Priests, Women, and Families Part 10

There was no question here of abandoning one's self, like Madame Guyon in her retreat among the Alps, to the torrents of divine love. It was necessary to have the appearance of common sense, and the forms of reason even in the madness of love; it was expedient, as the ancient comic writer says "_to run mad with rule and measure_." This is what Fenelon attempted to do in the _Maxims of Saints_. The condemnation of Molinos, and the imprisonment of Madame Guyon at Vincennes, were a sufficient lesson: he declared himself, but with prudence, and though perfectly decided, maintained an outward show of weak indecision.

Nevertheless, with all his skill, cunning, and prevarication, if he differs from the absolute Quietists whom he affects to condemn, it is less in any fundamental part of doctrine, than the degree in which he admits that doctrine. He thinks he goes far enough in saying, that the state of quiet in which the soul loses its activity is not a _perpetually_, but an _habitually_ pa.s.sive state. But in acknowledging inaction to be both superior to action and a state of perfection, does he not make us wish that the inaction might be perpetual?

The soul _habitually_ pa.s.sive, according to him, is concentrated above, leaving beneath her the inferior part, whose acts are those of an entirely _blind_ and involuntary commotion. _These acts being always supposed to be voluntary_, he avows that the superior part still remains responsible for them. Will they then be governed by it? By no means; it is absorbed in its sublime quietude. What, then, is to interfere in its place? What is to keep order in this lower sphere, where the soul no longer descends? He tells us plainly--_it is the director_.

His modification of Molinos in theory is less important than it seems to be. The speculative part, with which Bossuet is so much occupied, is not the most essential in a point where practice is so directly interested. What is really serious is, that Fenelon, as well as Molinos, after having traced out a great plan of regulations, has not enough of these rules; he has to call in, at every moment, the a.s.sistance of the director. He establishes a system; but this system cannot work alone; it wants the hand of man. This inert theory continually requires the supplement of an especial consultation, and an empirical expedient. The director is a sort of supplementary soul for the soul, who, whilst this last is sleeping in its sublime sphere, is leading and regulating every thing for it in this miserable world below, which is, after all, that of reality.

Man, eternally man! this is what you find at the bottom of their doctrines in sifting and compressing them. This is the _ultima ratio_ of their systems. Such is their theory, and such their life also.

I leave these two ill.u.s.trious adversaries, Fenelon and Bossuet, to dispute about ideas. I prefer to observe their practice. There, I see that the doctrine has but a little, and man a very great part. Whether Quietists or Anti-quietists, they do not differ much in their method of enveloping the soul, and lulling the will to sleep.

During this contention of theories, or rather before it began, there was a personal one, very curious to witness. The stake in this game, if I may use the expression, the spiritual prize that both sides disputed, was a woman, a charming soul, full of transport and youth, of an imprudent vivacity, and ingenuous loyalty. She was a niece of Madame Guyon, a young lady whom they called Madame de la Maisonfort, for she was a canoness. This n.o.ble, but poor young lady, ill-treated by her father and stepmother, had fallen into the cold political hands of Madame de Maintenon. Either for the vanity of founding, or in order to amuse an old king rather difficult to entertain, she was then establishing Saint-Cyr, for the daughters of n.o.ble families. She knew the king was ever _sensible_ to women, and consequently let him see only old ones or children. The boarders of Saint-Cyr, who in the innocency of their sports gladdened the eyes of the old man, brought to his mind a former age, and offered him a mild and innocent opportunity for paternal gallantry.

Madame de Maintenon, who, as is well known, owed her singular fortune to a certain decent harmony of middling qualities, looked out for an eminently middling person, if one may use the expression, to superintend this establishment. She could not do better than to seek him among the Sulpicians and Lazarists. G.o.det, the Sulpician, whom she took as director both of Saint-Cyr and herself; was a man of merit, though a downright pedant; at least Saint Simon, his admirer, gives us this sort of definition of him. Madame de Maintenon saw in him the blunt matter-of-fact priest, who might insure her against every sort of eccentricity. With such a man as that, one would have nothing to fear: having to choose between the two men of genius who influenced Saint-Cyr, Racine the Jansenist, and Fenelon the Quietist, she preferred G.o.det.

