The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century Part 16

In the case of converts in health there was far more preparation; yet these often apostatized. The various objects of instruction may all be included in one comprehensive word, submission,--an abdication of will and judgment in favor of the spiritual director, who was the interpreter and vicegerent of G.o.d. The director's function consisted in the enforcement of dogmas by which he had himself been subdued, in which he believed profoundly, and to which he often clung with an absorbing enthusiasm. The Jesuits, an Order thoroughly and vehemently reactive, had revived in Europe the mediaeval type of Christianity, with all its attendant superst.i.tions. Of these the Canadian missions bear abundant marks. Yet, on the whole, the labors of the missionaries tended greatly to the benefit of the Indians. Reclaimed, as the Jesuits tried to reclaim them, from their wandering life, settled in habits of peaceful industry, and reduced to a pa.s.sive and childlike obedience, they would have gained more than enough to compensate them for the loss of their ferocious and miserable independence. At least, they would have escaped annihilation. The Society of Jesus aspired to the mastery of all New France; but the methods of its ambition were consistent with a Christian benevolence. Had this been otherwise, it would have employed other instruments. It would not have chosen a Jogues or a Garnier. The Society had men for every work, and it used them wisely. It utilized the apostolic virtues of its Canadian missionaries, fanned their enthusiasm, and decorated itself with their martyr crowns. With joy and gratulation, it saw them rival in another hemisphere the n.o.ble memory of its saint and hero, Francis Xavier. [ Enemies of the Jesuits, while denouncing them in unmeasured terms, speak in strong eulogy of many of the Canadian missionaries. See, for example, Steinmetz, History of the Jesuits, II. 415. ]

[ 1 "Ce seroit vne estrange cruaute de voir descendre vne ame toute viuante dans les enfers, par le refus d'vn bien que Iesus Christ luy a acquis au prix de son sang."--Relation, 1637, 66 (Cramoisy).

"Considerez d'autre cote la grande apprehension que nous avions sujet de redouter la guerison; pour autant que bien souvent etant gueris il ne leur reste du St. Bapteme que le caractere."--Lettres de Garnier, MSS.

It was not very easy to make an Indian comprehend the nature of baptism.

An Iroquois at Montreal, hearing a missionary speaking of the water which cleansed the soul from sin, said that he was well acquainted with it, as the Dutch had once given him so much that they were forced to tie him, hand and foot, to prevent him from doing mischief.--Faillon II. 43. ]

I have spoken of the colonists as living in a state of temporal and spiritual va.s.salage. To this there was one exception,--a small cla.s.s of men whose home was the forest, and their companions savages. They followed the Indians in their roamings, lived with them, grew familiar with their language, allied themselves with their women, and often became oracles in the camp and leaders on the war-path. Champlain's bold interpreter, etienne Brule, whose adventures I have recounted elsewhere, [ "Pioneers of France," 377. ] may be taken as a type of this cla.s.s.

Of the rest, the most conspicuous were Jean Nicollet, Jacques Hertel, Francois Marguerie, and Nicolas Marsolet. [ 1 ] Doubtless, when they returned from their rovings, they often had pressing need of penance and absolution; yet, for the most part, they were good Catholics, and some of them were zealous for the missions. Nicollet and others were at times settled as interpreters at Three Rivers and Quebec. Several of them were men of great intelligence and an invincible courage. From hatred of restraint, and love of a wild and adventurous independence, they encountered privations and dangers scarcely less than those to which the Jesuit exposed himself from motives widely different,--he from religious zeal, charity, and the hope of Paradise; they simply because they liked it. Some of the best families of Canada claim descent from this vigorous and hardy stock.

[ 1 See Ferland, Notes sur les Registres de N. D. de Quebec, 30.

Nicollet, especially, was a remarkable man. As early as 1639, he ascended the Green Bay of Lake Michigan, and crossed to the waters of the Mississippi. This was first shown by the researches of Mr. Shea.

See his Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, XX. ]

CHAPTER XIV.

1636-1652.

DEVOTEES AND NUNS.

