Les Misérables, Book 6: Le Petit-Picpus, Chapter 6 summary

What happens

1. The Little Convent shelters elderly nuns from communities destroyed during the Revolution, each keeping her own religious rule.
2. The sole surviving nun of Sainte-Aure preserves her order’s costly clothing by dressing a small mannequin in it.
3. Retired society women also receive permission to live there, and pupils give one noisy resident a nickname.
4. Madame de Genlis gains admission despite objections to her romances, then leaves after six or eight months because the garden lacks shade.
5. Her cupboard holds Latin verses that she believes protect her valuables from thieves.
6. The shared church conceals the religious community from the public behind a tall curtain and an enclosed choir.

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