This convent, which in 1824 had already existed for many a long year in the Rue Petit-Picpus, was a community of Bernardines of the obedience of Martin Verga. They are attached not to Clairvaux, like the Bernardine monks, but to Citeaux. Anyone who has turned over old folios knows that Martin Verga founded, in 1425, a congregation of Bernardines-Benedictines, with Salamanca for the head of the order. After the rule of the Carmelites, who go barefoot, wear a bit of willow on their throats, and never sit down, the harshest rule is that of the Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga. They are clothed in black, with a guimpe which mounts to the chin. A robe of serge with large sleeves, a large woollen veil, the band which descends over their brow to their eyes: this is their dress. All is black except the band, which is white. The novices wear the same habit, but all in white. They practise the Perpetual Adoration, like another house in the city, and are nevertheless a totally different order. Let us return to the harsh Spanish rule. The Bernardines-Benedictines of this obedience fast all the year round, abstain from meat, rise from their first sleep, from one to three o'clock in the morning, to read their breviary and chant matins, sleep in all seasons between serge sheets and on straw, make no use of the bath, never light a fire, scourge themselves every Friday, observe the rule of silence, and wear drugget chemises for six months of the year. Even with that palliation, when the nuns put on this chemise on the fourteenth of September, they suffer from fever for three or four days. Obedience, poverty, chastity, perseverance in their seclusion: these are their vows, which the rule greatly aggravates.
They never see the officiating priest, who is always hidden from them by a serge curtain nine feet in height. One man only is allowed to enter the convent: the archbishop of the diocese. There is really one other, the gardener. But he is always an old man, and, in order that he may always be alone in the garden, and that the nuns may be warned to avoid him, a bell is attached to his knee. Their submission to the prioress is absolute and passive, a certain blind obedience, as the file in the hand of the workman. Each one of them in turn makes what they call reparation. The reparation is the prayer for all the sins, for all the faults, for all the dissensions, for all the violations, for all the iniquities, for all the crimes committed on earth. For the space of twelve consecutive hours the sister who is making reparation remains on her knees on the stone before the Holy Sacrament, with hands clasped, a rope around her neck. When her fatigue becomes unendurable, she prostrates herself flat on her face against the earth, with her arms outstretched in the form of a cross. This is her only relief. In this attitude she prays for all the guilty in the universe. As this act is performed in front of a post on which burns a candle, it is called, without distinction, to make reparation or to be at the post. The nuns even prefer, out of humility, this last expression, which contains an idea of torture and abasement. The sister at the post would not turn round were a thunderbolt to fall directly behind her. Besides this, there is always a sister kneeling before the Holy Sacrament. They relieve each other like soldiers on guard. This is the Perpetual Adoration. When one sees them, one never sees anything but their mouths. All their teeth are yellow. No tooth-brush ever entered that convent. They never say my. They possess nothing of their own, and they must not attach themselves to anything. They call everything our. Sometimes they grow attached to some petty object, a book of hours, a relic, a medal that has been blessed. As soon as they become aware that they are growing attached to this object, they must give it up.
Every person whatever is forbidden to shut herself up, to have a place of her own, a chamber. They live with their cells open. When they meet, one says, Blessed and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar. The other responds, Forever. Hardly has she touched the door when a soft voice on the other side is heard to say hastily, Forever. Like all practices, this becomes mechanical by force of habit. At each hour of the day three supplementary strokes sound from the church bell. At this signal prioress, vocal mothers, professed nuns, lay-sisters, novices, postulants, interrupt what they are saying, what they are doing, or what they are thinking, and all say in unison the hour and the praise. The object of the custom is to break the thread of thought and to lead it back constantly to God. They had made a vault under their grand altar for the burial of their community. The Government does not permit this vault to receive coffins, so they leave the convent when they die. This is an affliction to them, and causes them consternation as an infraction of the rules. Once a week the chapter assembles. Each sister kneels in turn on the stones, and confesses aloud, in the presence of all, the faults and sins which she has committed during the week. For venial offences they have the coulpe: the culpable person prostrates herself flat on her face during the office until our mother taps the wood of her stall. A broken glass, a torn veil, a false note in church: this suffices. One day a mother precentor, instead of Ecce, uttered aloud the three notes do si sol. For this piece of absent-mindedness she underwent a coulpe which lasted during the whole service. What rendered the fault enormous was the fact that the chapter had laughed. Permission to see an outsider is always refused to men. Such is the rule of Saint-Benoit, aggravated by Martin Verga. These nuns are not gay, rosy, and fresh, as the daughters of other orders often are. They are pale and grave. Between 1825 and 1830 three of them went mad.