THE HURON SEMINARY.--MADAME DE LA PELTRIE.--HER PIOUS SCHEMES.-- HER SHAM MARRIAGE.--SHE VISITS THE URSULINES OF TOURS.-- MARIE DE SAINT BERNARD.--MARIE DE L'INCARNATION.--HER ENTHUSIASM.-- HER MYSTICAL MARRIAGE.--HER DEJECTION.--HER MENTAL CONFLICTS.-- HER VISION.--MADE SUPERIOR OF THE URSULINES.--THE HoTEL-DIEU.-- THE VOYAGE TO CANADA.--SILLERY.--LABORS AND SUFFERINGS OF THE NUNS.-- CHARACTER OF MARIE DE L'INCARNATION.--OF MADAME DE LA PELTRIE.

Quebec, as we have seen, had a seminary, a hospital, and a convent, before it had a population. It will be well to observe the origin of these inst.i.tutions.

The Jesuits from the first had cherished the plan of a seminary for Huron boys at Quebec. The Governor and the Company favored the design; since not only would it be an efficient means of spreading the Faith and attaching the tribe to the French interest, but the children would be pledges for the good behavior of the parents, and hostages for the safety of missionaries and traders in the Indian towns. [ "M. de Montmagny cognoit bien l'importance de ce Seminaire pour la gloire de Nostre Seigneur, et pour le commerce de ces Messieurs"--Relation, 1637, 209 (Cramoisy). ] In the summer of 1636, Father Daniel, descending from the Huron country, worn, emaciated, his ca.s.sock patched and tattered, and his shirt in rags, brought with him a boy, to whom two others were soon added; and through the influence of the interpreter, Nicollet, the number was afterwards increased by several more. One of them ran away, two ate themselves to death, a fourth was carried home by his father, while three of those remaining stole a canoe, loaded it with all they could lay their hands upon, and escaped in triumph with their plunder. [ Le Jeune, Relation, 1637, 55-59. Ibid., Relation, 1638, 23. ]

The beginning was not hopeful; but the Jesuits persevered, and at length established their seminary on a firm basis. The Marquis de Gamache had given the Society six thousand crowns for founding a college at Quebec.

In 1637, a year before the building of Harvard College, the Jesuits began a wooden structure in the rear of the fort; and here, within one inclosure, was the Huron seminary and the college for French boys.

Meanwhile the female children of both races were without instructors; but a remedy was at hand. At Alencon, in 1603, was born Marie Madeleine de Chauvigny, a scion of the _haute n.o.blesse_ of Normandy. Seventeen years later she was a young lady, abundantly wilful and superabundantly enthusiastic,--one who, in other circ.u.mstances, might perhaps have made a romantic elopement and a _mesalliance_. [ 1 ] But her impressible and ardent nature was absorbed in other objects. Religion and its ministers possessed her wholly, and all her enthusiasm was spent on works of charity and devotion. Her father, pa.s.sionately fond of her, resisted her inclination for the cloister, and sought to wean her back to the world; but she escaped from the chateau to a neighboring convent, where she resolved to remain. Her father followed, carried her home, and engaged her in a round of fetes and hunting parties, in the midst of which she found herself surprised into a betrothal to M. de la Peltrie, a young gentleman of rank and character. The marriage proved a happy one, and Madame de la Peltrie, with an excellent grace, bore her part in the world she had wished to renounce. After a union of five years, her husband died, and she was left a widow and childless at the age of twenty-two. She returned to the religious ardors of her girlhood, again gave all her thoughts to devotion and charity, and again resolved to be a nun. She had heard of Canada; and when Le Jeune's first Relations appeared, she read them with avidity. "Alas!" wrote the Father, "is there no charitable and virtuous lady who will come to this country to gather up the blood of Christ, by teaching His word to the little Indian girls?" His appeal found a prompt and vehement response from the breast of Madame de la Peltrie. Thenceforth she thought of nothing but Canada. In the midst of her zeal, a fever seized her. The physicians despaired; but, at the height of the disease, the patient made a vow to St. Joseph, that, should G.o.d restore her to health, she would build a house in honor of Him in Canada, and give her life and her wealth to the instruction of Indian girls. On the following morning, say her biographers, the fever had left her.

[ 1 There is a portrait of her, taken at a later period, of which a photograph is before me. She has a semi-religious dress, hands clasped in prayer, large dark eyes, a smiling and mischievous mouth, and a face somewhat pretty and very coquettish. An engraving from the portrait is prefixed to the "Notice Biographique de Madame de la Peltrie" in Les Ursulines de Quebec, I. 348. ]

Meanwhile her relatives, or those of her husband, had confirmed her pious purposes by attempting to thwart them. They p.r.o.nounced her a romantic visionary, incompetent to the charge of her property. Her father, too, whose fondness for her increased with his advancing age, entreated her to remain with him while he lived, and to defer the execution of her plans till he should be laid in his grave. From entreaties he pa.s.sed to commands, and at length threatened to disinherit her, if she persisted.

