems to cover several
acres, forming an enclosure where we could
wander for hours, although each class was
always accompanied by one of the ladies,
Later in the afternoon l was initiated
into my first experience of the service of
the Romish Church: and the beautiful
chapel, the nuns in their carved stalls, the
flowers, incense, and all the accessories,
familiar to most of my readers, impressed
me UNNECESSARILY, ali the more from my
preconceived ideas of something horrid
and mystic. 1t took me few days to be-
come habituated to the routine of conven-
tual life, and more than once was awak-
ened by tue sprinkling of holy water in my
face, q method used for calling the lag
CARDS who had slept too heavily to hear
the bell, which, like all the other influences
around us, was low-toned and gentle.
The girls were very much like all other
school girls, with the exception that there
seemed to be no unruly ones. There were
NO day scholars admitted, consequently
NO outside influence, except at stated
intervals, when the relatives of the chill
dren were permitted to visit them. Each
girl had her favOrite nun, and each her ia
vorite saint, for whom she professed a
special cutie. / attached myself to one of
the ladies, to whom / was drawn most
powerfully from the first time saw her.
She belonged to one of the oldest families
in Brittany, and was a near relative to the
lady who followed the Duchesse de Berri
in her adventurous and romantic expedi-
ton in the Vendee. My nun was about
twenty seven, with beautiful dark eyes and
every nun must have her story, as IN any of
them had, often attempted to discover
hers. One of the ladies was married to an
army officer who was reported killed at
some foreign post; she took the vows.
After she had taken the black veil, her
husband, who had escaped unheard of
dangers, returned to find his wife lost to
him in despair, he at once took the mon
astic VOW, and they never met again. l
used to study her face for hours to try and
read regret written there, but all seemed
holy resignation. Our life was very hap
" religious 5ete8. We used sometimes to
be driven to Contains, which had formerly
been q country seat of the Archbishop of
Paris. This same Archbishop, Monseig-
neur de Quelen, whose palace had been de-
stroyed by q mob in 1880, had apartments
on one-half of the court in our "hotel"
(which was -immensel, and he often said
mass for us and sometimes assisted at our
little religious fetes. He was one OF the
handsomest men who ever wore the
episcopal robes, and whenever he CHANGED
to meet any of us in the grounds he was
most worshiped him. The discipline of
the school was admirable the punish
mente few; moral suasion was the great
instrument; our consciences were educa-
ted to high point of sensitiveness. We
generally told ourselves of any fault which
had eyaded the ladies' eyes. / remember,
for instance, ore English girl who was at
the head of her class in history, a great
achievement for foreigner in foreign /
language. She had repeated her lesson
perfectly one date escaped her memory,
and as she sat next the teacher her eye
glanced for moment at the open book
She caught the date and came out from her
essen still at the head of her class; but her
sonsefenoe smote her; abe could not'sleep, |