Sisters, doing it for themselves - Two new books contemplate the early life of the Ursuline nuns in New Orleans
Submitted by N.O.V.A.
Times Picayune 05-13-2007


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The story of the Ursuline nuns in New Orleans is one of women's
adventurous spirits, strong wills and good hearts. As Tulane
University assistant professor of history Emily Clark tells it in
two new books, "Masterless Mistresses: The New Orleans Ursuline sand
the Development of a New World Society, 1727-1834" and "Voices from
an Early American Convent: Marie Madeleine Hachard and the New
Orleans Ursulines, 1727-1760," it is also an important chapter in
American history. Twelve Ursuline nuns came to New Orleans from
France in 1727, in answer to a request from a Jesuit missionary,
Ignace-Nicholas de Beaubois, who wrote to the Ursuline convent in
Rouen, requesting such a delegation to aid in the important public
service of nursing the sick.

After a difficult journey, the nuns arrived in New Orleans, and they
-- and the city -- would never be the same, their long histories
intertwined. Clark divides "Masterless Mistresses" into three
sections -- "Transplantations: The French Legacy," "Transformations:
Old World to New," and "Confrontations: A Catholic Colony Meets a
Protestant Nation," illuminating the ways in which nuns were both
shaped by the Old World and set about making a mark on the New.

The first section sets the stage, with the founding of the Ursuline
movement in France and its rise to power; however, in the early 18th
century, when the call to the New World came, they were somewhat
embattled, as French politics and society turned against their
mission of female education rather than reformatory endeavors -- and
cast an inquiring eye on their finances. So, for Marie Tranchepain,
the leader of the band of nuns, and her 11 sisters, the
establishment of a New World outpost offered an opportunity to put
their missionary zeal and ideals into action in a place that was
filled with poverty, danger, disease -- as well as the need for
spiritual sustenance.

Upon arriving in New Orleans, they fulfilled that mission -- and
then some. They established a school, where they taught female
students of European, Indian and African descent, both slaves and
free women, and those students were instructed in more than church
doctrine.

One of the more interesting sections in this book is devoted to
female literacy and its surprisingly high rates in colonial New
Orleans. One 18th century French commentator, Retif de La Bretonne,
wrote, "All women should be prohibited from learning to write and
even read. This would preserve them from loose thoughts, confining
them to useful tasks about the house, instilling in them respect for
the first sex. Which would be all the more carefully instructed in
these things for the second sex having been neglected." As Clark
writes, "In New Orleans, the second sex was not neglected, and it
was paradoxically by women enclosed, not by their households, but by
a cloister that they were instructed in the skill that La Bretonne
would have denied them."

The nuns themselves were negotiating new ways in the New World,
ensuring their financial security by learning ways of doing
business, acquiring plantations and the slaves to work them. Not
only did they provide schooling, but they also established an
orphanage, and the convent served as a sanctuary for abused and
widowed women. There are records of their discussions whether to
admit mulattos as day students, an indication both of their
commitment to their mission and their awareness of the complicated
racial order of the time. The composition of the order itself would
change as their ranks expanded to include French Creoles and Cubans,
though the French would continue to dominate.

Clark describes how the French nuns met the challenges of Spanish
colonial rule and increasing Protestant hostility in antebellum
America. She concludes her study with a brief note on the burning of
an Ursuline convent in Charlestown, Mass., in 1834, when 60 men
attacked the institutions in "One of the most spectacular acts of
mass violence against a group of women in American history." Like
their Massachusetts counterparts, the New Orleans Ursulines, as
Clark so powerfully writes, "openly flaunted the choreography of
gender meant to preserve the power and authority of white men. That
was a mortal sin in antebellum America, and the nuns' coreligionists
endured a penance for it in the magnification of anti-Catholicism it
produced."

What a provocative and compelling work of scholarship Clark has
produced -- "Masterless Mistresses" is a thoughtful and inspiring
examination of women's lives in colonial America, complex and
changing notions of femininity and piety, racial and religious
history. The Ursulines, those "masterless mistresses," proved
themselves up to the tasks of adaptation and negotiation, resisting
social mores when they conflicted with their mission of education
and charitable work, thriving in an environment that offered almost
daily challenges. Clark's writing is both scholarly and accessible,
and this history, which began as her dissertation, offers
instructive insights into history, race, gender, religion, and class
for the average reader as well as the historian. In these days when
many religious orders face decline in population, here is a reminder
of their proud history.

That history also comes to light and life in "Voices from an Early
American Convent: Marie Madeleine Hachard and the New Orleans
Ursulines, 1727-1760," which Clark edited. This is a collection of
firsthand accounts by the original founding Ursulines, many of them
writing home after settling in New Orleans. Marie Madeleine Hachard
was the youngest of the group, and her letters home to her father
are filled with a sense of adventure, a longing for his approval,
concern for her family, and rich details of her life in "the
promised land, Louisiana." Her spirit shines through her words as
she faces the challenges of her new life with spirit and
determination.

Clark rounds out that volume with the obituary letters, those
written by the Mother Superior after the nun has gone on to her
heavenly reward. Sister Marie of St. Therese of Jesus writes of
Marie Madeleine Hachard, "It cost her many tears to obtain the
consent of her family. Who opposing such a remote project, made it
difficult for her to go. In the end, religion, which filled her
mother and father, overcame the ties of blood. She left with our
foundresses, making a vow to imitate their virtues."

"Voices from an American Convent" concludes with an account of a
procession which took place July 17, 1734, in which the sisters
moved from their original residence in New Orleans in the town house
of a wealthy supporter to their permanent convent across town. The
nuns took that occasion to provide an elaborate spectacle that would
remind the population of their spiritual authority. "The exclusion
of nonclerical men from the processional ranks and the inclusion of
the full social and racial spectrum of the city's omen and girls,
together with the procession's route past every major public
landmark in the frontier capital, constituted other important
elements of their processional message to colonial New Orleanians."
New Orleans loves a parade -- and that procession was certainly a
memorable and meaningful one.

Though Hachard's letters have been published before, this new
edition, with expanded material and Clark's careful and illuminating
annotations, will appeal to all those who strive to live their faith
-- and to all those who care about the voices that ring clear and
true from our city's history.

Masterless Mistresses:
The New Orleans Ursulines And The Development Of A New World
Society, 1727-1834 By Emily Clark University of North Carolina
Press, $59.95 hardcover, $22.50 paper and Voices From An Early
American Convent: Marie Madeleine Hachard And The New Orleans
Ursulines, 1727-1760 Edited by Emily Clark Louisiana State
University Press, $25