The virtue of obedience, for which she is extolled by her clerical biographers, however abundantly exhibited in respect to those who held charge of her conscience, was singularly wanting towards the parent who, in the way of Nature, had the best claim to its exercise; and Madame de la Peltrie was more than ever resolved to go to Canada. Her father, on his part, was urgent that she should marry again. On this she took counsel of a Jesuit, [ 1 ] who, "having seriously reflected before G.o.d,"

suggested a device, which to the heretical mind is a little startling, but which commended itself to Madame de la Peltrie as fitted at once to soothe the troubled spirit of her father, and to save her from the sin involved in the abandonment of her pious designs.

[ 1 "Partagee ainsi entre l'amour filial et la religion, en proie aux plus poignantes angoisses, elle s'adressa a un religieux de la Compagnie de Jesus, dont elle connaissait la prudence consommee, et le supplia de l'eclairer de ses lumieres. Ce religieux, apres y avoir serieus.e.m.e.nt reflechi devant Dieu, lui repondit qu'il croyait avoir trouve un moyen de tout concilier."--Casgrain, Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, 243. ]

Among her acquaintance was M. de Bernieres, a gentleman of high rank, great wealth, and zealous devotion. She wrote to him, explained the situation, and requested him to feign a marriage with her. His sense of honor recoiled: moreover, in the fulness of his zeal, he had made a vow of chast.i.ty, and an apparent breach of it would cause scandal. He consulted his spiritual director and a few intimate friends. All agreed that the glory of G.o.d was concerned, and that it behooved him to accept the somewhat singular overtures of the young widow, [ 1 ] and request her hand from her father. M. de Chauvigny, who greatly esteemed Bernieres, was delighted; and his delight was raised to transport at the dutiful and modest acquiescence of his daughter. [ 2 ] A betrothal took place; all was harmony, and for a time no more was said of disinheriting Madame de la Peltrie, or putting her in wardship.

[ 1 "Enfin apres avoir longtemps implore les lumieres du ciel, il remit toute l'affaire entre les mains de son directeur et de quelques amis intimes. Tous, d'un commun accord, lui declarerent que la gloire de Dieu y etait interessee, et qu'il devait accepter."--Ibid., 244. ]

[ 2 "The prudent young widow answered him with much respect and modesty, that, as she knew M. de Bernieres to be a favorite with him, she also preferred him to all others."

The above is from a letter of Marie de l'Incarnation, translated by Mother St. Thomas, of the Ursuline convent of Quebec, in her Life of Madame de la Peltrie, 41. Compare Les Ursulines de Quebec, 10, and the "Notice Biographique" in the same volume. ]

Bernieres's scruples returned. Divided between honor and conscience, he postponed the marriage, until at length M. de Chauvigny conceived misgivings, and again began to speak of disinheriting his daughter, unless the engagement was fulfilled. [ 1 ] Bernieres yielded, and went with Madame de la Peltrie to consult "the most eminent divines." [ 2 ]

A sham marriage took place, and she and her accomplice appeared in public as man and wife. Her relatives, however, had already renewed their attempts to deprive her of the control of her property. A suit, of what nature does not appear, had been decided against her at Caen, and she had appealed to the Parliament of Normandy. Her lawyers were in despair; but, as her biographer justly observes, "the saints have resources which others have not." A vow to St. Joseph secured his intercession and gained her case. Another thought now filled her with agitation. Her plans were laid, and the time of action drew near. How could she endure the distress of her father, when he learned that she had deluded him with a false marriage, and that she and all that was hers were bound for the wilderness of Canada? Happily for him, he fell ill, and died in ignorance of the deceit that had been practised upon him. [ 3 ]

[ 1 "Our virtuous widow did not lose courage. As she had given her confidence to M. de Bernieres, she informed him of all that pa.s.sed, while she flattered her father each day, telling him that this n.o.bleman was too honorable to fail in keeping his word."--St. Thomas, Life of Madame de la Peltrie, 42. ]

[ 2 "He" (Bernieres) "went to stay at the house of a mutual friend, where they had frequent opportunities of seeing each other, and consulting the most eminent divines on the means of effecting this pretended marriage."--Ibid., 43. ]

[ 3 It will be of interest to observe the view taken of this pretended marriage by Madame de la Peltrie's Catholic biographers. Charlevoix tells the story without comment, but with apparent approval. Sainte-Foi, in his Premieres Ursulines de France, says, that, as G.o.d had taken her under His guidance, we should not venture to criticize her. Casgrain, in his Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, remarks:--

"Une telle conduite peut encore aujourd'hui paraitre etrange a bien des personnes; mais outre que l'avenir fit bien voir que c'etait une inspiration du ciel, nous pouvons repondre, avec un savant et pieux auteur, que nous ne devons point juger ceux que Dieu se charge lui-meme de conduire."--p. 247.

Mother St. Thomas highly approves the proceeding, and says:--

"Thus ended the pretended engagement of this virtuous lady and gentleman, which caused, at the time, so much inquiry and excitement among the n.o.bility in France, and which, after a lapse of two hundred years, cannot fail exciting feelings of admiration in the heart of every virtuous woman!"

Surprising as it may appear, the book from which the above is taken was written a few years since, in so-called English, for the instruction of the pupils in the Ursuline Convent at Quebec. ]

Whatever may be thought of the quality of Madame de la Peltrie's devotion, there can be no reasonable doubt of its sincerity or its ardor; and yet one can hardly fail to see in her the signs of that restless longing for _eclat_, which, with some women, is a ruling pa.s.sion. When, in company with Bernieres, she pa.s.sed from Alencon to Tours, and from Tours to Paris, an object of attention to nuns, priests, and prelates,--when the Queen herself summoned her to an interview,--it may be that the profound contentment of soul ascribed to her had its origin in sources not exclusively of the spirit. At Tours, she repaired to the Ursuline convent. The Superior and all the nuns met her at the entrance of the cloister, and, separating into two rows as she appeared, sang the _Veni Creator_, while the bell of the monastery sounded its loudest peal.

Then they led her in triumph to their church, sang _Te Deum_, and, while the honored guest knelt before the altar, all the sisterhood knelt around her in a semicircle. Their hearts beat high within them. That day they were to know who of their number were chosen for the new convent of Quebec, of which Madame de la Peltrie was to be the foundress; and when their devotions were over, they flung themselves at her feet, each begging with tears that the lot might fall on her. Aloof from this throng of enthusiastic suppliants stood a young nun, Marie de St. Bernard, too timid and too modest to ask the boon for which her fervent heart was longing. It was granted without asking. This delicate girl was chosen, and chosen wisely. [ Casgrain, Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, 271-273.

There is a long account of Marie de St. Bernard, by Ragueneau, in the Relation of 1652. Here it is said that she showed an unaccountable indifference as to whether she went to Canada or not, which, however, was followed by an ardent desire to go. ]

There was another nun who stood apart, silent and motionless,--a stately figure, with features strongly marked and perhaps somewhat masculine; [ 1 ] but, if so, they belied her, for Marie de l'Incarnation was a woman to the core. For her there was no need of entreaties; for she knew that the Jesuits had made her their choice, as Superior of the new convent.

She was born, forty years before, at Tours, of a good _bourgeois_ family.

As she grew up towards maturity, her qualities soon declared themselves.

She had uncommon talents and strong religious susceptibilities, joined to a vivid imagination,--an alliance not always desirable under a form of faith where both are excited by stimulants so many and so powerful.

Like Madame de la Peltrie, she married, at the desire of her parents, in her eighteenth year. The marriage was not happy. Her biographers say that there was no fault on either side. Apparently, it was a severe case of "incompatibility." She sought her consolation in the churches; and, kneeling in dim chapels, held communings with Christ and the angels.

At the end of two years her husband died, leaving her with an infant son.

She gave him to the charge of her sister, abandoned herself to solitude and meditation, and became a mystic of the intense and pa.s.sional school.

Yet a strong maternal instinct battled painfully in her breast with a sense of religious vocation. Dreams, visions, interior voices, ecstasies, revulsions, periods of rapture and periods of deep dejection, made up the agitated tissue of her life. She fasted, wore hair-cloth, scourged herself, washed dishes among the servants, and did their most menial work. She heard, in a trance, a miraculous voice. It was that of Christ, promising to become her spouse. Months and years pa.s.sed, full of troubled hopes and fears, when again the voice sounded in her ear, with a.s.surance that the promise was fulfilled, and that she was indeed his bride. Now ensued phenomena which are not infrequent among Roman Catholic female devotees, when unmarried, or married unhappily, and which have their source in the necessities of a woman's nature. To her excited thought, her divine spouse became a living presence; and her language to him, as recorded by herself, is that of the most intense pa.s.sion.

