The Voyage of the Ursulines [pp. 18-24]

The Voyage of the Ursulines.
and during all this exposure by day and by
night, they were unable to change their
clothes. It is not to be wondered at, that
these last few days of their journey broke
many of the sisters down, and that they arrived at New Orleans having among their
number several suffering invalids.
The Ursuline Convent was not ready for
their reception, and indeed, was not finished
for several years after; but the Company had
secured the house which Bienville had built
for himself, and there the Ursulines were
lodged, until their convent should be built.
They were at once ready for work, and that
part of their work which related to instruction was ready for them.
Their seclusion was so complete, that
they saw but little of New Orleans itself,
and knew but little of its inhabitants. Nine
months after their arrival, Madelaine Hachard
wrote her father: "Our city is very pretty,
well-built, regularly laid out, so far as I know,
and as it seemed to me the day that we arrived, for since that day we have remained
in seclusion." The inhabitants were proud
of the place, and claimed that, in appearance, it rivaled Paris, but this opinion was
not endorsed by the nuns so recently from
that metropolis.
There was as much display and politeness as in France. Women cared but little
for what concerned their salvation, but were
alive to what affected their vanity. Velvets,
damasks, and ribbons were common, although their cost was three times the price
in France. Rouge and patches were used
there as elsewhere. The market furnished an
abundance of fruits and vegetables. Hunters brought in from the forests and prairies,
deer and bears and buffaloes, ducks and
wild turkeys, partridges and quail. Fishermen furnished a large varietyof excellent fish,
most of which were new to the Ursulines.
In short, after the trials of the voyage, a
great variety of nourishing food was always
at their command when the fasts of the
Church permitted them to enjoy it; but from
much of it they abstained for fear of becoining fastidious.
Their Reverend Father was full of zeal,
but the work that he had to accomplish
staggered these gentle Christians; for the
place was full of "debauchery, bad faith,
and all the other vices." In their own special work, they were shocked at the moral
condition of the young girls, whom it was
the custom to marry at the age of twelve or
fourteen years, when they did not even
know how many Gods there were. Raised
in the country, five or six leagues from the
city, some of their scholars had never been
confessed, had never been at mass, had
never heard God spoken of.
The ground was fallow which they had
undertaken to work, and, as the time approached for Madelaine Hachard's profession, we can appreciate the sincerity with
which she says: "I cannot tell you the
pleasure I shall take in pronouncing my
vows in a foregin land, where Christianity
is almost unknown."
This glimpse at the condition of New Orleans, as it appeared to the French Ursulines, in the Spring of 1728, which has just
been brought before our eyes, is taken from
the last of the letters of Madelaine Hachard
in the little collection which has furnished
the material for this article. While the
whole atmosphere of the letter is filled with
the same sweetness, and.tender, respectful
affection for her parents which characterized
her farewell letter from France, she is not
appalled at the magnitude of the work which
has been revealed to her; but the further
she advances, the more she thanks the Lord
for having chosen her for so holy a vocation.
Andrew McFarland Davis.
24
[Jan.