Priests, Women, and Families Part 15

This favours at least our idleness, and excuses us from making any efforts to stop ourselves on the brink. Besides, the very traces of the change are at length effaced, the road has disappeared; even though we desire to go back, we could not. It is as though a bridge were broken down behind us; we have pa.s.sed over it--but for the last time.

We then resign ourselves to our lot, and say, with a faint attempt to smile, "_For me it is a second nature_," or, better still, "_It is my nature_." So much have we forgotten! But between this nature and our real primitive nature, which we received at our birth, there is a great difference; which is, that the latter, derived from the bosom of the mother, was like the real mother herself, an attentive guardian of life, that warned us of whatever may compromise it, that sought and found in its benevolence a remedy for our ills. Whereas this second nature, habit, under this perfidious name is often nothing else than the high road that leads to death.

"It is my second nature," says the opium drinker in a sad tone, when he sees dying by his side one who had taken to the deadly beverage only a few months before himself: "I have still so many months to live." "It is my second nature," says a miserable child, a devoted victim of idle and bad habits. Neither reasoning, chastis.e.m.e.nt, nor maternal grief, is of any avail. They both go, and will go, to the end, following the road by which people travel but once.

A vulgar proverb (but too true in this case) tells us, "_Whoever has once drunk, will drink_." We must generalise it, and say, "_Whoever has acted, will act; whoever has suffered, will suffer_." But this is still more true with respect to pa.s.sive than active habits. Accustomed to let things take their course, to suffer and to enjoy, we become incapable of resuming our activity. At last we do not even require the enticement of pleasure; even when it is no more, and pain usurps its place, inexorable habit pours out still from the same cup: it then no longer takes the trouble to dissemble; we recognise, when too late, how ugly and invincible this tyrant is, who says coldly, "You drank the honey first, now you shall drink the gall, and to the last drop."

If this tyrant, habit, is so strong when it acts blindly, when it is only a thing such as opium or gin, what does it become when it has eyes, a will, _an art_, in a word, when it is a man? A man full of calculation, who knows how to create and cherish habit for his own advantage, a man who for his first means brings against you your belief; who begins personal fascination in the authority of a respected character; who, to exercise it over you and create a habit in you, has daily occasions, days, months, years, time, irresistible time, the tamer of all human things, time, that can eat away iron and bra.s.s! Is the heart of woman hard enough to resist it?

A woman? a child! still less, a person _who will be a child_, who employs all the faculties she has acquired since childhood to fall back into childishness, who directs her will to wish no longer, and her thoughts no longer to know anything, and gives herself up as if asleep.

Suppose her to awake (it is a very rare case), to awake for a moment (surprising the tyrant without his mask, seeing him as he really is), and then to wish to escape. Do you think she can? To do so, she must act; but she no longer knows what it is, not having acted for so long a time; her limbs are stiff; her legs are paralysed and have lost all motion; her heavy hand rises, falls again, and refuses.

Then you may perceive too well what is habit, and how, once bound in its thousand imperceptible threads, you remain tied in spite of you to what you detest. These threads, though they escape the eye, are, nevertheless, tough. Pliable and supple as they seem to be, you may break through one, but underneath you find two; it is a double, nay triple, net. Who can know its thickness?

I read once in an old story what is really touching, and very significant. It was about a woman, a wandering princess, who, after many sufferings, found for her asylum a deserted palace, in the midst of a forest. She felt happy in reposing there, and remaining some time: she went to and fro from one large empty room to another, without meeting with any obstacle; she thought herself alone and free. All the doors were open. Only at the hall-door, no one having pa.s.sed through since herself, the spider had woven his web in the sun, a thin, light, and almost invisible network; a feeble obstacle which the princess, who wishes at last to go out, thinks she can remove without any difficulty.

She raises the web; but there is another behind it, which she also raises without trouble. The second concealed a third, that she must also raise:--strange! there are four.--No, five! or rather six--and more beyond. Alas! how will she get rid of so many? She is already tired. No matter! she perseveres; by taking breath a little she may continue. But the web continues too, and is ever renewed with a malicious obstinacy. What is she to do? She is overcome with fatigue and perspiration, her arms fall by her sides. At last, exhausted as she is, she sits down on the ground, on that insurmountable threshold:--she looks mournfully at the aerial obstacle fluttering in the wind, lightly and triumphantly.--Poor princess! poor fly! now you are caught! But why did you stay in that fairy dwelling, and give the spider time to spin his web?

