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CHAPTER XI

END OF THE PETIT-PICPUS

At the beginning of the Restoration, the convent of the
Petit-Picpus was in its decay; this forms a part of the gen-
eral death of the order, which, after the eighteenth century,
has been disappearing like all the religious orders. Con-
templation is, like prayer, one of humanity’s needs; but, like
everything which the Revolution touched, it will be trans-
formed, and from being hostile to social progress, it will
become favorable to it.
The house of the Petit-Picpus was becoming rapidly de-
populated. In 1840, the Little Convent had disappeared, the
school had disappeared. There were no longer any old wom-
en, nor young girls; the first were dead, the latter had taken
their departure. Volaverunt.
The rule of the Perpetual Adoration is so rigid in its
nature that it alarms, vocations recoil before it, the order
receives no recruits. In 1845, it still obtained lay-sisters here
and there. But of professed nuns, none at all. Forty years
ago, the nuns numbered nearly a hundred; fifteen years ago
there were not more than twenty-eight of them. How many
are there to-day? In 1847, the prioress was young, a sign that

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