My very dear Sister in Christ,
Permit me to send you my love and prayers in your time of sorrow and loss – but also to express my heartfelt gratitude to le bon Dieu for your safe deliverance. We, in the Paris House, were shocked and saddened to learn of the violent deaths of two of your novices at the hands of the Kaiser’s armies, and have offered up Masses for them. Father Albert has tentatively suggested we should also offer prayers that the soldiers responsible will feel proper contrition for their actions, but most of us feel this is taking charity a little too far, although we are praying that God will help the Kaiser see the error of his ways. This, however, seems unlikely at the present, for he is a bellicose man, although I dare say many of his weaknesses can be ascribed to his withered arm.
We were horrified, also, to hear of your enforced siege – that you were actually forced to barricade yourselves in the crypt – but we are heartened to know of your courage and resourcefulness. It is certainly a pity you were unable to move the stone sarcophagus containing the Founder’s body to use as a barricade (remembering our redoubtable Founder, she would have repelled all enemies purely with one of her glacial stares), but the blanket chests and oak coffers with Mass vessels seem to have served the purpose well enough and kept the enemy from the gates. It is a pity the young girls of the Choir were forced to listen to the curses and blasphemies of the soldiers as they tried to break through, but no doubt their innocence will protect them from the worst of the profanity, and presumably it would have been in the German language anyway.
God is good in that He had guided you to stock your larders so well – also that you were able to make that frantic journey through the convent to snatch up all the food you could carry from the larders before taking refuge underground. You have my sympathies in the privations you endured during those days. Living off oaten cakes and lentils for so long is not something one would wish to do, even in Lent. But your sojourn in that particular Wilderness will have strengthened you all spiritually (even if it wrought havoc digestively). As to the sanitary arrangements you made, I shall preserve a mannerly reticence, and only say that Sister Jeanne seems to have created a most ingenious solution. I am sure your gardens will eventually profit.
We were all very interested in the unknown young man who managed to thwart the soldiers and give you opportunity to flee the chapel. I hope that when this terrible time ends – as it must do some day – you will be able to have the statue of the Sacred Heart repaired. The stonemasons’ art is a noble one, although it is a pity that the nose and left foot of the Figure were ground into splinters. But I dare say they can be remodelled, and Jesus is still Jesus, even sans nose and several toes.
I regard that unknown young man in the guise of a messenger – a latter-day St George, overthrowing the enemy and preserving the innocence of the maidens. I would be inclined to ascribe the arrival of the small detachment from the Belgian Army at Sacré-Coeur as entirely due to that young man’s endeavours as well. Clearly, he was resourceful as well as brave.
We read recently that the Prussian commander, Colonel von Bülow, was shocked and surprised by the degree of Belgian resistance, and that the siege at Liège took over a week – time he had not taken into account. This, I feel, illustrates that pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall, although I suppose I must do penance for entertaining such an uncharitable thought. At least the delay allowed the British forces to lend their fighting strength to the conflict. We wept for the fall of Antwerp, though, and for the poor people forced to flee their homes.
I shall do my best to trace for you the poor young thing, Leonora Gilmore, who was swept along by your unknown saviour in the chapel and seems to have vanished with him. May God grant that she was not destined to meet a worse fate in the stranger’s company, that he continued his mission as protector of the innocent and had sufficient conscience and honour to deliver her into safe hands.
However, I fear that with your country and mine in such turmoil it will be very difficult for me to find out what happened to Leonora. She sounds an unusual and intelligent girl – it is rare for one of your Chorists to display interest in world affairs, but I think you were right to permit her to read newspaper accounts of what was happening in the world.
It is too easy, in our enclosed lives, to also enclose our minds and be unaware of the events beyond our walls. I was slightly shocked, though, at the story of how Sister Jeanne found copies of those two books in Leonora’s locker, and actually caught her reading one of them under the bed sheets by candlelight after the Great Silence. It is understandable that with an English father Leonora would be interested in the books of English writers, but I believe Mr Somerset Maugham’s private life is extremely dubious, and that of M’sieur D.H. Lawrence is little better.
However, if I can obtain news of Leonora I will assuredly write to you at once.
In the meantime, I hold you and your Sisters in my prayers.
Your loving sister in Christ,
Sr Dominique
Order of the Sacred Heart