Those who are ignorant of its history would have only to look at the mansion of Saint-Cyr, to discern in it at once the real abode of _ennui_. The soul of the foundress, the domineering spirit of the governess, is everywhere perceptible. The very look of the place makes one yawn. It would be something, if this building had but a sorrowful character; even sadness may entertain the soul. No, it is not sad, yet it is not the more cheerful on that account; there is nothing to be said against it, the character and the style being equally null; there is nothing one can even blame. Of what age is the chapel? Neither Gothic nor the _renaissance_, nor is it even the Jesuit style.

Perhaps, then, there is something of the Jansenist austerity? It is by no means austere. What is it then? Nothing. But this nothing causes an overwhelming _ennui_, such as one would never find elsewhere.

After this first short half-devout and half-worldly period, that of the representations of Athalie and Esther, which the young ladies had played too well, the school being reformed, became a sort of convent.

Instead of Racine, it was the Abbe Pellegrin and Madame de Maintenon who wrote pieces for Saint-Cyr; and the governesses were required to be nuns. This was a great change; it displeased Louis XIV. himself, and ran the risk of compromising the new establishment. Madame de Maintenon seems to have been aware of this, and she looked out for a _foundation-stone to her edifice_, a living one--alas! a woman full of grace and life!--It was poor Maisonfort, whom they decided to veil, immure, and seal up for ever in the foundations of Saint-Cyr.

But she whose will was law in everything, was unable to do this.

Lively and independent as was La Maisonfort, all the kings and queens in the world would have been unsuccessful. The heart alone, skilfully touched, was able to induce her to take the desired step. Madame de Maintenon, who desired it extremely, made such vigorous efforts, that they surprise us when we read her letters. That very reserved person throws her character aside in this business: she becomes confiding, in order to be confided in, and does not fear to avow to the young girl, whom she wishes to make disgusted with this life, that she herself, in the highest station in the world, "is dying of sadness and _ennui_."

What proved to be much more efficacious, was their employing against her a new director, the seducing, charming, irresistible Abbe de Fenelon. He was then on very good terms with Madame de Maintenon; dining every Sunday with her in the apartments of the d.u.c.h.esses de Beauvilliers and de Chevreuse, where, all alone, without servants, they served themselves, that they might not be overheard. The inclination La Maisonfort felt for this singular man was great, and authority ordered her to follow this inclination: "See the Abbe de Fenelon,"

Madame de Maintenon would write to her, "and accustom yourself to live with him."

Kind order! she followed it but too well:--sweet custom!--With such a man, who animated everything by his personal charm, who simplified and facilitated the most arduous things, she did not walk, but fly, between heaven and earth, into the tepid regions of divine love. So much seduction, sanct.i.ty, and liberty at once--it was too much for her poor heart!

St. Simon tells us by what method of espionage and treason G.o.det proved the presence of Quietism in Saint-Cyr. There was no need of so much cunning. La Maisonfort was so pure as to be imprudent. In the happiness of this new spirituality, into which she entered with her whole soul, she said much more than was required of her.

Fenelon, suspected as he had then become, was still left with her, till she had made the important step. They waited till, under his influence, and in spite of her own protestations and tears, she had taken the veil, and heard the fatal grate shut behind her.

Two meetings were held at Saint-Cyr, to decide on the destiny of the victim. G.o.det, supported by the Lazarists, Thiberge, and Brisacier, decided she should be a nun, and Fenelon, who was a member of this fine council, made no opposition. She herself has informed us, that, during the deliberation, "she retired before the holy sacrament in a strange agony; that she thought she should have died of grief, and that she pa.s.sed the whole of the night in a flood of tears."

The deliberation was merely a matter of form; Madame de Maintenon was resolved; and obey they must. n.o.body at that time was more at her command than Fenelon. It was then the decisive crisis of Quietism.

