Meanwhile at Civita Vecchia another act in the drama of Annunziata Solara's clouded life had been played. In that city was located a famous asylum for unfortunate women, founded and managed by a French lady of enormous wealth and corresponding benevolence, Madame Helena de Rancogne, the Countess of Monte-Cristo.[6] This lady was untiring in her efforts to reclaim and rehabilitate the fallen of her sex. She was the Superior of the Order of Sisters of Refuge, the members of which were scattered throughout Europe, but made their headquarters at the asylum in Civita Vecchia, where a sufficient number of them constantly aided Madame de Rancogne in carrying out her good and philanthropic work.
The Refuge, as the asylum was called, was a vast edifice of gray stone with a sombre and cloister-like look. Over the huge entrance door on a tablet of polished metal this sentence was incrusted in conspicuous letters of black: "Be Not Led to Consider Any Unworthy!" It was an utterance of the Countess of Monte-Cristo in the past and had been adopted as the guiding rule and maxim of the Order of Sisters of Refuge. The interior of the building in no way corresponded with its gloomy, forbidding outside. Tall, wide windows freely admitted the ardent rays of the glowing Italian sun, flooding the corridors and apartments with cheerful light and warmth. Crimson hangings and magnificently wrought tapestry of fabulous price adorned the walls, while costly and beautiful statues and paintings, the work of old masters and contemporaneous artists, added to the attractiveness of the numerous salons and drawing-rooms. The great refectory and the dormitories possessed charms of their own, bright colors everywhere greeting the eye and nothing being allowed that could inspire or promote melancholy moods or painful thoughts. There was an immense library, to which all the inmates of the Refuge had free access. It was sumptuously furnished, and the floor was covered with a gorgeous Turkey carpet, so thick and soft that footsteps made no sound upon it, while the brilliant figures of tropical flowers profusely studding it gave the impression of eternal summer. Desks abundantly supplied with writing materials, tables loaded with the latest newspapers and periodicals in all the languages of Europe, luxurious sofas and inviting fauteuils allured those succored by the Countess of Monte-Cristo and her vigilant aids. On every side the library was surrounded with book-cases, containing absorbing romances, volumes of travel, the productions of the celebrated poets, histories and essays, with a liberal sprinkling of religious works, mostly non-sectarian and invariably of a consolatory character. In addition elegantly and thoroughly equipped work-rooms were provided, in which those who were so inclined could practice embroidery, sew or manufacture the thousand and one little fancy knick-knacks at which female fingers are so skilful. Nothing, however, was compulsory, the main object being to afford the inmates of the Refuge agreeable occupation, to elevate them and to prevent them from looking back regretfully to the agitated lives they had led and the vices that had held empire over them in the past. Truly a more generous, unselfish lover of her sex than the noble Countess of Monte-Cristo did not exist.