%^m- ^ "'' 'v*'?^^ < ' ■* f£ Jj". yr Cornell Uttiuersitg Slihratg FROM THE BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY COLLECTED BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY '''''*?iiMi»i,1l!P,P?.?.n ,.,3nf!....!a"?.'.!!ss.. /. by. J. mic oiin 3 1924 029 406 802 \76S' M62- P9- (S4^ The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029406802 PRIESTS, WOMEN, FAMILIES. J. MICHELBT. TRANSLATED FROM THE TRENCH (third editjon), WITH THE AUXHOK's PERMISSION, C. COCKS, BACHELIER ES LETTRES, AND PROFESSOR (bUEVETe) OF THE LIVING LANGUAGES IN THE ROTAL COLLEGES OF FRANCE. SECOND EDITION. LONDON: PRINTEb FOB LOI^GMAN, BROWN, GEEEN, AND LONGMANS, PATERNOSTER -ROW. 1846. f\lS{pO 7 London : Printed by A, Spott[swoode. New-Street Square. CONTENTS. Translator's Preface - - - - - xi PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. Excess of our Adversaries .... xiv Strange Ideal of Marriage - - - xvi Heartlessness and harshness .... xix How they protect Women - - - xxvi Who is to blame ? ..... xxx We ought to support Woman, spiritually and materially xxxi We shall ever be her debtors - - - xxxviii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. Difference of Sentiment in Families - - xli Hostile Spirit of the Clergy - - - xlii Extension of Jesuitism ..... xliii Their Material Strength - - xliv Their Spiritual Weakness .... xliv Modern Strength : Truth, Humanity - xlv Strength and Morality of Worli - - - :lvi Art of the Weak .... ., [yii How the Unity of the Family Circle will be strengthened \vii Division of the Work - - - ■ lix PART I. ON DIRECTION IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTHKT. CHAPTER I. Religious Reaction in 1600 - - - - 1 Influence of the Jesuits over Women and Children - 6 A 2 CONTENTS. Savoy ; the Vaudois ; Violence and Gentleness - - 8 St. Frangois de Sales - - - - - 1 CHAPTER II. St. Frangois de Sales and Madame de Chantal - - 15 Visitation - - - - - - 24 Quietism - - - - - - 28 Results of Religious Direction - - - - 31 CHAPTER III.' Loneliness of Woman - - - - - 33 Easy Devotion - - - - - - 36 AVorldly Theology of the Jesuits - - - 37 Women and Children advantageously made use of - 41 Thirty Years' War, 1618—1648 ... 43 Gallant Devotion - - - - - 45 Religious Novels - - - - 47 Casuists - - - - - - 49 CHAPTER IV. Convents. Convents in Paris - - - - 52 Convents contrasted ; the Director - - 56 Dispute about the Direction of the Nuns - - 59 The Jesuits triumph through Calumny - 62 CHAPTER V Reaction of Morality - . . . - 64 Arnaud, 1643; Pascal, 1657. The Jesuits lose Ground - 66 They gain over the King and the Pope - - - 68 Discouragement of the Jesuits ; their Corruption - - 71 They protect the Quietists - - - - 73 Desmarets. Morin burnt, 1663 - - . - 74 Immorality of Quietism - . , - 75 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. PAGE Continuation of Moral Reaction - - - - 77 Tartuffe, 1664 - - - - - - 78 AVhy he is not a Quietist - - - 78 Real Tartuffes - - ... 80 CHAPTER VII. Apparition of Molinos, 1675. Success of Rome - - 87 French Quietists - - - - 89 Madame Guyon and her Director - - 90 The " Torrents " ... - 92 Mystic Death '- - - - - - 94 Do we return ? - - - - - 97 CHAPTER VIII. Fenelon as Director - - - - - 99 His Quietism - - - - - -102 Maxims of Saints, 1697 - - - - - 103 Fenelon and Madame de la Maisonfort - - . 108 CHAPTER IX. ^ Bossuet as Director ; Sister Cornuau - - 112 His Imprudence. He is a Quietist in Pjaotice - - 117 Religious Direction inclines to Quietism - 120 Moral Paralysis - .... 122 CHAPTER X. Molinos' " Guide " - - - 124 Part played in it by the Director ; hypocritical Austerity 127 Immoral Doctrine ; approved by Rome, 1673 - - 128 Molinos condemned at Rome, 1687. His Morals - 130 His Morals conformable to his Doctrine. Spanish Molinosists - - - - - -132 La mere Agueda - - - - - 132 A 3 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. PAGE No more Systems ; an Emblem - - - 135 Blood 137 Sex. The Immaculate. The Sacred Heart - 139 Marie Alacoque ------ 140 The Seventeenth Century is the Age of Equivocation - 142 Chimerical Politics of the Jesuits. Father Colombiere - 145 England. Papist Conspiracy. First Altar of the Sa- cred Heart ------ 146 The Ruin of the Grallicans, Quietists, and Port Royal - 148 Theology annihilated in the Eighteenth Century - 149 Materiality of the Sacred Heart - - - 151 Jesuitical Art - - - - - -152 PART II. ON DIRECTION IN GENEBAi, AND ESPECIALLY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. CHAPTER I. Resemblances and Differences between the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Centuries - - - 155 Christian Art. It is we who have restored the Church - 161 What the Church adds to the Power of the Priest - 163 Confessional - - - - - 164 CHAPTER II. Confession. Present Education of the Young Confessor 165 The Priest in the Middle Ages — 1st, believed - - 167 2dly, was mortified ; — 3dly, knew - - 168 4thly, interrogated less - - - - 169 The Casuists wrote for their Time - - - 171 The Dangers of the young Confessor - - 172 How he strengthens his tottering Position - 173 CONTENTS. VU CHAPTER III. PAGE Confession - - - - - -174 The Confessor and the Husband . - - - 176 How they detach the Wife - - - 178 The Director. Directors in Concert - 180 Ecclesiastical Policy - - 181 CHAPTER IV. Habit 183 Power of Habit - - - - 184 Its insensible Beginning ; its Progress 185 Second Nature ; often fatal - - - - 187 A Man taking advantage of this Power - - 188 Can we get clear of it ? - . - 189 CHAPTER V. On Convents - - - - - - 192 Omnipotence of the Director - - - - 194 Condition of the Nuns, forlorn and wretched 197 Convents that are Bridewells and Bedlams - 199 Captation .... 201 Barbarous Discipline ; Struggle between the Superior Nun and the Director ; Change of Directors 202 The Magistrate - - - - 205 CHAPTER VI. Absorption of the Will ... - 206 Government of Acts, Thoughts, and Wills 207 Assimilation of the Soul ... 209 Transhumanation - - - - - 210 To become the God of another - - 211 Pride and Desire - ... 214 A 4 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. PAGE Desire. Terrors of the other World . - - 216 The Physician and his Patient - - - -217 Alternatives; Postponements - - - 218 Effects of Fear in Love. To be all-powerful and abstain 220 Struggles between the Spirit £tnd the Flesh - 222 Moral Death more potent than physical Life - 224 It will not revive - - - 224 PART in. CHAPTER I. Schism in Families ..... 226 The Daughter ; by whom educated - . 228 Importance of Education .... 230 The Importance of the first Instructor - - 231 Influence of Priests upon Marriage ... 232 Which they retain after that Ceremony ... 232 CHAPTER II. Woman - .... 234 The Husband does not associate with his Wife - 233 He seldom knows how to initiate her into his Thoughts 236 What mutual Initiation would be ... 237 The Wife consoles herself with her Son ... 238 He is taken from her ; her Loneliness and ennui - 239 A pious young Man ..... 242 The spiritual and the worldly Man - - 243 Who is now the mortified Man ? - - - - 243 CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER III. PAGE The Mother. Alone for a long Time, she can bring up her Child ... ... 245 Intellectual Nourishment - - - 246 Gestation, Incubation, Education ... 247 The Child guarantees the Mother, and she the Child - 249 She protects his Originality, which public Education must limit ...... 250 The Father even limits it, the Mother defends it - 251 Her Weakness ; she wishes her Son to be a Hero 254 Her heroic Disinterestedness .... 255 CHAPTER IV. Love .... - - 256 Love wishes to raise and not absorb ... 257 False Theory of our Adversaries ; dangerous Practice 258 Love wishes to form an Equal who may love freely - 260 Love in the World, in the civil World - - 262 And in Families, not understood by the Middle Ages - 263 Family Religion .-..-- 264 ONE WORD TO THE PRIESTS. We do not attack Priests, but their unhappy and dan- gerous Position - - - - 264 Not Rome but France is the Pope ... 266 Our Sympathy for Priests, Victims of the Laws 267 Priests and Soldiers .... - 268 Priest means old Man ----- 269 A 5 PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR. This powerful work, written by one of the first historians of the age, and now creating so extra- ordinary a sensation in France, where, in spite of the yells of fanaticism, and the thunders of the pulpit, it has passed triumphantly through three editions in less than as many months, distributing its fifty thousand coj)ies into every corner of the kingdom, cannot fail to be a source of interest* and edification to the greater part of my fellow-country- men. Without presuming to offer any gratuitous and * It may not be superfluous to inform the English reader, that this is also the opinion of the talented author himself, who, in an obliging letter to the translator (April 18. 1845), expresses himself as follows : — " Cette traduction, au reste, ne serait pas sans interet a Londres, au moment oii le jesuitisme travaille si foUement I'Angleterre. Rien de plus etrange que leurs esperanoes chimeriques de sa conversion proohaine," &c. — I take this opportunity of publicly thanking Mr. Michelet, for his extreme kindness in forwarding me early copies of the third edition of this work, by means of which I have been enabled the sooner to complete my translation. — Transl. a6 xii translator's preface. uncalled-for observations of my own respecting the nature and merits of this remarkable production, but confining myself strictly to the duty of a translator, I merely beg permission to state, that as, in works of this description, every sentence, nay, every word, is liable to be quoted and argued upon, I have thought it expedient to follow my author as closely as possible, and to attempt to give not only his real sentiments, but, as far as our idiom allowed me, his own peculiar style and expression; so that the English reader may still have, as it were, his French author before him, changed in nothing save his costume. I may also add, that my translation has been pur- posely delayed, in order to have the advantage of containing the preface to the third edition, in which it was easy to foresee that the author would reply to the virulent attacks that have been made against both his book and himself, by the dark swarm whom he had molested, in his generous efforts to tear away the foul mask with which superstition and hypocrisy had disguised the glorious face of religion, and to show her, in all her effulgent purity, to the ad- miration of the world. c. c. Bordeaux, April 1. 1845. XUl PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. This book has produced upon our adversaries an effect we had not anticipated. It has made them lose every sense of propriety and self-respect — nay, more, even that respect for the sanctuary which it was their duty to teach us. From the pulpits of their crowded churches they preach against a living man, calling him by his name, and invoking upon the author and his book the hatred of those who know not how to read, and who will never read this work. The heads of the clergy must, indeed, have felt themselves touched to the quick, to let loose these furious preachers upon us. We have hit the mark too fairly, it should seem. Woman! — this was the point on which they were sensitive. Direction, the spiritual guidance of women, is the vital part of ecclesiastical authority; and they wiU fight for it to the death. Strike, if you will, elsewhere, but not here. Attack the dogma — all well and good ; they may perhaps make XIV PREFACE TO THE a show of violence*, or perpetrate some empty de- clamation ; but if you should happen to meddle with this particular point, the thing becomes serious, and they no longer contain themselves. It is a sad sight to see pontiffs, elders of the people, gesticulating, stamping, foaming at the mouth, and gnashing their teeth. t Young men, do not look; epileptic con- " They will not even take this trouble. A young eclectic, for instance, who declares himself averse to all revealed religions, and can hardly tolerate them provisionally, but who happens at the same time to attack an adversary of the clergy, is caressed and embraced by them. f This will not appear exaggerated to those who have read the furious libel of the Bishop of Chartres. A newspaper asks me why I did not prosecute him for defamation. This mad violence is much less guilty than the treacherous insinuations they make in their books and newspapers, in the saloons, &c. Now they attribute to me whatever has been done by other Michelets, to whom I am not even related (for instance, Michelet of Languedoc, a poet and soldier under the Restor- ation) ; now they pretend to believe, though I had told them the contrary at the end of my preface, that this book is my lecture of 1844. Then, again, they get up a little petition from Marseilles, to pray for the dismissal of the professor. So far from wishing to stifle the voice of my adversaries, I have claimed for their writings the same liberty I asked for my own. Lesson of thelTth of Fehruary, 1845: — "I see among you the greater part of those who had aided me to maintain in this chair the liberty of discussion. "We will respect this liberty in our adversaries. This is not chivalry, it is simply our duty. It is, moreover, essential to the cause of truth, that no objection be suppressed ; but that each party may be at liberty to state their reasons. You may be sure, that truth will prevail and conquer. We pass away ; but truth lasts, and triumphs. Yet, as long as her adversaries may have any thing to say, her triumph is mingled with doubt." THIED EDITION. XV vulsions have occasionally a contagious effect upon the spectators. Let us leave them, and depart ; we must resume our studies without loss of time : " art is long, life is short." I remember having read in the correspondence of Saint Charles Borromeo, that one of his friends, a person of authority and importance, having censured some Jesuit or other who was too fond of confessing nuns, the latter came in a fury to insult him. The Jesuit knew his strength : being a preacher then in vogue, well off at court, and still better at the court of Home, he thought he need not stand upon ceremony. He went to the greatest extremes, was violent, insolent, as much as he pleased ; his grave censor remained cool. The Jesuit could no longer keep within the bounds of decency, and made use of the vilest expressions. The other, calm and firm, answered nothing ; he let him continue his de- clamation, threats, and violent gestures ; he only looked at his feet. " Why were you always looking at his feet ? " inquired an eye-witness, as soon as the Jesuit was gone. " Because," replied the noble man calmly, " I fancied I saw the cloven hoof peep- ing out every now and then ; and this man, who seemed possessed with a devil, might be the tempter himself, disguised as a Jesuit." One prelate predicts in sorrow that we are sending the priests to martyrdom. Alas ! this martyrdom is what they themselves XVI PREFACE TO THE demand, either aloud or in secret, namely — mar- riage. We think, without enumerating the too well- known inconveniences of their present state, that if the priest is to advise the family, it is good for him to know what a family is ; that as a married man (or a widower, which would be still better), of a mature age and experience, one who has loved and suffered, and whom domestic affections have enlightened upon the mysteries of moral life, which are not to be learned by guessing, he would possess at the same time more affection, and more wisdom. It is true the defenders of the clergy have lately drawn such a picture of marriage, that many persons perhaps wiU henceforth dread the engagement. They have far exceeded the very worst things that novelists and modem socialists have ever said against the legal union. Marriage, which lovers imprudently seek as a confirmation of love, is, according to them, but a warfare: we marry in order to fight. It is impossible to degrade lower the virtue of matrimony. The sacrament of union, according to these doctors, is useless, and can do nothing unless a third party be always present between the partners — i, e. the com- batants — to separate them. It had been generally believed that two persons were sufficient for matrimony: but this is all altered; and we have the new system, as set forth by themselves, composed of three elements: 1st, man, THIRD EDITION. XVll the strong, the violent ; 2dly, woman, a being na- turally Aveak; 3dly, the priest, born a man, and strong, but who is kind enough to become weak- and resemble woman ; and who, participating thus in both natures, may interpose between them. Interpose ! interfere between two persons who were to be henceforth but one ! This changes won- derfully the idea which, from the beginning of the world, has been entertained of marriage. But this is not all; they avow that they do not pretend to make an impartial interference that might favour each of the parties, according to reason. No, they address themselves exclusively to the wife : she it is whom they undertake to protect against her natural protector. They oifer to league with her in order to transform the husband. If it was once firmly established that marriage, instead of being unity in two persons, is a league of one of them with a stranger, it would become exceedingly scarce. Two to one ! the game would seem too desperate ; few people would be bold enough to face the peril. There would be no marriages but for money ; and these are already too numerous. People in difficulties would doubtless not fail to marry; for instance, a merchant placed by his pitiless creditor between marriage and a warrant. To be transformed, re-made, remodelled, and changed in nature ! A grand and difficult change ! But there would be no merit in it, if it was not of XVIU PREFACE TO THE one's free will, and only brought about by a sort of domestic persecution, or household warfare. First of all, we must know whether transformation means amelioration, whether it be intended by trans- formation to ascend higher and higher in moral life, and become more virtuous and wise. To ascend would be well and good ; but if it should be to fall lower ? And first of all, the wisdom they offer us does not imply knowledge. " What is the use of knowledge and literature ? They are mere toys of luxury, vain and dangerous ornaments of the mind, both strangers to the soul." Let us not contest the matter, but pass over this empty distinction that opposes the mind to the soul, as if ignorance was innocence, and as if they could have the gifts of the soul and heart with a poor, insipid, idiotic literature ! But where is their heart ? Let us catch a glimpse of it. How is it that those who undertake to develope it in others dispense with giving any proof of it in themselves ? But this living fountain of the heart is impossible to be hidden, if we really have it within us. It springs out in spite of every thing ; if you were to stop it on one side, it would run out by the other. It is more difficult to be confined than the flowing of great rivers : — try to shut up the sources of the Rhone or Bhine ! These are vain metaphors, and very ill-placed, I allow : to what deserts of Arabia must I not resort to find more suitable ones. THIRD EDITION. XIX We are in a church : see the crowd, the dense mass of people who, after having wandered far, enter here weary and athirst, hoping to find some refresh- ment; they wait with open mouths. "Will there even be one small drop of dew ? No ; a decent, proper, blunt-looking man ascends the pulpit : he will not affect them ; he confines him- self to proofs. He makes a grand display of reason- ing, with high logical pretensions and much solemnity in his premises. Then come sudden, sharp con- clusions ; but for middle term there is none : " These things require no proof." Why, then, miserable rea- soner, did you make so much noise about your proofs ? Weil ! do not prove ! only love ! and we wiU let you off every thing else. Say only one word from the heart to comfort this crowd. All that variegated mass of living heads that you see so closely as- sembled around your jDulpit are not blocks of stone, but so many living souls. Those yonder are young men, the rising generation, our future society. They are of happy dispositions, full of spirit, fresh, and entire, such as God made them, and untamed ; they rush forward incautiously even to the very brink of precipices. What ! youth, danger, futurity, and hopes clouded with fear — does not all this move you ? Will nothing open your fatherly heart ? Mark, too, that brilliant crowd of women and flowers : in all that splendour so delightful to the eye there is mvich suffering. I pray you to speak one XX PRErACE TO THE word of comfort to them. You know they are your daughters, who come every evening so forlorn to weep at your feet. They confide in you, and tell you every thing ; you know their wounds. Try to find some consoling word — surely that cannot be so difficult. What man is there who, in seeing the heart of a woman bleeding before him, would not feel his own heart inspired with words to heal it? A dumb man, for want of words, would find what is worth more, — -a flood of tears ! What shall we say of those who, in presence of so many desponding, sickly, and confiding per- sons, give them, as their only remedy, the spirit of an academy, glittering common-places, old • para- doxes, Bonaparteism, socialism, and what not? There is in all this, we must confess, a sad dryness, and a great want of feelinw. Ah ! you are dry and harsh ! I felt this the other day (it was in December last), when I read on the walls, as I was passing by, an order from the arch- bishop. It was a case of suicide ; a poor wretch had killed himself in the church of Saint Gervais. Was it misery, passion, madness, spleen, or moral weak- ness in this melancholy season ? No cause was men- tioned ; the body alone was there, with the blood on the marble slabs ; but no explanation. By what gradation of griefs, disappointments, and anguish had be been induced to commit this unnatural act ? What steps of moral purgatory had he descended THIRD EDITION. XXI before lie reached tlie bottom of the abyss ? Who could say ? No one. But any man with a gleam of imagination in his heart sees in this solemn mys- tery something to make him weep and pray. That man is not Mr. AfFre : read the mandate. There is compassion for the blood-stained church, and pity for the polluted stones; but for the dead only a ma- lediction. But, whether a Christian or not, guilty or not, is he not still a man, my lord bishop ? Could you not, whilst you were condemning suicide, let fall one word of pity by the way? No, no sentiment of humanity, nothing for the poor soul, which, besides its misfortune, (which must have been terrible, indeed, since it could not support it,) departs all alone and accursed, to attempt that perilous flight of the other life and judgment. — Ah ! I hope that so much misery, and even this harshness * after death, will balance something of his account ! Another very different fact had given me some time before a simi- lar impression. I had gone on business to the house of the vene- rable Sister * * *, -who is so adored by the poor. She was absent ; and two persons, a lady and * This harshness was particularly conspicuous in the conduct of the archbishop towards the ecclesiastical library of Paris, which prints for all France. Mr. Affre's predecessors had never wished to put in force the strictum jus, the monopoly which a law seems to confer upon the bishops, against these pious and ancient establishments. They had feared they might be suspected of finding an enormous profit in it. XXU PEEFACE TO THE an aged priest, were waiting, like myself, in tlie small parlour. The lady seemed actuated by some motive of beneficence : the priest, as they