Buteux, Father Stanislaus, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, to Archbishop Anthony Blanc, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1853 November 6

Buteux thanks Blanc for the promptness with which Blanc sent his consoling reply. Buteux does not know whether Brother Albien, F.S.C. has received Blanc's letter; it is 5 in the evening and he has not seen him. Buteux's state of weakness was the principal cause of so little order in his letters, also his anxiety about his school. Buteux does not want Blanc to condemn the Brothers of Christian Instruction without hearing them. Perhaps Albien will leave the city this evening. Buteux asks the same for himself; he cannot go for some days as his leg still has an open sore. Albien is much given to equivocation. If Buteux knew why the Brothers have acted as they have, he would tell it even if he is wrong. When the new Brother Director came with the Brothers destined for the New Orleans school, Buteux did not talk to them for 8 or 10 days after their arrival; they did not come to seek him out. So it was 8 or 10 days later that Brother Gélisaire, F.S.C. presented his successor who had already written false things about Buteux. Since then they have talked 10 or 12 times and almost always it has been painful. On All Saints day he forbade the Brothers to sing the Tantum Ergo if Buteux gave Benediction. Today he refused to ask a Brother to help Buteux ring the bell. Albien once told him that he was content that the pupils did not return because the work was badly begun. Buteux knows of only two reasons for acting like this. 1. Buteux had learned from a letter of Brother Facile F.S.C.'s after his visit here about a year ago that he looked on this establishment as a place of retreat for himself, that he planned to resign as Visitor and ask to be named director here and so he wanted it to be very small and above all an occassional lodging and house in the country for the Brothers of New Orleans. His hope was disappointed. 2. When Buteux asked for the Brothers, he never dreamed of anything but a day school for the children of the Bay and those of New Orleans whose parents came to spend the summer here. Facile talked of a boarding school. Buteux knew that the boarders were under the Brothers' control and that the day school had nothing to do with it. However Buteux was ready to help them. It seems that the 3 directors did not obey Facile's orders about the boarding School. Buteux's brick house could not be suitable as a boarding school. He cannot enter into all the details but he is sure that he can make a satisfactory explanation. Buteux begs Blanc to settle this by episcopal authority. Last year, when the day school opened the were, as today, only 3 Brothers, with the difference that only 2 were capable of teaching. This year all 3 are. Even if the Brothers leave, they could not refuse to have the school until Bishop James Oliver Vandevelde arrives and sees to replacing them. The parents ask when the school will resume. The only ting is for the Brothers to have the school up to the last day of their stay here and that on that day Buteux have other religious continue it. The Creole returns here tomorrow night or Tuesday. Can Buteux expect a word from Blanc for himself and one for Albien? :: VI-1-f A.L.S. French 4pp. 4to.