THE TROUBLES OF THE NUNS OF ST. BABA.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3053, 8 April 1881, Page 4

THE TROUBLES OF THE NUNS OF ST. BABA.

Docs any one wish to know how tho war between tho French Government and the religious Orders i 3 being carried on in Franco let him read this little account of how that valiant official, M. Lerougc, Profect of the Haute'Soine, did battle with tho nuns of St. Baba.

It 13 almost needless to premise that M. Lerouge glories in being a Radical and an atheist. He has disuaded his wife from going to church ; he has left directions that when he dies he may be buried " without any absurd clerical rites;" and he lias thoroughly persuaded his friends and acquaintances that when once lie is dead he will neither go to heaven or anywhere else. The difference between M. Lerouge and and some who effect to think like him is that he is perfectly sincere. A phrenologist would say that he wanted the bump of veneration ; but he reveres the rites of freemasonry, the electoral body, the emblems of civil power, the doctrines of materialism, and the memory of Danton ; and, while rejecting all faith in a paradise beyond this life, he appears to believe in the possibility of creating an earthly paradise, since he is constantly Baying that when once the world has been purged of priests, friars, and nuns " with their debasing superstitions, " it will be a ten-times happier and nobler place than it is now. M. Lerouge is not a ridiculous person. He has read much, talks well, and has the calm, urbane manners of a placeman who feels secure in his position. Nothing could be more correct than the ceremonious visits he exchanged with the bishop of his diocese on New Year's Day ; and on the first Sunday after the opening of the session he attended public prayers in the cathedral in full uniform and with his whole staff: not because it gave him any pleasuro to go through this mummery, but because the law required him to do so. The letter of the law—that is tho stalking-horse which M. Lerouge firmly bestrides ; and it is a powerful charger, a3 tho wretched monks of St. Babo, and after them the poor nuns of Sb. Bata, found out to their cost.