are lords and masters in every house of charity, seemed to be quite at home, and to beguile the time, was writing letters at the sister's bureau. At the conclusion of every note, he listened to the lady for a moment. The latter, whose gentle face bore traces of grief, impressed one at once with the goodness of her dis- position : perhaps she would not have attracted my attention, but there was something in her that in- terested me. Was it passion or grief? I overheard without listening — she had lost her son. An only son, fuU of affection, spirits, and courage ; a young hero, who, leaving the polytechnic school, had abandoned every thing, riches, high life, pleasure, happiness, and such a mother ! And regardless alike of safety and danger, had rushed to Marseilles, thence to Algiers, to the enemy, and to death. The poor woman, wholly occupied with this idea, snatched, from time to time, a little moment to put in a word ; she wanted to speak to him, and appeal to his compassion. The scene was infinitely touch- ing and natural, without any theatrical effect. Her moderate grief and sighs, without tears, affected me the more. She was evidently wasting her breath. The thoughts of the priest were elsewhere. It was not possible for him not to listen : he was forced to say something or THIRD EDITION. XXlll other (the lady was rich, and her carriage was waiting at the door) ; but he got off as cheap as he could : " Yes, Madam, Providence tries us. It strikes us for our good. These are very painful trials,'' &c. &c. Such vague and cold words did not discourage the lady; she drew her chair nearer, thinking he would hear her better : " Ah ! Sir, how shall I tell you ? Ah ! how can you understand so heavy a calamity ? " She would have made a dead man weep. Did you ever see the heart-rending sight of the poor pointer, that has been wounded by a shot, writhing at his master's feet, and licking his hands, as if praying to him to help him ? The comparison will appear, perhaps, strange to those who have not seen the reality. However, at that moment, I felt it in my heart. That woman, mortally wounded, yet so gentle in her grief, seemed to be writhing at the feet of the priest, and to entreat his compassion. I looked at that priest : he was vulgar and un- feeling, such as we see so often, neither wicked nor good ; there was nothing to indicate a heart of iron, but he was as if made of wood. I saw plainly that not one word of all which his ear had received had entered his soul. One sense was wanting. But why torment a blind man by speaking to him of colours ? He answers vaguely; occasionally he may guess pretty nearly ; but how can it be helped ? he cannot see. XXIV PKEFACE TO THE And do not think that the feelings of the heart can be guessed at more easily. A man without wife or child might study the mysterious working of a family in books and the world, for ten thousand years, without ever knowing one word about them. Look at these men ; it is neither time, opportunity, nor facUity that they lack to acquire knowledge ; they pass their lives with women who tell them more than they tell their husbands; they know, and yet they are ignorant ; they know all a woman's acts and thoughts, but they are ignorant precisely of what is the best and most intimate part of her character, and the very essence of her being. They hardly understand her as a lover (of God or man), still less as a wife, and not at all as a mother. Nothing is more painful than to see them sitting down awkwardly by the side of a woman to caress her child ; their manner towards it is that of flat- terers or courtiers — any thing but that of a father. What I pity the most in the man condemned to celibacy, is not only the privation of the sweetest joys of the heart, but that a thousand objects of the natural and moral world are, and ever wiU be, a dead letter to him. Many have thought, by living apart, to dedicate their lives to science ; but the reverse is the case: in such a morose and crippled life science is never fathomed ; it may be varied and superficially immense ; but it escapes, for it will not reside there. Celibacy gives a restless activity to THIED EDITION. XXV researches, intrigues, and business, a sort of hunts- man's eagerness, a sharpness in the subtilties of school-divinity and disputation : this Is at least the effect it had in its prime. If It makes the senses keen and liable to temptation, certainly it does not soften the heart. * Our terrorists in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were monks, f Monastic prisons were always the most cruel. | A life syste- matically negative, a life without its functions, de- velopes in man instincts that are hostile to life ; he who suflPers, is willing to make others suifer. The harmonious and fertile parts of our nature, which on the one hand incline to goodness, and on the other to genius and high invention, can hardly ever withstand this partial suicide. Two classes of persons necessarily contract much insensibility — surgeons and priests. By constantly witnessing suiferings and death, we become by degrees dead in our sympathetic faculties. Let us, however, remark this difference, that the insensibility of the surgeon is not without its utility : if he was affected by his operation, he might tremble. The business of * The ', heart may be unfeeling, though the senses be very keen. It would be useless to try to find here a contradiction to the dangers I have pointed out in this book ; it would only seem to be so. t For the fifteenth century, see, especially, my History of France, a. d. 1413. J Mabillon, on Monastic Imprisonment, posthumous "works, vol. ii. p. 327. a XXVI PREFACE TO THE the priest, on the contrary, requires tliat he should be affected ; sympathy would be generally the most efficacious remedy to cure the soul. But inde- pendently of what we have just said about the natural harshness of this profitless life, we must observe, that the priest, in contradiction with a society, the whole of whose progress he condemns, becomes less and less benevolent for the sinner and the rebel. The physician who does not like his patient, is less likely than another to cure him. It is a sad reflection to think that these men who have so little sympathy, and who are, moreover, soured by contention, should happen to have in then- hands the most gentle portion of mankind; that which has preserved the most affection, and ever re- mained the most faithful to nature, and which, in the very corruption of morals, is still the least corrupted by interest and hateful passions. That is to say, that the least loving govern those who love the most. In order to know well what use they make of this empire over women, which they claim as their own privilege, we must not confine ourselves to their flattering and wheedling ways with fashionable ladies, but inquire of the poor women whom they treat unceremoniously, those, especially, who, being in convents, are at the mercy of the ecclesiastical su- periors, and whom they keep under lock and key, and undertake to protect alone. THIRD EDITION. XXYH "We are not quite satisfied with this protection. For a long time we thought all was right ; we were even simple enough to say to ourselves that the law could see nothing amiss in this kingdom of grace. But hark ! from those gentle asylums, those images of paradise, we hear sobs and sighs. I shall not speak here of the convents that have become real houses of correction, nor of the events at Sens, Avignon, and Poictiers, nor of the suicides that have taken place, alas ! much nearer home. No, I shall speak only of the most honourable houses and the most holy nuns. How are they pro- tected by ecclesiastical authority ? First, as to the soul, or conscience, that dearest possession, on account of which they sacrifice all the pleasures of this world ; is it true that the sisters of the hospitals who passed for Jansenists have been latterly persecuted, to make them denounce their supposed secret directors; and that they have ob- tained a truce only through the threatening mediation of a magistrate, who is a celebrated orator and a firm Galilean ? Again, as to the body, or personal liberty, which the slave gains as soon as ever he does but touch the sacred soil of France — does ecclesiastical authority secure this to the nuns ? Is it true that a Carmelite nun, within sixty leagues of Paris, was kept chained for several months in her convent, and afterwards shut up for nine years in a madhouse f ■^ 2 XXVIU PREFACE TO THE Is it true that a Benedictine nun was put into a sort of in pace, and afterwards into a room full of mad women, where nothing was heard but the horrible cries, bowlings, and impure language of ruined women, who, from one excess to another, have become raving mad ? * This woman, whose only crime was good sense and a taste for writing and drawing flowers, served her establishment a long time as housekeeper and governess: she had taught most of the sisters to read. What does she ask for? The punishment of her enemies? No; only the consolation of con- fessing, and taking the sacrament ; spiritual food for her old age. People may say, " Perhaps the bishop did not know ? " The bishop knew all ; "he was much moved " — but he did nothing. The chaplain of the house knew they were going to put a nun in pace. " He sighed" — but did nothing. The Vicaire-general did not sigh, but sided with the party against the nun ; his ultima- * We should, perhaps, have reserved these facts for some future occasion, if they had not been already divulged by the newspapers and reviews. Besides, several magistrates have expressed their opinions on many analogous facts in the same locality. A solicitor-general writes to the underprefect : — '■' I have reason to be as convinced as you, that Madame * * * was in full possession of her senses. A longer imprison- ment would most certainly have made her really mad, &c." — A letter from the Solicitor- General Sorbier, quoted by Mr. Tilliaid,,in favour of Marie Lemonnier, p. 65. THIRD EDITION. XXIX turn was that she should die of hunger, or return tO her dungeon. Who showed himself the real bishop in this busi- ness? — The magistrate. Who was the real priest? The advocate, a studious young man, whom science had withdrawn from the bar, but who, seeing this unfortunate woman devoid of all succour, for whom no one durst either print or plead (under the ridicu- lous system of terror), took up the affair, spoke, wrote, and acted; taking every necessary step;, making journeys in the depth of winter, and sacri- ficing both his money and Ms time — six months of his life. May God pay him back with interest ! Which is the good Samaritan in this case ? Who proved himself the neighbour of the wretched woman ? Who picked up the bleeding victim from the road, before whom the Pharisees had passed? Who is the real priest, the true father ? A witty writer of the day uses the term my fathers, in speaking of the magistrates who interpose in the affairs of the Church. He speaks deridingly, but they deserve the name.* Who bestows it upon * And they have long deserved it. This subject would form a full and instructive history. It is now sufficient to state, that, in 1629, a decree, provoked by the attorney-general, forbad the monks to inflict perpetual imprisonment, the in pace., &c., upon their fellows. These cruelties were continued; and towards the end of the century the good and learned Mabillon wrote (for himself alone, and the consolation of his own heart it would seem,) the little treatise of Monastic Imprisonment, a 3 XXX PEEP ACE TO THE them ? Tlie afflicted who are the members of Christ, and who, as such, are also the Church, I should think. Yes, they call them fathers on account of their paternal equity. Their helpful interposition had too long been repelled from the threshold of the convents by these, crafty words: "What are you going to do? Should you enter here, you would dis- turb the peace of these quiet asylums, and startle these timid virgins ! " Why ! they themselves call for our assistance : we hear their shrieks from the streets ! All of us laymen, of whatever denomination, whether magistrates, politicians, authors, or solitary whicli did not appear till after his death. I read there,' that in 1350 the parliament (of Toulouse), famous for its severity^ was obliged to repress the cruelty of the monks : — " The king abhorred this inhumanity, and ordered that the superiors should visit these wretched (^prisoners) twice a month, and should give to other friars, at their choice, permission to go twice a week to see them, that is to say, that they should see them at least once a week. He sent letters patent, and in spite of the efforts made by the begging friars to get this ordinance revoked, it was enforced : — ' His Majesty and his council judged it to be a barbarous thing to deprive of every con- solation these poor miserable beings, bowed down by grief and sufferings.' (Registers of the Parliament of Languedoc, the year 1350.) Certainly, it is very strange that religious men, who ought to be models of gentleness and compassion, should be obliged to learn from secular princes and magistrates how to practise towards their brethren the first principles of hu- manity." MabUlon, On Monastic Imprisonment, posthumous work, vol. ii. pp. 323—326. THIRD EDITION. XXXl thinkers, ought to take up the cause of women more seriously than we have hitherto done. "We cannot leave them where thejt now are, in hands so harsh and unfeeling, and which are, more- over, unsafe in more than one respect. Nothing can be more important or more worthy of uniting us together. Let us, I pray you, come to an understanding about it ; it is the most holy of all causes : let there be then a cessation from religious strife. We can recommence our disputes afterwards as much as we please. And, first, let us frankly confess the truth to one a.nother. The evil when confessed and known has a better chance of being remedied. Whom ought we to accuse iu the present state of things ? Let us not accuse the Jesuits, who carry on their Jesuitical trade, nor the priests, who are dangerous, restless, and violent, only because they are unhappy. No, we ought rather to accuse ourselves. If dead men return in broad day-light, if these Gothic phantoms haunt our streets at noon-day, it is because the living have let the spirit of life grow weak within them. How is it that these men re- appear among us, after having been buried by history with aU funereal rites, and laid by the side of other ancient orders ? The very sight of them is a solemn token, and a serious warning. This has been allowed to take place, O ye men of a 4 XXXU PREFACE TO THE the present day, to bring you to your senses, and to remind you of what you ought to he. If the future that is within you were revealed in its full light, who would turn his eyes towards the departing shadows of darkness and night ? It is for you to find, and for you to make, the future. This is not a thing that you must expect to find ready made. If the future is already in you as a bud, transmitted from the most distant ages, let it grow there as the desire tor progress and amelioration, a paternal wish for the happiness of those who are to follow you. Love in anticipation your unknown son, for he wiU be bom. Men call him " the time to come," and they work for him. The day when feUow-mortals will perceive in you the man of the future and a magnanimous mind, families will be rallied. "Woman will follow you every where, if she can say to herself, " I am the wife of a strong man." Modern strength appears in the powerful liberty with which you go on disengaging the reality from the forms, and the spirit from the dead letter.* But why do you not reveal yourself to the companion of your life, in that which is for you your life itself? She passes away days and years by your side, with- out seeing or knowing the grandeur that is within you. If she saw you walk fr-ee, strong, and pros- * Whether it be in the highest sciences, or in minor details of business. THIRD EDITiOK. XXXIU perous in action and in science, she would not remain chained down to material idolatry, and bound to the sterile letter; she would rise to a faith far more free and pure, and you would be as one in faith. She would preserve for you this common treasure of religious life, where you might seek for comfort when your mind is languid ; and when your various toUs, studies, and business have weakened liie vital unity within you, she would bring back your thoughts and life to God, the true, the only unity. I shall not attempt to crowd a large volume into a small preface.* I shall only add one word, which, at once, expresses and completes my thought. Man ought to nourish woman. He ought to feed spiritually (and materially if he can) her who nourishes him with her love, her milk, and her very life. * How many things which crowded upon my mind, whilst writing this Tolume, have I been obliged to 6mit! I will mention the intimate connection of the three questions, edu- cation, direction, and penitentiary reform; which are three branches of the same science. Every study upon direction, casts a light upon education : experiments in this are, perhaps, more instructive than those made upon children, being made upon a person no longer in a dreamy state (as children are), but awake, in a lucid state, and with the fviU [development of the intelligence, and who, moreover, wishes seriously to obey. In spite of the clouds of mysticism, which diminish its brilliancy, the science of education will derive a great advantage from the experiments of direction, written with so much care by luminous minds, who could both see and analyse. a 5 XXXIV. PREFACE TO THB Our adversaries give women bad food; but we- give them none at all. To the women of the richer class, those who seem to. be so gently protected by their family, those briUiant ones whom people suppose 80 happy, to these we give no spiritual food. And to the women of the poorer class, solitary, industrious, and destitute, who try hard to gain their bread, we do not even give our assistance to help them to find their material food. These women, who are or will be mothers, are left by tis to fast (either in soul or in body), and we are punished especially by the generation that issues from them, for our neglecting to give them the staff of life. I like to believe that good-will, generally, is not wanting — only time and attention. People live in a hurry, and can hardly be said to live : they follow with a huntsman's eagerness this or that petty object, and neglect what is important. You, man of business or study, who are so ener- getic and indefatigable, you have no time, say you, to associate your wife with your daily progress ; you leave her to her ennui, idle conversations, empty sermons, and silly books ; so that, falling below her- self, less than woman, even less than a child, she will have neither moral action, influence, or maternal authority, over her own offspring. Well ! you will have the time, as old age advances, to try in vain to 'THIRD EDITION. XXXV do all over again what is not done twice, to follow in the steps of a son, who, from college to the schools, and from thence into the world, hardly knows his family ; and who, if he travels a little, and meets you on his return, will ask you your name. The mother alone could have made you a son ; but to do so you ought to have made her what a woman ought to be, strengthened her with your sentiments and ideas, and nourished her with your life. If I look beyond the family and domestic affections, I find our negligence towards women resembles hard- heartedness ; the cruel effects which result from it re- coil upon ourselves. You think yourself good and kind-hearted; you are not insensible to the fate of poor women ; an old one reminds you of your mother, a young one of your daughter. But you have not the time either to see or know, that the old one and the young one are both literally dying with hunger. Two machines are constantly working to extermi- nate them : — the convent, that immense workshop^ that wdrks for little or nothing, not relying on its labour for subsistence. Then the large shop, with sleeping partners, that buys of the convent*, and destroys by degrees the smaller shops which employed the workwomen. The latter has but * This is the fatal progress of things. We can accuse no one; but from the. evil itself, we hope, will come the remedy. a 6 5XXV1 PBEFACB TO THE two chances left — the Seine, or to find at night some heartless wretch who takes advantage of hef hunger. Men receive about as much as women from public charity : this is unjust. They have infinitely more resources. They are stronger, have a greater variety of work, more initiative, a more active impulse, more locomotion, if I may so express myself, to go and hunt out work. They travel, emigrate, and find en- gagements. Not to mention countries where manual labour is very dear, I know of provinces in France^ where it \$_ very difficult to find either journeymen or man-servants. Man can wander to and fro. Woman remains at home anddies. Let this workwoman, whom the opposition of the convent has crushed, crawl to the gate of the convent — can she find an asylum there? She would want, in default of dowry, the active protection of an influ- ential priest, a protection reserved for devout persons, such as have had the time to follow the " Mois de Marie*, the Catechisms of perseverance, &c. &c., and who have been, for a long time past, under eccle- siastical authority. This protection is often very dearly purchased ; and for. what? to get permission to pass one's life shut up within walls, to be obliged to counterfeit a devotion one has not ! Death cannot be worse. They die then, quietly, decently, and alone. They * Prayers to tlie Yirgin m the month of Mav. — Tbansl. THIKD EDITION. XXXVU Will never be seen coming down from their garrets into the street to walk about, with the motto, " To live working, or die fighting. ^^ They will make no distur- bances ; we have nothing to fear from them. It is for this very reason, that we are the more bound to assist them. Shall we then feel our hearts affected only for those of whom we are afraid ? Men of money, if I must speak to you in your own money language, I will tell you, that as soon as we shall have an economical government, it wUl not hesitate to lay out its money for women, to help them to maintain themselves by their Industry.