Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/50

Rh get into the "holy retreat" without exposing themselves to the view of other parts of the Convent, and have been first known to be there by the yard-nuns being sent to the Seminary for their clothes.

The Congregational Nunnery was founded by a nun, called Sister Bourgeoise. She taught a school in Montreal, and left property for the foundation of a Convent. Her body is buried, and her heart is kept under the Nunnery in an iron chest, which has been shown to me, with the assurance that it continues in perfect preservation, although she has been dead more than one hundred and fifty years. In the chapel is the following inscription: —

"Sœur Bourgeoise, Fondatrice du convent." (Sister Bourgeoise, Founder of the Convent.)

Nothing was more common than for the Superior to step hastily into our community-room, while numbers of us were assembled there, and hastily communicate her wishes in words like these: —

"Here are the parents of such a novice; come with me and bear me out in this story." She would then mention the outlines of a tissue of falsehoods she had just invented that we might be prepared to fabricate circumstances, and throw in whatever else might favour the deception. This was justified and highly commended, by what we were instructed.

It was a common remark at the initiation of a new nun into the Black Nunnery to receive the black veil, that the introduction of another novice into the Convent as a veiled nun, always caused the introduction of a veiled nun into heaven as a saint, which was on account of the disappearance of some of the older nuns always at the entrance of new ones.

To witness the scenes which often occurred between us and strangers would have struck a person most powerfully, if he had known how truth was set at nought. The Superior, with a serious and dignified air and a pleasant voice and aspect, would commence a recital of things most favourable to the character of the absent novice, representing her equally fond of her