The real intention of the legislature in thus entirely dispersing the female religious, besides the general hatred of every thing connected with religion, is, to possess itself of an additional resource in the buildings and effects, and, as is imagined by some, to procure numerous and convenient state prisons. But, I believe, the latter is only an aristocratic apprehension, suggested by the appropriation of the convents to this use in a few places, where the ancient prisons are full.— Whatever purpose it is intended to answer, it has been effected in a way disgraceful to any national body, except such a body as the Convention; and, though it be easy to perceive the cruelty of such a measure, yet as, perhaps, its injustice may not strike you so forcibly as if you had had the same opportunities of investigating it as I have, I will endeavour to explain, as well as I can, the circumstances that render it so peculiarly aggravated.
I need not remind you, that no order is of very modern foundation, nor that the present century has, in a great degree, exploded the fashion of compounding for sins by endowing religious institutions. Thus, necessarily, by the great change which has taken place in the expence of living, many establishments that were poorly endowed must have become unable to support themselves, but for the efforts of those who were attached to them. It is true, that the rent of land has increased as its produce became more valuable; but every one knows that the lands dependent on religious houses have always been let on such moderate terms, as by no means to bear a proportion to the necessities they were intended to supply; and as the monastic vows have long ceased to be the frequent choice of the rich, little increase has been made to the original stock by the accession of new votaries:—yet, under all these disadvantages, many societies have been able to rebuild their houses, embellish their churches, purchase plate, &c. &c. The love of their order, that spirit of oeconomy for which they are remarkable, and a persevering industry, had their usual effects, and not only banished poverty, but became a source of wealth. An indefatigable labour at such works as could be profitably disposed of, the education of children, and the admission of boarders, were the means of enriching a number of convents, whose proper revenues would not have afforded them even a subsistence.
But the fruits of active toil or voluntary privation, have been confounded with those of expiatory bequest and mistaken devotion, and have alike become the prey of a rapacious and unfeeling government. Many communities are driven from habitations built absolutely with the produce of their own labour. In some places they were refused even their beds and linen; and the stock of wood, corn, &c. provided out of the savings of their pensions, (understood to be at their own disposal,) have been seized, and sold, without making them the smallest compensation.
Thus deprived of every thing, they are sent into the world with a prohibition either to live several of them together, wear their habits,* or practise their religion; yet their pensions** are too small for them to live upon, except in society, or to pay the usual expence of boarding: many of them have no other means of procuring secular dresses, and still more will imagine themselves criminal in abstaining from the mode of worship they have been taught to think salutary.
* Two religious, who boarded with a lady I had occasion to see sometimes, told me, that they had been strictly enjoined not to dress like each other in any way. ** The pensions are from about seventeen to twenty-five pounds sterling per annum.—At the time I am writing, the necessaries of life are increased in price nearly two-fifths of what they bore formerly, and are daily becoming dearer. The Convention are not always insensible to this—the pay of the foot soldier is more than doubled.
It is also to be remembered, that women of small fortune in France often embraced the monastic life as a frugal retirement, and, by sinking the whole they were possessed of in this way, they expected to secure a certain provision, and to place themselves beyond the reach of future vicissitudes: yet, though the sums paid on these occasions can be easily ascertained, no indemnity has been made; and many will be obliged to violate their principles, in order to receive a trifling pension, perhaps much less than the interest of their money would have produced without loss of the principal.
But the views of these legislating philosophers are too sublimely extensive to take in the wrongs or sufferings of contemporary individuals; and not being able to disguise, even to themselves, that they create much misery at present, they promise incalculable advantages to those who shall happen to be alive some centuries hence! Most of these poor nuns are, however, of an age to preclude them from the hope of enjoying this Millennium; and they would have been content en attendant these glorious times, not to be deprived of the necessaries of life, or marked out as objects of persecution.
The private distresses occasioned by the dissolution of the convents are not the only consequences to be regretted—for a time, at least, the loss must certainly be a public one. There will now be no means of instruction for females, nor any refuge for those who are without friends or relations: thousands of orphans must be thrown unprotected on the world, and guardians, or single men, left with the care of children, have no way to dispose of them properly. I do not contend that the education of a convent is the best possible: yet are there many advantages attending it; and I believe it will readily be granted, that an education not quite perfect is better than no education at all. It would not be very difficult to prove, that the systems of education, both in England and France, are extremely defective; and if the characters of women are generally better formed in one than the other, it is not owing to the superiority of boarding-schools over convents, but to the difference of our national manners, which tend to produce qualities not necessary, or not valued, in France.
The most distinguished female excellencies in England are an attachment to domestic life, an attention to its oeconomies, and a cultivated understanding. Here, any thing like house-wifery is not expected but from the lower classes, and reading or information is confined chiefly to professed wits. Yet the qualities so much esteemed in England are not the effect of education: few domestic accomplishments, and little useful knowledge, are acquired at a boarding-school; but finally the national character asserts its empire, and the female who has gone through a course of frivolities from six to sixteen, who has been taught that the first "human principle" should be to give an elegant tournure to her person, after a few years' dissipation, becomes a good wife and mother, and a rational companion.
In France, young women are kept in great seclusion: religion and oeconomy form a principal part of conventual acquirements, and the natural vanity of the sex is left to develope itself without the aid of authority, or instillation by precept—yet, when released from this sober tuition, manners take the ascendant here as in England, and a woman commences at her marriage the aera of coquetry, idleness, freedom, and rouge.—We may therefore, I think, venture to conclude, that the education of a boarding-school is better calculated for the rich, that of a convent for the middle classes and the poor; and, consequently, that the suppression of this last in France will principally affect those to whom it was most beneficial, and to whom the want of it will be most dangerous.