The question was no less than to know whether its doctor, writer, and prophet, unpalatable as he was to the king, who, however, did not yet thoroughly know him, would be able to acquire, before his doctrine burst forth, that position of a great prelate in the church, to which all his supporters were hurrying him. Hence sprung his unlimited devotedness to Madame de Maintenon, and the sacrifice of poor Maisonfort to her omnipotent will. Fenelon, who knew perfectly well how little she was inclined to this vocation, sacrificed her, certainly not to his personal interests, but for the advancement of his doctrines and the aggrandizement of his own party.

As soon as she had taken the veil, and was immured for ever, he became more and more distant; for she was frankness itself, and by her imprudence did harm to his doctrine, which was already sharply attacked. He did not need so compromising an alliance, but what he wanted was political support. In his last extremity he addressed himself to the Jesuits, and took one of them for his confessor; for they had taken the precaution to have some on both sides.

To fall back from Fenelon to G.o.det, and undergo his blunt and harsh direction, was more than the new nun could support. One day, when he came to her with the little decrees and petty regulations which he had composed with Madame de Maintenon, La Maisonfort could contain herself no longer, but spoke out, before him and the all-powerful foundress, all the contempt she felt for them. A short time after, a letter with the king's seal expelled her unfeelingly from Saint-Cyr.

She had defended herself too successfully against such persons as G.o.det, Brisacier, and others of the hostile party. Though abandoned by Fenelon, she endeavoured to remain faithful to his doctrines, and was determined to keep his books. They were obliged to invoke the most powerful man of the time, Bossuet, in order to bring the rebel to reason. But she would not receive even his advice, till after she had asked Fenelon whether she might do so. He replies to this last mark of confidence, I regret to say, by a dull, disagreeable letter, in which are shown but too plainly his jealousy, and the regret he feels in seeing one, whom he had abandoned, pa.s.s under the control of another.

[1] A bishop, at that time an inspector of the University, boasted before me (and several other persons, who will be witnesses if necessary) that he had burned some of Fenelon's letters.

CHAPTER IX.

BOSSUET AS DIRECTOR.--BOSSUET AND SISTER CORNUAU.--HIS LOYALTY AND IMPRUDENCE.--HE IS PRACTICALLY A QUIETEST.--DEVOUT DIRECTION INCLINES TO QUIETISM.--A MORAL PARALYSIS.

Nothing throws more light upon the real character of _direction_ than the correspondence of the worthiest and most loyal of directors--I mean Bossuet. Experience is decisive; if here, too, the results are bad, we must blame the method and the system, but by no means the man.

The greatness of his genius, and the n.o.bleness of his character would naturally remove Bossuet far from the petty pa.s.sions of the vulgar herd of directors, their meanness, jealousy, and vexatious tyranny. We may believe what one of his own penitents says of him:--"Without disapproving," says she, "of the directors who interfere even in the slightest thoughts and affections, _he did not relish this practice_ towards those souls which loved G.o.d and had made some progress in spiritual life."

His correspondence is praiseworthy, n.o.ble, and serious. You will not find in it the too loving tenderness of Saint Francois de Sales, and still less the refinement and impa.s.sioned subtilties of Fenelon.

Bossuet's letters, though less austere, resemble those of Saint-Cyran by their seriousness. They often contain a grandeur of style little suited to the humble and ordinary person to whom they are generally addressed, but very advantageous in keeping her at a distance, and preventing too close an intimacy even in the most unreserved private conversation.

If this correspondence has reached us in a more complete form than that of Fenelon, we are indebted for it (at least for the most curious part of it) to the veneration which one of Bossuet's penitents, the good Widow Cornuau, entertained for his memory. That worthy person, in transmitting these letters to us, has religiously left in them a number of details, humiliating enough for herself. She has forgotten her own vanity, and thought only of the glory of her spiritual father. In this, she has been very happily guided by her attachment for him; perhaps, indeed, she has done more for him than any panegyrist. These n.o.ble letters written in such profound secrecy, and never intended to see daylight, are worthy of being exhibited to the public.

