Convent of St Anne

The Convent of St Anne is a religious refuge on the road into Quimperlé, established under the Bishop’s provision for women cast out or abandoned after pregnancy. In Sabine de Kercoz’s account, it is both a possible sanctuary for the missing Christabel LaMotte and a place associated with harsh, uncertain care. The search for Christabel leads there, but its limited records and the institution’s qualified offer of shelter leave her fate unresolved.

Purpose and reputation

Sabine’s father identifies the convent as a place where the Bishop has made provision for women who have been cast out and are described as fallen. When Christabel disappears, the possibility that she might have sought help there becomes one of the few leads available to the family. Sabine initially rejects the idea that her cousin would go to the convent, but agrees that the nuns should at least be asked whether Christabel has arrived.

The convent’s reputation is shadowed by the story of Malle, a woman known through Yannick’s sister. After Malle’s parents rejected her and no one claimed her child, she was brought to the convent to give birth. Malle said that the nuns made her perform punishing cleaning work soon after the delivery, and that her child died. She later entered domestic service in Quimper, where her employer beat her; she did not live long. Sabine recounts this as a troubling precedent, not as independently verified institutional history. It explains why she calls the convent an unhappy place and fears for Christabel if she has gone there.

The search for Christabel

The convent enters the family’s search after Christabel vanishes. Sabine’s father wonders whether the local Curé might know her whereabouts, since he visits the convent, but Sabine doubts that anyone would turn to him for help. With the family unable to determine whether Christabel has fled their offer of shelter or met with an accident, her father drives to the convent the next day to ask directly.

The Mother Superior tells him that no one answering Christabel’s name or description has been brought there that week. She says she will pray for the young woman. Asked to notify the family if Christabel arrives, she qualifies the promise: that would depend on whether Christabel herself asked for sanctuary. The father responds that he wants Christabel and her child to know they are welcome in his home and will be cared for as long as needed. The nun suggests that Christabel may already know of the offer, yet be unable to return, or unwilling to do so out of shame or for other reasons. The exchange keeps the possibility of refuge open while making clear that it cannot compel a frightened or unwilling woman to accept it.

Records and unresolved history

Much later, Roland Michell investigates whether the convent can establish what became of Christabel and her child. He visits and finds no trace of LaMotte in its already scanty records. He learns that a zealous Mother Superior in the 1920s had cleared out many papers, regarding them as unnecessary and unrelated to the sisterhood’s enduring mission. The missing documentation makes the convent a site of archival silence as well as a place of refuge: it offers no evidence that resolves whether Christabel arrived, whether her child survived, or what care either might have received.

The convent’s narrative significance lies in the tension between the promise of sanctuary and the limits of institutional protection. It is presented through several imperfect forms of testimony: Malle’s reported experience, the Mother Superior’s cautious response, and Roland’s later search through incomplete records. None supplies a definitive account of Christabel’s fate. The convent therefore marks both a possible route to safety and a boundary beyond which the surviving evidence cannot follow her.