During the six years which separate 1819 from 1825, the prioress of the
Petit-Picpus was Mademoiselle de Blemeur, whose name, in religion, was
Mother Innocente. She came of the family of Marguerite de Blemeur,
author of _Lives of the Saints of the Order of Saint-Benoît_. She had
been re-elected. She was a woman about sixty years of age, short,
thick, “singing like a cracked pot,” says the letter which we have
already quoted; an excellent woman, moreover, and the only merry one in
the whole convent, and for that reason adored. She was learned,
erudite, wise, competent, curiously proficient in history, crammed with
Latin, stuffed with Greek, full of Hebrew, and more of a Benedictine
monk than a Benedictine nun.
The sub-prioress was an old Spanish nun, Mother Cineres, who was almost
blind.
The most esteemed among the vocal mothers were Mother Sainte-Honorine;
the treasurer, Mother Sainte-Gertrude, the chief mistress of the
novices; Mother-Saint-Ange, the assistant mistress; Mother
Annonciation, the sacristan; Mother Saint-Augustin, the nurse, the only
one in the convent who was malicious; then Mother Sainte-Mechtilde
(Mademoiselle Gauvain), very young and with a beautiful voice; Mother
des Anges (Mademoiselle Drouet), who had been in the convent of the
Filles-Dieu, and in the convent du Trésor, between Gisors and Magny;
Mother Saint-Joseph (Mademoiselle de Cogolludo), Mother Sainte-Adélaide
(Mademoiselle d’Auverney), Mother Miséricorde (Mademoiselle de
Cifuentes, who could not resist austerities), Mother Compassion
(Mademoiselle de la Miltière, received at the age of sixty in defiance
of the rule, and very wealthy); Mother Providence (Mademoiselle de
Laudinière), Mother Présentation (Mademoiselle de Siguenza), who was
prioress in 1847; and finally, Mother Sainte-Céligne (sister of the
sculptor Ceracchi), who went mad; Mother Sainte-Chantal (Mademoiselle
de Suzon), who went mad.
There was also, among the prettiest of them, a charming girl of three
and twenty, who was from the Isle de Bourbon, a descendant of the
Chevalier Roze, whose name had been Mademoiselle Roze, and who was
called Mother Assumption.
Mother Sainte-Mechtilde, intrusted with the singing and the choir, was
fond of making use of the pupils in this quarter. She usually took a
complete scale of them, that is to say, seven, from ten to sixteen
years of age, inclusive, of assorted voices and sizes, whom she made
sing standing, drawn up in a line, side by side, according to age, from
the smallest to the largest. This presented to the eye, something in
the nature of a reed-pipe of young girls, a sort of living Pan-pipe
made of angels.
Those of the lay-sisters whom the scholars loved most were Sister
Euphrasie, Sister Sainte-Marguérite, Sister Sainte-Marthe, who was in
her dotage, and Sister Sainte-Michel, whose long nose made them laugh.
All these women were gentle with the children. The nuns were severe
only towards themselves. No fire was lighted except in the school, and
the food was choice compared to that in the convent. Moreover, they
lavished a thousand cares on their scholars. Only, when a child passed
near a nun and addressed her, the nun never replied.
This rule of silence had had this effect, that throughout the whole
convent, speech had been withdrawn from human creatures, and bestowed
on inanimate objects. Now it was the church-bell which spoke, now it
was the gardener’s bell. A very sonorous bell, placed beside the
portress, and which was audible throughout the house, indicated by its
varied peals, which formed a sort of acoustic telegraph, all the
actions of material life which were to be performed, and summoned to
the parlor, in case of need, such or such an inhabitant of the house.
Each person and each thing had its own peal. The prioress had one and
one, the sub-prioress one and two. Six-five announced lessons, so that
the pupils never said “to go to lessons,” but “to go to six-five.”
Four-four was Madame de Genlis’s signal. It was very often heard.
“C’est le diable a quatre,”—it’s the very deuce—said the uncharitable.
Tennine strokes announced a great event. It was the opening of _the
door of seclusion_, a frightful sheet of iron bristling with bolts
which only turned on its hinges in the presence of the archbishop.
With the exception of the archbishop and the gardener, no man entered
the convent, as we have already said. The schoolgirls saw two others:
one, the chaplain, the Abbé Banés, old and ugly, whom they were
permitted to contemplate in the choir, through a grating; the other the
drawing-master, M. Ansiaux, whom the letter, of which we have perused a
few lines, calls _M. Anciot_, and describes as _a frightful old
hunchback_.
It will be seen that all these men were carefully chosen.
Such was this curious house.