CHAPTER V.

ON CONVENTS--OMNIPOTENCE OF THE DIRECTOR.--CONDITION OF THE NUN FORLORN AND WATCHED.--CONVENTS THAT ARE AT THE SAME TIME BRIDEWELLS AND BEDLAMS.--INVEIGLING.--BARBAROUS DISCIPLINE.--STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE SUPERIOR NUN AND THE DIRECTOR.--CHANGE OF DIRECTORS.--THE MAGISTRATE.

Fifteen years ago I occupied, in a very solitary part of the town, a house, the garden of which was adjacent to that of a convent of women.

Though my windows overlooked the greatest part of their garden, I had never seen my sad neighbours. In the month of May, on Rogation-day, I heard numerous weak, very weak voices, chanting prayers, as the procession pa.s.sed through the convent garden. The singing was sad, dry, unpleasant, their voices false, as if spoiled by sufferings. I thought for a moment they were chanting prayers for the dead; but, listening more attentively, I distinguished on the contrary, "_Te rogamus, audi nos_," the song of hope which invokes the benediction of the G.o.d of life upon fruitful nature. This May-song, chanted by these lifeless nuns, offered to me a bitter contrast. To see these pale girls crawling along on the flowery, verdant turf, these poor girls; who will never bloom again!--The thought of the middle ages that had at first flashed across my mind soon died away: for then monastic life was connected with a thousand other things; but in our modern harmony what is this but a barbarous contradiction, a false, harsh, grating note?

What I then beheld before me was to be defended neither by nature nor by history. I shut my window again, and sadly resumed my book. This sight had been painful to me, as it was not softened or atoned for by any poetical sentiment. It reminded me much less of chast.i.ty than of sterile widowhood, a state of emptiness, inaction, disgust--of an intellectual[1] and moral fast, the state in which these unfortunate creatures are kept by their absolute rulers.

We were speaking of habit; it is certainly there that it reigns a tyrant. Very little art is required to rule over these poor, insulated, immured, and dependent women; as there is no outward influence to counterbalance the impression that one person, ever the same person, makes on them daily. The least skilful priest may easily fascinate their natures, already weakened, and brought down to the most servile, trembling obedience. There is little courage or merit in thus trampling over the creature which is already crushed.

To speak first of the power of habit: nothing of all that we see in the world can give us an idea of the force with which it acts upon this little immured community. Family society, doubtless, modifies us, but its influence is neutralised by outward events. The regularity with which our favourite newspaper comes every morning with uniform monotony, has certainly some influence; but this newspaper has its rivals, its opponents. Another influence which exists less in our time, but is still very powerful over secluded persons, is that of a book, the captivating perusal of which may detain us for months and years. Diderot confesses that Clarissa was read by him over and over again, and that it was for a long time his very life, his joy, his grief, his summer and winter. But the finest thing of this cla.s.s is, after all, but a book, a dumb, inanimate thing, which, though you may call it as animate as you please, does not hear, and cannot answer; it has no words with which it may answer yours, nor eyes to reflect your own.

Away, then, with books, those cold paper images!

Imagine in a monastery, where nothing else intrudes, the only living object, the only person who has a right to enter, who monopolises all the influences of which we have spoken, who is, in himself, their society, newspaper, novel, and sermon; a person whose visit is the only interruption to the deadly monotony of a life devoid of employment.

Before he comes, and after he has been, is the only division of time in this life of profound monotony.

We said a person, we ought to have said a man. Whoever will be candid would confess that a woman would never have this influence; that the circ.u.mstance of his being of the opposite s.e.x has much to do with it, even with the purest and with those who had never dreamed of s.e.x.

To be the only one, without either comparison or contradiction, to be the whole world of a soul, to wean it, at pleasure, from every reminiscence that might cause any rivalry, and efface from this docile heart even the thought of a mother that might still[2] be cherished within it! To inherit everything, and remain alone and be master of this heart by the extinction of all natural sentiments!

