Help came now and then, but not enough to supply all the needy ones, and the sisters often went hungry. They sought counsel of the father of the house, Abbé le Pailleur. After prayer and meditation, he proposed to the sisters that for the love of God they themselves should become beggars. Most cheerfully they went forth with baskets on their arms, asking charity, "the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table." From that day they have provided in this way for their destitute ones; nothing comes amiss, the refuse of the table or the wardrobe is accepted thankfully. These mendicant sisters have never been without their share of contumely and reproach. Members of older orders in the beginning turned the cold shoulder upon them, and they were spurned from the presence of one religieuse with the reproach, "Don't speak to me, I am ashamed of your basket!" but they only renewed their entire consecration to God, and went on begging. At length their basement was crowded to suffocation; the abbé sold his gold watch, and with the remains of Fanchion's property, and all their savings, they made the first payments for a large house; before the end of the year, the twenty-two thousand francs (the price of the house) were all paid. Here they took that name so redolent of sweetness and humility, "Little Sisters of the Poor," and here they accepted fully what before had been necessarily imperfect, their rule of life, taking, in addition to the usual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the vow of hospitality. At the end of two years, fifty aged people were fed and clothed by the begging sisters, and comforted and cared for with all the assiduity of the most tender love. Their rule was to divide all the broken victuals among the poor, and feed themselves upon what remained, never murmuring if they went without. One winter's night, when the old people, fed and cared for, had gone to their rest, the sisters had for their suppers only about a quarter of a pound of bread. They sat down cheerfully at the table, said their Benedicite, and passed the bread from one to the other, each declining any right to it, and all pretending to be well able to do without it. Before it had been decided how the loaf should be divided, the bell rang; some one had sent them a supply of meat and bread. "Trust in the Lord and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed," was the motto of their holy lives. It will not surprise us to learn that, in return for their self-sacrifice, Almighty God gave them many souls from among the abandoned and often dissolute people, who, but for the peaceful refuge of their home, would have been lost in the whirlpool of ignorance and vice. To bring back these poor creatures to their forgotten Father was the delight of the zealous sisters, and they felt themselves well rewarded when they saw these darkened minds opening to the truth, and returning to sit at the feet of Jesus with loving penitence.
But the house was filled to overflowing, and they resolved to build. They well knew in whose hands are the gold and silver, and into his ever-listening ear they poured their new want.
The reply did not linger, for they worked as well as prayed. At the sight of the zeal with which they began to clear the stones from a piece of ground, which they already owned, and to dig the foundations, workmen came, materials were sent, and alms flowed in abundantly.
Some time previous a person from the Island of Jersey, which is not far from St. Servan, came to that town to seek for an aged relative. He found her sheltered by the "Little Sisters," and with devout thanksgiving to God he gave alms of all that he possessed, and at his death bequeathed the house seven thousand francs. This legacy fell to them as they began the building, and with the new house came new souls, ready to consecrate themselves to the service of God's poor, and with these new sisters came the desire that the hand of charity might be held out to the poor of other regions. The elder of the two girls who were first banded together in this order, and who was now called Mother Marie Augustine, with four sisters, went out from the mother-house, and established themselves at Rennes, a town of forty thousand inhabitants, fifty or sixty miles from their first home. The trust in Providence which led to this movement was greatly blessed, and soon there came another call from the town of Dinan. This call came from the mayor of the city, who thought it a wonderful stroke of policy to provide for the town's poor without drawing on the city treasury. The sisters went without hesitancy, and in 1846 had three well-established houses, which ten of the sisterhood supported by begging.
In France, as in this country, it has been for a long time the custom for persons living in the interior to seek the sea-coast during the summer months. A young lady coming from Tours to St. Servan did not, as too many do, leave all thoughts of her religion behind, but in her temporary sojourn gave herself to good works. Attracted by the genuine humility and piety of the "Little Sisters of the Poor," she begged them to go back with her to Tours. They asked only a roof to shelter and liberty to work, and in January, 1847, they hired in that city a small house in which they received at once a dozen poor people. In 1848, they bought, for 80,000 francs, a very large building, and found shelter for a hundred. How this sum was paid and the family supported remains a secret with the angel who makes record of alms-deeds. For the food of these poor people, every café was engaged to save their coffee-grounds and tea-leaves, and schools, colleges, barracks, and families their crusts of bread; each sister, as she went forth, carried on her arm a large tin pail, divided in compartments, which allowed the scraps of bread and meat, with the cups of broth and other fragments, to be kept apart from each other. At their return, these bits were overlooked, and by the hands of the sisters made into very palatable dishes for their beloved poor. But we must not forget that other and more arduous and disagreeable duties were required of these indefatigable workers than even providing their food from such material. The nursing, tending, and watching of these poor creatures whose former lives of misery had often brought upon them repulsive infirmities and diseases, lifting the helpless, comforting the forlorn, and bearing with the ungrateful, all these must be shared by these devoted women, who had undertaken to follow the command of the apostle, to provide for the aged and the widow. Most of these nuns came from the people; many of them had witnessed want and woe from their infancy, and understood the special needs of the poor; but now and then ladies of rank and education joined them, all working together in perfect equality, each undertaking that class of duties for which she was best fitted. Many a sister has been truly a martyr for Christ, in working for these ignorant, degraded beings, often obstinate and full of ingratitude. But "it is not for the sake of gratitude we nurse them," said a sister whose pale face showed the wearing nature of her cares: "it is because in them we see le bon Dieu!"
To tell the story of the journeyings from place to place all over France, the difficulty with which they took root in some of the larger cities, and the comparative welcome they met in the smaller towns, would fill a volume. From France they went to Belgium, to Spain, to Switzerland, and lately to Ireland, and even to Protestant England and Scotland. To-day one hundred and eight houses of this order are scattered over Europe, with a sisterhood of eighteen hundred women, who watch over, comfort, and maintain more than twelve thousand poor old men and women, without money and without price save the voluntary offerings of the cheerful giver!
In England the appearance of the order excited at first much curiosity, but many turned away from them with aversion, the aversion which centuries of false teaching has planted in the minds of most Protestant communities against all religious orders; but their uniform humility, gentleness, and kindness won the day. In Park Row, Bristol, England, in Bayswater, in London, as well as in other places, their convents are admirably conducted, and they welcome visitors most cordially; wherever they go they become popular. "We get a good deal in England," said one of the sisters; "the English are very good to us, though they are Protestants." There is something in simple, honest trust in God which touches the heart, and often those who at first turned away from the begging sisters, in the end prove their warmest supporters.
On his way to business a butcher, belonging in London, and glorying in the name of "a stanch Protestant," was induced to visit one of the convents. He was so delighted with the charity and with all he saw, that he told the "good mother" to let the convent cart call at his stall once a week, and he would give them soup-meat for the house. As he went away, his conscience reproached him; the "horns and hoofs" of the dreadful "beast" of whom he had so often heard appeared before him; he might be suspected of a leaning toward popery! But then his Anglo-Saxon common sense told him that to help the aged and infirm was right, popery or not, and he kept his word; the meat is always ready when the cart arrives, but no communication passes between the sister who takes and the man who gives; he has not yet lost his fear of the "seven heads and ten horns, and the number 666."