The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-02-27
SILENT NUNS.
"A Visit To the Convent Of Bernardfnes--A
SingularIy Strange Order.

A Visit to the Convent Of Bernardinss--A
singulariy Strange Order.
Pail Mall Gazette.
a correspondent in the south of France sends
description of visit he has made to the con-
vent OF the Bernardines at the village OF Anclet
near bayonne After first calling at the neigh
boring convent of the Sister Servants Of Mary
a community whose life is spen. in labor in
their own fields or in attending the sick and in
dgent-the visitor passed through dark grove
of pines to the gate of the Bernardines
A notice begging him not TO speak above
whisper, meets him. aud he passes down a loag
deserted bat well-kept garden towards the
long low range of buildings, inhabited by the
fifty nuns vowed to silence. Arrived at the en-
trance, after some two or three voce at
tempts TO be heard. with result like the bur
lesque song "Shout. boys. shout, but in a whis-
per- Sister Servant of Mary in her familiar
uniform appears. whispering that i. is her lot
to act as guide From IL o'clock each
day tshe is on duty, ard as the Bernardnes are
not permitted by their vows to speak. and be-
come. of necessity. shy tinorous. and stra nge.
without such conductor little could be
known of these sad lives. What their crimes
are there is no one to say. Fifty human Great
ures-one at least of whom is only twenty years
of age, and cannot take the full vows till June
share the allotted portion of silence and solitude
Some few OF the nuns are living still who be-
gan their conventual life nearly half century
ago in straw huts the bare sand
A story is told of the Empress Eugene, who,
having parted many years before from a school
friend IN Madrid. learned thatthe girl had taken
she had been extremely beautiful, and it is
added that che had. when both were young.
crossed the Empresss path and became her
rival The costume worn by the Bernardines
is designed to hide the face and figure: fun
nel-shaped hood of coarse white flannel is
drawn the hsad and eyes, and short
mantle aud full skirt of the same ma terial
conceals the figure The Empress obtained
dispensation from the Pope to speak to her friend
face to face, but it is said that when the nun
threw off her hood her royal visitor tainted at
People
lifelong scars and fearful mutilatons Turk
der these shroud-llke wells, which assumed
cation to the wearer. Two English children,
who gazed with awe-struck faces nm the
figures in grave-clothes which move stealthily
about the gardens on their errands of mercy to
plants and flowers, were heard to raise the oues-
ton whether the nuns are dead before they are
buried or buried before they dead-a point
which it would truly be hard TO solve. There il
in the movement of walking much character
that from the detected. llstless and heavy step
of these unhappy creatures it is easy to gather
the state of their minds. which, il not altogether
respondent must be utterly motoness and
dazed.
When the order first founded By the good
Canon of Bayonne, who established the whole
community a handful of Sisters slept in rough
cabins the ground. and worshiped in
stunted chapel made Of sort Of trellis of sticks
stuffed with straw As the community grew
richer the cells improved. till they took their
present not ambitious form of low range of
stable buildings. each cell being but little larger
LHau boTScS StdI. Inc pdrior IL n
square wooden box. large, perhaps, as
two cells; and here year the sis
ter vowed to silence NAV hold intercourse with
her father and mother. but with no other rela-
ton. Speech is also occasionally permitted with
the superior but between the nuns.
Their needlework. which is exposed for sale,
is painful TO see. because it betrays the dwarted
and crippled souls within. Some wretched
cardboard needle books bear a dumb and
piteous prayer for the solitary; others tor
tured into the shape OF collins, flied with little
paper flowers Even the vigorous green plants
standing in a chapel narrow that the walls
seem to close upon the intruder. strung with
kind of coral in red wool, if all natural taste
and healthy admiration had vanished. To these
solitary beings, who never set foot beyond the
shadowy plantations closing In their meager
world, ii may be that the walls do not fit so
tightly and that. by dint of gazing at them and
at nothing else they vanish. and only the pious
inscription, 'Dieu seu' remains.