“Sometimes, indeed,” said the superioress, “it makes us laugh to hear the account of the thefts they commit, there is often something so comical in the way they do it, and the cunning and dexterity they display are beyond belief; the most accomplished French filou cannot hold a candle to them.”
Sad as this testimony was, it could not be quite a surprise to any one living in Paris who had seen much of the class of English alluded to, but it will come probably as a new and terrible revelation to many in England; and if this paper should fall into the hands of any lone, friendless English girl hesitating about coming to Paris to earn her bread, the writer prays God she may ponder on the foregoing statement, and think twice before embarking on so perilous a venture.
Several salles are filled with a class of prisoners called jeunes insoumises; they are all very young, some merely children of the day; they are not always actual criminals, sometimes they are only subjects with dangerous propensities beyond the control of parents, and they are sent here to be trained to better ways;
especial pains are directed to these juvenile offenders, and the result is often very consoling. The superioress said they had lately had a baby of six years old brought in for stealing. “It was only a cake that tempted the poor little mite,” said the mother deprecatingly, “but she was very naughty and unmanageable otherwise, and the parents were glad of a pretext to get rid of her for a time.”
It was not only of such innocent culprits as this that the superioress spoke with indulgence, her large-hearted charity took in all the lost inhabitants of the dismal abode in which she dwelt and toiled; and there was something unspeakably touching in the way she every now and then seemed to try as it were to excuse the worst among them, to plead for them indirectly by showing up any remnant of good in them. We met the women we mentioned our seeing out at recreation on their way along a corridor; they walked singly, with their arms crossed; we were quite close to them as they passed us; and anything more ignoble than their features it would be difficult to conceive—the expression of the faces was scarcely human; they resembled vicious animals in human shape rather than women. This struck us all so forcibly that we could not help making the remark to the superioress. She seemed positively hurt, as if we had said something personally unkind to her, and, on my expressing some pagan surprise at it, she broke out into such a tender pleading for “those dear souls whom our Lord longs for and that cost him so dear” that, though I felt thoroughly rebuked, I could not be sorry for having called out her protest. It was like having laid one’s hand roughly and unawares on a vibrating instrument that sent out a strain of heavenly music.
“Oh!” she continued, with such a look as I shall never forget, “if we only knew what the value of a soul is, how precious it is in the eyes of God, we would never look with disgust at the poor wretched body that holds it; but I assure you when one comes near to those poor sinners the disgust soon wears off, and we think of nothing but their souls, their precious, immortal souls, that were bought at such a price!”
The more we listened to her and observed her, the less surprised we were at the universal respect, worship I might almost call it, that greeted her presence everywhere—it was so spontaneous and so free from anything like fear or servility. As soon as she appeared at the door of a work-room, or a class, or a dormitory, the prisoners rose immediately to salute her; and several times I noticed some of them make signs to others who were not looking, or touch them on the shoulder, to stand up and welcome the mother. She generally said a word to them en passant: “Good-morning, my children! Are you behaving well?” etc., and then there was a ripple of curtsies and a perfect clamor of “Yes, mother, thank you!” and the hard, bad faces would brighten for one moment with a smile.
The influence of the nuns with the prisoners is indeed little less than a permanent miracle, Among other instances of it, the superioress told us the following: “A desperate woman, charged with misdemeanors of the worst kind, was brought to the prison. She was the daughter of a butcher, and,” added the superioress, laughing, “I beg you to believe that her manners were just what might have been expected.” A few days after her arrival she broke out into a fit of mad fury, and the gardiens had to be sent for to take her to the cachot; but as soon as she saw them enter the salle,
she drew a huge pair of scissors from her pocket—how she came by it we never discovered—and, holding it open and pointed at them with one hand, she beckoned them with the other to come on, yelling all the while like a raging lioness. The men tried to terrify her, to dodge her, but it was all useless, she baffled every attempt to seize her. They gave it up as hopeless, and came for me. She no sooner saw me than she cried out: ‘Send them away, and I will go with you; but I will never move a foot with these men!’ I sent them away, and told her to give me the scissors; she gave it at once, and then I took her by the hand and led her off without a word.
“On another occasion, one section of prisoners got up a scheme for killing the gardiens. They were to tie their wooden sabots into clusters of eight together, and when the gardiens came to convey some refractory subject to the cachot, the others were to fling several batches of these formidable missiles at their heads. The effect must have been fatal, but fortunately there was some delay in the appearance of the gardiens, and the prisoners, having all ready, grew impatient, and at last, losing all control, they began to yell and call out for them and brandish their sabots furiously. The nun who was in waiting ran down to warn the gardiens not to come up, and then came to tell me what had happened, and to consult about sending for the soldiers, who are always ready at the poste outside the prison; the gardiens were frightened, and advised this being done. I thought, however, the storm would subside without having recourse to such an extreme measure. I was not the least afraid of the women personally; I knew they would never lay a finger on one of us, whatever their fury might