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LA SGETJR ROSALIE. 159
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
The In The Years Month Of A Of Long Octo...
against the miseries and vices of her quarter , never making * a backward step , never even standing" still ; never disheartenednever
, beaten : resting- from one fatigue by changing * it for another ; replacing * work accomplished by some new endeavor ; and only laying down
her weapons in the hour when God called his servant to eternal rest . How did she do all this ? The reader -who pursues this memoir
wonders at the peculiar force of character she displayed in her stationary life . She made no eloquent or striking * appeals ; no
crusade for or against ; she remained where she was in her own quarter , going to seek no one , but receiving * all who came to her ;
in fact she took hold one by one of every nature which approached her sphere , and never missed an . opportunity . It , therefore , is
incumbent oil those who would understand her career , to understand something of the institutions with which a Sister of Charity "was naturally
connected . First in order of which , comes the Bureau de Charite _, then just _organised by Napoleon as First Consul , and equivalent
to the Poor Law of our own country . When the Convention of 1793 , some years before the date of which we are 'writing * , had
taken possession of the property of the charitable foundations of former ages , a book was opened in the chief town of each
department , called " le grand livre de la bienfaisance puhlique . " Its pages were intended to contain accounts of the pensions allotted to all
sick people , widows , orphans , and foundlings ; pensions which were never paid to any body ! Napoleon soon gave these Utopian follies
their due . He shut the great book , all the pages of which were white ; gave back to the hospitals and asylums all of their property
which had not been alienated by sale , and , true to his system of blending old institutions with modern principles and customs , he
returned to the theory of public charity directed by "the state and , carried out by religion . It was therefore to the Sisters of Charity
that he confided the details of his poor law , as well as the inmates of his hospitals ; and the House in the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois
, of which our Sceur Hosalie was a member , was _Hixed upon a , s one of four centres of relief allotted to the douzieme arrondissement . A
dispensary , a store of clothes and linen , and a free school for poor children , what we . should call a " ragged school" were
estab-, lished there . A list of poverty-stricken . householders was drawn up by the sisters , and the Bureau de Charite allowed to each two
pounds of bread per month , a little meat in cases of illness or convalescence , some firing during winter , and a garment or coverlid
once in every two years . The sisters had the charge of this succour ; they allotted the food and medicinekept the school , and visited the
, sick , assisted by the public ofiicials , and by ladies who gave their spare time to help in the good work .
La Soeur Rosalie entered into these functions with zeal , and her house of succour soon became a model for others . In after years
she was sometimes heard to lament the comparative freedom of
action allowed by the . authorities in these days , when , under the
La Sgetjr Rosalie. 159
LA SGETJR ROSALIE . 159
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Nov. 1, 1859, page 159, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01111859/page/15/
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