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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 207, 23 October 1880, Page 4

JCon vents in" FRiNCEi. — B\(c>re the Great Re volution (says; .the writer o f »h;e " Cor.ttQent&l Gossip?' in ihb^Sgdvey Morning Herald), there w^ero ab'jut 38,000 people of both ..seyes livj ing in convents and apart from the^ ititiea and intereeta of common, life. The Revolution regarding these .centres ao dangerous, nbolifched the religious order, sold off their convents, and dispersed their members. It seems incredible, but it is npue the leas truo, that there are io Franco at the present day no fewer than 160,000 monks and nojnp, including the Jesuits. ' In ; Paris, and in* moat of the French (owns there is a quarter almost exclusivdy composed of ireligiojjts chouses; mostly vast ed : fices shut in by high walls and entered by strong massive doors; enclosures' jealously separated from the eyes and the knowledge, of the outside* world,. The streets -of these quarters abound in people wearing the costumes of such of the orders as; permit feheir votaries to leave the walls of their convents ; half the shops are devoted to the sale of the various things known as objects of piety, crucifixrs, religious pictures and books, rosaries, rocdile, votive offerings, boly water recipients, figures of saints, angels, the Madonna, Je6ua. the, evanRplietP, mßrtyrs, &c. ; poets, garlands, and bouquets of artificial flowerp, canrile?, candelabra, &c, for. decking altore; priests' garments rich in gold, Bilk, velvet, lace, and embroidery ; and the thousand other. glittering ohjeets employed in the .Roman ritual. In cer(aid towns the best sites are covered wiib convents, and the riches popeeeseci by the wealthier orders are very corjeidefable. All these frocked and cloistered bodies are auti-republio to v man, to a woman, and as they exercise a very powerful influence on the minde of a considerable poriion of the nation— an influence all the more potent that they have the greater portion of the French youth of both sexes in their schools — tho present Government

naturally.regarded these establish ments 08 inimical to its stability 1 , find baa determined to execute the old Iswa in dffianee pf..wbioh the religious orders, banished" in 1793, had Dot only contrived to re- establish themselves in Frf.uce, but to increase. &nd multiply to vastly greater proportions- tb an they bad. reaohed, a hundred years ego,