* * Those who are not friendly to the poor tax in general, and who woiild not like the state to become a manufactory, would perhaps approve of temporary workshops open to poor females, who, otherwise, are condemned to prostitution. This very year, 1845, one of our hospitals received two young girls, half dead with hunger, who had persisted in not having recourse to this horrible resource. The asylums of which I speak might find a model in the beguinages of Flanders, an old establishment, but unfortunately little known. I have spoken of them in my History of France. The view of the charming beguinage of Ghent, that beautiful village in the midst of the town, diversified with neat cottages and gardens, is one of the sweetest recollections of my travels. These beguines go out once a week to carry home the work. They often get well married, and sometimes are preferred to others. Might we not imitate these asylums, by placing them under the superintendence of our magistrates, and keeping them free from ecclesiastical authority ? I put this question to practical men of feeling, especially to that very zealous and enlightened body, the municipal council of the city of Paris. Mi. Faucher's " Studies on England" give some curious information, and new views upon different attempts of this kind. XXXviii PftEFACE TO THE Not only do these sickly women crowd our hospi- tals, and leave them only to return, but the offspring of these poor exhausted creatures, if they do not die in the Foundling, will be, like their mothers, the ha- bitual inmates of those hospitals. A miserably poor woman is a whole family of sick persons in per- spective. Whether we be philosophers, physiologists, political economists, or statesmen, we all know that the ex- cellency of the race, the strength of the people, come especially from the woman. Does not the nine months' support of the mother establish this? Strong mothers have strong children. We all are, and ever shall be, the debtors of women. They are mothers ; this says every thing. He who would bargain about the work of those, who are the joy of the present, and the destiny of the future, must needs have been born in misery and damnation. Their manual labour is a very secondary consideration; that is especially our part. What do they make? — Man: this is a superior work. To be loved, to bring forth both physically and morally, to educate man (our barbarous age does not quite understand this yet), this is the business of woman. " Fons omnium viventiumt" What can ever be added to this sublime saying ? Whilst writing all this, I have had in my mind a. woman, whose strong and serious mind would not have failed to support me in these contentions : I lost THIRD EDITIOK. XXXlX her thirty years ago (I was a child then); never- theless, ever living in my memory, she follows me from age to age. She suffered with me in my poverty, and was not allowed to share my better fortune. When young, I made her sad, and now I cannot console her. I know not even where her bones are : I was too poor then to buy earth to bury her ! And yet I owe her much. I feel deeply that I am the son of woman. Every instant, in my ideas and Vords (not to mention my features and gestures), I find again my mother in myself. It is my mother's blood which gives me the sympathy I feel for by- gone ages, and the tender remembrance of all those who are now no more. What return then could I, who am myself ad- vancing towards old age, make her for the many things I owe her ? One, for which she would have thanked me — this protest in favour of women and mothers : and I place it at the head of a book be- lieved by some to be a work of controversy. They are wrong. The longer it lives, if it should live, the plainer will it be seen, that, in spite of polemical emotion, it was a work of history, a work of faith, of truth, and of sincerity : — on what, then, could I have set my heart more ? Easter, 1845. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITIOIf. The question is about our family : — that sacred asylum in which we all desire to seek the repose of the heart, when our endeavours have proved fruitless, and our illusions are no more. We return exhausted to the domestic hearth ; but do we find there the repose we sigh for ? Let us not dissemble, but acknowledge to ourselves how things are : there is in our family a sad differ- ence of sentiment, and the most serious of all. We may speak to our mothers, wives, and daugh- ters on any of the subjects, which form the topics of our conversation with indifferent persons, such as business or the news of the day, but never on sub- jects that affect the heart and moral life, such as eternity, religion, the soul, and God. Choose, for instance, the moment when we na- turally feel disposed to meditate with our family in common thought, some quiet evening at the family- table ; venture even there, in your own house, at your own fire-side, to say one word about these things ; your mother sadly shakes her head, your wife contradicts you, your daughter, by her very xlii PREFACE TO THE silence, shows her disapprobation. They are on one side of the table, and you on the other — and alone. One would think that in the midst of them, and opposite you, was seated an invisible personage to contradict whatever you may say. But how can we. be astonished at this state of our family ? Our wives and daughters are brought up and governed by our enemies ! This expression gives me pain for many reasons (which I shall mention at the end of the volume) ; but I have not passed my life in the search of truth, to sacrifice it now to my private feelings. Yes, enemies of modern mind, of liberty, and the future. It is of no use to allege that this preacher, or that sermon, is democratical. Where there is one to raise his voice for liberty, there are fifty thousand to speak against it. Whom do they expect to de- ceive, by this clownish manoeuvre ? Our enemies, I repeat it, in a more direct sense, as they are naturally envious of marriage and family life. This, I know full well, is rather their mis- fortune than their fault. An old lifeless system, of mechanical functions, can want but lifeless partisans. Nature, however, reclaims her rights : they feel pain- fully that family is denied them, and they console themselves only by troubling ours. This system will be destroyed, by what has re- cently given it apparent strength, its unity, and the blind confidence which it has inspired. PIEST EDITION. xliii But is there moral unity? or real association of souls ? By no means. Every element of a dead body left to itself would naturally fall away ; but, never- theless, it is not impossible with an iron frame to bind up a dead body better than a living one ; make a compact mass of it, and launch it forth. This lifeless spirit, let us call it by its real name, Jesuitism, formerly neutralised by the different man- ners of living, of the orders, corporations, and religious parties, is now the common spirit which the clergy imbibes through a special education, and which its chiefs make no difficulty in confessing. A bishop has said, " We are Jesuits, all Jesuits ; " and no- body has contradicted him. The greater part, however, are less frank : Jesuit- ism acts powerfully through the medium of those who are supposed to be strangers to it ; namely, the Sulpicians, who educate the clergy, the Ignorantins, who instruct the people, and the Lazarists, who di- rect six thousand Sisters of Charity, and have in their hands the hospitals, schools, charity-offices, &c. So many establishments, so much money, so many pulpits for preaching aloud, so many confessionals for whispering, the education of two hundred thou- sand boys*, and six hundred thousand girls, the ma- * I shall not say a word in this volume, on the strange question that has been raised, whether they who have the daughters should have the sons also, whether they should add to their monstrous monopoly, whether France would trust her jcliv PREFACE TO THE nagement of several millions of women, form together a powerful machine. The unity it possesses in our days might, one would suppose, alarm the state. This is so far from being the case, that whilst the state prohibits association among the laity, it has en- couraged it among the ecclesiastics. It has allowed them to form a most dangerous footing among the poorer classes, the union of workmen, apprentice- houses, association of servants who are accountable to priests, &c. &c.' Unity of action, and the monopoly of association, are certainly two powerful levers. Well ! with all this, strange enough, the clergy is weak. This would be evident to-morrow, had it no longer the state to support it. It is manifest even as it is. Though armed with these weapons, and assisted by an active press that they have lately taken [into their service, working underhand in the saloons, the newspapers, and the chambers, they have not ad- vanced one step. Why do you not advance ? If you will leave off' shouting and gesticulating for a moment, I will tell you why. You are numerous and noisy, you are strong in a thousand material means, in money, credit, intrigue, and every worldly power ; you are weak only in God ! children to the subjects of a foreign prince? ... 1 trust to the good sense of the Chambers. FIKST EDITION. xlv Do not cry out here. Let us have reason Instead of noise : let us try, if you are men, to find out together what is religion. As spiritual men, you do not apparently make it consist entirely of material things, holy water and incense. God ought to be for you, as for us, the God of intelligence, truth, and charity. The God of Truth has revealed himself in the two last centuries more than he had done in the ten pre- ceding ones. By whom was this revelation accom- plished ? Not by you, but by those whom you call the laity, and who have been the priests of Truth. You cannot point to any one of the grand discoveries, or durable works which stand upon the road of science. The God of Charity, equity, and humanity, has permitted us to substitute a humane code for the cruel law of the middle ages. But you maintain its barbarity.* This exclusive right suppressed contra- diction only by killing the contradictor. Ours admits diiFerences : of divers tones it makes harmony ; it does not wish that our enemy should die, but that he should become our friend, and live. " Save the con- quered t " said Henry lY., after the battle of Ivri. — " Kill, all" said Pope Pius V. to the soldiers he sent into France J before St. Bartholomew. " Among other facts, see those quoted p. 126. ■j" Not only the French, but the Swiss. Discours veritable 1590 (Mem. de la Ligue, vol. iv. p. 246.). \ In 1569. He complained, says the panegyrist, of his general : xlvi PEEFACE TO THE Your principle is the old exclusive homicidal one that destroys whatever contradicts it. You speak much of charity ; it is not difficult to practise it, when care is taken, as with you, to exclude the enemy from it. Why is Grod, who has appeared in our days In the light of sciences, the mildness of manners, and equity of the laws, still unacknowledged by you ? It is there you are weak, because there you are impious ; you are wanting in one thing of all others, and that one thing is religion. That which constitutes the gravity of this age, I may even say its holiness, is conscientious work, which promotes attentively the common work of humanity, and facilitates at its own expense the work of the future. Our forefathers dreamed much, and disputed much. But we are labourers, and this is the reason why our furrow has been blessed. The soil which the middle ages left us still covered with brambles, has produced by our effijrts so plentiful a harvest, that it already envelopes, and will presently hide the old inanimate post that expected to stop the plough. And it is because we are workmen, and return home fatigued every evening, that we need more than — " Che non avesse il commendamento di lui osservato d' am- mazzar snbito qualunque heretico gli fosse venuto alle mani." Catena, Vita di Pio V., p. 85. (ed. de Kome), et p. 55. (ed. de Mantoue). FIRST EDITION. xlvii others the repose of the heart. Our board and fire- side must again become our own ; we must no longer find, instead of repose, at home, the old dispute which has been settled by science and the world, nor hear from our wife or child, on our pillow, a lesson learnt by heart, and the words of another man. Women follow willingly the strong. How comes it, then, that in this case they have followed the weak? It must be that there is an art which gives strength to the weak. This dark art, which consists in sur- prising, fascinating, lulling, and annihilating the will, has been investigated by me in this volume. The seventeenth century had the theory of it, and ours continues the practice. Usurpation does not make right. These persons are neither stronger nor better for their furtive usur- pation. The heart alone and reason give right to the strong over the weak, not indeed to weaken, but to strengthen them. The man of the present and future age will not give up woman to the influence of the man of the past. The direction * of the latter is, as I shall show, a marriage more powerful than the other ; a spiritual marriage. But he who has the mind has all. To marry a woman whose soul is in the possession * This word occurs often in the work, and means " spiritual guidance ; " it is deemed advisable to retain it, as an equivalent does not exist in the Enprlish language. — Tbansi.. xlviii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. of another (remember it, young man,) is to marry a divorce. Things cannot go on so. Marriage must become marriage again, and the husband must associate with his wife in the march of ideas and progress, more intimately than he has hitherto done, assisting her when weary, and helping her to advane at an equal pace. Man is not altogether innocent of what he suffers now, he must also blame himself. In this age of eager emulation and sharp research, impa- tient every day to advance towards the future, he has left woman behind. He has rushed forward, and she has drawn back. Let this no longer happen. Come, join hands. Do you not hear your infant cry ? . . . You were about to seek the past and the future by dif- ferent roads, but they are here : you will find them both in the cradle of this child. January 10. 1845. xllx DIVISION OF THE WORK. Mt course of lectures of 1844 will shortly appear, entitled " Rome and France." The subject of the present volume, mentioned in two or three of these lectures, could not be treated of in them, as the nature of the subject is too private. It presented a serious difficulty, that of speaking with propriety of a matter in which our adversaries have given proof of an incredible liberty. " Omnia munda mundis," I know very well. However, I often preferred letting them escape, when I had them in my power, to following them in the mire. First Part: on Direction in the Seventeenth Century, — I have taken my historical proofs from among the purest and best of my adversaries, not among those who are the most open to reproach. The seventeenth century could furnish me with written testimony : it is the only period that has not feared to expose in broad daylight the theory of direction. I could have multiplied my quotations ad infinitum. Those who have read the History of Louis XI. know how much I value truth in the most minute details. I have quoted but little, and have accurately and care- b 1 DIVISION OF THE WORK. fully verified it. The falsifiers whom, at every step in owe historical studies, we catch in the fact, are marvellously bold to speak of correctness. They may say at their ease, " They shall never make us bring forward, in opposition to theirs, names noted for their loyalty." Second Part : Direction in general, and especially in the Nineteenth Century. — A serious inquu-y into con- temporary facts has given me the second part for a result. I have seen, listened, and questioned; I have weighed testimonies, and compared them side by side with a great number of analogous facts, known to me for a long time past; and I have con- trolled, before that inward jury, my conscience, the whole of those more ancient facts, and this new in- quiry. Third Part: on Families. — I was far from pre- tending to treat this vast subject. I wanted only to point out what marriage and family are in truth, and by what means the family-hearth, disturbed by a foreign influence, may become strong again. I shall conclude with a single word to my oppo- nents. I have written without hatred. I will add willingly (just the contrary of the pagan's language): " O my enemies, there are no enemies." If this book, severe towards the priests, should have any influence on the future, they are the persons who will most profit by it. Many among them have already pro- nounced this opinion, and are willing to reply to my DIVISION OP THE WORK. li questions. Yes, may this book, unequal as it may be to the end it aims at, help to hasten on the time when the priest, restored to his manhood, and freed from a system as absurd and impossible as it is arti- ficial, shall obey the voice of nature, and resume his place amongst his fellow-men. PRIESTS, WOMEN, AND FAMILIES. PAET I. ON DIRECTION IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTUEY. CHAPTER I. EELIGIOUS EE ACTION IN 1600. — INFLUENCE OP THE JE- STTITS OTEK 'WOMEN AND CHILDREN. SAVOY J THE VADDOIS ; VIOLENCE AND MILDNESS. ST. EEANfOIS DE SALES. Everybody has seen in tlie Louvre Guide's grace- ful picture representing the Annunciation. The drawing is incorrect, the colouring false, and yet the effect is seducing. Do not expect to find in it the conscientiousness and austerity of the old schools*; you would look also in vain for the vigorous and bold touch of the masters of the Renaissance. The * Compare, in the Museum of the Louvre, the Annunciations of Giusto di Alamagna, Lucas de Leyde, and Vasari. 2 , RELIGIOUS KEACTION IN 1600. sixteenth century has passed away, and every thing assumes a softer character. The figure with which the painter has evidently taken the most pleasure is the angel, who, according to the refinement of that surfeited period, is a pretty-looking singing boy — a cherub of the Sacristy. He appears to be sixteen, and the Virgin from eighteen to twenty, years of age. This Virgin — by no means ideal, but real, and the reality slightly adulterated — is no other than a young Italian maiden whom Guido copied at her own house, in her snug oratory, and at her convenient praying-desk (prie-Dieu), such as were then used by ladies. If the painter was inspired by any thing else, it was not by the Gospel, but rather by the devout novels of that period, or the fashionable sermons uttered by the Jesuits in their coquettish-looking churches. The Angelic Salutation, the Visitation, the Annunciation, were the darling subjects upon which they had, for a long time past, , exhausted every imagination of seraphic gallantry. On behold- ing this picture by Guido, we fancy we are reading the Bernardino ; the angel speaks Latin like a yoiTug learned clerk ; the Virgin, like a boarding-school young lady, responds in soft Italian, "O alto si- gnore," &c. This pretty picture is important as a work cha- racteristic of an already corrupt age ; being an agreeable and delicate work, we are the more easily EELIGIOUS REACTION IN 1600. 3 led to perceive its suspicious graces and equivocal charms- Let us call to mind the softened forms which the devout reaction of this age — that of Henry IV., then assumed. We are lost in astonishment when we hear, as it were on the morrow of the sixteenth century, after wars and massacres, the lisping of this still small voice. The terrible preachers of the Six- teen, — the monks who went armed with muskets in the processions of the League, are suddenly hu- manised, and become gentle. The reason is, they must lull to sleep those whom they have not been able to kill. The task, however, was not very difHcult. Everybody was worn out by the excessive fatigue of religious warfare, and exhausted by a struggle that afforded no result, and from which no one came off victorious ; every one knew too well his party and his friends. In the evening of so long a march there was nobody, however good a walker he might be, who did not desire to rest: the inde- fatigable Henry of Beam, seeking repose like the rest, or wishing to lull them into tranquillity, af- forded them the example, and gave himself up with a good grace into the hands of Father Cotton and Gabrielle. Henry IV. was the grandfather of Louis XIV., and Cotton the great uncle of Father La Chaise — two royalties, two dynasties ; one of kings, the other of Jesuit confessors. The history of the latter would B 2 4 JESUITS AND WOMEN. be very interesting. These amiable fathers ruled throughout the whole of the century, by dint of absolving, pardoning, shutting their eyes, and re- mainiag ignorant ; they effected great results by the most trifling means, such as little capitulations, secret transactions, back-doors, and hidden stair- cases. The Jesuits could plead that, being the coiistrained restorers of papal authority, that is to say, phy- sicians to a dead body, the means were not left to their choice. Dead beat in the world of ideas, where could they hope to resume their warfare, save in the field of intrigue, passion, and human weaknesses ? There, nobody could serve them more actively than women. Even when they did not act with the Jesuits and for them, they were not less useful in an indirect manner, as instruments and means, — as objects of business and daily compromise between the penitent and the confessor. The tactics of the confessor did not differ much from those of the mistress. His address, like hers, was to refuse sometimes, to put off, to cause to languish, to be severe, but with moderation, then at length to be overcome by pure goodness of heart. These little manceu-vres, infallible in their effects upon a gallant and devout king, who was moreover obliged to receive the sacrament on ap- pointed days, often put the whole state into the JESUITS AND WOMEN. 5 confessional. The king, being caught and held fast, was obliged to give satisfaction in some way or other. He paid for his human weaknesses with political ones ; such an amour cost him a state-secret, such a bastard a royal ordinance. Occasionally, they did not let him off without bail ; in order to preserve a certain mistress, for instance, he was forced to give up his son. How much did Father Cotton forgive Henry IV. to obtain from him the education of the dauphin.* In this great enterprise of kidnajjping man every- where, by using woman as a decoy, and by woman getting possession of the child, the Jesuits met with more than one obstacle, but one particularly serious — their reputation of Jesuits. They were already by far too well known. We may read in the letters of St. Charles Borrows, who had established them at Milan and singularly favoured them, what sort of character he gives them — intriguing, quarrelsome, and insolent, under a cringing exterior. Even their penitents, who found them very convenient, were nevertheless at times disgusted with them. The most simple saw plainly enough that these people, who found every opinion probable, had none them- selves. These famous champions of the faith were * The masterpiece of the Jesuit was to get the shepherd-poet Des Yveteaux, the most empty-headed man in France, named tutor ; reserving to himself the moral and religious part of education. B 3 6 JESUITS, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN. sceptics in morals: even less than sceptics, for speculative scepticism might leave some sentiment of honour ; but a doubter in practice, who says yes on such and such an act, and yes on the contrary one, must sink lower and lower in morality, and lose not only every principle, but in time every affection of the heart. Their very appearance was a satire against them. These people, so cunning in disguising themselves, were made up of lying ; it was everywhere around them, palpable and visible. Like brass badly gilt, like the holy toys in their gaudy churches, they ap- peared false at the distance of a himdred paces : false in expression, accent, gesture, and attitude ; affected, exaggerated, and often excessively fickle. This in- constancy was amusing, but it also put people on their guard. They could well learn an attitude or a de- portment ; but studied graces, and a bending, undu- lating, and serpentine gait are anything but satisfac- tory. They worked hard to appear a simple, humble, insignificant, good sort of people. Their grimace be- trayed them. These equivocal-looking individuals had, however, in the eyes of the women a redeeming quality : they were passionately fond of children. No mother, grandmother, or nurse could caress them more, or could find better some endearing word to make them smile. In the churches of the Jesuits the good saints of the order, St. Xavier or St. Ignatius, are often JESUITS, WOMEN, AND CHILDEEN. 