She went to prayer, agitated and tremulous, as if to a meeting with an earthly lover. "O my Love!" she exclaimed, "when shall I embrace you?

Have you no pity on me in the torments that I suffer? Alas! alas! my Love, my Beauty, my Life! instead of healing my pain, you take pleasure in it. Come, let me embrace you, and die in your sacred arms!" And again she writes: "Then, as I was spent with fatigue, I was forced to say, 'My divine Love, since you wish me to live, I pray you let me rest a little, that I may the better serve you'; and I promised him that afterward I would suffer myself to consume in his chaste and divine embraces." [ 2 ]

[ 1 There is an engraved portrait of her, taken some years later, of which a photograph is before me. When she was "in the world," her stately proportions are said to have attracted general attention.

Her family name was Marie Guyard. She was born on the eighteenth of October, 1599. ]

[ 2 "Allant a l'oraison, je tressaillois en moi-meme, et disois: Allons dans la solitude, mon cher amour, afin que je vous embra.s.se a mon aise, et que, respirant mon ame en vous, elle ne soit plus que vous-meme par union d'amour... . Puis, mon corps etant brise de fatigues, j'etois contrainte de dire: Mon divin amour, je vous prie de me laisser prendre un peu de repos, afin que je puisse mieux vous servir, puisque vous voulez que je vive... . Je le priois de me laisser agir; lui promettant de me laisser apres cela consumer dans ses chastes et divins embra.s.s.e.m.e.ns... O amour! quand vous embra.s.serai-je? N'avez-vous point pitie de moi dans le tourment que je souffre? helas! helas! mon amour, ma beaute, ma vie! au lieu de me guerir, vous vous plaisez a mes maux.

Venez donc que je vous embra.s.se, et que je meure entre vos bras sacrez!"

The above pa.s.sages, from various pages of her journal, will suffice though they give but an inadequate idea of these strange extravagances.

What is most astonishing is, that a man of sense like Charlevoix; in his Life of Marie de l'Incarnation, should extract them in full, as matter of edification and evidence of saintship. Her recent biographer, the Abbe Casgrain, refrains from quoting them, though he mentions them approvingly as evincing fervor. The Abbe Racine, in his Discours a l'Occasion du 192eme Anniversaire de l'heureuse Mort de la Ven. Mere de l'Incarnation, delivered at Quebec in 1864, speaks of them as transcendent proofs of the supreme favor of Heaven.--Some of the pupils of Marie de l'Incarnation also had mystical marriages with Christ; and the impa.s.sioned rhapsodies of one of them being overheard, she nearly lost her character, as it was thought that she was apostrophsizing an earthly lover. ]

Clearly, here is a case for the physiologist as well as the theologian; and the "holy widow," as her biographers call her, becomes an example, and a lamentable one, of the tendency of the erotic principle to ally itself with high religious excitement.

But the wings of imagination will tire and droop, the brightest dream-land of contemplative fancy grow dim, and an abnormal tension of the faculties find its inevitable reaction at last. From a condition of highest exaltation, a mystical heaven of light and glory, the unhappy dreamer fell back to a dreary earth, or rather to an abyss of darkness and misery. Her biographers tell us that she became a prey to dejection, and thoughts of infidelity, despair, estrangement from G.o.d, aversion to mankind, pride, vanity, impurity, and a supreme disgust at the rites of religion. Exhaustion produced common-sense, and the dreams which had been her life now seemed a tissue of illusions. Her confessor became a weariness to her, and his words fell dead on her ear. Indeed, she conceived a repugnance to the holy man. Her old and favorite confessor, her oracle, guide, and comforter, had lately been taken from her by promotion in the Church,--which may serve to explain her dejection; and the new one, jealous of his predecessor, told her that all his counsels had been visionary and dangerous to her soul. Having overwhelmed her with this announcement, he left her, apparently out of patience with her refractory and gloomy mood; and she remained for several months deprived of spiritual guidance. [ Casgrain, 195-197. ] Two years elapsed before her mind recovered its tone, when she soared once more in the seventh heaven of imaginative devotion.