If the original rules of monastic institutions were put in full force, few claimants would be found for the honour of entering them. A suitable provision has been made for those who have left their convents; the government appropriating the lands attached for the benefit of the state. Time appears, in some measure, to have healed the wounds of the discontented, though there are some who pretend the flame is smothered, and not burnt out; “Give it vent,” they say, “and ’twill blaze again.”
There are two convents for NUNS, St. Juan and St. Catalina, each containing about thirty. The regulations of St. Juan’s are very rigid: they wear clothing of the coarsest nature, and the beds, and every other accommodation, are of the same description. No one is permitted to see them, except their nearest relations, and that very rarely. Heavens! how ardent must be that devotion, that can voluntarily embrace such a life! A female, on her first entrance, may leave at the end of a year; but, after that time, she is professed, and must conform to the rules. Very few, I believe, take advantage of this option. Such is the force of religious enthusiasm, that they gladly bid farewell to the world, wishing no father, mother, lover, friend, but their God and Saviour.
At St. Catalina’s they are not so strict, being allowed indulgences unknown to the self-immolated of St. Juan.
I have never seen any of the fair inhabitants of these convents; but when the nuns of Buenos Ayres have formed the subject of conversation, I have eagerly listened, expecting to hear something of disappointed love, or confidence betrayed. Alas it was in vain: the ladies of St. Juan and Catalina are nuns from the dull routine of religion, with one exception only, if my information is true; and advantage was not taken to quiz my avidity for nunnery news. The tale runs, that St. Juan’s convent does contain, a victim of “despised love.” Her lover, an officer, of course—for what men in trade ever think of love?—joined the army in Peru, and married another. At the age of seventeen, the fair, betrayed girl fearlessly took the veil, chiding her weeping mother for her cruelty, nay, sinfulness, at shewing such affliction for what constituted her daughter’s only happiness. An account of the ceremony was given me;—but who shall take the field in description, after the glowing details we have read in romances? and especially at second-hand.
The majority of the nuns in these two convents are aged, having received very few additions, lately, of the youthful class. Has man, false man, become more constant, no longer striving to break the heart of the doting fair one or, are the ladies less sensitive, preferring, at all hazards, this bustling world to the cloister’s gloom, exclaiming with Sheridan’s Clara,
“Adieu, thou dreary pile, where never dies
“The sullen echo of repentant sighs!”
In the most minute affairs of the Romish church, there is a formula, which, having antiquity for its basis, imposes upon the mind of its followers; and, as regards a conventual life, the first dawn of such a wish, even before the parties quit their parents’ house, amounts to a ceremony. In the year 1822, my curiosity was gratified by an exhibition of this sort. I was invited to a house, in which a lady, about to become a nun, was receiving the last farewells of her friends. It was evening; and it was with difficulty that I gained admittance from the crowd outside. The lady was seated in the sala; arrayed in her best attire; her head and neck decorated with jewellery; such is the fashion, this being a contrast to the dress she was about to assume. Music was heard; and it seemed more like a party met for gaiety, than one in which the afterpiece was to be so serious—the taking from the world a fellow-creature. The lady—I was going to write, victim—was all smiles; no regrets were apparent in her bosom; she received the adieus of her friends with calm composure. A friar, attached perhaps to the convent, was in the room: in taking her final leave, she was escorted by him and her relatives. With a firm step, bowing to all around, she quitted the room. In passing our party (consisting of several Englishmen), I thought she eyed us particularly; we bowed to her; and the door closed upon us. That same night, I am informed, she was conducted to the gloomy walls of St. Juan, and has since taken the veil. The lady appeared about nineteen or twenty years of age; she was not handsome, but the occasion rendered her very interesting.
The first RELIGIOUS PROCESSION I had ever seen, was that of St. Rosario, in Buenos Ayres; and it is not possible I can forget the impression it made upon me. Those details which, when a school-boy, I dwelt upon with such delight, were now, in my manhood, brought full before my eyes, losing nothing of their interest; on the contrary, I found that imagination does not always come up to the reality. The churches of France and Belgium I had visited with far different emotions: Spain, and Spanish connexions, thought I, contain all that can fix the attention of the Protestant inquirer, who wishes to see the Catholic church the same in the nineteenth as in the fourteenth century. Spain clings to it; with its many imperfections, as a fond lover to an idolized mistress; else they would not have suffered foreigners to overrun their soil. What would the heroes of Roncevalles and Pavia have said to those events?
The figure of St. Rosario, full-robed, was carried by soldiers, on a stage. The Virgin, on another stage, followed, flanked by numbers of the faithful carrying large lighted candles; these were chiefly old men, and boys. The host, and attendant priests wafting incense towards this sacred emblem, formed a conspicuous part; with groups of friars chaunting their prayers, in which they are joined by the crowd. A huge cross, apparently of silver, and borne by friars, precedes the whole. A small band of violinists attend, and accompany the singing: they reminded me of our itinerant musicians, that serenade us of an evening in London. The military band has a better effect. A halt is made, at intervals, at the corners of streets, or opposite temporary altars, which the devotion of the pious has raised in front of their houses: they consist of tables, covered with white linen, with small images of Jesus, the Virgin, crosses, &c. &c. and a mirror, garnished with flowers and other decorations. Soldiers march in front and rear. They, as well as every one else near the procession, are uncovered; and when the ceremonies of the host are going on, all must kneel. The houses display silks, tapestry, and other finery, arranged in front, in the streets through which the cavalcade passes; and the balconies are filled with spectators. The saints and his dumb attendants (the images), are finally deposited at their head-quarters, the church. A great quantity of females are always to be seen at those exhibitions, fervently ejaculating their “Ave-Marias.”