s, but it was marked by several heavy crosses. The one which
caused her the bitterest affliction, and weighed upon her longest was
the suspension of Mother Barat's correspondence. It began at the time of
her return from the Pottowatomie Mission, 1842, and lasted until 1847.
Her letters, all but one, reached Mother Barat; but the first two
written after her arrival at St. Charles having remained unanswered, she
thought herself in disgrace with her Mother General, to whom she had
always been so tenderly united, and did not venture to write again
except on one or two important occasions. The silence of Mother Barat,
or the suppression of her letters to Mother Duchesne, if it really took
place, is a mystery which will probably never be explained. The Superior
General had no reason for displeasure against her old friend and one of
her dearest daughters; nor was there any one, either in the Mother House
or in St. Charles who could have any motive for intercepting her
letters, or was capable of conduct so unworthy and so cruel. The motive
which led Mother Duchesne to write to Mother Barat in 1843, and again in
1846, was to save the houses of St. Charles and Florissant from the
suppression with which they were threatened. The former escaped, but the
latter was closed, to the great sorrow of the holy mother, who grieved
not from personal motives, but because of the loss it would entail upon
the poorer people of the town, since it was the only Catholic school in
the place. From the beginning the house of Florissant had been scarcely
supporting itself; and Reverend Mother Cutts, the Vicar, thought it
better to close it, and so strengthen the other two communities.

In 1847 a business affair required Mother Duchesne to write to the
Mother House. This time, not venturing to address Mother Barat in
person, she directed her letter to one of the Assistants General, who
was well known to her; but her anguish of soul was too keen not to find
expression in it. The kind heart of the Mother General was filled with
sympathy and compassion; and as she was about to send to America, Mother
Aloysia Jouve, a niece of Mother Duchesne, she directed her to go to St.
Charles immediately on arriving, in order to comfort her aunt by her
presence. At the same time she made her the bearer of a letter full of
the warmest affection. Mother Duchesne's joy and gratitude were in
proportion to the bitterness of her past sorrow, and for the remaining
years of he