“So many works of charity would, in France, suffice to occupy several communities and different institutions. But what cannot a great zeal effect? These various labors do not at all startle seven Ursulines; and they rely upon being able, with the help of God’s grace, to sustain them without detriment to the religious observance of their rules. As for me, I fear that, if some assistance does not arrive, they will sink under the weight of so much fatigue. Those who, before knowing them, used to say they were coming too soon and in too great a number, have entirely changed their views and their language; witnesses of their edifying conduct and great services which they render to the colony, they find that they have arrived soon enough, and that there could not be too many of the same virtue and the same merit.” After giving details relative to the visit of the Illinois chiefs, who had come to condole with the French and to offer help against the Natchez, Father Le Petit adds: “The first day that the Illinois saw the _religieuses_, Mamantouenza, perceiving near them a group of little girls, remarked: ‘I see, indeed, that you are not _religieuses_ without an object.’ He meant to say that they were not solitaries, laboring only for their own perfection. ‘You are,’ he added, ‘like the black robes, our fathers; you labor for others. Ah! if we had above there two or three of your number, our wives and daughters would have more sense.’ ‘Choose those whom you wish.’ ‘It is not for me to choose,’ said Mamantouenza. ‘It is for you who know them. The choice ought to fall on those who are most attached to God, and who love him most....’” The records make mention of Therese Lardas, daughter of a Mobile surgeon. After her father’s death, her mother brought her to the Ursuline orphanage, where she intended leaving her just long enough to make her first communion; but, when she came to take her home, so earnestly did the child plead to remain, that the mother could not resist her entreaties. At the age of sixteen, she entered the novitiate. She led the life of an exemplary lay sister, and died at the age of twenty-nine on November 22, 1786. In testimony of the good education given to all classes by the Ursulines, the Rt. Rev. Luis Penalvery Cardemas said in a dispatch forwarded to the Spanish court, November 1, 1795: