Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/731

 WISDOM

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WISDOM

under Cod's providonco, to give :i solid religious train- ing to Louise Trichct, known in religion as Sister Marie-Louise of Jesus. When de Montfort judged her suffieiently advaneed in \irtue, he gave her a new religious habit, whirh has been minutely copied by the Daughters of \\isdoin. It consists of an ashen- gray woollen dress and a black cape worn over the habit. Their coif antl neckerchief are of white linen. They wear slippers instead of shoes. Ten j'ears she alone wore the nnich-ridiculed dress. In 1712 a com- panion was given to Marie-Louise in the person of Catharine Brunei (Sister Conception). In 171.5, at the request of the Bishop of La Rochelle, de Mont- fort called upon his spiritual daughters to teach the children of the poor in that city. Henceforth the congregation was both ho.spitaller and teaching. The founder appointed Sister ^larie-Louise superioress of the congregation. On 22 Aug., 1715, Montfort gave the habit of \\'isdom to Sister Ste Croix and Sister Incarnation.

The congregation strives to acquire heavenly wisdom by imitating the Incarnate Wisdom, Jesus Christ. The means for imitating Christ is a special devotion to the Blessed \'irgin. De Montfort caUs it "True Devotion" or "Holy Bondage of Mary", because it mainly consists (1) in consecrating them- selves entirely to Our Lady and (2) in serving her lovingly as a slave. The saint, with his keen percep- tion of Mary's greatness and of our own unworthi- ne.ss, preferred the ai)pellation "slave or bondman" to "child or servant of Mary". Once consecrated to Mary, the sisters perform all their actions in the spirit inculcated in de Montfort 's "Treatise of the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin". When he died in 171, the community numbered only four sisters. In 1720 the site of their mother-hou.se was acquired at Saint~Laurent-sur-Se\Te, where he was laid to rest. Henceforth the life of Marie-Louise was to be a series of travels necessitated by new foundations and by visits to all her communities; in 1750 there were already thirty. She died on 27 April, 1759. Under her successor, Sister Anastasie (1759-68), lay sisters were admitted into the congregation. 'They wear a black habit, a brown kerchief on weekdays, and a white one on Sundays. When in the chapel or out of the convent they wear a black cape. The lay sisters are over 700. Art. 26 of the first part of the constitution provides that both lay and choir sisters, at the end of five years' probation, be sent to the mother-house (at Saint-Laurent-sur-Se\Te, La Vendue, France), where they remain about two months pre- paring themselves for their perpetual vows.

On 31 Jan., 1794, twenty-.six sisters, who had re- mained in the convent at Saint-Laurent-sur-S^\Te, were fastened two and two like criminals. One was hacked to pieces; another slain in her sick-bed, and her corpse dragged through the village. The others were thrown into a squalid prison at Nantes, where eight of them died of starvation. One sister was put to death at Coron; another was wounded by a sabre- cut, and left for dead; two were ma.ssacred at Lon- geron, and two more on the road to Le Mans. Of those imprisoned there, four died of exhaustion. At Poitiers three sisters were exhibited in a public square and the inscription "Harbourers of fanatic priests" placed above their heads. They spent eight months in prison at Le Brouage; they were forced, in the cold winter months, to uproot with their hands the grass that grew between the paving-stones of the streets. At Nantes two si.sters were guillotined. At Rennes the heads of Sister V^-ronique and Jouin fell under the guillotine. Three others, meanwhile exhibited with an iron collar (carmn) around their necks, when apprised of the execution of their companions, and threat ene<l with a similar fate, simplv replied: "Cod's holy Will be done". At La Cuille Sister St. Emily was subjected to revolting maltreatment. Sister St.

Eugenie's fortitude astonished the Revolutionary Committee of La Rochelle. "Enough, gentlemen, my last word is this: the guillotine seems set up for good. Take me there. An oath against my con- science you will never get from me." On" being promised personal safety, she besought her judges not to be separated from her companions. She was imprisoned at Bruges. At Roehefort-en-Terre Sister Mechtikle died of fright at seeing the revolutionaries. Her three companions, impri.soned at Vannes, were refused even a little straw to lie on. From the prison the superioress addressed a pathetic appeal to the municipality. Relief came too late, at least for her. She died after a year's iini)risonment. Her two com- paniiiiis \\v\i- set free. Still when nurses were needed to lake care of I he wounded and sick soldiers in the hospital at Brest, the imprisoned sisters, 70 in number, were sent there. They were the first to resume the religious habit in 1800.

Under Napoleon the Daughters of Wisdom re- covered most of their former houses, were granted 30,000 francs for building purposes, and an annuity of 12,000 francs. This was faithfully paid until 1848. It was in 1810, when Napoleon was temporarily the master of Europe, that, at his call, the Sisters of" Wis- dom left French soil for the first time to nurse the wounded soldiers at Antwerj). Numerous medals were bestowed on the congregation by Napoleon, and by every French Government since; Spain, Prussia, and Belgium have honoured them for nursing the wounded or plague-stricken soldiers of those countries; its a congregation they ha\-e been acknowdedged in the Ajioslolic Brief of Leo XII in 1825; they were canonically ajiijroved, together with the Fathers of the Company of Mary, in 1853; they were placed under Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelh as protector, and favoured by two important decrees in 1893 and 1898 securing the integrity of Montfort's institution; and they received the definitive approbation of the con- stitutions of Montfort's double foundation in 1904.

In 1800 the membership of the conmiunitv was 260; in 1810, 509; in 1830, 710; in ls-40, 1400". To-day there are 5400, distributed among A'.\[) houses. Their principal novitiate is the mother-house. The present French Government has replaced them by lay nurses in the important naval and military hospitals of Tou- lon, Brest, Cherbourg, Boulogne, and others, in the state prisons, in the Maisons Centrales (prisons for women) of Cadillac and Clermont . Not less than 250 of their educational establishments have been closed. They are in charge of hospitals, insane asylums, orthopaedic institutes, orphan homes, training schools, apprentice shops, protectories, poor-houses, magdalen institutions, kindergartens, day nurseries, boarding- schools, day-schools, and parochial schools. The Asile des Vieillards, founded at Clamart (Paris) by Duchess Galiera, deserves a special mention for the uniqueness of its purpose. It is a home for aged and indigent artists, literary and scientific men. or noble- men.

In 1812 the Daughters of Wisdom took charge of the institution for deaf-mutes at La Chartreuse d'Auray. Trained by Miss Duler and by the Abb6 Sicard, the sisters made rapid progress in this new field of usefulness. They improved the methods of their masters, and, in turn, became the teachers of several other religious communities. To-day the Daughters of Wisdom direct the institutes of the blind and deaf-mutes in .seven departments; at La Char- treuse, I,arnay, rl(ans, Lille, Laon, Besangon, and Toulouse. Larnay gained world-wide renown after the publication of I>ouis Arnould's "Une flme en prison", in which he graphically describes the method pursued by Sister Marguerite for the education of Marie Heurtin, deaf-mute and blind from her birth. Before .Sister Marguerite, Sister St. M<dulle had worked on similar lines, in instructing Germaine Cam-