G. E. M.

“ As for Mother Duchesne her hands had become rugged and horny long ago, from the hard, rough work to which she had devoted herself, especially after her reentrance into Sainte Marie d'en Haut. Indeed, it had always been her custom to reserve to herself, as much as possible, every kind of work that might be most painful or fatiguing for others. These particulars offer but a faint idea of the sufferings and privations endured by these refined and accomplished ladies, during those hard beginnings of the Society of the Sacred Heart in the New World. ”

“ During these years, likewise, she heard of the closing of her beloved convent of Sainte Marie d'en Haut, in Grenoble, while at the same time there was question of closing those of Florissant and St. Charles. Under the weight of these crosses and many others, her affliction was indescribable. In a letter to Mother Barat she gives vent to the anguish of her soul, and with touching humility expresses the fear that her sins are the cause of so many calamities.
But Mother Duchesne was too heroic a soul ever to be discouraged. ”

“ The poorer children came in for an equal share of her kindness and care, and her motherly solicitude followed them after they had gone forth into the world. She had warm friends among the most notable families of St. Louis, but Mother Duchesne was no respecter of persons, and the poor were equally welcome, even more so, perhaps, to her time, her counsels, her prayers, her sympathy, and her services. ”

“ Toward the middle of September, 1819, followed by the intense regrets of the Abbé Richard, Curé of St. Charles, and by the tears of the children of the free school, Mother Duchesne moved to the farm which had been thus placed at her disposal. The boarders, now increased to about twenty, accompanied them to their new home. Here one room and a garret was all that the nuns had for themselves and their pupils; but they had also a poor little chapel, where they were able to keep Him, who was the source of all their strength, and whose presence among them sweetened their life of toil and privation. ”

“ Here, as elsewhere, her life was one of extreme poverty, privation and unremitting toil, to which, as she had always done, she added fasts, vigils and bodily penances, such as have rarely been equalled in the lives of the greatest canonized saints. She was often without a cent in the house, but this did not prove a bar to her charity. The poor never left the convent door empty handed, and the priests, most of whom were doing missionary work, and were as poor as herself, became the objects of her particular care. ”

“ Louis Valentin Dubourg, the newly consecrated Bishop of Louisiana, and describe the touching scene, when Mother Barat, in presence of the humble yet ardent entreaties of her strong-souled daughter, recognized the will of God, and gave the consent she implored, to let her have a share in the missionary labors of the zealous prelate in the far-off region of Louisiana.
In the hearts of God's saints, joy and sorrow are in close alliance. Mother Duchesne was overwhelmed with joy on seeing the realization of her ardent and long-cherished desires ”

“ The last of the many benefits he had conferred upon Missouri was a foundation for a little company of Jesuit Fathers and scholastics, to whom he donated his farm at Florissant. They arrived just at this time, and on account of their connection with the prelate met with a cool reception from many of the people. This was another heavy affliction for Mother Duchesne, who felt that, in view of the good they could surely do in the country, neither she nor any one else could do too much for them. Their poverty was very great, and she did not hesitate to beg for them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She could be seen engaged in the hardest labor of the house, the stables and the grounds, cooking, washing the dishes, scouring the kitchen utensils, chopping wood, working in the garden with hoe and spade, like an industrious field laborer, sweeping and cleaning in the house, and, in fact, taking upon herself, according to her invariable custom, all that was hardest and most repulsive to nature. ”

“ The poor Indians were as heedless and as lacking in foresight as children, and did not know how to take care of themselves. Many of them fell sick of throat and lung diseases, and nearly one hundred of them died, in spite of the best efforts of the Fathers and the nuns. During this time Mother Duchesne was very assiduous in her care of them, visiting them in their miserable huts, assisting and consoling them in their sufferings, and helping them to die piously. ”

“ Charles, Mother Duchesne had the consolation of finding the office of Superior held by Mother Régis Hamilton, the dearest of the daughters she had trained in the way of perfection. She could no longer do any hard work as of old, but she employed her remaining strength in the service of God and of the community. ”

“ Through the mercy of Christ their heart's blood has sanctified our soil. Others by living their length of days in the midst of privations and sorrows, that Christ might be known and glorified, fell little short of the martyrdom of blood itself. The memory of these still lives, enshrined in hearts that love them for their tireless zeal and their dauntless courage. ”

“ As she advanced in years, though growing naturally weaker, she was never idle for a moment. When not on her knees in the chapel, she was busy knitting, seated with a prayer-book open before her, in her narrow cell, which to her great consolation, was separated from the chapel only by a partition wall. Sometimes, when the weather was fine, she would go and sit under an old pear-tree in the garden with her knitting. ”

“ In the community, her virtues are still recalled, and her actions recounted. The little oratory in the front garden, often sees the religious on their knees in prayer, beside her tomb, and it is likewise piously frequented by people of the town, and of the neighboring country, as also by pilgrims from St. Louis and elsewhere. Her name is a household word among the Catholics of Missouri, and her pupils and their descendants have borne it with them, wherever the vicissitudes of life have carried them. ”

