On the 13th of September, 1726, the Company entered into a contract with the Ursulines, in which the latter agreed to provide six nuns for the hospital and to educate the girls of New Orleans. The nuns, who were furnished in pursuance of this agreement, sailed from France Feb. 23, 1727. After a perilous voyage, five months in length, they arrived at New Orleans and at once entered on their work. In 1724 the accumulated complaints of the several officers with whom Bienville had come into collision produced his downfall. La Harpe came to his rescue in a memorial upon the importance of the country and the necessity of maintaining the colony. Louisiana was not to be held responsible for frauds on the Company, nor for lack of system and bad management in its affairs. The Company itself had “begun by sending over convicts, vagrants, and degraded girls. The troops were made up of deserters and men indiscriminately picked up in the streets of Paris. The warehouses were openly robbed by clerks, who screened their knaveries by countless false entries. Disadvantageous bargains were made with companies of Swiss and Germans, of miners, and manufacturers of tobacco,[62] which turned out absolutely without value because the Company did not carry them out. A vast number of burdensome offices were created. The greater part of the directors who were sent out thought only of their own interests and of how they could thwart M. de Bienville, a man more familiar with the country than they were. If he proposed to bring ships up the river, they obstinately opposed him, fearing that they would then no longer be able to maintain traffic with the Spaniards and thus amass fortunes.” La Harpe’s interposition may have subsequently influenced opinions as to Bienville’s merits, but at the time it had no apparent result. In February, 1724, Bienville received positive orders to return to France. The brief interval which elapsed before he sailed gave him an opportunity to associate his name with the issue of the harsh and arbitrary code of fifty-four articles regulating the conduct of the unfortunate slaves in the colony, and imposing penalties for violations of law.