Priests, Women, and Families Part 5

The Visitation had nothing of the austerity of the ancient orders. The founder himself said it was "almost no religion at all." No troublesome customs, no watchings, no fastings, but little duty, short prayers, no seclusions (in the beginning); the sisters, while they waited for the coming of the divine Bridegroom, went to visit Him in the person of His poor and His sick, who are His living members.

Nothing was better calculated to calm the stormy pa.s.sions within, than this variety of active charity. Madame de Chantal, who had formerly been a good mother, a prudent housekeeper, was happy in finding even in mystic life employment for her economical and positive faculties in devoting herself to the laborious detail of the establishment of a great order, in travelling, according to the orders of her beloved director, from one establishment to another. It was a twofold proof of wisdom in the Saint: he made her useful, and kept her away.

With all this prudence, we must say that the happiness of working together for the same end, of founding, and creating together, strengthened still more the tie that was already so strong. It is curious to see how they tighten the band in wishing to untie it. This contradiction is affecting. At the very time he is prescribing to her to detach herself from him who had been her nurse, he protests that this nurse shall never fail her. The very day he lost his mother he writes in these strong terms: "To you I speak, to you, I say, to whom I have allotted my mother's place in my memorial of the ma.s.s, without depriving you of the one you had, for I have not been able to do it, so fast do you retain what you have in my heart; and so it is, _you possess it first and last_."

I do not think a stronger expression ever escaped the heart on a more solemn day. How burning must it have entered her heart, already lacerated with pa.s.sion! How can he be surprised after that, that she should write to him, "Pray to G.o.d, that I survive you not!" Does he not see, that at every instant he wounds, and heals only to renew the pain?

The nuns of the Visitation, who published some of the letters of their foundress, have prudently suppressed several, which, as they say themselves, "are only fit to be kept under the lock and key of charity." Those which are extant are, however, quite sufficient to show the deep wound she bore with her to the grave.

The Visitation being supported neither by active charity, which was soon prohibited, nor by the cultivation of the intellect, which had given life to the Paraclet and other convents of the middle ages, had no other choice, it would seem, than to adopt mystic asceticism. But the moderation of the founder, in conformity with the lukewarmness of the times, had excluded from his new inst.i.tution the austerity of the ancient orders--those cruel practices that annihilated the senses in destroying the body itself; consequently, there was no activity, nor study, nor austerity. In this vacuum two things were evident from the very outset: on one side, narrow-mindedness, a taste for trivial observances, and a fantastical system of devotion (Madame de Chantal tatooed her bosom with the name of Jesus); on the other side, an unreasonable and boundless attachment to the _Director_.

In everything relating to St. Francois de Sales the saint shows herself very weak. After his death she raves, and allows herself to be guided by dreams and visions. She fancies that she perceives his dear presence, in the churches, amid celestial perfumes, perceptible to her alone. She lays upon his tomb a little book composed of all he had written or said upon the Visitation, praying "that if there was anything in it contrary to his intentions, he would have the goodness to efface it."

In 1631, ten years after the death of St. Francois de Sales, his tomb was solemnly opened, and his body was found entire. "It was placed in the sacristy of the monastery, where, about nine o'clock at night, after the crowd had withdrawn, she led her community, and began praying by the side of the body, 'in an ecstasy of love and humility.' As they were forbidden to touch it, she did a signal act of obedience in abstaining from kissing his hand. The following morning, having obtained permission, she stooped down in order to place the saint's hand upon her head; when, as if he had been alive, he drew her towards him, and held her in a paternal and tender caress: she felt very plainly this supernatural movement.... They still keep, as a double relic, the veil she then wore."

Let others be at a loss to find out the real name of this worthy sentiment, or let a false reserve prevent them; let them term it filial piety, or fraternal affection; we, for our part, call it simply by a name that we believe holy--we shall call it love. We are bound to believe the saint himself, when he a.s.sures us that this sentiment contributed powerfully to his spiritual progress. However, this is not sufficient; we must see what effect it had upon Madame de Chantal.

All the doctrine to be found in the writings of St. Francois, among much excellent practical advice, might be summed up in these words--to _love_ and to _wait_.

_To wait_ for the visitation of the divine Bridegroom. Far from advising action, or the desire of acting, he is so afraid of motion, that he proscribes the word _union_ with G.o.d, which might imply a tendency to unite; and desires that the word _unity_ may be used instead, for it is necessary to remain in a loving indifference. "I wish for very little," said he, "and that little I desire very little; I have almost no desires; but if I were to be born again, I would have none at all. If G.o.d came to me, I would go to Him also; but _if He would not come to me, I would remain there, and not go to Him_."

This absence of every desire excluded even that of virtue. It is the highest point which the saint seems to have reached a short time before his death. He writes on the 10th of August, 1619, "Say you renounce every virtue, desiring them only as you receive them gradually from G.o.d, nor wishing to take any care for acquiring them, excepting in proportion as His bounty shall employ you to do so, for His own good pleasure." If self-will disappear at this point, what will take its place? The will of G.o.d apparently.... Only, let us not forget that if this miracle take place, it will have for its result a state of unalterable peace and immutable strength. By this token, and by no other, are we bound to recognise it.

Madame de Chantal herself tells us that it had just the contrary effect. Though they have skilfully arranged her life, and mutilated her letters, there are still enough of them to show in what a tempest of pa.s.sion she pa.s.sed her days. Her whole life, which was long, and taken up with real cares, in founding and managing religious establishments, contributes in no way to calm her; time wears her out and destroys her, without effecting any change in her inward martyrdom.

She finishes by this confession in her latter days: "All that I have suffered during the whole course of my life are not to be compared to the torments I now feel; I am reduced to such a degree that nothing can satisfy me, nor give me any relief, except one word--Death!"

I did not need this sad testimony; I could have found it out without her a.s.sistance. This exclusive cultivation of sensibility, whatever be the virtues that enn.o.ble it, ends infallibly in tormenting the soul, and reducing it to a state of excruciating suffering. We cannot, with impunity, allow our will, the very essence of our strength and reason, the guardian of our tranquillity, to be absorbed by an all-devouring love.

I have spoken elsewhere of the few but splendid examples exhibited throughout the middle ages in the persons of learned nuns, who combined science with piety. Their instructors seem to have entertained no apprehension in developing both their reason and their will. But science, it is said, fills the soul with uneasiness and curiosity, and removes us from G.o.d. As if there were any science without Him; as if the divine effulgence, reflected in science, had not a serene virtue, a power diffusing tranquillity in the human heart, and imparting that peace of eternal truths and imperishable laws, which will exist in all their purity when worlds will be no more.

Whom do I blame in all this? Man? G.o.d forbid! I only censure the method.

This method, which was termed Quietism when once it was reduced to a system, and which, as we shall see presently, is, generally speaking, that of the _devout direction_, is nothing else than the development of our pa.s.siveness, our instinct of indolence; the result of which, in course of time, is the paralysis of our will, the annihilation of the essence of man's const.i.tution.

St. Francois de Sales, was, it would seem, one of the most likely persons to impart animation to this lifeless system. Nevertheless it was he, the loyal and the pure, who introduced the system at this period; it was he who in the seventeenth century pointed out the road to _pa.s.siveness_.

We are, as yet, in the earliest dawn of the century, in all its morning freshness, and invigorated by the breeze from the Alps. Yet see, Madame de Chantal sickens and breathes with difficulty.... How will it be towards evening?

The worthy saint, in a delightful letter, describes himself as being one day on the lake of Geneva, "on a small raft," guided by Providence, and perfectly obedient "to the pilot, who forbids him to stir, and very glad at having only a board three fingers thick to support him." The century is embarked with him, and, with this amiable guide, he sails among breakers. These deep waters, as you will find out afterwards, are the depths of Quietism; and if your sight is keen enough, you may already perceive Molinos through this transparent abyss.

[1] See St. Francois, OEuvres, viii. 336, April, 1606; and Tabaraud, Life of Berulle, pp., 57, 58, 95, 141.

CHAPTER III.

LONELINESS OF WOMAN.--EASY DEVOTION.--WORLDLY THEOLOGY OF THE JESUITS AND HOME.--WOMEN AND CHILDREN ADVANTAGEOUSLY MADE USE OF.--WAR OF THIRTY YEARS, 1618-1648.--GALLANT DEVOTION.--DEVOUT NOVELS.--CASUISTS.

Hitherto we have spoken of a rare exception--the life of a woman full of action, and doubly employed; as a saint and foundress, but especially as a wife, the mother of a family, and prudent housewife.

The biographers of Madame de Chantal remark, as a singular thing, that in both conditions, as wife and as widow, she conducted her own household herself, directed her dependents, and administered the property of her husband, her father, and her children.

This indeed was becoming rare. The taste for household and domestic cares which we find everywhere in the sixteenth century, but especially among citizens and the families of the Bar, grows much weaker in the seventeenth, when every one desires to live in great style.

The absence of occupation is a taste of the period, proceeding also from the state of things. All society is ever idle on the morrow of religious wars, each local action has ceased, and central life, that is to say, court life, has hardly begun. The n.o.bility have finished their adventures, and hung up their swords; the citizens have nothing further to do, being no longer engaged in plots, seditions, or armed processions. The _ennui_ of this want of occupation falls particularly heavy upon woman; she is about to become at once unoccupied and lonely.

In the sixteenth century she was kept in communication with man by the vital questions that were debated, even in her family, by common dangers, fears, and hopes. But there was nothing of the sort in the seventeenth century.

Add to this a more serious circ.u.mstance which is likely to increase in the following ages; namely, that in every profession the spirit of speciality and detail, which gradually absorbs man, has the effect of insulating him in his family, and of making him, as it were, a mute being for his wife and kindred. He no longer communicates to them his daily thoughts; and they can understand nothing of the minute intricacies and petty technical problems which occupy his mind.

