d healthful retreat, where his
missionaries might, for a while, rest and refresh themselves after their
toilsome apostolic journeys, or when their health required particular
care. Madame Duchesne was a mother to them, furnishing them with their
meals at any hour of the day, as they dropped in, often three or four at
a time, washing and mending their clothes, and replacing them when
needful, giving them the best of everything she had in the house. This
occasioned a great deal of work and no small expense, and money was very
scarce with her, to say nothing of the debts which had been incurred for
the building of the house. But this valiant woman counted upon the
Providence of God which never failed her, though its gifts were usually
bestowed upon her so sparingly, as barely to keep her afloat. It was a
great joy to her to help and serve the missionaries, and she declared
that she would consider her life happy and well-spent, could she do
nothing more than cook their meals for them. This generous hospitality
was all the more heroic from the precarious condition of her own
finances. Besides the debts, very heavy for the time, which were
pressing upon her, and which she had been obliged to incur for the
building of her house, a great business depression throughout the
country reduced the number of her pupils, thus diminishing the small
returns from the school, and, in 1820, a prolonged drought dried up the
wells and compelled her to send to the river for all the water they
needed.

Toward the end of 1820, when matters began to improve, the community was
visited by sickness. Mother Duchesne's turn came last, and so serious
was her illness that it brought her to the verge of the grave. She
recovered, however, and was able to resume her work at the end of two
months.

It was just after this that vocations began to come in. The first were
Emilie Saint Cyr, one of her pupils, and the sisters Eulalie and
Mathilde Hamilton, of a very distinguished family related to the
Fenwicks of Maryland, and also two lay sisters, Mary Layton and Mary Ann
Summers. These five formed the nucleus of a novitiate whose numbers
increased by degrees.

CHAPTER III

TRIALS AT FLORISSANT

In 1821, the little community of Florissant sent out its first offshoot.
With the consent and approbation of her Superior General, Mother Barat,
Mother Duchesne made her second foundation in Lower Louisiana, as it was
then called, at a place known as Grand Cote