ght of the officiating priest; suppose this hall to be shut off by
a curtain seven feet in height, of which we have already spoken; in the
shadow of that curtain, pile up on wooden stalls the nuns in the choir
on the left, the school-girls on the right, the lay-sisters and the
novices at the bottom, and you will have some idea of the nuns of the
Petit-Picpus assisting at divine service. That cavern, which was called
the choir, communicated with the cloister by a lobby. The church was
lighted from the garden. When the nuns were present at services where
their rule enjoined silence, the public was warned of their presence
only by the folding seats of the stalls noisily rising and falling.

CHAPTER VII--SOME SILHOUETTES OF THIS DARKNESS

During the six years which separate 1819 from 1825, the prioress of the
Petit-Picpus was Mademoiselle de Blemeur, whose name, in religion,
was Mother Innocente. She came of the family of Marguerite de Blemeur,
author of Lives of the Saints of the Order of Saint-Benoit. She had
been re-elected. She was a woman about sixty years of age, short, thick,
"singing like a cracked pot," says the letter which we have already
quoted; an excellent woman, moreover, and the only merry one in the
whole convent, and for that reason adored. She was learned, erudite,
wise, competent, curiously proficient in history, crammed with Latin,
stuffed with Greek, full of Hebrew, and more of a Benedictine monk than
a Benedictine nun.

The sub-prioress was an old Spanish nun, Mother Cineres, who was almost
blind.

The most esteemed among the vocal mothers were Mother Sainte-Honorine;
the treasurer, Mother Sainte-Gertrude, the chief mistress of the
novices; Mother-Saint-Ange, the assistant mistress; Mother Annonciation,
the sacristan; Mother Saint-Augustin, the nurse, the only one in the
convent who was malicious; then Mother Sainte-Mechtilde (Mademoiselle
Gauvain), very young and with a beautiful voice; Mother des Anges
(Mademoiselle Drouet), who had been in the convent of the Filles-Dieu,
and in the convent du Tresor, between Gisors and Magny; Mother
Saint-Joseph (Mademoiselle de Cogolludo), Mother Sainte-Adelaide
(Mademoiselle d'Auverney), Mother Misericorde (Mademoiselle de
Cifuentes, who could not resist austerities), Mother Compassion
(Mademoiselle de la Miltiere, received at the age of sixty in defiance
of the rule, and very wealthy); Mother Providence (Mademoiselle de
Laudiniere), Mother Presentation