This good widow tells us, that when she had the happiness of going to see him in his retirement at Meaux, he received her occasionally "in a small, very cold, and smoky room." This is, according to all appearances, the small summer-house, which is shown even in our time, at the end of the garden, on the old rampart of the city, which forms the terrace of the episcopal palace. The cabinet is on the ground-floor, and above it, in a small loft, slept the valet, who awoke Bossuet early every morning. A dark narrow alley of yews and holly leads to this dull apartment: these are old dwarf stunted trees, which have entwined their knotty branches and their dark p.r.i.c.kly leaves.

Dreams of the past dwell for ever here; here you may still find all the difficulties of those grand polemical questions, now so remote from us, the disputes of Jurien and Claude, with the stately history of the Variations, and the deadly battle of Quietism, envenomed by betrayed friendship. The tower of the cathedral, with its mild majestic mien, hovers above the French-fashioned, grave-looking garden; but it is neither seen from the dark little alley, nor from the dull cabinet; a place confined, cold, and of a disagreeable aspect, which in spite of n.o.ble reminiscences, disheartens us by its vulgarity, and reminds us that this fine genius, the best priest of his age, was still a _Priest_.

There was scarcely any other point by which this domineering spirit could be touched, than docility and obedience. The good Cornuau exercised these qualities in a degree he could hardly have expected.

She gives much, and we see that she hides still more, for fear of displeasing him. She set all her wits to work, to follow, as far as her natural mediocrity permitted her, the tastes and ideas of this great man. He had a genius for government; and she had it also in miniature. She took upon herself the business of the community with which she lived, and at the same time transacted that of her own family. She waited in this manner fifteen years before she was allowed to become a nun. She at last obtained this favour, and had herself called the Sister of Saint-_Benigne_, thus a.s.suming, rather boldly perhaps, Bossuet's own name. These real cares, in which the prudent director kept her a long time, had an excellent effect upon her, in diverting and pruning her imagination. She was of an impa.s.sioned, honest, but rather ordinary disposition; and, unfortunately for her, she had enough good sense to confess to herself what she was. She knows, and she tells herself, that she is only a commoner of the lower order; that she has neither birth, wit, grace, nor connection; that she has not even seen Versailles! What chance would she have of gaining his favour in a struggle against the other spiritual daughters, those fine ladies, ever brilliant even in their penitence and voluntary abas.e.m.e.nt?

It seems that she had hoped at first to have her revenge in some other way, and to rise above these worldly ladies by the path of mysticism.

She took it into her head one day to have visions: she wrote one, of a very paltry imagination, which Bossuet did not encourage. What could she do? Nature had denied her wings; she saw plainly that most certainly she would not be able to fly. At any rate, she had no pride; she did not try to conceal the sad condition of her heart; and this humiliating confession escapes her; "I am bursting with jealousy."

What affects us the most is, that after having made the confession, this poor creature, so very gentle, and so very good, sacrificed her own feelings, and became nurse to her who was the object of her jealousy, and then attacked by a dreadful malady. She accompanied her to Paris, shut herself up with her, took care of her, and at last loved her; for the very reason, perhaps, which just before had produced quite the contrary effect--because she was loved by Bossuet.

