Chapter 7
Volume 2: 2: Cosette · Book 6: 6: Petit Picpus I
7: A Few Outlines in This Shade
Chapter 7Visible text2 paragraphs
DURING the six years which separate 1819 from 1825, the prioress of the Petit Picpus was Mademoiselle De Blemeur, whose religious name was Mother Innocent. She was of the family of Marguerite De Blemeur, author of the Lives of the Saints of the Order of St. Benedict. She had been re-elected. A woman of about sixty, short, fat, " chanting like a cracked kettle," says the letter from which we have already quoted; but an excellent woman, the only one who was cheerful in the whole convent, and on that account adored.
Mother Innocent resembled her ancestor Marguerite, the Dacier of the Order. She was well-read, erudite, learned, skilful, curious in history, stuffed with Latin, crammed with Greek, full of Hebrew, and rather a monk than a nun.