7 painted as grotesque nurses, holding the divine darling (poupon*) in their arms, fondling and kissing it. They began also to make on their altars and in their fantastically-ornamented chapels those little paradises In glass cases, where women are delighted to see the wax-child among flowers. The Jesuits loved children so much, that they would have liked to educate them all. Not one of them, however learned he might be, disdained to be a tutor, to give the principles of grammar and teach the declensions. There were, however, many people among their own friends and penitents, even those who trusted their souls to their keeping, who, nevertheless, hesi- tated to confide their sons to them. They would have succeeded still less with women and children, if their good fortune had not given them for ally a tall lad, shrewd and discreet, who possessed precisely what they had lacked to inspire confidence, — a charming simplicity. This friend of the Jesuits, who served them so much the better as he did not become one of them, invented, in an artless manner, for the profit of these intriguers, the manner, tone, and true style of easy devotion, which they would have ever sought for in vain. Falsehood would never assume the shadow of reality as it can do, if it was always and entirely un- connected with truth. * This is a term found in every page of St. Frangois de Sales, and other authors of that period, s i 8 SAVOY AND THE VATJDOIS. Before speaking of Fran9ois de Sales, I must say one word about the stage on which he performs his part. The great effort of the ultramontain reaction about the year 1600 was at the Alps, in Switzerland and Savoy. The work was going on bravely on each side of the mountains, only the means were far from being the same ; they showed on either side a totally diffe- rent countenance — here the face of an angel, there the look of a wild-beast : the latter physiognomy was against the poor Vaudois in Piedmont. In Savoy, and towards Geneva, they put on the angelic expression, not being able to employ any other than gentle means against populations sheltered by treaties, and who would have been protected against violence by the lances of Switzerland. The agent of Home in this quarter was the cele- brated Jesuit, Antonio Possevino*, a professor, scholar, and diplomatist, as well as the confessor of the kings of the North. He himself organised the persecutions against the Vaudois of Piedmont ; and he formed and directed his pupil, Fran9ois de Sales, to gain by his address the Protestants of Savoy. Ought I to speak of this terrible history of the Vaudois, or pass it over in silence ? Speak of it ! It is far too cruel — no one will relate it without his pen ' See his Life, by Dorigny, p. 505. ; Bonneville, Life of St. Francis, p. 19, &c. THE VAUDOIS. 9 hesitating, and his words being blotted by his tears.* If, however, I did not speak of it, we should never behold the most odious part of the system, that artful policy which employed the very opposite means in precisely the same cases ; here ferocity, there an un- natiiral mildness. One word, and I leave the sad story. The most implacable butchers were women, the penitents of the Jesuits of Turin; the victims were children ! They destroyed them in the six- teenth century : there were four hundred children burnt at one time in a cavern ; in the seventeenth century they kidnapped them. The edict of paci- fication, granted to the Vaudois in 1655, promises as a singular favour, that their children under twelve years of age shall no longer be stolen from them ; above that age it is still lawful to seize them, f This new sort of persecution, more cruel than massacres, characterises the period when the Je- suits undertook to make themselves universally mas- ters of the education of children. These pitiless * Read the history of the three great Vaudoia historians, Gilles, Leger, Arnaud. Add to it the valuable map and the admirable description of the country which we find in the first volume of Mr. Huston's history. When I received this son of the martyrs at my house with bo much interest, I was far from supposing that his work, full of moderation, forgetfiilness, and forgiveness, would cost him the loss of his country. •|- The edict states that no Vaudois shall be forced to become a Catholic : — Ne'i figliuoli potranno esser tolti alii loro parenti, mentre che sono in et^ minore, cioe li maschi di dodici, e le femine di dieci anni," &c. B 5 10 ST. FKAN9OIS DE SALES. plagiarists*, who dragged them away from their mothers, wanted only to bring them up in their fashion, make them abjure their faith, hate their family, and arm them against their brethren. It was, as I have said, a Jesuit professor, Possevino, who renewed the persecution about the time at which we are now arrived. The same, while teaching at Padua, had for his pupil young Fran9ois de Sales, who had already passed a year in Paris, at the col- lege of Clermont.! He belonged to one of those families of Savoy, as much distinguished by their devotion as by their valour, who carried on wars long against Geneva. He was endowed with all the quahties requisite for the war of seduction, which they then desired to commence : a gentle and sincere devo- tion, a lively and earnest speech, and a singular charm of goodness, beauty, and gentleness. Who has not remairked this charm in the smile of the children of Savoy, who are so natural, yet so circumspect? * Plaglarius, in its proper sense, means, as is well known, a man-stealer. f The beautiful description of Mm by Saint Beuve, that everybody has read, permits me to omit a number of detaik. I thought, however, I ought to point out with precision the influence that the Jesuits exercised over the Saint, and the manner in which they made a tool of him. See the biographers, Bonneville, the Capuchin ; Jean de Saint Fran9ois, the Ber- nardin ; La Eiviere, the Minim ; Talon, the Jesuit ; Longue- terre ; Bishop Maupas du Tour ; and especially the letters of the Saint ; I have had constantly before my eyes the edition of 1833. ST. rEAN90IS DE SALES. 11 Every favour of heaven must, we certainly believe, have been showered upon him, since in this bad age, bad taste, and bad party, among the cunning and false people who made him their tool, he remained, however, St, Francois de Sales. Every thing he has said or written, without being free from blemishes, is charming, full of affection, of an original gentle- ness and genius, which, though it may excite a smile, is nevertheless very affecting. Every where we find, as it were, living fountains springing up, flowers after flowers, and rivulets meandering as in a lovely spring morning after a show-er. It might be said, perhaps, that he amuses himself so much with flowerets, that his nosegay is no longer such as shepherdesses gather, but such as would suit a flower-girl, as his Philothea would say: he takes them all, and takes too many'; there are some colours among them badly matched, and have a strange effect. It is the taste of that age, we must confess; the Savoyard taste in particular does not fear ugliness ; and a Jesuit education does not lead to the detestation of falsehood. But even if he had not been so charming a writer, his bewitching personal qualities would still have had the same effect. His fair mild countenance, with rather a childish expression, pleased at first sight ; iittle children, in their nurses' arms', as soon as they saw him, could not take their eyes off him. He was equally delighted with them, and would exclaim, as he fondly caressed them, " Here is my little family." B 6 12 ST. FEAN9OIS DB SALES. The children ran after him, and the mothers followed their children. Little family ? or little intrigue ? the words {me- nage, manige) are somewhat similar; and though a child in appearance, the good man was at bottom very deep. If he permitted the nuns a few trifling falsehoods *, ought we to believe he never granted the same indul- gence to himself? However it may be, actual false- hood appeared less in his words than in his position ; he was made a bishop in order to give the example of sacrificing the rights of the bishops to the Pope. For the love of peace, and to hide the division of the Catholics by an appearance of union, he did the Jesuits the important service of saving their Molina t accused at Home; and he managed to induce the Pope to impose silence on the friends, as well as the enemies, of Grace. This sweet-tempered man did not, however, con- * Little lies, little deceits, little prevarications. See, for instance, CEuvres,-vol. viii. pp. 196. 223. 342. •(■ Luis Molina, a celebrated Spanish theologian, bom in 1535 at Cuenf a, was admitted into the order of the Jesuits at eighteen. He died at Madrid in 1601. Anxious to reconcile man's free will with the Divine foreknowledge and predestination, he pub- lished at Lisbon, in 1589, a work called, " De Liberi Arbitrii cum Gratise Donis Concordia." This book, approved by the censor, and dedicated to the Archduke of Austria, Inquisitor General of Spain, had great success at first ; though, eight years after, it was the subject of much discussion in a congregation summoned for that purpose by Pope Clement Vm. This congregation was, however, dismissed by Pope Paul V. without coming to any decision. His followers are called Molinists. — C. C. ST. FRAN9OIS DE SALES. 13 fine himself to the means of mildness and persuasion. In his. zeal as a converter, he invoked the assistance of less honourable means — interest, money, places ; lastly, authority and terror : he -made the Duke of Savoy travel from village to village, and advised him at last to drive away the remaining few who still refused to abjure their faith.* Money, very powerful in this poor country, seemed to him a means at once so natural and irresistible, that he went even into Geneva, to buy up old Theodore de Beze, and offered him, on the part of the Pope, a pension of foiir thousand crowns. It was an odd sight to behold this man, the bishop and titular prince of Geneva, beating about the bush to circumvent his native city, and organising a war of seduction against it by France and Savoy. Money and intrigue did not suffice ; it was necessary to employ a softer charm to thaw and liquify the in- attackable iceberg of logic and criticism. Convents for females were founded, to attract and receive the newly converted, and to offer them a powerful bait composed of love and mysticism. These convents have been made famous by the names of Madame de Chantal and Madame Guyon. The former esta- * Nouvelles Lettres Inedites, published by Mr. Datta, 1835, vol. i. p. 247. See also, for the intolerance of St. Francis, pp. 130, 131. 136. 141., and vol. ix. of the CEuvres, p. 335., the bounden duty of kings to put to the sword all the enemies of the Pope. 14 ST. PEAN9OIS DE SALES. blislied in them the mild devotion of the Visitation ; and it was there that the latter wrote her little book of Torrents, which seems inspired, like Rousseau's Julie (by-the-bye a far less dangerous composition), by the Charmettes, Meillerie, and Clarence. FRANCOIS DB SALES AND MAD. DE CHANTAL. 15 CHAPTER II. ST. FEAN5OIS DE SAIES A2JD MADAME DE CHANTAL. VISITATION. — QUIETISM. ~- EESULTS OF EELIGIOUS DI- KE CTION. Saint rRAN90is de Sales was very popular in France, and especially in the provinces of Burgundy, where a fermentation of religious passions had con- tinued in full force ever since the days of the League. The parliament of Dijon entreated him to come and preach there. He was received by his friend Andre Fremiot, who, from being a counsellor in Parliament, had become Archbishop of Bourges. He was the son of a president much esteemed at Dijon, and the brother of Madame de Chantal, consequently the great-uncle of Madame de Sevigne, who was the granddaughter of the latter.* The biographers of St. Fran9ois and Madame de Chantal, in order to give their first meeting an air of the romantic and marvellous, suppose, but with little probability on their side, that they were unacquainted; that one had scarcely heard the other spoken of; * See the biographers of Madame de Chantal, (Fichet the Jesuit, Bishop Maupas,) and especially her letters, unfortunately incomplete, 3 vols, 12mo. 1753. J 6 ST. FRAN9OIS DE SALES AND that they had seen each other only in their dreams or visions. In Lent, when the Saint preached at Dijon, he distinguished her among the crowd of ladies, and, on descending from the pulpit, exclaimed, " Who is then this young widow, who listened so attentively to the Word of God?" "My sister," replied the Archbishop, " the Baroness de Chantal." She was then (1604) thirty-two years of age, and St. Fran9ois thirty-seven ; consequently, she was bom in 1572, the year of St. Bartholomew. From her very infancy she- was somewhat austere, passionate, and violent. When only six years old, a Protestant gentleman happening to give her some sugar-plums, she threw them into the fire, saying, " Sir, see how the heretics will burn in hell, for not believing what our Lord has said. If you gave the lie to the king, my papa would have you hung; what must the punishment be then for having so often contra- dicted our Lord ? " With all her devotion and passion, she had an eye to real advantages. She had very ably conducted the household and fortune of her husband, and those of her father and father-in-law were managed by her with the same prudence. She took up her abode with the latter, who, otherwise, had not left his wealth to her young children. We read with a sort of enchantment the lively and charming letters by which the correspondence begins between St. Fran9ois de Sales, and her whom he calls MADAME DE CHANTAL. 17 "his dear sister and daughter." Nothing can be more pure and chaste, but at the same time, — why should we not say so ? — nothing more ardent. It is curious to observe the innocent art, the caresses, the tender and ingenious flattery with which he envelops these two families, the Fremiots and the Chantals ; first, the father, the good old president Fremiot, who in his library begins to make pious lectures and dreams of salvation ; next, the brother, the ex-chan- cellor, the archbishop of Bourges; he writes ex- pressly for him a little treatise on the manner of preaching. He by no means neglects the father-in- law, the rough old Baron de Chantal, an ancient relic of the wars of the League, the object of the daughter-in-law's particular adoration. But he suc- ceeds especially in captivating the young children ; he shows his tenderness in a thousand ways, by a thousand pious caresses, such as the heart of a woman, and that woman a mother, had scarcely been able to suggest. He prays for them, and desires these infants to remember him in their prayers. Only one person in this household was difficult to be tamed, and this was Madame de Chantal's con- fessor. It is here, in this struggle between the director and the confessor, that we learn what address, what skilful manceuvres and stratagems, are to be found in the resources of an ardent will. This confessor was a devout personage, but of confined and shallow intellect, and small means. The Saint 18 ST. FEAN9OIS DB SALES AND desires to become his friend, — lie submits to his Superior wisdom the advice he is about to give. He skilfully comforts Madame de Chantal, who enters tained some misgiving about her spiritual infidelity, and who, finding herself moving on an agreeable sloping path, was fearful she had left the rough road to salvation. He carefully entertains this scruple in order the better to do away with it ; to her inquiry whether she ought to impart it to her confessor, he adroitly gives her to understand that it may be dis- pensed with. He declares then, as a conqueror who has nothing to fear, that far from being, like the other, uneasy, jealous, and peevish, who required implicit obedience, he on the contrary imposes no obligations, but leaves' her entirely free — no obligation, save that of Christian friendship, whose tie is called by St. Paul " the bond of perfectness ; " all other ties are temporal, even that of obedience ; but that of charity increases with time ; it is free from the scythe of death, — " Love is strong as death," saith the Song of Solomon. He says to her on another occasion with much ingenuousness and dignity : " I do not add one grain to the truth ; I speak before God, who knows my heart and yours ; every afiection has a character that distinguishes it from the others ; that which I feel for you has a peculiar character, that gives me infinite consolation, and, to tell you all, is extremely profitable to me. I did not wish to say so much, but MADAME DE CHANTAL. 19 one word produces another, and then I know you will be careful." (Oct. 14. 1604.) From this moment, having her constantly before his eyes, he associates her not only with his religious thoughts, but, what astonishes us more, with his very acts as a priest. It is generally before or after mass that he writes to her ; it is of her, of her children that he is thinking, says he, " at the moment of the communion." They do penance the same days, take the communion at the same moment, though separate ; " he offers her to God, when he offers Him His Son!"* This singular man, whose serenity was never for a moment affected by such a union, was able very soon to perceive that the mind of Madame de Chantal was far from being as tranquil as his own. Her character was strong, and she felt deeply. The middle class of people, the citizens and lawyers, from whom she was descended, were endowed from their birth with a keener mind, and a greater spirit of sincerity and truth, than the elegant, noble, but enfeebled families of the sixteenth century. The last comers were fresh ; you find them everywhere ardent and serious in literature, warfare, and religion ; they impart to * " I give you and your widowed heart, and your children every day to our Lord, in offering Him His Son." (Nov. 1. 1605.) " The Lord knows whether I have taken the sacra- ment without you, since my departure from your city." (Nov. 21. 1604.) — (Euvres, vol. viii. pp. 311. 272, &c. 20 ST. FEAJS9OIS DE SALES AND the seventeenth century the gravity and holiness of its character. Thus this woman, though a saint, had nevertheless depths of unknown passion. They had hardly been separated two months when she wrote to him that she wanted to see him again. And indeed they met half way in Franche-Comte, in the celebrated pilgrimage of St. Claude. There she was happy ; there she poured out all her heart, and confessed to him for the first time ; making him the sweet engagement of entrusting to his beloved hands the vow of obedience. Six weeks had not passed away before she wrote to him that she wanted to see him again. Now she is bewildered by passions and temptations ; all around her is darkness and doubts ; she doubts even of her faith; she has no longer the strength of exercising her will; she would wish to fly — alas! she has no wings ; and in the midst of these great but sad feelings, this serious person seems rather childish ; she would like him to caU her no longer " madam," but his sister, his daughter, as he did before. She uses in another place this sad expression, — " There is something within me that has never been satisfied."— (Nov. 21. 1604.) The'conduct of St. Francois deserves our attention. This man, so shrewd at other times, will now under- stand but half. Far from inducing Madame de Chantal to adopt a religious life, which would have put her into his power, he tries to strengthen her in MADAME DE CHANTAL. 21 her duties of mother and daughter towards her children and the two old men who required also her maternal care. He discourses with her of her duties, business, and obligations. As to her doubts, she must neither reflect nor reason about them. She must occasionally read good books ; and he points out to her, as such, some paltry mystic trea- tises. If the she-ass should kick (it is thus he de- signates the flesh and sensuality), he must quiet her by some blows of discipline. He appears at this time to have been very sen- sible that an intimacy between two persons so united by affection was not without inconvenience. He answers with prudence to the entreaties of Madame de Chantal : " I am bound here hand and foot ; and as for you, my dear sister, does not the inconvenience of the last journey alarm you? " This was written in October, on the eve of a season rude enough among the Alps and at Jura: "We shall see between this and Easter." She went at this period to see him at the house of his mother ; then, finding herself all alone at Dijon, she fell very ill. Occupied with the controversy of this time, he seemed to be neglecting her. He wrote to her less and less ; feeling, doubtless, the necessity of making all haste in this rapid journey. All this year (1605) was passed, on her part, in a violent struggle between temptations and doubts ; at last, she scarcely knew how to make up her mind, 22 ST. rEAN90IS DE SALES AND whether to bury herself with the Carmelites, or marry again. A great religious movement was then taking place in France : this movement, far from being sponta- neous, was well devised, very artificial, but, never- theless, immense in its results. The rich and powerful families of the Bar had, by their zeal and vanity, im- pelled it forward. At the side of the oratory founded by Cardinal de Berulle, Madame Acaiie, a Avoman singularly active and zealous, a saint engaged in all the devout intrigues (known also as the blessed Mary of the Incarnation), established the Carmelites in France, andtheUrsulinesin Paris. The impassioned austerity of Madame de Chantal urged her towards the Carmelites ; she consulted occasionally one of their superiors, a doctor of the Sorbonne.* St. Fran9ois de Sales perceived the danger, and he no longer endeavoured to contend against her. He accepted Madame de Chantal from that very mo- ment. In a charming letter he gives her, in the name of his mother, his young sister to educate. It seems that as long as she had this tender pledge she was in some degree calmer ; but it was soon taken from her. This child, so cherished and so well taken care of, died in her arms at her own house. She cannot disguise from the Saint, in the excess of her grief, that she had asked God to let * See St. Francis, (Euvreg, viil. 336., April 1606 ; and Ta- baraud, Life of Berulle, pp. 1. 57, 58. 95. 141. MADAME DE CHANTAL. 23 her rather die herself; she went so far as to pray that she might rather lose one of her own children ! This took place in November (1607). It is three months after that we find in the letters of the Saint the first idea of getting nearer to him a person so well tried, and who seemed to him, moreover, to be an instrument of the designs of God, The extreme vivacity, I was almost saying the violence, with which Madame de Chantal broke every tie in order to follow an impulse given with so much reserve, proves too plainly aU the passion of her ardent nature. It was not an easy thing to leave there those two old men, her father, her father-in- law, and her own son, who, they say, stretched himself out on the threshold to prevent her passing. Good old Fremoit was gained over less by hig daughter than by the letters of the Saint, which she used as auxiliaries. We have still the letter of resignation, all blotted over with his tears, in which he gives his consent : this resignation, moreover, seems not to have lasted long. He died the follow- ing year. She has now passed over the body of her son and that of her father ; she arrives at Annecy. What would have happened if the Saint had not found fuel for this powerful flame that he had raised too. high — higher than he desired himself? The day after the Pentecost, he calls her to him after mass : " Well, my daughter," says he, " I 24 ST. FEAN9OIS DE SALES AND have determined what I shall do with you." — " And I am resolved to obey," cried she, falling on her knees before him. " You must enter St. Clair's." — " I am quite ready," replied she. "No, you are not strong enough ; you must be a sister in the Hospital of Beaune." — "Whatever you please." "This is not quite what I want — become a Carmelite." He tried her thus in several ways, and found her ever obedient. " Well," said he, " nothing of the sort — God calls you to the Visitation." The Visitation had nothing of the austerity of the ancient orders : the founder himself said it was " almost no religion at all." No troublesome cus- toms, 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 passions 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. MADAME DE CHANTAL. 