[WOOD] AN URSULINE EPIC SI 



In Mari Vice Tuœ. This ship and its fine motto, Thy ways are in the Sea, 

 have been adopted by the Champlain Society, and tlie Quebec Tercen- 

 tenary crest displays both sides of the seal. 



But the most interesiting of all is the wealth of correspondence: 

 letters written during tilie last three centuries by people of every class, 

 from a reigning sovereign to a simple habitant. Anne of Austria, Pron- 

 tenaCj Montcalm, Murray, Carleton — all who were greatest in Canada's 

 heroic ages were correspondents of the Ursuliues. But more appealing 

 than the rest are the letters from two Parisian Ursulines during the 

 Eeign of Terror. In spite of the horrors surrounding them and the 

 fate which sent twenty-five of [them to the guillotine, these faithful 

 nuns did aJl they could to safeguard the property and revenues of their 

 sisters in Quebec. Half of their letters are filled with accounts of the 

 business precautions taken by their indefatigable dépositaire. La Mère 

 de Ste. Saturnine, then in her eightieth year. The other half alternately 

 freeze the blood and set one's veins on fire with indignation. 



On the 13th of January, 1793, the nun who then signed herself 

 '•' ex-Superior of the Ursulines of the Faubourg St. Jacques " wrote 

 io the Superior in peaceful Quebec: — "Dear Reverend Mothers, you 

 have doubtless! heard with grief of the destruction of all the religious 

 houses in France. Our monastery has not escaped the common fate. 

 Your compassionate hearts would have bled to see the cloister-wall 

 broken down, and ourselves forcibly driven out from our asylum. To 



our great regret, we are all scattered beg our Divine Lord to 



grant us grace to make a holy use of the heavy trial he has sent us. All 

 the clergy we knew have disappeared; we cannot discover any who have 

 escaped the massacre of the 24th of September. Our venerable confessor 



and our two chaplains were certainly among the victims I 



recommend myself to your good prayers as one already dead, for altliough 

 my health is fairly good, which seems a miracle, considering my seventy- 

 four years and cruel situation, yet I may not be among the living by the 

 time this reaches you. The holy wiU of God be done. If I were younger 

 I might try to accept your invitation." The letter was not delivered till 

 after her death, as presentiment had told her. But neither correspondent 

 could have imagined beforehand what adventures that farewell message 

 was to undergo. It was carried over to England by some refugees flying 

 for their lives, and confided to the care of a shopkeeper, who mislaid and 

 forgot it. Finally, one day in 1802, nine years after it had been written, 

 an English merchant, who had found it in London, called at the con- 

 vent and gave it to the third successor of the Superior to whom it had 

 been addressed ! 



