_Tuesday, August 8._--My visit to the Couvent des Oiseaux yesterday sharpened me for that to the Dames du Sacré Cœur to-day. Le Père de Ravignan had given me a note to Madame D'Avenas. We had a great deal of talk with her, which not unfrequently took a controversial turn; and she seemed particularly well informed on such points. The congregation of Sacré Cœur was only founded, she told us, in 1800; they now have about fifty houses in France, three in Rome, others in Piemont (lately sequestrated by the state), in the United States, one at Acton, near London,--in all, about seventy. At eighteen they may commence a noviciate, which lasts two years: they can then take the vows for five years: at the end of which time, being of twenty-five years at least, they can, if they please, take the final and irrevocable vows. There are one hundred Sisters in this house, which is the old palace of the Ducs de Biron, in the Rue de Varennes, having a garden of immense extent behind it. Their scholars, before the events of February, amounted to 160: all is done for them by the sisters, who have no servants, except for the garden. They have masters for the different arts: the pension, exclusive of these masters, is 1000 francs. The Supérieure Générale of all these seventy houses resides here. They are founded uniquely for education. Some of the class-rooms are very magnificent--the old reception rooms of the palace. But, generally speaking, the house is not equal in its extent or fitting up to Les Oiseaux; but the garden is far more extensive. Madame D'Avenas walked over it with us; and amid its groves one can hardly believe that one is in Paris. Both Madame D'Avenas and M. des Billiers attacked me on the state of separation of the English Church, and the schism it had thereby incurred: this, I said, depended on the degree to which the Papal claim is true. Called on M. ----, who gave me a deplorable account of the state of things here: that the chiefs of the party for the République Rouge--Louis Blanc, Caussidiere, and Ledru Rollin--were supported by General Cavaignac secretly: that the rapport just given to the Assemblée had re-awakened the most furious passions, and that a fresh insurrection might break out at any time. In the evening called to thank the bishop of Langres for the service he has been to me in procuring for me the company of M. des Billiers, who, together with M. Farel, his Vicaire Général, returned with me and talked some time.