“ CHAPTER VI MISSION TO THE POTTOWATOMIE INDIANS
She had been six years at Florissant when Mother de Galitzin arrived as Visitatrix of the American houses. One of Mother Duchesne's first petitions to her was to be deposed from her office of Superior, on her usual plea of her total unfitness for it. To the sincerity of her estimate of herself, her letters to the Mother Foundress bear ample testimony. In one of them, for instance, she affirms that she was of the nature of a servant, "and," she adds, "it takes more than that to make one fit to govern others." ”

“ When next she saw Mother Duchesne, it was at the deathbed of the latter, as already related. When she came to America, it was with the understanding that, after giving a year to the visitation of the houses of the Society, she would proceed to South America, and see how conditions were in various places of that part of the world, where foundations had been asked for. It can not be doubted that she earnestly recommended her future mission to Mother Duchesne, and received from her a fervent promise that she would intercede for it. ”

“ Of such pioneers was the Venerable Philippine Duchesne, a truly valiant woman, to whom the American Church owes a debt of gratitude too great for payment.
The following pages are too few to give more than a glimpse of her heroic labors, but they have caught inspiration from their subject, and something, too, of her fragrant piety. No one will read them without admiration for one who was so weak and yet so strong, so humble, and yet so daring in work for God.
Mother Duchesne has a lesson for this age of softness and indolence. ”

“ She ministered to the sick, and sought in their hiding places, the devoted priests who would not abandon their posts, to bring them to the bedside of the dying. She did all this at the constant risk of her life, often hearing sounds and witnessing sights that made her shudder with horror. As soon as the revolutionary storm had spent its fury somewhat, she was enabled to turn her attention to the neglected boys she found in the streets, assembling them in her own lodgings to teach them to read and write, and above all, to prepare them for the Sacraments. ”

“ Dubourg cordially welcomed them to his Episcopal city, but the best he could do for them was to assign to them a log-house, which he had leased for their use at St. Charles, a village on the Missouri River, at a distance of thirty miles from St. Louis. Here they opened a boarding school which at first was only very scantily attended. They also opened a school for poor children, which immediately gathered in twenty-two pupils. As the nuns could not afford to keep a servant, they themselves had to cultivate the garden which, when they arrived, was a wilderness of weeds and briars. ”

“ Louis, her greatest privation, for herself and her community, was the lack of spiritual assistance. On week days they were often without Mass, and on such occasions Mother Duchesne would remain fasting until noon, in the hope that some priest might drop in to offer the Holy Sacrifice at a later hour, as it sometimes happened, or who at least, might give her Holy Communion. ”

“ Anguish of soul and weariness of body were required of our pioneers, no less than of those of other lands. Our predecessors in this portion of God's vineyard left home and kindred and friends and cast themselves on a strange shore, wanderers for God's cause, giving their lives in labor and anguish of spirit, that the glad tidings of salvation might be spread far and wide. ”

“ As her weakness increased so that she was compelled to give up her active work by degrees, she prolonged her prayer, spending many hours every day before the Blessed Sacrament, in her well-known motionless attitude. The Indians seeing her thus were filled with awe, and looking upon her as a being more than human, they called her by a name which meant "the woman who always prays." ”

“ Often she was up the whole night with those who were the more seriously affected. Fortunately, the orphans were spared, and so were the houses of Florissant and St. Charles, but Mother Duchesne heard, with great desolation of heart, that besides the five religious already mentioned, the pestilence had carried off her old friends, the Abbé Martial, Mgr. de Neckere, first Bishop of New Orleans after the division of the diocese, and twenty priests--an immense loss to the Church and to souls. ”

“ God's saints have never been spared the cross of contradiction, and Mother Duchesne was no exception to the rule. Mother Barat heard from various persons that she was too austere, too narrow, too unwilling to adapt herself to the requirements of the times; and this, it was said, was why the houses in Missouri were not progressing. By these critics, their backwardness was contrasted with the flourishing condition of the Southern houses. There were numerous reasons for this difference. Louisiana had been colonized a century earlier; its people were wealthy and prosperous ”

“ During the latter years of her life, many of her most valued friends, both in France and in America, passed into their eternity, among others Father Van Quickenborne, and Bishops Dubourg and Rosati, with whom, during so many years, she had borne the heat and the burden of the day, in the harvest field of her Missouri mission. ”

“ Mother du Rousier was a character of heroic type, worthy of a place beside even such women as Mother Barat and her great daughter, Mother Duchesne. It was after a long and dangerous journey, with Mother Mary McNally, an American professed from the New York Vicariate, and one lay sister, that she reached her destination, and began the foundation at Santiago in 1853. ”

“ She had been compelled to dismiss all her pupils except the orphans, and was consequently obliged to borrow from the bank to meet ordinary expenses. Under the pressure of so many sorrows and trials, Mother Duchesne determined to appeal to Heaven by a day of fasting and penance, ending with an expiatory procession. She and the older orphans made it barefoot and with a rope around their necks, in the old medieval fashion. ”

“ She is one of the traditions of the country, and has left a stamp upon it so strongly marked that even the casual traveler, if at all observant, can not fail to notice it. Catholic France has had a very considerable share in the upbuilding of the Catholic Church in this country, through the labors of so many heroic missionaries whom she sent out to us, even in the midst of her struggles against persecution at home. And among the many gifts by which she has acquired a title to the gratitude of American Catholics, one of the greatest was the Venerable Philippine Duchesne. ”

“ 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. ”