The Return to France
After the end of WWI, both the school and the community gradually diminished, and since the Ursulines’ capital was invested in France and the franc toppled, life became very difficult. Since the anti-religious laws in France were now more relaxed, by 1924 the Sisters were contemplating returning home.
In 1925-26, three Ursulines, Mère Sainte-Marie (Victorine Amand), Mère Marie-Augustin (Julie Hallé) and Mère Marie de Saint-Jean (Mlle Dorey) went to Mortain as “institutrices libres”. They came back to Spetisbury with good memories and full of hope for a return to Mortain but an examination of the situation did not allow them to contemplate a restoration of the convent there.
This was a bitter disappointment especially for the older nuns who had originally come over from Mortain in 1907. Another religious Congregation had taken over their convent at Mortain (where they still have a school) so it was decided that the Spetisbury nuns should amalgamate with another small community at Quimperlé and in 1926 the Convent of Mortain was canonically dissolved. In 1926 the buildings of St. Monica’s Priory were put on the market and the school closed for the last time. When selling the house, the Ursulines excluded from the sale the small burial ground where they had buried many of their Sisters (at least 14 of the nuns had died at Spetisbury.)