I thank Ms Natalie Zahra and Ms Resyl Spiteri for their articles on St Emilie de Vialar (The Sunday Times, June 18).
I was touched by those articles full of historical information because there is a good connection with Birgu in Emilie's saintly life as she lived for a while in a palace with her congregation in Palazzo Bettina, owned by Lady Bettina (1741-1829).
Lady Bettina, whose full name was Elizabeth Dorell Muscat, was the Birgu-born wife of Diego Muscat, and was a great benefactress of St Lawrence church, her favourite church.
She was a Dame in the court of the Queen of the Two Sicilies and the aunt of the only Maltese Cardinal, Fabrizio Sceberras Testaferrata, son of Lucretia and Camillo, who lived in St Paul's parish, Valletta.
This cardinal was born in Valletta, not in Birgu, as stated on the marble tablet on the façade of the palace. He left for Rome when he was only 14. He used to spend weekends in Lady Bettina's palace in St George Street, very close to St Lawrence church. His mother Lucretia was Lady Bettina's sister.
This palace also concerns St Emilie de Vialar, who founded the congregation of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition in 1832. In 1835 she opened a convent in Algiers but she wanted to find a home in Catholic Malta, which she frequently visited. She had been forced to stay here after a terrible storm in 1842; there were many girls who joined her congregation during that period.
A person placed one of his houses in St George Street in Birgu at her disposal, and she had another house leased in this same street but I could not find what the door number of the other house was, besides Bettina palace. I would like to know what the number was and I hope Ms Spiteri and Ms Zahra could help me in this, so I could help students better.
The Sisters had to leave later because the palace - known by the locals as "the place of the Abbot's bakery" - was apparently haunted, and they could no longer stand the noises heard at night. Although documents do not state what they saw, the locals including other documents state that it was the Abbot's ghost; he was the son of Baron Joseph Gauci, who lived in Mdina.
Later Sister Emilie sent her congregation from Birgu to Burma. The residents of Birgu kept these stories in memory and if anyone asks about it, as I did years ago before my researches, they always reply that the building contained the legendary Abbot's bakery. In actual fact there is a bakery.
The palace is in a bad state today and was damaged during the war, but since it was restored no more ghostly appearances were reported.