[Belgium] Pensionnat des Filles de la Croix à Liège. Valérie Lauwers

Manuscript in French, ca. 1874, 44 lvs w. (calligraphic) text, mottoes and drawings in pen and ink and watercolour (occas. heightened w. gold) recto only, incl. 16 manuscript maps, loosely inserted porcelain card awarding 1st prize in "Lecture" to V. Lauwers on 1 August 1874, cont. hcl., 4to. One map loose, occas. browning and finger soiling, upper inner hinge weak, binding w. some defects along extremities.

The still-existing charitable religious congregation Filles de la Croix was founded in Liège in 1833, and its primary mission is female education, in Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Brazil, India and Pakistan. This nice manuscript includes 16 maps, but also devotional, moral and otherwise edifying texts, partly related to family care and the future life of a young girl as a mother, and also poems on great women such as Jeanne d'Arc and Louis-Marie d'Orléans. One of the final poems is called "Adieu le treize aôut 1874", the date Lauwers received the aforementioned prize.