But there was one element of the community that could not even in sympathy participate in the general gratification. With the sacrilegious, bloody, French Revolution fresh in their minds, the Ursuline nuns could only feel terror at passing under the government of the republic. It had closed the religious houses in France, why should it not do the same in French colonies? The mother superior therefore petitioned his Catholic Majesty to permit her and her community to retire with his power, and establish themselves elsewhere in his dominions. Their request was granted, and they decided to return to Havana. In vain Laussat exerted himself to the utmost to calm their apprehensions and persuade them to trust the new government. One of the elder women, breaking through conventual restraint and habitual timidity, poured forth upon him a fierce denunciation of the power he represented. In vain the deputations of citizens added their supplications, the mayor going upon his knees to the mother superior, beseeching her not to abandon the city and the city's children. Only nine out of the twenty-five could be induced to remain under the Tricolor. The annals of the convent tell how, on Whit Sunday, 1803, when the evening gun from Fort St. Charles had fired its signal, the sixteen nuns, shrouded in their veils and mantles, walked in procession out of their chapel, followed by the little band of sisters who had decided to remain. The convent garden was thronged with their old scholars who pressed around them for a farewell embrace. At the gate were grouped their slaves, who threw themselves on their knees before them. The nuns paused on the threshold, weeping, irresolute; then, throwing themselves into the arms of those whom they
