and these ruins thickly strewed with the dead and dying. There,
before the wild scene had been in the least calmed--amid smoke, and
rain, and the frequent rattling fire of musketry--we have seen the
black dresses and long white kerchiefs of the Sisters of Charity
flitting about, emblems of mercy in a world which might otherwise
seem only fit for demons. The place we speak of was Arcis-sur-Aube.
Napoleon, who looked on the system of this sisterhood 'as one of the
most sublime conceptions of the human mind,' was then in the act of
falling back with 30,000 men, after having been attacked the evening
before (March 19, 1814) by 130,000 Austrians. He was within three
weeks of the prostration of his power, and he must have felt
bitterly the crushing reverses he was experiencing. Yet he stopped
on the nearly demolished bridge of the town, and ordered 300
Napoleons to be given out of his then scanty resources to the
Sisters of Charity, of whose devotion he had been an eye-witness
from the commencement of the attack. As he crossed the bridge
immediately afterwards, part of it gave way, and he was precipitated
into the Aube, but, by the help of his horse, soon gained the safe
bank.

The good works of the Sisters do not stop with their exertions for
the sick and miserable. They have also their schools for orphans and
foundlings. Here the tender human plant, perhaps deserted by a
heartless mother, often gains more than it has lost. It is only to
infants in these extraordinary circumstances that they are called
upon to give shelter, for the children of the poor in general are
provided for in public establishments. When we last visited the
convent in Prague, we found about thirty girls entertained as
inmates. As soon as they are capable of learning, they are
instructed in every branch of domestic economy; and as they grow up,