FRENCH CONVENTS AND FAMILY TIES.

Kumara Times, Issue 927, 19 September 1879, Page 4

FRENCH CONVENTS AND FAMILY TIES.

A curious case (3ays the Paris correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazette) has just been decided at Fontainebleau, where aM. and Mdme. Misaiessy appeared in court to plead against each other for two of their daughters. It appears that| this married couple have seven children, five daughters and two sons, and that the father had insisted on the three eldest daughters becoming nuns. The mother offered no resistance ; but when it came to deprive her of her two remaining daughters, who were also despatched to a convent, in spite of her entreaties and delicate health, she appealed to the secular arm. The Court endeavored to shake the determination of the husband, but he remained inflexible, declaring that a voice fromabove had called upon him to submit, nnd that his daughters should remain where they are. The Court of Fontainebleau took a middle course, and decided that the two young ladies in question should be released from the cloistered convent in which they had been imprisoned, and sent to the celebrated Convent of the Oiseaux, Paris, which is not cloistered, and where they will be able to receive the visits of their parents. The case has, of course, afforded the Radical papers an excellent opportunity for comparing M. Missiesy to Abraham and Agamemnon, who prepared to offer up the first Isaac, the second Iphigenia ; and also to question the right of a father to dispose of his children. A couple of days ago, a Radical paper, alluding to the tenacity which which the Clericals uphold paternal authority, reminded 113 not only of the Motara, but also of the Loveday case. The circumstances were as follows :—ln 1822, when the power of the Congregation, then known as the Jesuits were then called, was at its height, an Englishman named Loveday, who had long been residing in France, was obliged to absent himself for a few months. He imprudently left his daughter and niece in charge of some Catholics, and on his return home he found them preverted. The niece abjured her new religion, but the daughter rought refuge in a convent: and Mr Loveday, failing to get any redress from the tribunals, appealed to the Chamber. The Parliamentary Clericals were highly indignant, M. de Sesmaisons declared Mr Loveday guilty of a fearful abuse of paternal authority • and M. de Ronald said one might as w-li try to deprive fire of its heat as the clergy of their ardour for taking the children of heretical fathers, and that if there was any reproach to be addressed to the proselytisersit waa that of lukewarmness.