St. Babo and St. Baba were, as every one knows, a brother and sister who flourished a long time ago, and left a sweet renown for the austerity of their lives. Some fifty and odd years since, just before the revolution Which dethroned the Bourbons, a rich old lady founded a monastery and convent in their honor; but Charles X. fell before these establishments were out of the builder's hands, so that they were never formally admitted by his governrngnt into the ranks of authorised congregations. It did not much signify. Louis Philippe was a good churchman, who let the religious Orders alone; and Napoleon 111., who came after, followed his example. So long as Orders were established for purposes of charity or other pious ends, they were tolerated without any regular sanction, and were tacitly exempted from the rules and official supervision imposed upon certain associations. Thus between 1830 and 1870 any man could found a religious community, and close the doors of it in the face of all official inspection j whereas to found a chess-club it needed a written license from a commissaire de police and a mayor. Conventual houses might become centres of political propaganda in the Legitimist interest • but clubs where too much politics was talked on the Liberal side were shut up. A private company of men who wished to fabricate liqueurs would have had to take out a lisence as distillers, and to submit their products to the scrutiny of the exciseman ; but monks could manufacture Chartreuse, Benedictine or Trappistine, and sell it wholesale or retail ■without asking any one's leave or contributing a centime to the excise. They and the fliins could also print tracts without being licensed as printers—sell crucifixes, pictures, relics, and miraculous waters from Lourdes and Fecamp without being rated as shopkeepers ; and they could keep open pharmacies, sell medicines and doctor peasants ■without having complied with any of the stringent provisions of the Medical Act as applied to ordinary doctors and chemists. It was under cover of such indulgences as these that the two houses of St. Babo and St. Baba flourished for upwards of fifty years. They grew rich, and bought a little land and much stock in the 'funds (a safer kind of property than land). The monks distilled a liqueur called Ambrosia, after the Blessed St. Ambrose ; and the sisters went out as hospital nurses, and school-teachers, besides ruling over an ophanage, a refuge for old men, and a large girls' school, for which they were unwearied in soliciting donations. On the whole, they did much good, and little harm. They were a worthy set of men and women —the monks somewhat morose, the linns rather ignorant and bigoted ; but all honest according to their lights, and animated with A hearty zeal in discharging the tasks they undertook. M. Lerouge, the prefect, however, wae pleased to regard them all as a parcel of humbugs ; and, having carefully studied his Code Napoleon, went to work against them in the most business-like ■way possible, with the help of the Public Prosecutor, a sharp lawyer. Tho worthy pair soon disposed' of the monks of St. Babo. These friars Wore not " authorized," and a notice was served on them to disperse. They resisted, in the usual way, by ignoring the notice ; so that in the end a squad of gendarmes had to be sent with a commissaire de police, who broke open their doors and expelled every monk from his cell with gentle violonce— one by one. Tho Father Superior read a protest, to which the commissaire listened politely; and he then excommunicated that official. But this did not avail either. The monastery was shut up ; the commissaire ] took tho keys to M. Lerouge, and soon afterwards all the friars made their way to England. But the nuns of St. Baba remained to be dealt with ; and this at first did not seem easy, as the Government had made up its mind not to expel the female Orders. However, the Prefect had full liberty to proceed against them in the courts for breeches of the common law ; and this he did forthwith by instituting three suits against them on different counts. First he charged them with keeping an inn without being duly licensed. . A custom exists among many Catholic ladies of going occasionally into convents for " retreals " of so many days. They are not charged for the accommodation afforded them ; but on going away they of course remit a sum of money as a thankoffering. M. Lerouge and the Public Prosecutor contended that these gratuities in money did practically constitute a payment for board and lodging ; and the Council of State upholding this view (judgment given on the 22nd January against the Carmelites of _ Parayle-Monial) decided for the plaintiff with costs. Equally successful was M. Lerouge in his second action brought to restrain the nuns for " illegally practising as physicians and chemists." It was proved that these ladies were in the habit of physicking tho children in their orphanage ; the old men and women in their refuge, and that they even went so far as to visit sick people in cottages and to give them drugs, to the detriment of the local doctor and chemist. A tipsy witness was brought forward to prove a very bad case indeed. This citizen having got smitten with delirium tremens, some nuns, summoned by his wife treated him as for epilepsy, giving him doses of bromide of potassium, whereby, as he alleged, he was nearly choked ; which proved the gross ignorance of those sisters. In the face of such evident infractions of the law, the tribunal could only condemn, though it did so with evident reluctance. no fines nor imprisonment were inflicted, but an injunction was issued to restrain the Babian Sisterhood from further practising medicine or dispensing drugs; and the costs of the action were laid upon them. The third action which M. Lerouge instituted has not yet come on for hearing, and will perhaps, by Q-overnmont interference, be delayed for some time longer. M. Lerouge wants to get the sistera condemned as ■

" discuses do bonne aventuro"— that is fortune-tellers, impostors, quacks, and swindlers, for retailing plain water called Waters of Lourdes, and ascribing miraculous curative properties to it. This is a very heavily shotted gun, which tho Government have scrupled to discharge hitherto; but meanwhile the panic-stricken sistei'3 have left off selling not Lourdes waters only, but even amulets or relics. They will sell nothing j they dare do nothing; and the Mother Superior 'spends most of her mornings with the lawyer, conferring about appeals or paying bill of costs. As for the unlucky sisters, most of them find their occupation gone ; for the Prefect, using such arbitrary powers as the law allows him, has driven them forth from the State hospitals and asylums in the department where they had been wont to teach little girls. The convent of St. Baba was not instituted to support a number of women in idleness; so that itnder the stress laid upon its finances it has had to give up receiving new orphans and almsfolk, and will probably soon have to break up altogether. Then M. Lerouge, the Prefect, will be glad—not maliciously glad, as a schoolboy who has played off a good trick—but soberly glad, like a statesman who has enforced obedience to his country's laws. The poor sisters look upon him as having close cousinship with the Evil One, and it is rather touching to observe that in all the services in their chapel they offer up prayers that his heart may be softened. If the truth could be known, it would doubtless be found that relays of nuns succeed each other all through these winter nights, keeping, on their knees in the chapel what is called the " grand vigil ' —a supreme intercession for a soul believed to be in great peril. That is the soul of M. Lerouge.—St. James' Gazette.