APeriod of Transition 121 
     
    
   
   
    
     Provinces was opened in Miscouche in September 1864. The building 
     
     was constructed under the direction of Father Joseph Quévillon who 
     
     came to the Island from the diocese of Montreal. He wanted the 
     
     convent to be both a “home of charity” (TR) and a school for Acadian 
     
     girls. As he explained to his bishop, Monseigneur Bourget, the need 
     
     was great: 
     
    
   
   
    
     First of all, our primary aim is to work towards the worldly and religious 
     
     regeneration of the Acadian people who are living in another century, by giving 
     
     females a domestic as well as a social education in order to remove them from 
     
     this sort of subservience in which they find themselves with regard to a foreign 
     
     people. In the course of time, we must prepare our convent girls to become 
     
     housekeepers, etc. Secondly, there is not one single Catholic Home, Orphanage 
     
     or Infirmary on the Island; all these have yet to be established here. To control 
     
     public disturbances there are but prisons into which poor specimens of both 
     
     sexes are thrown pellmell. (TR)*. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Bishop McIntyre did not support the idea of an orphanage be- 
     
     cause he felt that the convent should become above all an educational 
     
     institution®'. Faced with the opposition of his ecclesiastical superior, 
     
     Father Quévillon handed over the convent, that he had endowed 
     
     with 700 pounds, to the bishop of Charlottetown who took charge 
     
     of it henceforth®*. Bishop McIntyre sent for three sisters from the 
     
     Congregation of Notre Dame in Montreal who arrived in time to begin 
     
     classes on September 14, 1864. 
     
    

    
     Bishop McIntyre took a personal interest in the convent. He 
     
     requested the help of the people in Miscouche and elsewhere to see 
     
     that the sisters were comfortable. The following passage, taken from 
     
     the Convent records, shows how much the sisters appreciated the 
     
     bishop’s dedication and the parishioners’ generosity: 
     
    
   
   
    
     Returning from Tignish, his Lordship was preceded by carriages loaded with 
     
     eight hundred pounds of flour, two hundred mackerel, two quintals of cod 
     
     and a tub of butter. This Devoted Prelate spent Sunday with us. It would be 
     
     impossible to say how thoughful he was. He kindly invited the people to come 
     
     the next day for the Mass that he would say for them, and to bring several 
     
     pieces of firewood, and axes and saws to finish the new convent buildings. 
     
     His Lordship extended this invitation so kindly and so gently that the next 
     
     day the yard was full of men: some were chopping wood, others were sawing, 
     
     and others were working on the shed. His Lordship spent the day with them: 
     
     he was indeed a true Father amidst his children. (TR)*?