25 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 sti'ong terms : " To you I speak, to you, I say, to whom I have allotted my mother's place in my memorial of the mass, 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 mj' 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 passion ! How can he be surprised after that, that she should write to him, " Pray to God, 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 * I never read in any language any thing more impassioned or better contested, more ingenuous and yet more subtle, than a letter of Madame de Chantal's, " On Desire, and the Sufffering C. 26 ST. FRAN9OIS DE SALES AND 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 institution 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-minded- of Deprivation." We feel painfully that it is her soul struggling to be severed from its dearest affection. This letter is no doubt indebted to its obscurity for not having been proscribed by the Visitandine nuns. Letters of Madame de Chantal, vol. i. pp. 27 — 30. See another letter of the same, in the CEuvres de St. Francis, vol. x. p. 139., August, 1619. * Twenty years after the death of St. Frangois, the very year she died, revered already as a saint, she wrote letters to the austere abbot of St. Cyran, then a prisoner at Vincennes, for the express purpose of still discoursing with him of the ever-che- rished remembrance. See the Christian and spiritual letters of Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, abbot of St. Cyran, 1 645, 4to., vol. i. pp. 53 — 86. Even he, the most austere of men, seeni» for a moment to feel, and to be affected. MADAME DE CHANTAL. 27 nesSj 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 every thing 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 any thing in it contrary to his Intentions, he would have the goodness to eiface it." In 1631, ten years after the death of St. rran9ois 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 commu- nity, and began praying by the side of the body, ' in an ecstacy of love and humility.' As they were for- bidden 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 move- c 2 28 QUIETISM. ment. . . . They still keep, as a double relic, the veU she then wore." Let others be at a loss to find out the real name of this worthy sentiment, or let a false reserve pre- vent them : let them term it filial piety, or fraternal affection ; we, for our part, shall 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 assures us that this sentiment contributed power*- fuUy 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 icait. 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 God, 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 indif- ference. " I wish for very little," said he, " and that little I desire very little : I have almost no de- sires ; but if I were to be bom again, 1 would have jione at all. If God 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 ITS RESULTS. 29 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 re- nounce every virtue, desiring them only as you re- ceive them gradually from God, 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 God, appa- rently. . . . Only let us not forget, that if this miracle take place, it will have for its result a state of un- alterable 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 passion she passed 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 mar- tyrdom. 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 tor- ments 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 c 3 30 QUIETISM. found it out without her assistance. This exclusive cultivation of sensibility, whatever be the virtues that ennoble it, ends infallibly in tormenting the soul, and reducing it to a state of excruciating suffering. We cannot, with impunity, allow our wUl, 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 God. 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 ? God for- bid ! 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 * In a fragment on " The Education of Women in the Middle Ages," reprinted at the end of my " Introduction to Universal History," 3d edition, 1844. ITS RESULTS. 31 the devout direction *, is notliing else than the de- velopment of our passiveness, our instinct of in- dolence ; the result of which, in course of time, is the paralysis of our will, the annihilation of the essence of man's- constitution. 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 cen- tury pointed out the road to passiveness. We are, as yet, in the earliest dawn of the cen- tury, in all its morning freshness, and invigorated by the breeze from the Alps. Yet see, — Madame do Chantal sickens, and breathes with difficulty How wiU 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 per- fectly 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 em- barked 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 * So inherent is it in the devout direction, that you meet with it even among the adversaries of Quietism. See Bossuet's Letters to the nuns whom he directed. c 4 32 QUIETISM. your sight is keen enough, you may ahready perceive Molinos through this transparent abyss.* * The principle is the same with St. Frangois de Sales, and all the Quietists of whatsoever degree ; the annihilation of the loill is held up as the ideal of perfection. St. Fran9ois does not recommend annihilation for the habitual state of the soul ; but the others wish that this state, which is that of perfection, should become habitual, if it can (says Fenelon), or even per- petval (says Molinos). Bossuet hunts for, and finds in St. FranQois, some few passages contrary to his general doctrine : they prove only that the saint is not consistent. woman's loneliness, 33 CHAPTER III. LONELINESS OP WOMAN. — EAST DEVOTION. WORLDLY THEOLOGY OF THE JESUITS AND ROME. WOMEN AND CHILDREN ADVANTAGEOUSLY JIADE 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 pro- perty of her husband, her father, and her children. This indeed was becoming rare. The taste for household and domestic cares which we find every where 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 so- ciety 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 nobility c 5 S4 woman's loneliness. 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 six- teenth 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 circumstance, which is likely to increase in the following ages ; namely, that in every profession the spirit of specialty 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 con- sole her ? Xo ; 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. woman's loneliness. 35 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 sub- ject 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*, 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 mass 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 gentle- man 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 dis- mal httle street. The lady in the sixteenth century beguiled her leisure hours by singing, and often by poetry. In the * Meaning the Latin declension. — Tbaksl. c 6 36 EASY DEVOTION. 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 her- self a Protestant ! What then remains for her ? GraUant 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 God to the devil : it made sudden and alter- nate changes from pleasure to penitence. But in the seventeenth century people were more ingenious ; thanks to the progress of equivocation, they are en- abled to do both at once, and, by mingling the lan- guage 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 neighbour- hood, you would not always be able to say whether it is the lover or the director who is speaking. To exjdain to one's self the singular success of the latter, we must not forget the moral situation of the lime, the uneasy and bewildered state of every one's conscience on the morrow of a period of religious wars, harassed by passions. In the dull tran- quillity 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 WORLDLY THEOLOGY OF THE JESUITS. 37 among weak and impassioned women, the terrible question of eternal bliss or woe. The whole fortune of the Jesuits, and the con- fidence placed in them by the nobles and fine ladies, arose from the clever answer they gave to this ques- tion. 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 substitute for justice *, and saves whomsoever it wiU. A few are predestined to be saved, the greater number to be damned." 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. In order to have a clearer idea of the opposition of these two jDrinciples, let us imagine a mountain * This is, though at different degrees, the common answer of the defenders of grace, whether they be Protestants, Janse- nists, Thomists, &c. Put on the opposite side all the shades of opinion of the opposite party, the jurisconsults of antiquity and the middle ages, the Pelagian and Semi-pelagian heretics, and modern philosophers. 38 WOELDLY THEOLOGY OF THE JESUITS. 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 damns, on the other justice that strikes — two terrible mon- sters. 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 massacre of Saint Bartholomew : he died for want of a Jesuit confessor. John III., King of Sweden, who kiUed 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 con- sciences 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 chastisement of the * It is the eclectic attempt of Molina : Concordia, &c WOKLDLY THEOLOGY OF THE JESUITS. 39 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. Do you perceive all the skill of the Jesuits in this manoeuvre of theirs ? On the one hand, the doctrine of liberty and justice, with which the middle ages had reproached the jurisconsults as pagan, and irrecon- cilable with Christianity, is now adopted by the JesuitSj^jwho show themselves to the world as the friends and^ champions of free will. On the other hand, as this free will brings on the sinner responsi- bility, and justice according to his works, he finds himself very much embarrassed with it ! The Jesuit comes very seasonably to his relief; he takes upon himself the task of directing this inconvenient liberty, * Analogous in speculative doctrine, they differ in practice. The jurist maintains the penal code, and the Jesuit suppresses penitence. There is the real bait, the little fish employed to catch the big ones, according to the expressive emblem, Imago primi smcvli Societatis Jesu. 40 WORLDLY THEOLO&Y OF JESUITS AND ROME. and reduces works to the capital one of serving Kome. So that moral liberty, professed in theory, will turn practically to the profit of authority. A double lie. These people, who give themselves the title of Jesuits, or men of Jesus, teach that man is saved less by Jesus than by hiniself, — -by his free will. Are, then, these men philosophers, and friends of liberty ? Quite the contrary : they are at once the most cruel enemies of philosophy and liberty. (That is to say, with the word free-will they juggle away Jesus ; and only retain the word Jesus to cheat us of the liberty which they set before us. ; The thing being thus simplified on both sides, a sort of tacit bargain was made between Rome, the Jesuits, and the world. Rome gave up Christianity, the principle which forms its basis (salvation by Christ). Having been called upon to choose between this doctrine and the contrary one, she durst not decide.* The Jesuits gave up movality after religion; re- ducing the moral merits, by which man may earn his salvation, to only one, the political merit of which we have spoken, that of serving Kome. What must the world give up in its turn ? The world (by far the most worldly part of the * Tbe Jesuits succeeded in getting silence imposed on both parties ; that is to say, that Rome should prevent both Molina and St. Thomas from preaching any longer. WOMEN, ETC. ADVANTAGEOUSLY MADE USE OI*. 41 world, woman) will have to give up her best posses- sions, her family and her domestic hearth. Eve once more betrays Adam; woman deceives man in her husband and son. Thus every one sold his God. Eome bartered away religion,fand woman domestic pietyTj The weak minds of women, after the great corrup- tion of the sixteenth century, spoiled beyond all remedy, full of passion, fear, and wicked desires mingled, with remorse, seized greedily the means of sinning conscientiously, of expiating without either amendment, amelioration, or return towards God, They thought themselves happy to receive at thei confessional, by way of penance, some little political commission, or the management of some intrigue. They transferred to this singular manner of expiating their faults the very violence of the guilty passions, for which the atonement was to be made ; and in order to remain sinful, they were often obliged to commit crimes.* The passion of woman, inconstant in every thing else, was in this case sustained by the vigorous ob- stinacy of the mysterious and invisible hand that urged her forward. Under this impulse, at once gentle and strong, ardent and persevering, firm as * See, in Leger, the vast system of espionnage, intrigue, and secret persecution, that the first ladies of Piedmont and France had organised, under the direction of the Jesuits. 42 WOMEN, ETC. ADVANTAGEOUSLY MADE USE OF. iron and as dissolving as fire, characters and even interests at length gave way. Some examples will help us to understand it the better. In France, old Lesdiguieres was, politically, much interested in remaining a Protestant : as such, he was the head man of the party. The king rather than the governor of Dauphine, he assisted the Swiss, and protected the populations of Vaud and Romand against the house of Savoy. But the old man's daughter was gained over by Father Cotton. She set to work upon her father with patience and address, and succeeded in inducing him to quit his high position for an empty title, and change his religion for the title of Constable. In Germany, the character of Ferdinand I., his interest, and the part he had to play, would have induced him to remain moderate, and not become the vassal of his nephew, Philip II. With violence and fanaticism he had no choice but to accept a secondary place. The emperor's daiighters, however, intrigued so well that the house of Austria became united by marriage to the houses of Lorraine and Bavaria. The children of these families being edu- cated by the Jesuits *, the latter repaired in Germany the broken thread of the destinies of the Guises, and had even better fortune than the Guises themselves ; for they made for their own use certain blind instru- * See Eanke ou Popery ; Dorigay, Life of Father Canisius ; and especially P. P. Wolf, Geschichte Maximilians, i. 58. 95. THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 43 mentSj agents in diplomacy and tactics — skilful work- men, certainly, but still mere workmen. I speak of that hardy and devout generation, of Ferdinand II. of Austria, of Tilly, and Maximilian of Bavaria, those conscientious executors of the great works of Home, who, under the direction of their teachers, carried on for so long a time, throughout Europe, a warfare which was at once barbarous and skilful, merciless and me- thodical. The Jesuits launched them into it, and then carefully watched over them ; and whenever Tilly on his charger was seen dashing over the smoking ruins of cities, or the battle-field covered with the slain, the Jesuit, trotting on his mule, was not far off. This vile war, the most loathsome in history, ap- pears the more horrible, by the almost total absence of free inspiration and spontaneous impulse. It was, from its very beginning, both artificial and median^ leal * — like a war of machines or phantoms. These strange beings, created only to fight, march with a look as void of martial ardour, as their heart is of affection. How could they be reasoned with ? What language could be used towards them ? What pity could be expected from them. In our wars of re- ligion, in those of the Revolution, they were men who fought ; each ^ied for the sake of his idea, and, when he fell on the battle-field, he shrouded himself in his faith. Whereas the partisans of the Thirty Years' * Excepting, as a matter of course, the electrical moment of Gustavus-Adolplius. 44 THE THIRTTT TEARS' WAE, War have no individual life — no idea of their own; their very breath is but the inspiration of the evil genius who urges them on. These automatons, who grow blinder every day, are not the less obstinate and bloody. No history would lead us to imderstand this abominable phenomenon, if there did not remain some delineation of them in the hellish pictures of that diabolical, damned Salvator Rosa.* Behold, then, this fruit of mildness, benignity, and paternity ; see how, after having by indulgence and connivance exterminated morality, seized on the family by surprise, fascinated the mother and con- quered the child, and by the devil's own art raised the man-machine, they are found to have created a monster, whose whole idea, life, and action was murder, nothing more. Wise politicians, amiable men, good fathers, who with so much mildness have skilfuUy arranged from afar the Thirty Years' Warf, seducing Aquaviva, the learned Canisius, and the good Possevino, the friend of St. rran9ois de Sales, who will not admire the flexibility of your genius ? At the very time you were organising the terrible intrigue of this second * The term is a harsh one, and I am sorry for it." If this great artist paints war so cruelly, it is doubtless because he had more feeling than any of his contemporaries, and appreciates more keenly the horror of this terrible epoch. f See, especially in Ranke, how Aquaviva captivated the mind of young Maximilian of Bavaria, who was to perform so import- ant a part in the Thirty Tears' War, FEOM 1618 TO 1648. 45 and prolonged St. Bartholomew, you were mildly dis- cussing with the good saint the difference that ought to be observed between " those who died in love, and those who died for love." What by-path led from these mild theories to such ■atrocious results? How did it happen that souls enervated by gallant devotion and devout gallantry, and spoiled by the daily facilities of an obliging and accommodating casuistry, allowed themselves to be taken asleep in the meshes of jDolitical intrigue ? * It would be a long story. In order to set about it, one must wade through their nauseous literature; but one sickens at the sight of their filthy trash. One word, however, for it is important. Prepared as the world was, both by bad morals and bad taste, for the miserable productions with which the Jesuits inundated it, all this insipid flood would have sub- sided without leaving any traces behind, had they not mingled with it a part of the pure original stream, which had already delighted the human heart. The * Is the astonishing ease with which this great enterprise was begun to be accounted for by supposing that the leaders were men of a superior genius ? I do not think so. Does a spirit of intrigue, a certain patient and cunning pelitical address, consti- tute genius ? The celebrated Jesuits of the time, those who were the most successful in business (if we judge them by what they have left behind them), were insipid scribblers, clumsy pedants, or grotesque wits. Mr. Ranke, with his benevolent impartiality, in enumerating the heroes of both parties in this warfare of the human mind, hunts for a great name to matcli with that of Shakspeare : and he finds Baldus. 46 EAST DEVOTION. charm of St. Fran9ois de Sales, his sublime spiritual union with Madame de Chantal, the holy and mild seducing influence which he had exercised over women and children, served indirectly, but very efficaciously, the purpose of this great religious intrigue. With small morality and cheap absolution, the Je- suits could very easily corrupt consciences, but not tranquiUise them. They could play, with more or less skill, upon that rich instrument Falsehood, which their institution gave them, airs of science, art, lite- rature, and theology ; but could they, with all this false fingering, produce one true note ? — Not one ! But this true and gentle note was precisely that which was sounded for them by St. Francois. They had only to play after his method to make the false appear a little less discordant. The amiable qualities of his writings, nay, their pleasing errors, were skilfully made the most of. His taste for the minute and humble, which made him bestow a partial regard upon the lesser beings of the creation, such as little children, lambs, birds, and bees, became a precedent among the Jesuits for whatever is finical and narrow- minded, for a meanness of style and littleness of heart. The bold but innocent language of an angel, pure as light itself, who incessantly points out God in his sweetest revelation, woman suckling, and the divine mysteries of love, emboldened his imitators to make the most perilous equivocations, and was the occasion of their carrying their ambiguous terms to RELIGIOUS KOVELS. 47 such a pitch, that the line of demarcation between gallantry and devotion, the lover and the spiritual father, became at length invisible. The friend of St. Francois de Sales, good Bishop Camus, with all his little romances, contributed much to this. There was nothing now but pious sheep-folds, devout Astreas, and ecclesiastical Amyn- tases.* Conversion sanctifies every thing in these novels ; I am aware of it. . The lovers at the end of the story enter a convent or seminary, but they ar- rive there by a long roundabout road, which enables them to dream by the way. A taste for the romantic f and insipid, the benig- nant and paternal style, thus gained ground rapidly. The event showed that the innocent had worked for the benefit of the cunning. A St. Francois and a Camus prepared the way for Father Douillet. The essential point for the Jesuits was to reduce and to lessen, to make minds weak\and false, to make * Camus, in his Alexis, excuses Ws writing romances, on the gi-ound that they are to take the place of worldly novels : — " As the nurse takes medicine to purge the child." The copy in the Arsenal Library is curious for its MS. notes. f In the taste for the romantic, those published in our own time have not degenerated. The late editor of St. Pran9ois wishes he had " the pen that traced the death of Attila, and the chaste Amours of Cymodocea," to write his history of the Saint and Madame de Chantal (vol. i. p. 243.) : — edition dedi- cated to the Archbishop of Paris. The very perfection of silliness in this style is the Life of the Virgin, by the Abbe Orsini. 48 DEVOUT NOVELS. the little very little, and turn the simple into idiots ; a mind nourished with trifles, and amused witli toys, must be easy to govern. Emblems, rebuses, and puns, the delight of the Jesuits, were very fit for that purpose. Among the class of sUly emblems, few books can vie with the Imago primi scecuU Socie- tatis Jesu. All this paltry nonsense succeeded admirably with women who had no sort^ of occupation, and whose minds had been for a long time corrupted by an unintel- lectual gallantry. It has been proved by experience, in every age, that to please the sex only two things are requisite : first, to amuse them, to participate in their taste for every thing that is trifling, romantic, and false ; secondly, to flatter them, and spoil them in their weaknesses, by making one's self weaker, more effeminate, and womanish than they. This was the line of conduct laid down for all. — How is it that the lover gets an advantage over the husband ? Generally speaking, it is less by his passion, than by his assiduity and complaisance, and by flattering woman's fancy. The director wiU make use of the very same means ; he will flatter, and so much the more successfully, as some degree of austerity at least was expected from his character and pro- fession. But what is to prevent another from flattering still more ? We have just now seen an instance (a respectable one, it is true) of these spiritual infidelities. CASUISTS. 