ST. MICHAEL'S ESTABLISHED
In 1825, Mother Duchesne was called upon for another foundation. Father
Delacroix, the predecessor of Father Van Quickenborne, as pastor of
Florissant, was a holy and learned Belgian priest, whom Bishop Dubourg
used to call his angel. He had the highest opinion of Mother Duchesne's
sanctity, and became a lifelong friend of hers. After leaving
Florissant, he was stationed upon the Mississippi River, at a
considerable distance above New Orleans. Before long, with the
approbation of Bishop Dubourg, he asked for a foundation of the
Religious of the Sacred Heart in his neighborhood. His petition was
readily granted, and a location was chosen in the Parish of St. James.
To meet the first expenses of the building, the zealous pastor handed
over eighteen thousand dollars, which he had collected for the purpose.
This was the house known as St. Michael's. Mother Aude was its first
Superior, and soon it was in as flourishing a condition as that of Grand
Coteau.
Two years later, 1827, Father Neil, one of the resident pastors of St.
Louis and director of the college founded by Bishop Dubourg, asked for
and obtained a foundation in that city. This was what Mother Duchesne,
as well as Mother Barat, had been wishing for from the very beginning.
Moreover, though Mother Duchesne had no idea of giving up Florissant, it
was too distant from the city for convenience, and besides various other
drawbacks, every rain flooded the convent grounds, greatly adding to the
hardships endured by the nuns. She applied to Mr. John Mullanphy, a
wealthy capitalist, asking him to sell her one of the houses he owned in
St. Louis, and he gave her one, with twenty-four acres of ground on the
outskirts of the city, together with some assistance in money, on
condition that she would, in perpetuity, keep twenty orphans. The house
had the name of being haunted on account of the strange, unearthly
noises heard in it, especially at night. That circumstance did not
frighten Mother Duchesne, who soon discovered that the ghosts were
nothing but cats that dropped down the chimneys to hold their nightly
assemblies in the vacant rooms. On the first of May of that same year
she took possession of the house with one companion, and remained there
as Superior, leaving Mother Lucille Mathevon in her place at Florissant.
The following year she had in her charge twelve boarders, ten orphans
and forty day pupils, most of the latter having been received gratis.
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. She supplied them with clothes, especially
cassocks, that they might make a suitable appearance at the altar, and
also altar linen and vestments, which she embroidered and made herself.
During the first year of her stay in St. 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.
In the meantime, the Jesuit Fathers had been making great headway, and
they acquired a firm footing in St. Louis, when Bishop Rosati handed
over to Father Van Quickenborne, the head of the newly-organized Mission
of Missouri, the college founded several years previously by Bishop
Dubourg, and which, in the course of time, developed into the present
St. Louis University. But Father Van Quickenborne was replaced some
months later in the office of Superior by Father Verhaegen, who had come
with him from Maryland in 1823. In this same year, 1827, the latter
founded a permanent mission at St. Charles, and made it his
headquarters. He also established, at the same place, a school for boys,
and applied at once to Mother Duchesne to found one for girls. It seemed
a rash undertaking to make two foundations in the same year, with such
scanty resources in subjects and money; but what tempted her was the
spiritual destitution of the people, who were all Catholics, and among
whom the Protestants were busily at work. Mother Barat, tempted in the
same way, gave her consent, and Mother Lucille Mathevon was placed in
charge of the new house. It did a great deal of good, in spite of a long
struggle with poverty and adversity.
Just a little before this time, at Bishop Rosati's desire, Mother
Duchesne, with Mother Barat's approbation, had taken charge of the house
of the Daughters of Charity, founded by the Father Nerinckx, near the
head of the Bayou Lafourche, in the present State of Louisiana, and now
threatened with extinction for want of vocations. The devoted prelate's
earnest request could not be refused, but the foundation was an
unpromising one from the beginning, and a few years later it had to be
closed.
The following year, 1828, as there were already six American houses,
Mother Barat directed Mother Duchesne to assemble their superiors in a
Provincial Council, in order to take measures for securing uniformity of
action among them; and, to spare them the trouble of coming to her,
Mother Duchesne went down to meet them at St. Michael's. After the
Council she visited the houses in Louisiana, and was able, in her report
to the Mother General, to give a very favorable account of them all
except that of Lafourche where, to say nothing of other obstacles to
success, the directions given by her in accordance with the intentions
of Mother Barat, had not been understood or carried out.