_The only one_! But this is the good, the perfect, the amiable, the beloved! Enumerate every good quality, and they will all be found to be contained in this one term. A thing even (not to say a person), a thing, if it be the only one, will in time captivate our hearts.

Charlemagne, seeing from his palace always the same sight, a lake with its verdant border, at last fell in love with it.

Habit certainly contributes much; but also that great necessity of the heart to tell everything to what we are always in the habit of seeing: whether it be man or thing, we must speak. Even if it were a stone, we should tell it everything, for our thoughts must be told, and our griefs be poured out from an overflowing heart.

Do you believe that this poor nun is tranquil in this life so monotonous? How many sad, but, alas! too true confessions I could relate here, that have been communicated to me by tender female friends, who had gone and received their tears in their bosom, and returned, pierced to the heart, to weep with me.

What we must wish for the prisoner is, that her heart, and almost her body, may die. If she be not shattered and crushed into a state of self-oblivion, she will find in the convent the united sufferings of solitude and of the world. Alone, without being able to be alone![3]

Forlorn, yet all her actions watched!

Forlorn! This nun still young, yet already old through abstinence and grief, was yesterday a boarder, a novice whom they caressed. The friendship of the young girls, the maternal flattery of the old, her attachment for this nun, or that confessor, everything deceived her, and enticed her onward to eternal confinement. We almost always fancy ourselves called to G.o.d, when we follow an amiable, enchanting person, one who, with that smiling, captivating devotion, delights in this sort of spiritual conquest. As soon as one is gained, she goes to another; but the poor girl who followed her, in the belief that she was loved, is no longer cared for.

Alone, in a solitude without tranquillity of mind, and without repose.

How sweet, in comparison with this, would be the solitude of the woods!

The trees would still have compa.s.sion; they are not so insensible as they seem: they hear and they listen.

A woman's heart, that unconquerable maternal instinct, the basis of a woman's character, tries to deceive itself. She will soon find out some young friend, some candid companion, a favourite pupil. Alas! she will be taken from her. The jealous ones, to find favour with the superiors, never fail to accuse the purest attachments. The devil is jealous, in the interest of G.o.d--he makes his objections for the sake of G.o.d alone.

What wonder, then, if this woman is sad, sadder every day, frequenting the most melancholy-looking avenues, and no longer speaks? Then her solitude becomes a crime. Now she is pointed out as suspected: they all observe and watch her. In the day-time? It is not enough. The spy system lasts all night: they watch her sleeping, listen to her when she dreams, and take down her words.

The dreadful feeling of being thus watched night and day must strangely trouble all the powers of the soul. The darkest hallucinations come over her, and all those wicked dreams that her poor reason, when on the point of leaving her, can make in broad daylight and wide awake. You know the visions that Piranesi has engraved: vast subterraneous prisons, deep pits without air, staircases that you ascend for ever without reaching the top, bridges that lead to an abyss, low vaults, narrow pa.s.sages of catacombs growing closer and closer. In these dreadful prisons, which are punishments, you may perceive, moreover, instruments of torture, wheels, iron collars, whips.

In what, I should like to know, do convents of our time differ from houses of correction and mad-houses?[4] Many convents seem to unite the three characters.

I know but one difference between them; whilst the houses of correction are inspected by the law, and the mad-houses by the police, both stop at the convent doors; the law is afraid, and dares not pa.s.s the threshold.

The inspection of convents, and the precise designation of their character, are, however, so much more indispensable in these days, as they differ in a very serious point from the convents of the old _regime_.

Those of the last century were properly asylums, where, for a donation once paid, every n.o.ble family, whether living as n.o.bles, or rich citizens, placed one or more daughters to make a rich son. Once shut up there, they might live or die as they pleased; they were no longer cared for. But now _nuns inherit_, they become an object to be gained, a prey for a hundred thousand snares--an easy prey in their state of captivity and dependence. A superior, zealous to enrich her community, has infallible means to force the nun to give up her wealth; she can a hundred times a-day, under pretence of devotion and penitence, humble, vex, and even ill-treat her, till she reduces her to despair. Who can say where asceticism finishes and captation begins, that "_compelle intrare_" applied to fortune? A financial and administrative spirit prevails to such a degree in our convents, that this sort of talent is what they require in a superior before every other. Many of these ladies are excellent managers. One of them is known in Paris by the notaries and lawyers, as able to give them lessons in matters of donations, successions, and wills. Paris need no longer envy Bologna that learned female jurisconsult, who, occasionally wrapped in a veil, professed in the chair of her father.