49 In changing continually one confessor for another, merely on account of his being more gentle and indulgent than the former, we run the risk of falling very low in morality. To get the upper hand over so many accommodating directors, an entirely new standard of effeminacy and baseness is required. The new comer must entirely cliange the characters ; and instead of being the judge, as formerly, at the bar of penitence, he must be a suppliant ; justice will be obliged to plead before the sinner, and the divine man becomes the penitent ! The Jesuits, who by these means supplanted .so many directors, bear witness, that in this sort of opposition they had no one to fear.* They knew well enough, that no other would be found better qualified than a Jesuit for easy indulgence, dis- guised connivance, and subtilty to overreach the Deity. Father Cotton was so little afraid of his penitents leaving him, that, on the contrary, he used occasionally to advise them to go to the other confessors : " Go," said he, " go and try them ; you will return to me ! " Only imagine this general emulation among con- fessors, directors, and consulting casuistg, to justify every thing, to find every day some adroit means * See, on this subject, the singular fatuity of the Jesuit Rchet, and the contempt with which he speaks of the , former director of Madame de Chantal, who was too jealous of her : he goes so'far as to call him "ce pasteur . ." — Pp. 123 — 135. 50 CASDISTS. of carrying indulgence still further, of declaring inno- cent some new case, that had hitherto been supposed guilty. The result of this manner of waging war against sin, emulously carried on by so many learned men, was its gradual and universal disappearance from the common life of man ; sin could no longer find a haven of refuge, and one might reasonably suppose, that in a few years it would cease to exist in the world. The great book of " Provinciales," with all the artifice of method, omits one thing, which we regret. In showing us the unanimity of the casuists, the author presents them, as it were, on the same line, and as contemporaries. It would have been more instructive to have dated them, and given to each his appointed period ; and thus, according to his merits in the progressive development of casuistry, to show how they severally advanced towards per- fection, outbidding, surpassing, and eclipsing one another. In so great a rivalry, it was necessary to make every effort, and set all their wits to work. The penitent, having the option, might become difiicult. He wanted his absolution at a cheaper rate every day ; and they who would not lower their price lost their customers. It was business that required a clever man to find out, in so great a relaxation, by what means further indulgence might be given. A fine, elastic, and indulgent science, that, instead CASUISTS. 51 of imposing rules, adapted itself to proportions, narrowing or widening, and taking measurement, as the case might be. Every progress of this kind, being carefully noted down, served as a starting- post to go further. In countries that have once become aguish, fever produces fever ; the sick in- habitant neglecting the precaution for preserving health, filth accumulates on filtli, the waters form marshes, and the miasma grows stronger ; a close, heavy, and noxious atmosphere oppresses the coun- try. The people crawl or lie down. Do not speak to them of attempting any remedy ; they are ac- customed to the fever ; they have had it on and off, ever since their birth, and their forefathers had it. Why try remedies ? The country has been in the same state from time immemorial ; it would be al- most a pity, according to these authorities, to make a change. D 2 52 CONVENTS. CHAPTER IV. CONVENTS. NEIGHBOTJBHOOD OP CONVENTS. CONVENTS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTUET. CONTRAST WITH THE JODDLE AGE. THE DIEECTOK. DISPUTE ABOUT THE DIRECTION OP THE NUNS. THE JESUITS TRIUMPH THROUGH CALUMNY. An ingenuous and intellectual German lady told me one day that, when she came with her husband to Paris for the first time, they had wandered about in a grand but very dull quarter of the town, where they made an infinite number of turns and windings without being able to find their way. They had entered by a public garden, and found at last an- other public garden that brought them out again at the quay. I saw that she meant the learned and pious neighbourhood, which contains so many con- vents and colleges, and reaches from the X/uxembourg to the Jardin des Plantes. " I saw," said this lady, " whole streets with gar- dens, surrounded with high walls, that reminded me of the deserted districts of Home, where the malaria prevails, with this difference, that these were not de- serted, but, as it were, mysteriously inhabited, shut uj), mistrustful, and inhospitable. Other streets, exceed- ingly dark, were in a manner buried between two rows CONVENTS. 53 of lofty grey houses with no front aspect, and which showedj as it were in derision, their walled-up win- dows, or their riveted lattices turned upside down, by which one may see — nothing. We asked our way several times, and it was often pointed out to us ; but some how or other, after having gone up and down and up again, we ever found ourselves at the same point. Our ennui and fatigue increased. We invincibly and fatally met with the same dull streets, and the same dismal houses suUenly shut, which seemed to look at us with an evil eye. Exhausted at last, and seeing no end to the puzzle, oppressed more and more by a certain dispiriting influence that seemed to ooze from these walls, I sat down upon a stone, and began to weep." A dispiriting lassitude does indeed seize and oppress our hearts, at the very sight of these disagreeable- looking houses ; the most cheerful are the hospitals. Having been for the most part built or rebuilt in those times of solemn dulness, the reigns of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., there is nothing about them to remind us of the lovely art of the renaissance ; the latest memento of that art is the Florentine front of the Luxembourg Palace. All those houses that were built at a later period, even those which aflPect a certain severe luxury, (the Sorbonne, for example,) are occasionally great, but never grand. With their lofty pointed roofs, and stiff straight lines, they have always a di?y, dull, and monotonous appearance, a D 3 54 CONVENTS. priestly or old-maidenish look. In this they scarcely belie themselves, the greater part of them having been built to accommodate the numberless females belonging to the nobility and upper class of citizens, who, in order to enrich a son, condemned their un- fortunate daughters to a sad, but decent death. The monuments of the middle ages have a melan- choly but not a dispiriting look ; we feel, on looking at them, the vigour and sincerity of the sentiment that inspired their builders ; they are not, generally speaking, official monuments, but living works of the people, the offspring of their faith. But these, on the contrary, are nothing else than the creation of a class, — that class of newly-created nobles that swarmed into life in the seventeenth century by subserviency, the antechamber, and ministerial offices. They are hospitals opened for the daughters of these families. Their great number might almost deceive us as to the strength and extent of the religious re- action of that time. Look at them well, and tell me, I j)ray you, whether you can discern the least trace about them of the ascetic character ; are they reli- gious houses, hospitals, barracks, or colleges ? There is nothing to prove what they are. They would be perfectly fit for any civil purpose. They have but one character, but it is a very decided one : serious uniformity, decent mediocrity, and ennui. — It is ennui itself, personified in an architectural form ; — a palpable, tangible, and visible ennui. CONVENTS CONTRASTED. 55 The reason of these houses being indefinitely multiplied is, that the austerity of the ancient rules having been then much modified, parents had less hesitation in making their daughters take the veil; for it was no longer burying them alive. The parlours were saloons frequented by crowds, under the pretext of being edified. Fine ladies came there to confide their secrets, filling the minds of the nuns with intrigues and vexations, and troubling them with useless regrets. These worldly cares caused the interior of the convents to appear to them stiU more dismal ; for there they had nothing but trifling insipid cere- monies, a sort of modified austerity, and an idle and empty routine of monotonous life. Monastic life was quite a different thing in the middle ages : it was much more serious. There were then in the convents both more training for death, and a more active life. The system was, generally speaking, based upon two principles, which were sincerely and strictly adhered to : the de- struction of the body, and the vivification of the soul. To war against the body they employed an exterminating fasting, excessive vigils, and frequent bleeding. For the development of the soul, the monks and nuns were made to read, transcribe*, and sing. * The regulations of St. Cesaire and others ordered the nuns to transcribe manuscripts. {See my notice on the Education of Women D 4 56 CONVENTS CONTRASTED. Up to the eleventh century they understood what they sang, as there was but little difference between Latin and the vulgar tongues of that period. The service had then a dramatic character, which sustained and constantly captivated the attention ; many things that have been reduced to simple words, were then expressed in gestures and pantomimes ; what is now spoken was then acted.* When they inflicted upon worship that serious, sober, and wearisome character that it still wears, the nuns were still allowed, as an indemnification, pious reading, legends, the lives of saints, and other books that had been translated ; for Instance, the admirable French version of the " Imita- tion." f All these consolations were taken from them in the sixteenth century; the discovery was made, that it was dangerous to give them too great a taste for reading. In the seventeenth, even singing ap- peared to be an object of suspicion to many con- in the Middle Ages, at the end of the third edition of the " In- troduction to Universal History.") Several of the beautiful minatures which ornament them, painted with love and infinite patience, plainly show them to have been done by a woman's hand. Who would believe that it is a crime in our days for a nun to know how to draw, or to gather flowers to paint them ? We have learnt it is so (among so many other curious things concerning the interior of convents), from the revelations of sister Marie Lemounier. — Memoire du Maitre Tilliard, 1845. Caen. * See my " Origines du Droit," and De Martene, De Eiti- hus. f History of France, vol. v. p. 15. DIRECTOR. 57 fessors; they were afraid the nuns might grow tender in singing the praises of God.* But what did they give them as a substitute? What did they get in return for all those services which they no longer understood, for their reading and singing that were now denied them, and for so many other comforts, of which they were suc- cessively deprived ? Wasit an inanimate object? No, it was a man ; let us speak out plainly, the director. The director was a novelty, hardly known to the middle ages, con- tented with the confessor. Yes, a man is to inherit all this vast vacant place : his conversation and teaching are to fill up the void. Prayers, reading, if it be permited, every thing, will be done according to his direction and by him. God, whom they imbibed in their books, or in their sight, even God is henceforward dispensed to them .by this man — measured out to them day by day ac- cording to the standard of his heart. Ideas come crowding here — but they must wait ; we will examine them afterwards. Now they would only interrupt the thread of our historical deduction. At the first outbreak of religious reaction, the nuns v/ere generally governed by the friars of their order. The Bernardin nuns were directed by the Bernardin friars, the Cai-melite nuns by the Car- * Chateaubriand, Vie de Kance, pp. 227 — 229. D 5 58 DISPUTE ABOUT THE melite friars, and the nuns of St. Elizabeth by the Picpus friars. The Capuchin nuns were not only confessed by their friars, but were fed at their expense, and by the produce of their begging.* The monks did not long preserve this exclusive possession. For more than a quarter of a century, priests, monks, and friars of every order, carried on a furious war against one another on this question. This mysterious empire of shut-up and dependent women, over whom unlimited sway may be held, was, not without reason, the common aim of the ambition of all. Such houses, apparently quiet, and strangers to the world, nevertheless are always grand centres of action. Here was an immense power for the orders that should get possession of it ; and for individuals, whether priests or friars, it was (let them confess it, or not) an affair of passion. What I say here, I say of the purest and most austere, who are often the most tender. The ho- nourable attachment of Cardinal Berulle for the Carmelite nuns, whom he had brought here, was known to every body. He had lodged them near his house ; he visited them every hour of the day, and even in the evening ; the Jesuits said, at night. It was to them he went, when he was ill, in order to get better. When Paris was infested by the * See Heliot, and, for Paris especially, FeEbien, who is very diffuse on this subject. DIEECTION OF THE NUNS. 59 plague, he said he would not leave it, " on account of his nuns." The Oratorians and the Jesuits, naturally enemies and adversaries, joined together at first in a common cause to remove the Carmelite friars from the direc- tion of these nuns ; but no sooner had they succeeded, than they began to dispute with each other. The austere order of the Carmelites, which spread but little in France, obtained its importance as the beau-ideal of penitence, a sort of religious poetry; the enthusiastic spirit of Saint Theresa still ani- mated them. There it was that the most violent converts came to seek refuge ; and there it was, also, that those whose wounds were too deep, and who, like Madame de la Valli^re, sought death as their last resource, came to die. But the two great institutions of this age, those which expressed its spirit, and had an immense de- velopment, were the Visitandines and the Ursulines. The former had, in the reign of Louis XIV., about a hundred and fifty monasteries, and the latter from three to four hundred. The Visitandines were, as is well known, the most gentle of these orders: they awaited the coming of their divine bridegroom in a state of inaction ; and their sluggish life was well calculated to make them visionaries. We know the astonishing success of Marie Alacoque, and how it was turned to account by the Jesuits. D 6 CO DISPUTE ABOUT THE The Ursulines, a more useful body, devoted them- selves to education. In the three hundred and fifty convents which belonged to them in this century, they educated, at the smallest computation, thirty- five thousand young girls. This vast establishment for education, directed by skilful hands, might, in- deed, become a political engine of enormous power. The Ursulines and the Visitandines were governed by bishops, who appointed their confessors. St. Francois de Sales, so excellent a friend to the Jesuits and friars in general, had shown himself distrustful of them in the subject that was dearest to his heart, that of the Visitation : — " My opinion is, (says he, in some part of his works,) that these good girls do not know what they want, if they wish to submit them- selves to the superiority of the friars, who, indeed, are excellent servants of God ; but it always goes hard for girls to be governed by the orders, who are accustomed to take from them the holy liberty of the mind."* It is but too easy to perceive how the orders of women servilely reproduced the minds of the men who directed them. Thus, the devotion of those who were governed by monks was characterised by every species of caprice, eccentricity, and violence ; whilst they who were under the direction of secular priests, such as the Oratorians and the Doctrinaires, show * (Euvres, vol. xi. p. 120. (ed. 1833.) DIRECTION OF THE NUNS. 61 some faint traces of reason, together with a sort of narrow-minded, common -place, and unproductive wisdom. The nuns, who received from the bishops their ordinary confessors, chose for themselves an extra- ordinary one besides, who, as being extraordinary, did not fail to supplant and annul the former; the latter was, in most cases, a Jesuit. Thus the new orders of the Ursulines and Visitandines, created by priests who had endeavoured to keep friars out of them, fell, nevertheless, under the influence of the latter : the priests sowed, but the Jesuits reaped the harvest. Nothing did greater service to the cause of the Jesuits, than their constantly repeating that their austere founder had expressly forbidden them ever to govern the convents of women. This was true, as applied to converts generally, but false as regarded nuns in particular, and their special direction ; they did not, indeed, govern them collectively, but they directed them individually. The Jesuit was not pestered with the daily detail of spiritual management, or the small fry of trifling faults. He did not fatigue; he only interfered at the right time ; he was particularly useful in dispensing the nuns from telling the con- fessor what they wished to conceal. The latter became, by degrees, a sort of husband, whom they might disregard. 62 THE JESUITS TRIUMPH If he happened, indeed, to have any firmness in his composition, or to be able to exercise any influence, the others worked hard to get rid of him by force of calumny. We may form an opinion of the audacity of the Jesuits in tliis particular, since they did not fear to attack the Cardinal de BeruUe himself, not- withstanding his power.* One of his relatives, living with the Carmelites, having become pregnant, they boldly accused him of the crime, though he had never set his foot within the convent. Finding no one to believe them, and seeing they would gain, nothing by attacking him on the score of morality, they joined in a general outcry against his books. " They contained the hidden poison of a dangerous mys- ticism : the cardinal was too tender, too indul- gent, and too weak, both as a theologian and a director." Astounding impudence! when every body knew and saw what sort of directors they were themselves I This, however, had, in time, the desired effect, if not against Berulle, at least against the Oratory, who became disgusted with, and afraid of, the di- rection of the nuns, and at last abandoned it. This is a remarkable example of the all-powerful effects of calumny, when organised on a grand scale by a numerous body, vented by them, and continually sung in chorus. A band of thirty thousand men * Tabaraud, Life of BeruUe, vol. i. passim. THROUGH CALUMNY. 63 repeating the same thing every day throughout the Cliristian world ! Who could resist that ? This is the very essence of Jesuitical art, in which they are unrivalled. At the very creation of their order, a sentence was applied to them, similar to those well- known verses in which Yirgil speaks of the Romans : " Exciident alii spirantia mollius aara,'' &c. &c. Others shall animate brass, or give life to marble ; they (the Romans) shall excel in other arts. " Re- member, Jesuit, thy art is calumny." 64 REACTION OF MOEALITV. CHAPTER V. REACTION OF MORALITY. AENATJD, 1643. PASCAL, 1657. — BASENESS OF THE JESUITS. HOW THET GET HOLD OF THE KING AND THE POPE, AND IMPOSE SILENCE UPON THEIR ENEMIES. DISCOURAGEMENT OP THE JESUITS. — THEIK CORRUPTION. THET PROTECT THE FIRST QUIETISTS. IMMORALITT OF QUIETISM. DESMARETS DE SAINT-SORLIN. — MORIN BURNT, 1663. MOKALITT was weakened, but not quite extinct. Thougli undermined by the casuists, Jesuitism, and by the intrigues of the clergy, it was saved by the laity. The age presents us this contrast. The priests, even the best of them, the Cardinal de Berulle for instance, rush into the world, and into politics ; while illustrious persons among the laity, such as Descartes and Poussin, retire to seek solitude. The philosophers turn monks, and the saints become men of business. Each set of people will acquire what it desires in this century. One party will have power ; they will suc- ceed in obtaining the banishment of the Protestants, the proscription of the Jansenists, and the submission of the Galileans to the Pope. Others will have science ; Descartes and Galileo give the movements ; Leibnitz and Newton furnish the harmony. That is to say. REACTION or MOEALITT. 65 the Church will triumph in temporal affairs, and the laity will obtain the spiritual power. From the desert where our great lay-monks then took refuge, a purer breeze begins to blow. We feel that a new age now commences, modern age, the age of work, following that of disputes. No more dreams, no more school-divinity. We must now begin to work in earnest, early and before daylight. It is rather cold, but no matter ; it is the refreshing cool- ness of the dawn, as after those beautiful nights in the North, where a young queen of twenty goes to visit Descartes, at four in the morning, to learn the application of algebra to geometry. This serious and exalted spirit which renewed phi- losophy and modified literature, had necessarily some influence on theology. It found a resting point, though a very minute and still imperceptible one, in the assembly of the friends of Port-Royal ; it added grandeur to their austerity, morality asserted its own claims, and religion awoke to a sense of her danger. Every thing was going on prosperously for the Jesuits ; as confessors of kings, grandees, and fine ladies, they saw their morality every where in full bloom ; when in this serene atmosphere the light- ning flashes and the thunderbolt falls. I speak of Arnaud s book, entitled " Frequent Communion" (1643), so unexpected and so overwhelming. Not only the Jesuits and Jesuitism were struck by the blow, but, in general, all that portion of Chris- 66 AENAUD AND PASCAL. tendom, which was enervated by an easy indul- gence. Christianity appeared again austere and grave ; the world again saw with awe the pale face of its crucified Saviour. He came to say again, in the name of grace, what natural reason equally asserts — that there is no real expiation without repentance. What became of all their petty arts of evasion in presence of this severe truth ? What became of their worldly devotions and romantic piety, together with all the Philotheas, Erotheas, and their imitations? The contrast ap- peared odious. Other writers have said, and will say, all tliis much better. I am not writing here the history of Jansenism. The theological question is now become obsolete. The moral question still survives, and history owes it one word; for it cannot remain indifferent between the honest and the dishonest. Whether the Jansenist did or did not exaggerate the doctrine of grace, we must still call this party, as it deserves to be, in this grand struggle, the party of virtue. Arnaud and Pascal are so far from having gone too far against their adversaries, that one might easily show they stopped short of the mark of their own accord, that they did not wish to make use of all their arms, and were afraid (in attacking, on certain delicate points, the Jesuitical direction,) of doing liarm to direction in general, and to confession. BASENESS OF THE JESUITS, 67 Ferrler, the Jesuit, avows that, after the terrible blow inflicted by the Lettres Pi-ovinciales, the Jesuits were crushed, and that they fell into derision and contempt. A multitude of bishops condemned them, and not one stood up in their defence. One of the means they employed to mend their case was, to say boldly that the opinions with which they were reproached were not those of the Society, but of a few individuals. They were answered that, as all their books were examined by the chief, they belonged thus to the whole body. No matter : to amuse the simple, they got a few of their order to write against their own doctrine. A Spanish Jesuit wrote against Ultramontanism. Another, the Father Gonzalis, wrote a book against the casuists : he was very useful to them. When, in course of time, Rome was at last ashamed of their doctrine, and dis- avowed them, they put Gonzalis forward, printed his book, and made him their general. Even in our own time, it is this book and this name that they oppose to us. Thus they have an answer for every thing. Should you like indulgence, take Escobar ; should you prefer severity, take Gonzalis. Let us now see what was the result of this general contempt into which they feU. after the Provinciates. Public conscience having received such good warning, every one apparently will hasten to shun them. Their confession will be avoided and their colleges deserted. You think so ? Then you are much mistaken. 