Exiled Monks and Nuns,

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 49, 5 December 1901, Page 2

Exiled Monks and Nuns,

During the great ' Sutherland clearances ' the evicted clansmen marched through their beloved native glens on their way into exile, while their pipers played as a farewell air ' Lochaber no more ! ' Lochaber no more ! Lochaber no more 1 We'll maybe return to Lochaber no more. For the third time in little more than a century there have been ' clearances ' of religious Orders from France. But the exiled nuns and priests and brothers went forth in the hope of one day returning again to their beloved France. Thus far their hopes have been constantly verified. And, in all human probability, the exiles of 1901 will return once more when the puny Waldeck- Rousseau and his tag of noisy Radical and Socialistic followers, like other political dogs, have had their day. * The passing of the monks and nuns has aroused in many places a deep display of popular grief. The Church Times, an Anglican periodical, gives the following sympathetic description of the severance of the Benedictine Nuns from their old home at Solesmes :—: — At 5 am. the Abbe Father Dom Delatte oelebrated the la«t Maßs in the ' Abbaye ' of the nuna. The rain was falling in torrents ; but at six o'clock the cortege of carriages and conveyances assembled in the court of the building. Friends and relations of the Sisters had come from far, and representatives of every village ii the neighborhood, with the cures at their head, gathered to pay their last adieux. The aged lady ' Prieure,' whom all the valley of the Sarthe remembers for her beauty as Mdlle. Briere, and indeed the founder of the Abbaye of Nuns at Solesmes, gave the signal for departure. Mhe was followed by ' Sister Adelaide,' Dowager Duchess of Bragance. So infirm dii this lady seem thut she was obliged to be transported on a fauteuil to the station. Bat the fauteuilhada royal escort. Her grandchildren, the Duohet-s of Lowenstein, also a Benedictine uun, tbe Archduke Ferdinand of Bragance, and the Archduchess Marie Theto-ie of Austria and the Duchess of Parma had come to Soleymes and accompanied her to the station. After her followed the sad procession of voluntary exiles. They came out supported by frienda and relations, eager to show a last tribute of sympathy. The rain stilL came 10. n Leavilyon ihe ' Terron," or raised front of the convent. Dom Delatte gave his last benediction to the kneeling Sistern. Many of these had not been outside the cloistered walla for 20 years. Amid the clang of the bells tolling funereally, amid the tears of friends, with the last woids of Dom Delatte wounding in their ears, half dazed a>id well-nigh paraHzed by the strange transition forced upon them, the nuns were conveyed to the Btation of Sable, to embark for Paris and England. The winding road from the monastery and conv«-iit to the t-tation pr. scitfd a strange aspect on that morning. The proi;<'s.-ion of priv \te carriages, hired vehicle-, nutomobile-*, unove'd -lowlviiortii the- hill. The station was cutnpieu ly invad<d. The lulis ot t'lt* village tjlleil sadly as the train bore avv;iy the exiles from their home.

Dom Delatte left by the 1 1 A.m. train for Paris. His departure VM accompanied by cries of • Vivent let Benedict ins, 1 ' A bientot !' ' Vive la Libert'e ! ' The last eight of him was his sad but proud face at the carriage window as the train moved off His last act was the blessing of the people on the platform, who crowded round his carriage and overran the station.

A Paris correspondent of the Philadelphia Catholic Standard relates how, as the Benedictine Fathers were about to leave their home of science .md hijjh intellectual culture at Auteuil, the soldier-monk Dom dv Bourg said, with profound emotion, to his hearers : ' Adieu, my brethren. We leave with bruised hearts, but carrying our heads high. We leave strong in two master-passions of which no tyranny can rob us "• these are love of God's worship and love of our country. Men pass, but God does not.' The same correspondent writes : ' It is pretty well certain that a certain number of communities will observe a strictly passive attitude, neither asking to remain in France nor choosing to go into voluntary exile. These will have to be expelled by force, as at the time of the putting into execution of the Jules Ferry decrees, an expedient which there are good reasons for believing those in power would rather not have recourse to at the present time.'