TRIALS AT FLORISSANT
In 1821, the little community of Florissant sent out its first offshoot.
With the consent and approbation of her Superior General, Mother Barat,
Mother Duchesne made her second foundation in Lower Louisiana, as it was
then called, at a place known as Grand Coteau, in the Opelousas region.
Mother Eugenie Aude and Sister Mary Layton were sent to begin it. A
little later, Mother Duchesne was able to send them valuable help in the
person of Madame Xavier (Anna) Murphy, who had just arrived from France
with Madame Lucile Mathevon, another valiant woman, who had a notable
part to play in the early history of the Society of the Sacred Heart in
America.
The school at Grand Coteau had soon filled up, but ere long Mother
Duchesne heard of the distressing condition to which the new community
was reduced, through sickness and overwork. With the uncalculating
charity that characterized her, she at once determined to go in person
to their assistance, though it was in the middle of summer and the
journey must necessarily be long and painful, as well as expensive. She
took with her Madame St. Cyr and a lay novice to leave at Grand Coteau,
and Therese Pratte, whose family had so hospitably entertained her and
her companions during their two weeks' stay in St. Louis, after their
arrival. The young girl was one of her pupils, who had obtained her
father's consent for a visit to Mother Aude.
The voyage was long, full of difficulties and endless interruptions and
delays, and marked by very dramatic and even tragic incidents,
especially on the return trip, of which alone we will give a brief
account. Among other particulars, she had to go from Plaqumine all the
way down to New Orleans to find a boat for St. Louis. In New Orleans she
was stricken with malarial fever, still the physician advised her
departure by the first steamer, because at the time yellow fever was
epidemic in the city. Scarcely, however, had the steamer started on her
voyage, before the dread disease broke out on board, the captain being
the first to die of it. Mother Duchesne, though reduced to a state of
great prostration, gathered up the remnant of her strength to take care
of one of the yellow fever patients on board, to whom no one else seemed
to give any attention. She not only ministered to his needs, but
converted and baptized him before he died.
Weak and exhausted as she was, foreseeing that under the existing
conditions the steamer would scarcely be able to reach her destination,
she determined to trust in Providence, and land with her young companion
at Natchez. But the quarantine excluded her from the town, nor would any
one in the neighborhood take them in, for fear of the prevailing
epidemic. Providence came to their assistance, for, as they sat by the
river bank upon their trunks, alone and friendless, a young man chanced
to pass by, and seeing them so forlorn, offered his services and went in
search of shelter for them. Soon he found an honest German who willingly
took them in, but he had no bed to offer them, except the one in which
his wife had died of yellow fever a fortnight previously, and of which
not even the sheets had been changed. From this place Mother Duchesne
found means of making her distress known to the Abbe Maenhaut, Cure of
the church in the town, and in later years Rector of the Cathedral of
New Orleans. He came promptly to her assistance, and had her removed to
the hospitable home of a family of the name of Davis. Complete rest and
change of air restored her health, and in a few weeks she reembarked for
St. Louis on the steamer Cincinnati. On their way up they passed by a
steamboat tied up and partially wrecked, in charge of three men. It was
the Hecla, the boat from which she had landed at Natchez. Then it was
that she could see how providential had been the change she had made.
The yellow fever had continued its ravages on the unfortunate boat, and
on a little island nearby could be seen the graves of thirteen of its
victims. Moreover, the boilers had exploded and several men had been
severely injured. At last, after another delay of two weeks, caused by
the grounding of the Cincinnati, Mother Duchesne and her companion
reached St. Louis, after an absence of five months. The account of this
terrible journey contained in Mother Duchesne's letters to Mother Barat
is such as might come from the pen of a saint. There is not a word of
complaint, and no regrets for herself, save for the Communions and
Masses she had lost.
On her return to Florissant she found the school greatly diminished and
in a state of insubordination; this latter condition prevailed not only
among the pupils, but also among the orphans, of whom she always had
several in the house, and whom she educated and provided for entirely.
Her firm hand soon reestablished order, but it was not in her power to
remove what had been the cause of the state of disturbance, in which she
had found the school. The times were very hard; there was little money
in circulation, and Bishop Dubourg had been obliged to borrow in order
to finish his new cathedral, which the rapid increase of the population
rendered necessary. The great bishop's administrative ability was above
question, but the resources he had counted upon failed him, through the
dishonesty of an agent, and this, with the difficulty of the times, made
it impossible for him to meet his obligations; while his creditors,
finding themselves in much the same situation, were clamorous against
him, breaking out into abuse and menaces. They were even threatening to
seize his residence and have it sold for their benefit.
As a matter of course, Mother Duchesne and her community shared largely
in the odium that had fallen upon Bishop Dubourg. She was afflicted, but
chiefly on account of the indignities offered to the great missionary
prelate, and the harm done to religion by the nature of the difficulties
in which he found himself involved. After a time the storm subsided,
leaving, however, in the public mind a feeling of rancor and resentment,
one of whose effects was a settled enmity with regard to Mother Duchesne
and her community. Soon, of the pupils left to her, there were only two
whose schooling was being paid for. Still her courage and her reliance
upon God never wavered, and her confidence was rewarded. She does not
say how it happened, but she affirms that she was never less pinched by
poverty than at this time. She met this crisis in her usual heroic
fashion. Disregarding the idle talk of which she was the subject, she
refused to dismiss any of the boarding pupils who were being educated
gratis. She already had a free school for girls, and she opened another
for boys, as also two classes, one for the poor women of the village and
one for the grown-up girls.
And how, with such scanty resources, did she manage to make both ends
meet? 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.
In the situation above described, St. Louis was no place for Bishop
Dubourg. Leaving in charge there his newly-consecrated coadjutor, Bishop
Rosati, he took up his residence at a short distance above New Orleans.
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.
The friends she still had left in St. Louis responded generously to her
appeal, and sent her whatever they could afford to give. From others,
however, to whom she had recourse, she met with harsh refusals. She
despoiled herself and her community of all she could manage to do
without. She took care of the altar linen and vestments for their
domestic chapel, and spent part of her nights mending and making clothes
for them. In the beginning she sent them their meals already prepared,
and later on she supplied them with many articles for their missionary
outfit. In fact, the Jesuit Mission of Missouri might have perished at
its birth had it not been for her fostering care. It was to her an
immense joy to see the abundant fruits the zeal and devotedness of the
Fathers soon began to reap in the country around, to the distance of a
hundred miles and more. She considered it a priceless benefit to have
their Superior, Father Van Quickenborne, as chaplain, and above all, as
confessor for the community.
After the coming of the Jesuit Fathers, Bishop Rosati's missionaries
seldom made any stay at Florissant, but they were constantly passing
through it to and from their missions, and Mother Duchesne continued to
keep open house for them as heretofore.
Her apostolic longings for the work of the evangelization of the Indians
had never died out, and great was her delight when, one day, Father Van
Quickenborne brought her two little Indian girls, shyly hiding under his
cloak, and asked her to take them and educate them. This was the
beginning of the Indian school which, while it lasted, was the joy of
her heart. However, it never counted more than twenty children, and came
to an end in two years, the Indians being driven back further and
further by the inflowing tide of white immigration.