Sister Cornuau is evidently mistaken in her jealousy; she herself is the person preferred; we see it now by comparing the different correspondence. For her is reserved all his paternal indulgence; for her alone he seems at times to be affected, as much as his ordinary gravity permits. This man, so occupied, finds time to write her nearly two hundred letters; and he is certainly much more firm and austere with the fine lady of whom she is jealous. He becomes short and almost harsh towards the latter, when the business is to answer the rather difficult confidential questions which she perseveres in putting to him. He postpones his answer to an indefinite period ("to my entire leisure"); and till that time, he forbids her to write upon such subjects, otherwise "he will burn her letters without even reading them (24th November, 1691)." He says, somewhere else, very n.o.bly, concerning these delicate things which may trouble the imagination, "that it was necessary, when one was obliged to speak of, and listen to sufferings of this sort, _to be standing with only the point of the foot upon the earth_." This perfect honesty, which would never understand anything in a bad sense, makes him sometimes forget the existence of evil more than he ought, and renders him rather incautious. Confident also in his age, then very mature, he occasionally allows himself outbursts of mystic love, that were indiscreet before so impa.s.sioned a witness as Sister Cornuau. In presence of this simple, submissive, and in every respect inferior person, he considers himself to be alone; and giving free course to the vivacious instinct of poetry that animated him even in his old days, he does not hesitate to make use of the mysterious language of the Song of Solomon. Sometimes it is in order to calm his penitent, and strengthen her chast.i.ty, that he employs this ardent language. I dare not copy the letter (innocent, certainly, but so very imprudent) which he writes from his country-house at Germigny (July 10, 1692), and in which he explains the meaning of the Bride's words, "Support me with flowers, because I languish for love." This potion, which is to cure pa.s.sion by a stronger one, is marvellously calculated to double the evil. What surprises us much more than this imprudence is, that we find frequently in the intimate correspondence of this great adversary of Quietism, the greater part of the sentiments and practical maxims for which the Quietists were reproached. He takes pleasure in developing their favourite text, _Expectans, expectavi_. "The Bride ought not to hurry; she must wait in expectation of what the Bridegroom will do; if, during the expectation, he caresses the soul, and inclines it to caress him, she must yield her heart. The means of the union is the union itself.

All the correspondence of the Bride consists in letting the Bridegroom act."

"Jesus is admirable in the chaste embraces with which He honours His Bride and makes her fruitful; all the virtues are the fruits of His chaste embraces" (February 28, 1693),--"A change of life must follow; _but without the soul even thinking of changing itself_."

This thoroughly Quietist letter is dated May 30 (1696); and eight days after--sad inconsistency!--he writes these unfeeling words about Madame Guyon; "They appear to me resolved to shut her up far away in some good castle," &c.

How is it he does not perceive that in practical questions, far more important than theory, he differs in nothing from those whom he treats so badly? The direction, in Bossuet, as in his adversaries, is the development of the inert and pa.s.sive part of our nature, _expectans, expectavi_.

For me it is a strange sight to see them all, even in the midst of the middle age, crying out against the mystics, and then falling into mysticism themselves. The declivity must, indeed, be rapid and insurmountable.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the profound Rusbrock and the great Gerson imitate precisely those they blame; and in the seventeenth, the Quietists Bona, Fenelon, even Lacombe, Madame Guyon's director, speak severely and harshly of the absolute Quietists: they all point out the abyss, and all fall into it themselves.

No matter who the person may be, there is a logical fatality. The man who, by his character and genius is the farthest removed from pa.s.sive measures, he who in his writings condemns them the most strongly, even Bossuet, in practice tends towards them, like the others.

What signifies their writing against the theory of Quietism? Quietism is much more a method than a system: a method of drowsiness and indolence which we ever meet with, in one, shape or other, in religious direction. It is useless to recommend activity, like Bossuet, or to permit it, like Fenelon, if, preventing every active exercise of the soul, and holding it, as it were, in leading-strings, you deprive it of the habit, taste, and power of acting.

Is it not then an illusion, Bossuet? if the soul still seems to act, when this activity is no longer its own, but yours. You show me a person who moves and walks; but I see well that this appearance of motion proceeds from your influence over that person, you yourself being, as it were, the principle of action, the cause and reason of living, walking, and moving.

There is always the same sum of action in the total; only, in this dangerous affinity between the director and the person directed, all the action is on the side of the former; he alone remains an active force, a will, a person; he who is directed losing gradually all that const.i.tutes his personality, becomes--what?--a machine.

When Pascal, in his proud contempt for reason, engages us _to become stupid_, and bend within us what he calls the _automaton_ and _machine_, he does not see that it will only be an _exchange_ of reason. Our reason having herself put on the bit and bridle, that of another man will mount, ride, and guide it at his will, as he would a horse.