Priests, Women, and Families

by Jules Michelet

There are, fortunately, other judges. The law sleeps, but it still lives.[[7]] Some courageous magistrates have been willing to do their duty.[[8]] No doubt they will be permitted. The nights of the guilty have been troubled; they know that every violence which is committed there, every blow given in defiance of the law, is an accusation against them before heaven and earth. Exsurge, Domine, et judica causam tuam!

[[1]] I have already spoken of Sister Mary Lemonnier, persecuted for knowing too well how to write and draw flowers, &c.—"My confessor," says she, "forbade me to gather flowers and to draw. Unfortunately, walking in the garden with the nuns, there were on the edge of the grass two wild poppies, which, without any intention, I lopped between my fingers in passing. One of the sisters saw me, and ran to inform the superior nun who was walking in front, and who immediately came towards me, made me open my hand, and, seeing the poppies, told me that I had done for myself. And the confessor having come the same evening, she accused me before him of disobedience in having gathered flowers. It was in vain I told him that it was unintentionally done, and that they were only wild poppies; I could not obtain permission to confess myself."—Note of Sister Marie Lemonnier, in Mr. Tilliard's Mémoire. The newspapers and the reviews in March, 1845, give extracts from it.

[[2]] It is often from an instinctive tyranny that the superiors delight in breaking the ties of kindred. "The curate of my parish exhorted me to write to my father, who had just lost my mother. I let Advent go by (during which time nuns are not permitted to write letters), and the latter days of the month which are passed in retirement in the institution to prepare us for the renewing of our vows, which takes place on new-year's day. But after the holy term I hastened to fulfil my duty towards the best of fathers by addressing to him both my prayers and good wishes, and endeavouring to offer him some consolation in the afflictions and trials with which it had pleased God to visit him. I went to the cell of the superior nun to beg her to read over my letter, fix the convent seal to it, and send it off; but she was not there. I therefore put it in my cell upon the table, and went to prayers; during which time our reverend mother the superior, who knew that I had written, because she had sent one of the nuns to see what I was about, beckoned to one of the sisters and bid her go and take my letter. She did so every time I wrote, seven times running, so that my father died five months afterwards without ever obtaining a letter from me, which he had so much desired, and had even asked me for on his death-bed, by the curate of his parish."—Note of Sister Lemonnier in Mr. Tilliard's Mémoire. See also the National, March, 1845.

[[3]] The preliminary confession of the nuns to the superior, easily acceded to in the first fit of enthusiasm, soon becomes an intolerable vexation. Even in Madame de Chantal's time, it was much complained of. See her letters, and Fichet, 256; also Ribadeneira, Life of St. Theresa.

[[4]] Sister Marie Lemonnier was shut up with mad girls: here she found a Carmelite nun, who had been there nine years. The third volume of the Wandering Jew contains the real history of Mademoiselle B. All this happened very lately, not in a mad-house, but in a convent. Since I have this opportunity of saying a word to our admirable novelist, let him permit me to ask him why he thought proper to idealise the Jesuits to this extent? who does not know that certain dignitaries of their order have become immortal by ridicule? It is difficult to believe stupid writers to be strong minds, or profound machinators. I look in vain for a Rodin, and find only Loriquets.

[[5]] All these people buy and sell, and become brokers. Prelates speculate in lands and buildings, the Lazarists turn agents for military recruits, &c. The latter, the successors of St. Vincent de Paul, the directors of our Sisters of Charity, have been so blessed by God for their charity, that they have now a capital of twenty millions. Their present chief, Mr. Etienne, then a procurer of the order, was lately the Lazarist agent in a distillery company. The very important law-suit they have at the present moment will decide whether a society engaged by a general, its absolute chief, is freed from every engagement by a change of generals.

[[6]] Did not this horrible art calculate well on the influence of the body? this art that does not awaken man's energy by pain, but enervates it by diet and the misery of dungeons! (See Mabillon's Treatise on Monastic Prisons.) The revelations of the prisoners of Spielberg have enlightened us upon this head.

[[7]] The affairs at Avignon, Sens, Poictiers, though the guilty parties have been but slightly punished, permit us to hope that the law will at length awake. We read in one of the newspapers of Caen: "A report was current yesterday at the palais, that the procureur-général was going to evoke not only the affair of the sequestration of Sister Marie, but also that of Sister Ste-Placide, about whose removal the avocat-général, Sorbier, wrote to the under-prefect of Bayeux, on the 13th of August last. Lastly, that of Madmlle. H——, of Rouen, whom the attorney-general (procureur du roi), of Rouen, was obliged to remove from the establishment of Bon-Sauveur."—National (newspaper), March 10, 1845.

[[8]] The inspection of convents ought to be shared between the judiciary and municipal magistracy, and the administrations of charity. The bar is too much occupied to be able to undertake it alone. If these houses are necessary as asylums for poor women, who earn too little in a solitary life, at least let them be free asylums like the béguinages of Flanders; but not under the same direction. When a woman has ended the task of the wife, she begins that of the mother or grandmother.