FRANCE: The Nun Who Stole

The Baron de Roquette-Buisson, like many of the provincial aristocrats of France, is not noted for generous living. Every year he kills three pigs and ten geese at his château at Saint-Félix. On this, along with whatever can be garnered from the château gardens, his family and retainers must suffice. And so the baron’s astonishment rose as bills came rolling in for sardines, eau de cologne, biscuits, marmalade, bananas, oranges, soap and chocolate cake. He was still puzzling one day when the baroness entered the room, crying: “Bertrand, we have been robbed! Our jewels and silver are missing!” It did not take the Baron de Roquette-Buisson long to unmask the culprit. Down to the Toulouse assizes last week he hauled the family nurse and governess, Sister Madeleine, a Dominican nun.

The calm, black-clad sister described how a breakdown in health had forced her to give up the austerely cloistered life of the Carmelite Order. She had been granted a special authorization which gave her, because of ill health, the right to go out into the world without losing her religious status. Thus released from the strenuous Carmelite vows, Sister Madeleine entered the order of the Dominicans of Béthanie, in which she kept good standing while looking after the three Roquette-Buisson children. Said she: “The baron is fond of horses . . . He lives the life of a gentleman farmer, taking the baroness along to a great round of parties, neglecting the children . . . After the first year, the baron stopped paying [my salary]. There was a terrible scene whenever I asked for money.” The children’s food was coarse, the farm milk was often sour, their clothes were made of cheap material. To improve these conditions, Sister Madeleine ran up debts, stole jewelry and silver to sell in Biarritz. Said she: “I lived a life of torment at the château, because I knew that someday I would be found out. But I had the arms of my dear little children around my neck. It was a good time.”

Unimpressed, Baron de Roquette-Buisson’s lawyer announced that he would sue Sister Madeleine for $857 damages. The judge reserved sentence, but there was nothing reserved about the furious uproar against the baron which rose in the crowded Toulouse courtroom.