68 THE JESUITS GAIN OVEE They are too necessary to the corruption of the age. How could the king, with his twofold adul- tery, posted up in the face of all Europe, make his devotions without them ? Fathers Ferrier, Canard*, and Lachaise, will remain with him till the end, like pieces of furniture that are too convenient to be dis- pensed with. But does not Rome perceive how much she is compromised by such allies ? Is it not incumbent on her to separate from them ? Feeble attempts were not wanting. A pope condemned the apology of the casuists that the Jesuits had risked. The energy of Home went no further : if any remained, it was employed against the enemies of the Jesuits. The latter got the upper hand ; they had succeeded, in the beginning of the century, in getting the head of the church to impose silence on the doctrine of grace, as defended by the Dominicans ; and they silenced it again, in the middle of the century, when it recommenced speaking by the mouth of the Jansenists. The Jesuits showed their gratitude to Rome, for imposing this sUence a second time, by stretching still further the infallibility of the pope. They did not fear to build up still higher this falling Tower of Babel ; they increased it by two stories : first, they asserted (by their Bellarmin) the infallibility of the * He it was who would be called only by his Latinized name, Annat. THE KING AND THE POPE. 69 pope in matters of faith. Secondly, when the danger had become imminent, they took a bold and foolish step ; but it secured to them the friendship of Rome : they made the pope do in his decrepitude what he had never dared to do in his power — declare himself infallible in matters of fact. And this at the very moment that Rome was obliged to confess that she was wrong about the greatest facts of nature and history. Not to speak of the New World, which she was obliged to admit, after having denied it, she condemns Galileo, and then she subinits to his system, adopts and teaches it : the penance that she imposed on him for one day, has, since Galileo, been inflicted upon herself for two hundred years.* Here is another fact, still gra^'er in one sense : - — The fundamental right of popes, the title of their power, those famous Decrees which they quoted and defended, as long as criticism, unaided by the art of printing, failed to enlighten mankind; — well I the pope is obliged to confess that these very Decrees are a tissue of lies and imposture. | What ! when Popery has disclaimed its own words, * They will say, these are material sciences, and that they are spiritual men. To that I answer, he who does not under- stand the natural, has no right to distinguish the supernatural from it, nor decide about it. •j" By the instrumentality of the two cardinals and librarians of the Vatican, Bellarmin and Baronius, one of whom was the confessor of the pope. 70 JESUITS' DISCOURAGEMENT and given itself the lie on the fundamental fact, upon which its own right depends, is it then that the Jesuits claim for her infallibility in matters of fact ? The Jesuits have been the tempters and corrupters of popes as well as of kings. They caught kings by their concupiscence, and popes by their pride. It is a laughable, but touching sight to see this poor little Jansenist party, then so great in genius and heart*, resolute in making an appeal to the jus- tice of Rome, and remaining on their knees before this mercenary judge ! f The Jesuits were not so blind but that they saw that popery, foolishly propped up by them In theo- logy, was miserably losing ground in the political world. In the beginning of the 1 7th century the pope was stiU powerful ; he whipped Henry IV. in the person of the Cardinal d'Ossat. But in the middle of * Whe can see in the Louvre the tragical portrait of An- gelicas Arnaud without emotion ? his pale face, so pure and so austere, like a transparent alabaster lamp illuminated by the inward flame, the flame of grace — the flame also of battles. But how can we accuse him — persecuted, and given up to those whom every body despised ? Virtue and genius oppressed by cunning ! I never go to the Museum without looking also at the touching picture of the young nun of Port-Royal, saved by a prayer. Ah ! these girls were saints, we must say ; whether we like their spirit of resistance or not, they were saints ; and, moreover, under the form of that age, real defenders of liberty. f Read, however, the immortal 5th letter of Nicole (Ima- ginaries and Visionaries, vol. i. p. 140.), which is as eloquent as the Provinciales, and much bolder. AND CORRUPTION. 71 that century, after all the great efforts of the Thirty Years' War, the pope was not even consulted in the treaty of Westphalia ; and in that of the Pyrenees, between catholic Spain and very-christian France, they forgot that he existed. The Jesuits had undertaken what was perfectly impossible ; and the principal engine they employed for it — the monopoly of the rising generation — was not less impossible. Their greatest efforts had been directed to this point ; they had succeeded in getting into their hands the greater part of the children of the nobility and of people of fortune ; they had contrived, by means of education, a machine to narrow the mind, and crush the intellect. But such was the vigour of modern invention, that in spite of the most ingenious machinery to annihilate in- vention, the first generation produced Descartes, the second the author of Tartuffe, and the third Vol- taire. The worst of it is, by the light of this great modern flambeau which they had been unable to ex- tinguish, they saw their own deformity. They knew what they were, and began to despise themselves. No one is so hardened in lying as to deceive himself entirely. They were obliged tacitly to confess that their probabilism, or doctrine of probability*, was at * The doctrine of probability was this, that a man might, with a safe conscience, follow an opinion or precept recom- mended by four, or three, or two doctors, or even by one doctor 72 CORRUPTION OF THE JESUITS. bottom but doubt, and the absence of all principle. They could not help discovering that they, the most Christian of all societies, and the champions of the faith, were only sceptics. Of faith? — what faith? It was not, at any rate. Christian faith : all their theology had no other ten- dency than to ruin the base on which Christianity is founded — ^ grace and salvation by the blood of Jesus Christ. (See page 18.) Champions of a principle ? No ; but agents of a plot, occupied with one project, and this an impos- sible one — the restoration of popery. Sorae few Jesuits resolved to seek a remedy in themselves for their fallen condition. They avowed frankly the urgent need that the Society had of re- form. Their chief, a German, dared to attempt this reform ; but it went hard with him : the great majo- rity of the Jesuits wished to maintain the abuses, and they deprived him of all power.* These good workmen, who bad been so successful in justifying the enjoyments of others, wanted to en- joy themselves in their turn. They chose for their general a man after their own heart, amiable, gentle, of high reputation, though it were contrary to his sentiment who followed it, and even to his who recommended it. Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. 16th century, sect. 3. part 1. eh. 1. note 132. — Transi.. * This episode in the history of the Jesuits, though much obscured by them, has been cleared up by Kanke from manu- script documents. IMMORALITY OF QUIETISM. 73 and kind, the epicure Oliva. Rome, recently governed by Madame Olympia, was in a season of indulgence ; Oliva, retiring to his delightful viUa, said, " Business to-morrow," and left the Society to govern itself after its own fashion. Some became merchants, bankers, and cloth-, makers for the profit of their establishments. Others, following more closely the example of the pope, worked for their nephews, and transacted the busi- ness of their families. The idle wits frequented the public walks, coquetted, and made madrigals. Others again found amusement in chatting to the nuns, in the little secrets of women, and in sensual inquisitiveness. Their rulers, lastly, who found themselves excluded from the society of women, became too often the Thyrsis and Corydons of the colleges; the conse- quence was in Germany a formidable investigation*^ when a great number of the proud and austere, German houses were found to be criminal. The Jesuits, who had fallen so low both in theory and practice, increased their party at the risk of the strangest auxiliaries. Whoever declared himself an enemy of the Jansenists became their friend. Hence, arose the immoral inconsistency of the Society — its perfect indifference to systems. These people, who, for more than half a century had been fighting for free will, formed a sudden alliance, without any in- * A few copies were reprinted in 1843. Mr. Nodier ginm, me this very curious rarity ; but I have mislaid it. E 74 DESMAEETS DE ST. SOELIN. tervening period of transition, with the mystics who confounded all their liberty in God. Just before they had been reproached with following the prin- ciples of pagan philosophers and jurisconsults, who attribute every thing to justice, and nothing to grace or love ; now they receive quietism at its birth with open arms, and the preacher of love, the visionary Desmarets de St. Sorlin. Desmarets had, it is true, done them some essential service. He had succeeded in dismembering Port- Royal, by gaining over some of the nuns. He assisted them powerfully in destroying poor Morin, another visionary more original and more innocent, who fancied himself to be the Holy Ghost. * He teUs us himself how, being encouraged by Father Canard (Annat) the king's confessor, he gained the confidence of this unfortunate man, made him believe he was his dis- ciple, and drew from him written documents, by means of which he caused him to be burnt (1663). The protection of this all-powerful confessor gained for the most extravagant books of Desmarets the * A belief common to the middle ages. Morin is a man of the middle ages who had wandered into the 17th century. His Pensees (1647) contain much originality and eloquence. Among other things there is this fine verse (p. 164.), "You know that love changes into itself what it loTes." Morin's life was inno- cent ; his cruel sentence reproaches him with nothing on the score of morality. Desmarets destroyed him through jealousy : he wanted to turn prophet on his own account, and was not cAjntented with being the Saint John the Baptist of the new Messiah. DESMAEETS DE ST. SOKLIN. I 5 approbation of the Archbishop of Paris. He declared in them that he was a prophet, and undertook to raise for the king and the pope an army of a hundred and forty-four thousand divots, as knights of papal infallibility, to exterminate, in concert with Spain, the Turks and the Jansenists. These devots, or victims of love, were self-sacrificed people, who affected a sort of inward annihilation, and who lived henceforth only in God. Hence they could do no harm. The soul, said this prophet, having become a nonentity, cannot consent ; so that whatever it may do, inasmuch as it has not consented, it has not sinned. It no longer thinks at all, either of what it has done, or of what it has not done ; for it has done nothing at all. God being all in us, does all, and suffers all; the devil can no longer find the creature, either in itself or in its acts, for it acts no longer. By an entire dissolution of ourselves, the virtue of the Holy Ghost flows into us, and we be- come wholly God, by a miraculous deiformity. If there be still any thing jarring in the grosser part, the purer part knows nothing of it ; but both these parts, being subtilised and rarefied, change at last into God : " God then abides with the emotions of sensuality, all of which are sanctified.''^* Desmarets did not confine himself to printing this doctrine with the privilege of the king and the ap- * Desmarets de St. Sorlin's Delight of the Spirit, 'iQihjournee, p. 170. See also his spiritual letters, &c. E 2 76 IMMORALITY OF QUIETISM.' probation of the archbishop. Strongly supported by- the Jesuits, he ran from convent to convent, preaching to the nuns. Layman as he was, he had made himself a director of female youth. He related to them his dreams of devout gallantry, and inquired about their carnal temptations. It seemed that a man so perfectly self-annihilated might write fearlessly the strangest things — the following letter for instance : — "I embrace you, my very dear dove, in your nonentity,' being a perfect nullity myself, each of us being all in our AH, by our amiable Jesus," &c. What progress is here made in a few yeats,. since the " Provincial letters ! " What has become of the' casuists, — those simple people who took and effaced transgressions one by one, giving themselves immense trouble ? They are all scattered to the winds. Casuistry was an art that had its masters, doctors, and cunning men. But now, what need of doctors ? Every spiritual man, every devout person, every Je- suit in a short robe can speak, as well as he in the long one, the soft language of pious tenderness. The Jesuits have fallen, but Jesuitism has gained ground; It is no longer requisite to direct the attention every day, for every distinct case, by special equivocationsi Love, that mingles and confounds every thing, is the sovereign, most gentle and powerful equivocation. Lull the will to sleep, and there is no longer any in-* tention ; " the soul, losing its nonentity in its infinity," will be gently annihilated in the bosom of love. CONTINUATION OF MORAL EEAOTION. 77 CHAPTER VI. CONTINUATION OF MORAL REACTION. TARTUFFE, 1664 — J669. REAL TAETDFFES. 'WHT TARTUFFE IS NOT TET A QUIETIST. The devotee caught in the comic act by the man of the world, the churchman excommunicated by the comedian — this is the meaning and aim of the Tartuffe* The grand moral question, put by Plato in his Athenian Tartuffe (the Euthyphron), "Can there be sanctity without jMs^zce.?" — this question, so clear in itself, but so skilfully obscured by casuists, was again put forward in open daylight. '■■ The theatre re- established religious morality f, which had been so endangered in the churches, i * The appearance of the Tartuffe, and the conquest of Flanders, mark the literary and political apogee of the age of Louis XIV. Prance, which till then represents the modern principle, turns afterwards against it, attacks Holland, and thus prepares the way for the alliance of Holland and England, that is to say, the greatness of England and her own ruin. f A freethinker, St. Evremond, writes to his friend, " I have just read Tartvffe ... if I am saved, I shall owe my salvation to him. Devotion is so reasonable in the mouth of Cleante, that it makes me renounce all my philosophy ; and false devotees are so well described, that the shame of their likeness will induce them to abandon hypocrisy. Holy piety, how much good you will confer on the world ! " A letter quoted in the edition of ilr. Aime-Martin (1837), vol. iii. p. 125. £ 3 78 TAETOTTE. The author of the Tartuffe chose his subject, not in society in general, but in a more limited space, — in the family circle, the fire-side, the holy of holies of modem life. This dramatist, this impious being, was, of all men in the world, the one who had most at heart the religion of the family, though he had no family himself. He was both tender and melancholy, and sometimes, in speaking of himself and his domestic griefs, he would utter this grave but characteristic sentence : " I ought to have fore- seen that one thing made me unfit for family society ; which Is, my austerity."* The Tartuffe, that grand and sublime picture, is very simple in its outline. Had it been more com- plicated it had been less popular. Mental restriction and the direction of intention, which every body had laughed at since the " Provincial letters," were suf- ficient matter for Moliere. He did not venture to bring the new doctrine of mysticism on the stage, being as yet too little known, or too dangerous. Had he employed the jargon of Desmarets and the earlier quietists, and put into the mouth of Tar- tuffe their mystic tendernesses, the result would have been the same as that of his ridiculous sonnet In the Misanthrope — the pit would have wondered what It meant. * See his life by Grimarest, the ingenious notice of Mr. Genin (the French Plutarch), and the important work by Mr. E. Noel " On the Biography of Moliere, as found in his Comedies " (in the press). TAETUFFE. 79 The evening before the first representation of Tartuffe, Moliere read the piece to Ninon ; " and to pay him back in his own coin, she related to him a similar adventure she had had with a wretch of that species, whose portrait she drew in such lively and natural colours, that if the piece had not been com- posed, he said, he never would have undertaken it.' What, then, could be wanting to this master-piece, this drama of such profound conception and powerful execution ? Nothing, certainly, but what was ex- cluded by the state of religion at that time, and by the customs of our theatre. Still one thing was wanting, which was impossible to be shown in so short a drama (though in fact it constitutes the real essence of the characters) ; I mean the preparatory management, the long windings by which he makes his approaches, his patience in stratagems^ and his gradual fascination. Every thing is strongly told, but rather abruptly. This man, received into the house out of charity, this low rogue, this glutton who eats as much as six, this red-eared villain — how did he grow bold so sud- denly, and aspire so high? A declaration of love from such a man to such a lady, from an intended son-in-law to his future mother-in-law, still astonishes when we read it. On the stage, perhaps, we coun- tenance it more easily. Elmira, when the holy man makes this surprising avowal to her face, is by no means prepared to listen 80 MADEMOISiSLLE BOUEIGNON. to him. A real Tartuffe would have acted in a very different manner ; he would have quietly sat down, humble and patient, and waited for the favourable moment. If, for instance, Elmira had experienced the indiscretions and fickleness of those worldly lovers whom Tartuffe mentions, then, indeed, when she was worn out by these trials, and become weak, weary, and dispirited, he might have accosted her ; then, perhaps, she would have allowed him to say, in the smooth quietist jargon, many things that she can- not listen to at the moment when Moliere presents her before us. Mademoiselle Bourignon, in her curious Life, which well deserves another edition, relates what danger she was in through a saint of this species. I shall let her speak for herself. But first you must know that the pious damsel, who had just become an heiress, was thinking about laying out her wealth in endowing convents, and in other similar acts of piety. ■" Being, one day, in the streets of Lille, I met a man whom I did not know, who said to me as he passed, ' You will not do what you wish ; you will do what you do not wish.' Two days after the same man came to my house and said, ' What did you think of me ? ' ' That you were either a fool or a prophet,' replied I. ' Neither,' said he ; ' I am a poor fellow from a village near Douai, and my name is Jean de St. Saulieu ; I have no other thought but that of charity. I lived first of all with a hermit, but REAL TAETUPFES. 81 now I have my cure, Mr. Eoussel, for a director. I teach poor children to read. The sweetest — the most charitable act you could do would be to collect all the little female orphans ; they have become so numerous since the wars ! The convents are rich enough.' He spoke for three hours together with much unction. " I inquired about him of the cure, his director, who assured me that he was a person of a truly apos- tolical zeal. (We should observe that the cure had tried at first to catch this rich heiress for his own nephew ; the nephew not succeeding, he employed one of his own creatures.) Saint Saulieu frequently repeated his visits, speaking divinely of spiritual things. I could not understand how a man without any preparatory study could speak in so sublime a manner of the divine mysteries. I believed him to be really inspired by the Holy Ghost. He said him- self that he was dead to nature. He had been a soldier, and had returned from the wars as chaste as a child. By dint of abstinence he had lost the taste of food, and could no longer distinguish wine from beer ! He passed the greater part of his time on his knees in the churches. He was seen to walk in the street with a modest air and downcast eyes, never looking at any thing, as if he had been alone in the world. He visited the poor and sick, giving away all he possessed. In winter time, if he saw a poor man without a garment, he would draw him aside, take off his own coat, and give it him. My E 5 82 REAL TARTUFFES. heart overflowed with joy to see that there were still such men in the world. I thanked God, and thought I had found the counterpart of myself. Priests and other pious persons put the same confidence in him, went to consult him, and receive his good advice. "It was quite foreign to my feelings to quit my peaceful retreat, and establish the asylum for children that Saint Saulleu had recommended to me. But he brought me a tradesman who had begun the same thing, and who offered me a house, where he had already located a few poor little girls. I took possession in November, 1653. I cleaned these children. They were shockingly dirty, but after a great deal of trouble, I cleaned them myself, having nobody with me who liked the occupation. But at last I made a rule, and followed it myself, putting every thing in common, and making every one eat at the same table. I kept myself as retired as I could ; but I was obliged to speak to all sorts of persons. Friars came, as well as devotees whose conversations did not much please me. ... I was frequently sick to death. " The house in which Saint Saulieu taught having been destroyed, and himself sent away, he went to live with the tradesman, of whom I have already spoken. They solicited me to make an asylum, like mine, for boys. In order to raise a necessary fund. Saint Saulieu was to take an office in the town on lease, that brought in two thousand francs a year, and EEAL TAKTUrrES. 