One
of the members of the Ecclesiastical Committee admits in the
Assembly tribunal that, in all their letters and addresses, the nuns
ask to be allowed to remain in their cloisters; their entreaties, in
fact, are as earnest as they are affecting.[44] One Community
writes,
"We should prefer the sacrifice of our lives to that of our
calling. . . . This is not the voice of some among our sisters,
but of all. The National Assembly has established the claims of
liberty-would it prevent the exercise of these by the only
disinterested beings who ardently desire to be useful, and have
renounced society solely to be of greater service to it?"
"The little contact we have with the world," writes another "is the
reason why our contentment is so little known. But it is not the
less real and substantial. We know of no distinctions, no
privileges amongst ourselves; our misfortunes and our property are
in common. One in heart and one in soul . . . we protest before
the nation, in the face of heaven and of earth, that it is not in
the power of any being to shake our fidelity to our vows, which vows
we renew with still more ardor than when we first pronounced
them.
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