The hours I liked best in the day were eight in the morning and half-past seven at night. Those were the hours of the Sisters' Service, in their own little chapel, which was exactly opposite my window. That chapel had been the cell of St. Vincent de Paul, and the spot where the altar stood was the very spot where the great man had died in 1660. I loved to hear the Sisters sing their beautiful Latin hymns, and Sister Léonide, who knew this, and who stood at the back of that chapel, that is, close to the window, opened the window just a little, so that I might hear the singing better.... And Sister Emmanuel, who was seventy-eight years old, and had been at Saint-Lazare for over fifty years, one day whispered in my ear: "You know, I have not sung in chapel for years. I am so old, but I sing now... for you, my poor child!"... I was so unhappy and so sensitive that this simple and sublime remark made me cry with emotion and gratitude. I could have knelt before her. I asked Sister Léonide what I could do for Sister Emmanuel, and she said: "Make her slippers. I'll give you everything to make them. It is so cold in this prison."... I never did anything in my life with so great and so radiant a joy.
What a wonderful person, this old, old Sister Emmanuel! When a woman who was being put into a strait-jacket screamed hysterically the presence of Sister Emmanuel was enough to calm her. She called all the prisoners "mesdames" or "mes petites" ("my little ones"). In the sewing-room she read aloud to the prisoners at work, but frequently her strength failed, the book fell from her hands, and she went to sleep. There reigned absolute silence then in the vast room, for the women respected her sleep. When Sister Emmanuel awoke she shouted from habit: "Now then, mesdames, silence, please!" And every one laughed....
She gave courage to all, took an interest in every prisoner, and invariably advised them to "appeal," without even knowing whether the woman had yet been tried! Nothing disheartened or wearied her; her temper was always even. She was Serenity itself, ever smiling and comforting.
She was full of quaint expressions. Once when a prisoner stared at her she gaily said: "I am very plain, am I not, with my nose like a potato! Well, I've always been like that!" Another time, when I had just seen her preventing a woman—a new arrival—who had vilely abused her, from being punished, I could not help exclaiming: "Oh! ma Sœur, you are sure to go straight to heaven!" She laughed and replied: "Well, if I go there, it will really not have been difficult!"
"I love 'my women,'" she once said to me, in her tremulous voice, "and the worse they are the more they need love, and the more I love them." The prisoners all worshipped her like a Saint, and even the fiercest and most degraded woman would obey her, whatever the order was and at once. Sister Emmanuel had only to look at the woman.... I often wondered how it was that everybody bowed to and gladly obeyed this aged, bent Sister of Mercy with the emaciated and trembling body, so small that when she was sitting her feet were off the ground, until one day I looked into her eyes.... There was the Holy Spirit in those eyes.
The Sister Superior, Ma Mère—My Mother—as every one called her, a tall, strong woman of about fifty, with large blue eyes shining with kindness, came from time to time to see me—which was a very great favour. At first, she was cold and almost distant, but gradually she changed and became more and more affectionate, and remained a little longer in my cell.
Sisters Superior from all parts of France came to see her when they were in Paris and they always visited me, not out of curiosity but out of sympathy, for My Mother had evidently spoken to them about me.
I remember the Sister Superior of a prison at Rouen. She came from time to time to Paris, and always spent a long while with me. This sainted woman spoke to me with so much profound sympathy that I once said to her: "But, Ma Mère, I am sure you must despise me.... I have not been a faithful wife; I have accused a man without having absolute proofs that he was guilty...." She took my hands in hers and replied: "No creature on earth is despicable; we don't know what a being is, has been, or might have been."
There were four small tables in our cell—three feet by one and a half—and Sister Léonide on a day when I was more profoundly dejected than usual gave them names to try to make me laugh: the drawing-room table (also called dressing-table) on which stood the mimosa in its ink-bottle and the photographs of my daughter and my mother; the dining-room table used for our meals; the library table on which we wrote our letters and the work-table for our sewing. Marthe once brought me some material to repair a petticoat, but there was more than necessary, and with the extra material I made a cover for the drawing-room table; and Sister Léonide occasionally gave us some sheets of white or brown paper to lay on the "dining-room" table.
After each meal we opened the window, whatever the weather might be, and gave crumbs of bread to the sparrows and the pigeons. When for some reason or other, we were late in doing so, the birds would knock at the window with their beaks through the wire-trellis.