Page 849 - les-miserables

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, curious-
ly 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 Ci-
neres, who was almost blind.
The most esteemed among the vocal mothers were Moth-
er Sainte-Honorine; the treasurer, Mother Sainte-Gertrude,
the chief mistress of the novices; Mother-Saint-Ange, the

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