Our modern laws, which date from the Revolution, and which, in their equity, have determined that the daughter and younger son should not be without their inheritance, work powerfully in this respect in favour of the counter-revolution: and that explains the rapid and unheard-of increase of religious houses.

Nothing stops the monastic recruiters in their zeal for the salvation of rich souls. You may see them fluttering about heirs and heiresses.

What a premium for the young peasants who people our seminaries is this prospect of power! Once priests, they may direct fortunes as well as consciences![5]

Captation, so conspicuous in the busy world, is not so in the convents; though it is here still more dangerous, being exercised over persons immured and dependent. There it reigns unbridled, and is formidable with impunity. For who can know it? Who dares enter here? No one.

Strange! There are houses in France that are estranged to France. The street is still France; but pa.s.s yonder threshold, and you are in a foreign country which laughs at your laws.

What, then, are their laws? We are ignorant upon the subject. But we know for certain (for no pains are taken to disguise it) that the barbarous discipline of the middle ages is preserved in full force.

Cruel contradiction! This system that speaks so much of the distinction of the soul and the body, and believes it, since it boldly exposes the confessor to carnal temptations! Well! this very same system teaches us that the body, distinct from the soul, modifies it by its suffering; that the soul improves and becomes more pure under the lash![6] It preaches spiritualism to meet valiantly the seduction of the flesh, and materialism when required to annihilate the will!

What! when the law forbids to strike even our galley slaves, who are thieves, murderers, the most ferocious of men--you men of grace, who speak only of charity, _the good holy Virgin, and the gentle Jesus_--you strike women!--nay, girls, even children--who, after all, are only guilty of some trifling weakness!

How are these chastis.e.m.e.nts administered? This is a question, perhaps, still more serious. What sort of terms of composition may not be extorted by fear? At what price does authority sell its indulgence?

Who regulates the number of stripes? Is it you, My Lady Abbess? or you, Father Superior? What must be the capricious partial decision of one woman against another, if the latter displeases her; an ugly woman against a handsome one, or an old one against a young girl? We shudder to think.

A strange struggle often happens between the superior nun and the director. The latter, however hardened he may be, is still a man. It is very difficult for him at last not to be affected for the poor girl, who tells him everything, and obeys him implicitly. Female authority perceives it instantly, observes him, and follows him closely. He sees his penitent but little, very little, but it is always thought too much. The confession shall last only so many minutes: they wait for him, watch in hand. It would last too long, nay, for ever, without this precaution. To the poor recluse, who received from every one else only insult and ill-treatment, a compa.s.sionate confessor is still a welcome refuge.

We have known superiors demand and obtain several times from their bishops a change of confessors, without finding any sufficiently austere. There is ever a wide difference between the harshness of man and the cruelty of a woman! What is, in your opinion, the most faithful incarnation of the devil in this world? Some inquisitor?

Some Jesuit or other? No, a _female Jesuit_,--some great lady, who has been converted, and believes herself born to rule, who among this flock of trembling females acts the Bonaparte, and who, more absolute than the most absolute tyrant, uses the rage of her badly-cured pa.s.sions to torment her unfortunate defenceless sisters.

Far from being the adversary of the confessor in this case, he has my best wishes. Whether he be priest, monk, or Jesuit, I am now on his side. I entreat him to interfere, if he can. In this h.e.l.l, where the law cannot penetrate, he is the only person who can say a word of humanity. I know very well that this interference will create the strongest and most dangerous attachment. The heart of the poor young creature is wholly given up beforehand to him who defends her.

The priest will be removed, driven away, and ruined, if it be necessary. Nothing is easier to an active influential superior. He dares not venture there, is afraid of disturbance, and retires timidly.

You will find neither priests nor prelates in these cases mindful of their power, as confessors and spiritual judges; nor will they refuse absolution to the tyrant of the nuns, as Las Casas did to those of the Indians.