2,66 Able Mann's Account of 20. Franctfcan Recollects m Douay. This convent was begun in 1617, by father John Gennings, af- terwards their firft provincial fuperior. It had no other fchool than that of the ftudies of the religious of the houfe, which enjoyed, in that refpecl:, the privileges of the univerfity of Douay. It fubfifted in a flouriminff condition till the French . revolution, put an end to it in 1793; at which time all the friars that remained in it found means of efcaping out of
France in difguife ; whereas the remaining, members of all the other Endifh. eftablifhments, both of men and women, in . ' France,, were feized, imprifoned, and treated in the moft bar- ' barous manner that wanton cruelty could invent,- being fhut up without diftin&ion of age or fex r in churches that had been plundered of every thing, where they remained deprived of all the neceflaries of life, a little fcanty food excepted.. A. A 3,1. Nuns of the third Order of St. Francis. Thefe religkms women were a colony from the convent at Gravelines, and they were firft fettled at Nieuport in Flanders, about the year 1630, by means of father John Gennings, the- eftablimer of thofe of Gravelines, and' of the Recollects in Douay/whbfe zeal in this refpect was indefatigable. In the year 1658 thefe nuns were obliged' to leave Nieuport on ac- ' count of the war and inundations, and part of them removed to Bruges, into a houfe called the Prmcen-hoff, becaufe it had formerly been a part of the palace of the counts of Flanders. They were employed in the education of young perfons of their fex, and their community remained confiderably nu- merous, till they were driven out of Flanders by the invafiorL of the French in 1794.
