S. Vincent de Paul was the founder of the picturesque grey Sisters we all know so well by their pretty flapping headgear, and of foundling hospitals in France. He was born in 1576 at Puy in Gascony, and being of a contemplative disposition, full of piety and sweetness, was fitted, his father thought, for the religious life; and so he was sent to a convent of the Cordeliers near by, and assumed the Franciscan frock at the age of twenty. For ten years he studied, and then an incident occurred which settled his destiny. Going to Marseilles to transact some business, and returning by sea, the bark was attacked by African pirates, and S. Vincent, with the others on board, was bound and sent into slavery at Tunis. Vincent spent two years in captivity, passing from one owner to another, when, one day, being asked by his master's wife to sing to her, he burst into tears, chanting, "By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept," and "_Salve Regina_." But the songs or the preaching converted the woman, and then her husband; which being so, they all escaped and landed at Aiguesmortes. Vincent went to Rome, and then to Paris, where he pleaded the cause of the wretched galley-slaves of Marseilles. We all remember the grand picture by Bonnat, of S. Vincent taking the place of a slave and having the fetters put upon him. I forget its exact name; it was exhibited, in London some years ago, and is now in one of the churches. The Saint began his good work by visiting the prisons or _dépôts_, whence the criminals were forwarded to the galleys. There he saw "des malheureux renfermés dans de profondes et obscures cavernes, mangés de vermines, atténués de langueur et de pauvreté, et entièrement negligés pour le corps et pour l'âme." S. Vincent then took up the cause of the street girls, and finally he instituted the Order of Sisters of Charity, nuns "qui n'ont point de monastères que les maisons des malades, pour cellules qu'une chambre de louage, pour chapelle que l'église de leur paroisse, pour cloître que les rues de la ville et les salles des hôspitaux, pour clôture que l'obéissance, pour grille que la crainte de Dieu, et pour voile qu'une Sainte et exacte modestie, et cependant elles se préservent de la contagion du vice, elles font germer partout sur leurs pas la vertu." Such was S. Vincent's idea when founding the Sisterhood, and such the Sisters are to this day, eminently practical, whether in their work or their quaint costume, which is short enough to clear the muddy street pavements, a model to most nurses in or out of hospital. They move with the world, but are not of it. [Illustration: SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL; FROM AN OLD ENGRAVING.]