الفصل الفصل 126 · SOME SILHOUETTES OF THIS DARKNESS

During the six years which separate 1819 from 1825, the prioress of the

Petit-Picpus was Mademoiselle de Blemeur, whose name, in religion, was

Mother Innocente. She came of the family of Marguerite de Blemeur,

author of _Lives of the Saints of the Order of Saint-Benoît_. She had

been re-elected. She was a woman about sixty years of age, short,

thick, “singing like a cracked pot,” says the letter which we have

already quoted; an excellent woman, moreover, and the only merry one in

the whole convent, and for that reason adored. She was learned,

erudite, wise, competent, curiously proficient in history, crammed with

Latin, stuffed with Greek, full of Hebrew, and more of a Benedictine

monk than a Benedictine nun.

The sub-prioress was an old Spanish nun, Mother Cineres, who was almost

blind.

The most esteemed among the vocal mothers were Mother Sainte-Honorine;

the treasurer, Mother Sainte-Gertrude, the chief mistress of the

novices; Mother-Saint-Ange, the assistant mistress; Mother

Annonciation, the sacristan; Mother Saint-Augustin, the nurse, the only

one in the convent who was malicious; then Mother Sainte-Mechtilde

(Mademoiselle Gauvain), very young and with a beautiful voice; Mother

des Anges (Mademoiselle Drouet), who had been in the convent of the

Filles-Dieu, and in the convent du Trésor, between Gisors and Magny;

Mother Saint-Joseph (Mademoiselle de Cogolludo), Mother Sainte-Adélaide

(Mademoiselle d’Auverney), Mother Miséricorde (Mademoiselle de

Cifuentes, who could not resist austerities), Mother Compassion

(Mademoiselle de la Miltière, received at the age of sixty in defiance

of the rule, and very wealthy); Mother Providence (Mademoiselle de

Laudinière), Mother Présentation (Mademoiselle de Siguenza), who was

prioress in 1847; and finally, Mother Sainte-Céligne (sister of the

sculptor Ceracchi), who went mad; Mother Sainte-Chantal (Mademoiselle

de Suzon), who went mad.

There was also, among the prettiest of them, a charming girl of three

and twenty, who was from the Isle de Bourbon, a descendant of the

Chevalier Roze, whose name had been Mademoiselle Roze, and who was

called Mother Assumption.

Mother Sainte-Mechtilde, intrusted with the singing and the choir, was

fond of making use of the pupils in this quarter. She usually took a

complete scale of them, that is to say, seven, from ten to sixteen

years of age, inclusive, of assorted voices and sizes, whom she made

sing standing, drawn up in a line, side by side, according to age, from

the smallest to the largest. This presented to the eye, something in

the nature of a reed-pipe of young girls, a sort of living Pan-pipe

made of angels.

Those of the lay-sisters whom the scholars loved most were Sister

Euphrasie, Sister Sainte-Marguérite, Sister Sainte-Marthe, who was in

her dotage, and Sister Sainte-Michel, whose long nose made them laugh.

All these women were gentle with the children. The nuns were severe

only towards themselves. No fire was lighted except in the school, and

the food was choice compared to that in the convent. Moreover, they

lavished a thousand cares on their scholars. Only, when a child passed

near a nun and addressed her, the nun never replied.

This rule of silence had had this effect, that throughout the whole

convent, speech had been withdrawn from human creatures, and bestowed

on inanimate objects. Now it was the church-bell which spoke, now it

was the gardener’s bell. A very sonorous bell, placed beside the

portress, and which was audible throughout the house, indicated by its

varied peals, which formed a sort of acoustic telegraph, all the

actions of material life which were to be performed, and summoned to

the parlor, in case of need, such or such an inhabitant of the house.

Each person and each thing had its own peal. The prioress had one and

one, the sub-prioress one and two. Six-five announced lessons, so that

the pupils never said “to go to lessons,” but “to go to six-five.”

Four-four was Madame de Genlis’s signal. It was very often heard.

“C’est le diable a quatre,”—it’s the very deuce—said the uncharitable.

Tennine strokes announced a great event. It was the opening of _the

door of seclusion_, a frightful sheet of iron bristling with bolts

which only turned on its hinges in the presence of the archbishop.

With the exception of the archbishop and the gardener, no man entered

the convent, as we have already said. The schoolgirls saw two others:

one, the chaplain, the Abbé Banés, old and ugly, whom they were

permitted to contemplate in the choir, through a grating; the other the

drawing-master, M. Ansiaux, whom the letter, of which we have perused a

few lines, calls _M. Anciot_, and describes as _a frightful old

hunchback_.

It will be seen that all these men were carefully chosen.

Such was this curious house.