But, at least, woman has still her children to console her? No; at the time we are now speaking of, the mansion, silent and empty, is no longer kept alive by the noise of children; instruction at home is now an exception, and gives way daily to the fashion of collective education. The son is brought up among the Jesuits, the daughter by the Ursulines, or other nuns; the mother is left alone.

The mother and the son are henceforth separated! An immense evil, the bud of a thousand misfortunes for families and society! I shall return to this subject later.

Not only separated, but, by the effect of a totally opposite life, they will be more and more opposed in mind, and less and less able to understand each other. The son a little pedant in _us_, _i.e._ Latin, the mother ignorant and worldly, have no longer a common language between them.

A family thus disunited will be much more open to influence from without. The mother and the child, once separated, are more easily caught; though different means are employed. The child is tamed, and broken in by an overwhelming ma.s.s of studies; he must write and write, copy and copy again, at best translate and imitate. But the mother is entrapped by means of her excessive loneliness and _ennui_. The lady of the mansion is alone in her residence; her husband is hunting, or at the court. The president's lady is alone in her hotel; the gentleman starts every morning for the palace, and returns in the evening: a sad abode is this hotel in the Marais or City, some overgrown grey house in a dismal little street.

The lady in the sixteenth century beguiled her leisure hours by singing, and often by poetry. In the seventeenth they forbad her all worldly songs; as to religious songs, she abstains from them much more easily. Sing a psalm! It would be to declare herself a Protestant!

What then remains for her? Gallant devotion--the conversation of the director or the lover.

The sixteenth century, with its strong morality and fluctuation of ideas, took, as it were, by fits and starts, flying leaps from gallantry to devotion, then from G.o.d to the devil: it made sudden and alternate changes from pleasure to penitence. But in the seventeenth century people were more ingenious. Thanks to the progress of equivocation, they are enabled to do both at once, and, by mingling the language of love with that of devotion, speak of both at the same time.

If, without being seen, you could listen to the conversation in a coquettish neighbourhood, you would not always be able to say whether it is the lover or the director who is speaking.

To explain to one's self the singular success of the latter, we must not forget the moral situation of the time, the uneasy and bewildered state of every one's conscience on the morrow of a period of religious wars, hara.s.sed by pa.s.sions. In the dull tranquillity that succeeded, in the nullity of the present, the past would rise up in glowing colours, and the remembrance of it become the more importunate. Then was awakened in many minds, especially among weak and impa.s.sioned women, the terrible question of eternal bliss or woe.

The whole fortune of the Jesuits, and the confidence placed in them by the n.o.bles and fine ladies, arose from the clever answer they gave to this question. It is, therefore, indispensable to say a few words about it.

Who can save us? The theologian on the one hand, and the jurist or philosopher on the other, give diametrically opposite answers.

The theologian, if he be really such, attributes the greatest share to Christianity, and answers, "It is the grace of Christ, which serves us as a subst.i.tute for justice[1], and saves whomsoever it will. A few are predestined to be saved, the greater number to be d.a.m.ned."

The jurist answers, on the contrary, that we are punished or rewarded according to the good or bad use that we freely make of our will; that we are paid according to our works, according to justice. This is the eternal debate between the jurist and the theologian, between justice and predestination.[1]

In order to have a clearer idea of the opposition of these two principles, let us imagine a mountain with two declivities, its summit terminating in a very narrow ridge, with the edge as sharp as a razor.

On one side is predestination that d.a.m.ns, on the other, justice that strikes--two terrible monsters. Man is on the top, with one foot on one slope and one on the other, ever on the point of slipping.

And when was the fear of sliding stronger than after those great crimes of the sixteenth century, when Man was top-heavy, and lost his balance?

We know the religious horror of Charles IX. after the ma.s.sacre of Saint Bartholomew: he died for want of a Jesuit confessor. John III., King of Sweden, who killed his brother, did not die of remorse: his wife took care to send for the good Father Possevino, who purified him and made him a Catholic.

The means employed by the Jesuits to calm consciences fill us, at first sight, with surprise. They adopted both skilfully and carefully; still they did adopt the principle of the jurists, namely, that man is saved or lost by his works, by the use he makes of his free will.

A liberal doctrine, yet severe, it would seem: you are free, consequently responsible, and punishable. You sin, and you expiate.

The jurisconsult, who is in earnest, requires here a serious expiation--the personal chastis.e.m.e.nt of the guilty party. "He must forfeit his head," says he: "the law will cure him of his malady of iniquity by the sword."

We should fare better by going to the Jesuit, and get off much cheaper.

The expiation he requires is not so terrible. He will often prove that there is no necessity for any expiation. The fault, properly interpreted, will turn out, perhaps, to be a merit. At the worst, if found to be a fault, it may be washed out by good works; now, the very best work of all is to devote one's self to the Jesuits, and espouse the Ultramontane interest.