e office of chief director, which is filled by a man. The great
majority of the prisoners in France being Catholics, the number of
Sisters of Charity is naturally much larger than the number of
deaconesses employed. At the prison of Clermont four of the Paris
deaconesses are kept constantly at work among the prisoners.

In connection with the old prison of St. Lazare, the women's prison of
Paris, the deaconesses have a mission especially concerned with caring
for discharged female convicts. As was the case at Kaiserswerth, this,
in its initiation, is closely connected with the saintly life of
Elizabeth Fry. When she came to Paris, in 1835, a drawing-room meeting
was held at the residence of the Duchess de Broglie, in which she told
of her efforts to effect a reform in prisons in England. None of the
ladies of rank and wealth who heard her were stirred to greater effort
than was demanded by the keen interest with which they listened to her
words; but a quiet governess was present, Mademoiselle Dumas, and with
her the seeds of truth fell into prepared ground. She determined to
attempt for her own country a portion of the work Mrs. Fry had
accomplished for England. Obtaining permission from the authorities to
visit the prison of St. Lazare, she went daily to the prisoners shut up
in the rooms of this great building, formerly the monastery of St.
Vincent de Paul, the founder of the Sisters of Charity. After the
deaconess home was established, some deaconesses were set apart to aid
Mademoiselle Dumas in her work. All these years the mission has
continued, not interrupted even during the dark days of the Commune. A
committee of ladies aids in providing shelter and work for the prisoners
when they are discharged. The great publishing house of Hachette & Co.,
although the head of the firm is a Catholic, provides employment in
folding paper for books.

Through the kind offices of Mademoiselle Monod we called on Mademoiselle
Dumas. She is now an extremely aged woman; but her interest in the
Christian reformation of prisoners of her sex is as keen as it was over
fifty years ago, when her labors began. The registers of many years
stand by her desk, and from these we were shown how the records of the
mission are kept, and in what way the lives of those assisted are
watched and followed for years. Narratives of individual reformation
were related to us, and through the long correspondence of many years
she was enabled to tell us of