THE STORMING OF A CONVENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7824, 18 December 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE STORMING OF A CONVENT

The convent scandal at Auxerre was brought before the public of Paris by the trial of the Messieurs Gallet, of that ilk, for violation of domicile. It will bo remembered that a few weeks ago M. Gallet, a banker and the Mayor of Egleny, accused the Augustiniaa nuns of having spirited away his only daughter. He went, accompanied by his brother aud a howling crowd of 1500 persona to the convent, crying out, like Shylock, for his daughter, and thundering at the portals of the monastic gaol. The mother superior, frightened out ot her life, sent Mademoiselle Gallet out to her father, and she was taken home amid the applause of the assembled mob. The nuns have accordingly brought an action against the Messieurs Gallet. It is only fair to say that the young lady about whom ail the row has been made entered the convent of her own free will, but the nuns were, on the other hand, to blame for endeavouring to impress her plastio mind with too literal an interpretation of the evangelistic injuction which advises devout individuals to dissolve their family ties for the love of the Lord.

A Paris correspondent says :—Messieurs Gallet, who created the disturbance before the convent at Auxerre, in which they alleged that Mdlle, Gallet, the daughter of one of them, was confined against her will, were sentenced en Wednesday night to pay fines of small amount. The Catholic party are of course scandalised at this miscarriage of justice, as they call it, especially as a young lady declared before the magistrates that she wanted to be a nun, even in spite of the opposition of the sisters themselves, who asked her to go home with her father, uncle, and brother, when firat they came clamouring at the convent gates. After having read the evidence, one can only conclude that the whole blame of the affair unlucky should be charged to M. Gallet were, who, being a Voltarian, should have thought twice before sending his impressionable daughtar to a convent school, where her imagination was sure to be fired with the examples of St .Theresa, who was allowed to see celestial visions, and of the Blessed Marie Alacoque, whose palms were imprinted with the murks of nails from Calvary.