CHAPTER X--ORIGIN OF THE PERPETUAL ADORATION

  However, this almost sepulchral parlor, of which we have sought toconvey an idea, is a purely local trait which is not reproduced with thesame severity in other convents. At the convent of the Rue du Temple,in particular, which belonged, in truth, to another order, the blackshutters were replaced by brown curtains, and the parlor itself was asalon with a polished wood floor, whose windows were draped in whitemuslin curtains and whose walls admitted all sorts of frames, a portraitof a Benedictine nun with unveiled face, painted bouquets, and even thehead of a Turk.

  It is in that garden of the Temple convent, that stood that famouschestnut-tree which was renowned as the finest and the largest inFrance, and which bore the reputation among the good people of theeighteenth century of being _the father of all the chestnut trees of therealm_.

  As we have said, this convent of the Temple was occupied by Benedictinesof the Perpetual Adoration, Benedictines quite different from those whodepended on Cîteaux. This order of the Perpetual Adoration is not veryancient and does not go back more than two hundred years. In 1649 theholy sacrament was profaned on two occasions a few days apart, in twochurches in Paris, at Saint-Sulpice and at Saint-Jean en Grève, a rareand frightful sacrilege which set the whole town in an uproar. M. thePrior and Vicar-General of Saint-Germain des Prés ordered a solemnprocession of all his clergy, in which the Pope's Nuncio officiated.But this expiation did not satisfy two sainted women, Madame Courtin,Marquise de Boucs, and the Comtesse de Châteauvieux. This outragecommitted on "the most holy sacrament of the altar," though buttemporary, would not depart from these holy souls, and it seemed tothem that it could only be extenuated by a "Perpetual Adoration" in somefemale monastery. Both of them, one in 1652, the other in 1653, madedonations of notable sums to Mother Catherine de Bar, called of the HolySacrament, a Benedictine nun, for the purpose of founding, to this piousend, a monastery of the order of Saint-Benoît; the first permission forthis foundation was given to Mother Catherine de Bar by M. de Metz, Abbéof Saint-Germain, "on condition that no woman could be received unlessshe contributed three hundred livres income, which amounts to sixthousand livres, to the principal." After the Abbé of Saint-Germain, theking accorded letters-patent; and all the rest, abbatial charter, androyal letters, was confirmed in 1654 by the Chamber of Accounts and theParliament.

  Such is the origin of the legal consecration of the establishment of theBenedictines of the Perpetual Adoration of the Holy Sacrament at Paris.Their first convent was "a new building" in the Rue Cassette, out of thecontributions of Mesdames de Boucs and de Châteauvieux.

  This order, as it will be seen, was not to be confounded withthe Benedictine nuns of Cîteaux. It mounted back to the Abbé ofSaint-Germain des Prés, in the same manner that the ladies of the SacredHeart go back to the general of the Jesuits, and the sisters of charityto the general of the Lazarists.

  It was also totally different from the Bernardines of the Petit-Picpus,whose interior we have just shown. In 1657, Pope Alexander VII. hadauthorized, by a special brief, the Bernardines of the Rue Petit-Picpus,to practise the Perpetual Adoration like the Benedictine nuns of theHoly Sacrament. But the two orders remained distinct none the less.