ility was above
question, but the resources he had counted upon failed him, through the
dishonesty of an agent, and this, with the difficulty of the times, made
it impossible for him to meet his obligations; while his creditors,
finding themselves in much the same situation, were clamorous against
him, breaking out into abuse and menaces. They were even threatening to
seize his residence and have it sold for their benefit.

As a matter of course, Mother Duchesne and her community shared largely
in the odium that had fallen upon Bishop Dubourg. She was afflicted, but
chiefly on account of the indignities offered to the great missionary
prelate, and the harm done to religion by the nature of the difficulties
in which he found himself involved. After a time the storm subsided,
leaving, however, in the public mind a feeling of rancor and resentment,
one of whose effects was a settled enmity with regard to Mother Duchesne
and her community. Soon, of the pupils left to her, there were only two
whose schooling was being paid for. Still her courage and her reliance
upon God never wavered, and her confidence was rewarded. She does not
say how it happened, but she affirms that she was never less pinched by
poverty than at this time. She met this crisis in her usual heroic
fashion. Disregarding the idle talk of which she was the subject, she
refused to dismiss any of the boarding pupils who were being educated
gratis. She already had a free school for girls, and she opened another
for boys, as also two classes, one for the poor women of the village and
one for the grown-up girls.

And how, with such scanty resources, did she manage to make both ends
meet? By her own thrift and ingenious industry, which enabled her to
turn the least trifle to account, with an occasional remittance of a few
hundred francs from her relatives, and such assistance as Mother Barat
could spare out of her own penury. But her surest asset was her
confidence in Divine Providence, which always came to her assistance,
often in the most remarkable manner. With these she covered the expenses
of her convent, extinguished by degrees her indebtedness, and at the
same time was prodigal in her charity toward the missionaries, and very
liberal toward the poor.

In the situation above described, St. Louis was no place for Bishop
Dubourg. Leaving in charge there his newly-consecrated coadjutor, Bishop
Rosati, he took up his residence at a short distance above New Orl