Notes des Conférences avec la T.H. Mère de Montélimart 186. Manuscript on paper in French. France, 2nd half of the 19th cent.

Mm. 197x144. 41 numbered pages. Original marbled cardboards. Very well preserved. This very nicely written manusript contains the new rules for the Monastery of Montélimar discussed by the abbess Mère Louise de Sales Rolland and the sister Mère Charlotte Isabelle Chastelain de Pois. Another sister, Mère Marie Séraphine Dujat of the nearby Monastery of Valence, had also been invited to the "conférence" but could not attend. The rules were approved by the bishop of Valence and concern all aspects of monastic life in that particular cloister, including the attached "pensionnat" for young girls.

As for the dating, on p. 10 there is reference to a visit by a sister from the nearby monastery of Annecy in February 1862. We also know that Mère Louise de Sales Rolland was already prioress of the Couvent de la Visitation in Montélimar in the year 1850, when she received at her monastery a seventeen-year-old African novice freed from slavery by Father Olivieri of Genoa (cf. Notice sur la vie de notre petite soeur négresse Bakita Macca décédée au Monastère de Montélimar, extrait d'une lettre-circulaire du même Monastère, en date du 8 décembre 1878, Riom, 1878, pp. 5-6).

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