83 the revenue was to be applied to this foundation, myself being security for him. He received the pro- duce of one year, and then said it was necessary, before any thing was done, to receive for another year, to furnish the house. This made four thousand francs ; and when he had got six thousand he kept the whole, saying it was the fruit of his labour, and that he had well earned it. " I had not waited for this to make me distrustful of the man ; I had had some strange inward mis- givings on his account. One day, methought I saw a black wolf sporting with a white lamb. Another day, it was the heart of Saint Saulieu, and a little Moorish child with a crown and sceptre of gold sitting upon it, as if the devil had been the king of his heart. I did not conceal these visions from him ; but he grew angry, and said I ought to confess my- self for thinking so badly of my neighbour ; that he could not be a black wolf; for, on the contrary, the more he approached me, the more pure and chaste he became. " One day, however, he told me that we ought to be married, only for spiritual love ; and that such a union would enable us to do still more good. To this I answered, that marriage was not requisite for such a union. He made me, however, little demon- strations of friendship, to which, at first, I paid no attention. At last, he suddenly threw off the mask, told me he loved me desperately ; that for many £ G 84 TAETCFFE NOT YET A QUIETIST. years he had studied spiritual books, the better to win me, and that now having so much access to me, I must be his wife, either by love or force . . . and he approached to caress me. I was very angry, and commanded him to go. Then he burst into tears, fell on his knees, and said, ' The devil tempted ine.' I was simple enough to believe, and to pardon him. " This was not the end of the affair : he was always recommencing his attack, following me every where, and entering my house in spite of my girls. He went so far as to hold a knife to my throat to force me to yield At the same time he said every where tliat he had gained his suit, and that I was his promised wife. I complained in vain to his confessor ; I then appealed to justice, who allowed me two men to guard my house, and began an in- quiry. Saint Satdieu soon absconded from Lille, and went to Ghent, whei'c he found one of my girls, who was a great devotee, and passed for a mirror of perfection: he lived with her, and she became en- ceinte. The way he arranged the LiUe affair was this: — he had a brother among the Jesuits, and they employed their friends so well, that he got off by paying the costs of justice, retracting his calumny, and acknowledging that I was an honest woman."* * I have abridged and united the two accounts given by Mademoiselle de Bourignon. See at the end of toI. i. of her (Euvres (Amsterdam, 1686), pp. 68—80., and pp. 188—197. TAETUFFE NOT YET A QUIETIST. 85 This took place between 1653 and 1658, con- sequently only a few years before the representation of Moli^re's Tartuffe, who wrote the three first acts in 1664. Every thing leads us to believe that such adventures were not rare at that period. TartufFe, Orgon, and aU the other personages of this truly historical piece, are not abstract beings, pure crea- tions of art, hke the heroes of Corneille or Racine ; they are real men, caught in the act, and taken from nature. What strikes us in Mademoiselle de Bourignon's Flemish TartufFe is his patience to study and learn mysticism, in order to speak its language, and again his perseverance in associating himself for whole years with the thoughts of the pious maiden. If Moliere had not been confined in so narrow a frame, — if his Tartuffe had had the time to prepare better his advances, — if he had been able (the thing was then, no doubt, too dangerous) to take the cloak of Desmarets and Quietism in its birth, he might have advanced still further in his designs without being discovered. Then he would not in the very beginning have made to the person he wants to se- duce the very illogical confession, that he is a cheat. He would not have ventured the expression, " If it be only heaven" (act iv. scene 5.). Instead of un- masking abruptly this ugly corruption, he would have varnished it over, and unveiled it by degrees. From one ambiguous phrase to another, and by a 86 TAKTUFFE NOT YET A QUIETIST. cunning transition, he would have contrived to make corruption take the appearance of perfection. Who knows ? he would, perhaps, at last have succeeded, like many others, in finding it unnecessary to be a hypocrite any longer, and have finished by imposing on himself, cheating and seducing himself into the belief that he was a saint. It Is then he would have been Tartuffe in the superlative degree, being so not only for the world, but for himself, having perfectly confounded within himself every ray of good, and reposing in evil with a tranquillity secured by his ignorance, counterfeit at first, but afterwards become natural. APPAEITION OF MOLINOS. 87 CHAPTEK Vn. APPARITION OP MOLINOS, 1675. — HIS SUCCESS AT ROME. FRENCH QUIETISTS. MADAME GUTON. — HER DIREC- TOR. THE TOSBENTS. MYSTIC DEATH. DO WE RE- TURN FROM IT ? ThjE Spiritual Guide of Molinos appeared at Rome in 1675. The way having been prepared for twenty- years by different publications of the same tendency, highly approved of by the inquisitors of Rome and Spain, this book had a success unparalleled in the age : in twelve years it was translated and reprinted twenty times.* We must not be surprised that this guide to anni- hilation, this method to die, was received so greedily ; there was then throughout Europe a general feeling of (vearisomeness. That century, still far from its close, already panted for repose. This appears to be the case by its own doctrines. Cartesianism, which gave it an impulse, became inactive and contemplative in Male- branche (1674). Spinosa, as early as 1670, had de- clared the immobility of God, man, and the world, in * This is the testimony borne by its enthusiastic admirer, the Archbishop of Palermo (at the head of the Latin trans- lation, 1687). 88 APPAEITION OF JtOLINOS, the unity of substance. And In 1676, Hobbes gave his theory of political fatalism. Spinosa, Hobbes, and Molinos — death, every where, in metaphysics, politics, and morality ! What a dismal chorus I They are of one mind with- out knowing each other, or forming any compact ; they seem, however, to shout to each other from one extremity of Europe to the other ! Poor human liberty has nothing left but the choice of its suicide ; either to be hurled by logic in the Xorth into the bottomless pit of Spinosa, or to be lulled in the South by the sweet voice of Molinos, into a death-like and eternal slumber. The age is, however, as yet in all its brilliancy and triumph. Some time must pass away before these discouraging and deadly thoughts pass from theory to practice, and politics become infected with this moral languor. It is a delicate and interesting moment in every existence, that middle term between the period of increasing vigour and that of old age, when, retaining its brilliancy, it loses its strength, and decay imper- ceptibly begins. In the month of August the trees have aU their leaves ; but soon they change colour, many a one grows pale, and in their splendid sum- mer robe you have a presentiment of their autumnal decline. For some time an impure and feverish wind had blown from the South, both from Italy and Spain ; HIS SUCCESS AT KOME. 89 Italy was already too lifeless, too deeply entombed, to be able to produce even a doctrine of death., It was a Spaniard established at Rome, and imbued with Italian languor, who invented this theory and drew it forth into practice. Still it was necessary for his disciples to oblige him to write and publish. Molinos had for twenty years been satisfied with sowing his doctrine noiselessly in Kome, and propa- gating it gently from palace to palace. The theology of Quietism was wonderfully adapted to the city of catacombs, the silent city, where, from that time, scarcely any thing was heard but the faint rustling . of worms crawling in the sepulchre. When the Spaniard arrived in E-ome, it had hardly recovered from the efieminate pontificate of Madame Olympia. The crucified Jesus reposed in the delicate hands of her general Oliva, among sumptuous vines, exotic flowers, lilies, and roses. These torpid E-o- mans, this idle nobility, and these lazy fair ones, who pass their time on couches, with half-closed eyes, are the persons to whom Molinos comes at a late hour to speak — ought I to say speak ? His low, whisper- ing voice, sinking into their lethargy, is confounded with their inward dream. Quietism had quite a dif- ferent character in France. In a living country, the theory of death showed some symptoms of life. An infinite measure of activity was employed to prove that action was no longer necessary. This injured their doctrine, for noise and light were hurtful to 90 TEENCH QUIETIST8. it. This delicate plant loved darkness, and sought to grow in the shade. Not to speak of the chimerical Desmarets, who could but render an opinion ridicu- lous, Malaval seemed to have an idea, that this new doctrine outstepped Christianity. Concerning the words of Jesus, / am the way, he uses an expression surprising for this century : " Since he is the way, let us pass by him ; hut, he who is always passing never arrives." * Our French Quietists, by their lucid analysis, their rich and fertile developments, made known, for the first time, what had scarcely been dreamed of in the obscure form, which Quietism had prudently preserved in other countries. Many things, that seemed in the bud hardly developed, appeared in Madame Guyon in full bloom, as clear as daylight, with the sun in the meridian. The singular purity of this woman rendered her intrepid in advancing the most dangerous ideas. She was as pure in her imagination as she was disinterested in her motives. She had no need to figure to herself the object of her pious love, under a material fonn.f This is what gives her mysticism a sublime superiority over the coarse and sensual devotion of the Sacre-Caeur, established by * Malaval, Easy Practice, 1670. The first part had been printed twice already. f See her Life written by herself, (Cologne, 1720,) vol. i. p. 80. " My prayer was, from that time, free from all forms, ingredients, and images. See also p. 83., against visions. MADAME GUYON AND HEK DIRECTOK. 91 the Visitandine, Marie ALacoque, about the same period. Madame Guyon was far too intellectual to give a form to her God: she truly loved a spirit ; hence sprang her confidence and unlimited courage. She attempts bravely, but without sus- pecting herself to be brave, the most perilous paths, now ascending, now descending into regions that others had most avoided ; she presses boldly forward past the point where every one had stopped through fear, like the luminary which brightens every thing, and remains unsullied itself. These courageous efforts, though innocent in so pure a woman, had nevertheless a dangerous effect upon the weak- minded. Her confessor. Father Lacombe, was wrecked in this dangerous gulf, where he was swallowed up and drowned. The person and the doctrine had equally deranged his faculties. All we know of his intercourse with her betrays a strange weakness, which she, in her sublime aspirations, seems hardly to have condescended to notice. The very first time he saw her, then young, and tending her aged husband, he was so affected by the sight, that he fainted. Afterwards, having become her humble disciple, under the name of her director, he followed her every whei-e in her adventurous life, both in France and Savoy. He never left her side, "and could not dine without her." He had succeeded In getting her portrait taken. Being arrested at the same time as herself, in 1687, he was for &2 THE TOEEENTS. ten years a prisoner in the fortresses of the Pyrenees. In 1698, they took advantage of the weakness of bis mind to make him write to Madame Guyon a com- promising letter.* " The poor man," said she laughing, "is become mad." He certainly was so, and, a few days after, he died at Charenton. This madness little surprises me, when I read Madame Guyon's Torrents, that fantastic, charming, but fearful book. It must not be passed over in silence. When she composed the book, she was at Annecy, in the convent of the newly converted. She had bestowed her wealth upon her family, and the small income she reserved for herself was also given away by her to this religious establishment, where she was very iU used. This delicate woman, who had passed her life in luxury, was forced to work with her hands beyond her strength; her employment was washing and sweeping. Father Lacombe, then in Home, had recommended her to write whatever came into her mind. " It is to obey you," says she, " that 1 am beginning to write what I do not know myself." She takes a ream of paper, and writes down the title of her subject : — Torrents. As the torrents of the Alps, the rivers, rivulets, and mountain streams, which tumble from their heights, rush with all their force towards the sea, * See Boussuet's Correspondance and the Relation de Phelip- peaux, &c. THE TORRENTS. 93' even so our souls, by the effect of their spiritual in- clination, hasten to return towards God to be blended with him. This comparison of living waters is not a simple text that serves her for a starting point ; she follows it up almost throughout the volume with renewed graces. One would suppose that this pleasing light style would tire us at last ; but it does not : we feel that it is not mere words and language, but that it springs and flows like life blood from the heart. She is evidently an uninformed woman, who has read only the Imitation, the Phi- lothea of Saint Francois, some few stories, and Don Quixote ; knows nothing at all, and has not seen much. Even these Torrents, which she describes, are not seen by her in the Alps, where she then is ; she sees them within herself; she sees nature in the mirror of her heart. In reading this book we seem absolutely as if we were on the brink of a cascade, pensively listening to the murmuring of the waters. They fall for ever and ever gently and charmingly, varying their uni^ formity by a thousand changes of sound and colour. Thence you see the approach of waters of every sort (images of human souls), rivers that flow only to reach other rivers, floods which pour forward to the ocean, but slowly ; broad majestic streams, all loaded with boats, goods, and passengers, and that are ad- mired and blessed for the services they render. These streams are the souls of the saints and great 94 MYSTIC DEATH. doctors. There are also more rapid and eager waters which are good for nothing, on which no one dares to float, that rush forward, in headlong impatience, to reach the ocean. Such waters have terrible falls, and occasionally grow impure. Sometimes they dis- appear. — Alas ! poor torrent, what has become of thee ? It is not lost ; it returns to the surface, but only to be lost again ; it is yet far from its goal ; it will have first to be dashed against rocks, scattered abroad, and, as it were, annihilated ! "Wlien the writer has brought her torrent to this supreme fall, she is at fault about the simile of the living waters ; she then leaves it, and the torrent becomes a soul again. No image taken from nature could express what this soul is about to suffer. Here begins a strange drama, where it seems no one before had dared to venture — that of mystic death. We certainly find in earlier books a word here and there upon this dark subject ; but no one yet had reached the same depth in the tomb, that deep pit where the soul is about to be buried. Madame Guyon indulges in a sort of pleasure, or perseverance, I had almost said eagerness, to grope still lower, to find, beyond all funereal ideas, a more definite death, — a death more decidedly dead. There are many things in it, that we should never have expected from a woman's hand ; passion in its transports forgets reserve. This soul, that is destined to perish, must first be divested, by her divine lover. BO WE RETURN? 95 of her trappings, the gifts that had ornamented her : he snatches off her garments, that is to say, the virtues in which she had been enveloped. — O shame ! She sees herself naked, and knows not where to hide ! This is not yet enough ; her beauty is taken away. O horror ! She sees she is ugly. Frightened and wan- dering, she runs and becomes loathsome. The faster she runs towards God, " the more she is soiled by the dirty paths she must travel in." Poor, naked, ugly, and deformed, she loses a taste for every thing, under- standing, memory, and will ; lastly, she loses together with her will a something; or other " that is her fa- vourite," and would be a substitute for all (the idea that she is the child of God). This is properly the death at which she must arrive at last. Let nobody, neither the director nor any other, attempt to relieve her. She must die, and be put in the ground ; be trodden under foot and walked upon, become foul, and rotten, and suffer the stench of corruption, until rottenness becoming dust and ashes, hardly any thing may remain to testify that the soul ever existed. What was the soul, if it still thinks, must ap- parently think, that all it can now do is to remain motionless in the bosom of the earth. 'Now, how- ever, it begins to feel something surprising ! Has the sun darted a ray through a crack in the tomb? perhaps only for one moment? No, the effect is durable, the dead soul revives, recovers some strength, a sort of life. But this is no longer her own life, — it 96 MTSTIC DEATH. IS life in God. She has no longer any thing of hen own, neither will nor desire. What has she to do to possess what she loves ? Nothing, nothing, eternally nothing. But can she have any defects in this state ?■ Doubtless she has ; she knows them, but does nothing to get rid of them * : to be able to do so, she would have to become as before, thoughtful about herself., These are little mists which she must allow to dis-; appear gradually. The soul has now God for soul ; he is now become her principle of life, he ii one and: identical with her. " In this state nothing extraordinary happens, — no visions, revelations, ecstacies, nor transports. All such things do not belong to this system, which is simple, pure, and naked, seeing nothing but in God,. as God sees himself, and by his eyes." Thus, after many immoral and dangerous things, the soul ends in a singular purity, which few. mystics have even approached. A gentle new birth, without either visions or ecstacies, and a sight- divinely pure and serene, is the lot of that soul,; which has passed through all the various shadows of death. If we listen to Madame Guyon, our life, after having been crushed, soiled, and destroyed, will revive in God, He who has passed through all tha horror of the sepulchre, whose living body has. * Madame Guyon's Torrents (Opusc. Cologne, 1701), p. 291. DO WE RETURN? 97 become a corpse, which has held communion with worms, and from rottenness has become ashes and clay — even he will resume his life, and again bloom in the sun. "What can be less credible, or less conformable to nature ? She deceives herself and us by equivocal terms. The life she promises us after this death is not our own ; our personality, extinguished, effaced, and annihilated, will be succeeded by another, in- finite and perfect, I allow, but still not ours. I had not yet read the Torrents when all this was, for the first time, represented to my mind. I was ascending St. Gothard, and had advanced to meet the violent Keuss that rushes madly down the moun- tain in its headlong course. My imagination con- jured up, in spite of myself, the terrible strugglings with which it labours to force its way through rocks that would hem it in, and bar its progress. I was frisrhtened at its falls and the efforts it seemed to make, like a poor soul on the rack, to fly from itself, and hide where it might be seen no more. It writhes at the Devil's Bridge, and, in the midst of its agony, hurled from an immense height to the bottom of the abyss, it ceases for a moment to be a river : it becomes a tempest between heaven and earth, an icy vapour, a horrible frosty blast that fiJls the dark valley with an infernal mist. Mount higher, and higher still. You traverse a cavern, and pass a hollow rock. Lo ! the uproar ceases ; this grand F 98 MYSTIC DEATH. — DO WE EETUBN ? battle of the elements is over. Peace and silence reign. And life? — it is renewed. Do you find a new-birth after this death-struggle? The meadow is blighted, the flowers are gone, and the very grass is scarce and poor. Nothing in nature stirs, not a bird in the air, not an insect on the earth. You see the sun again, it is true, but void of rays and heat. FENELON AS A DIRECTOR. 99 CHAPTER VIII. FENELON AS DIRECTOR. HIS QUIETISM. — MAXIMS OF SJINTS, 1697. FENELON AND MADAME DE LA MAISON- FORT. Madame Guyon was not apparently the extra- vagant and chimerical person that her enemies pretend, since, on her arrrival at Paris from Savoy, she managed to captivate and secure, at her first onset, the man, of all others, the most capable of giving a relish to her doctrines — a man of genius, who, moreover, had an infinite fund of sagacity and address, and who, independently of all these merits, possessed what had dispensed. If necessary, with every other qualification, being, at that time, the director the most in vogue. This new Chantal required a St. Fran9ois de Sales ; she found one in Fenelon, who was less serene and innocent, it is true, and less refulgent with boyhood and seraphic grace, but eminently noble and shrewd, subtle, eloquent, close, very devout and very in- triguing.* * See the learned Tabaraud, (Supplement to Bausset's His- tory, 1832,) and the very shrewd and judicious appreciation of two excellent critics, Mr. Monty (On the Duke of Burgundy), and Mr. Thomas (A Province in the Reign of Louis XIV.). F 2 100 FENELON AS A DIRECTOE. She laid her hands upon him, seized and carriesd him by an easy assault. This great genius, whose mind was stored with every variety and every con- tradiction, would probably have continued to waver, had it not been for this powerful impulse that forced him all on one side. TiU then he had wandered between different opinions, and opposite parties and communities, so that every one claimed him as his own, and thought to possess him. Though assiduous in courting Bossuet, whose disciple he said he was, never leaving his side in his retirement at Meaux, he was not less friendly to the Jesuits, and, between the two, he still held fast to Saint-Sulpice. In his theology, at one time inclining towards Grace, at another towards Free-wiU, imbued with the oldest mystics, and fuU of the presentiments of the eigh- teenth century, he seems to have had, beneath his faith, some obscure corners of scepticism which he was unwilling to fathom. All these divers elements, without being able to combine, were harmonised in his outward actions, under the graceful influence of the most elegant genius that was ever met with. Being both a Grecian and a Christian, he reminds us at the same time of the fathers, philosophers, and romancers of the Alexandrian period ; and sometimes our sophist turns prophet, and, in his sermon, soars on the wings of Isaiah. Every thing inclines us to believe, for all that, that the astonishing writer was the least part of FENELON AS A DIKECTOR. 101 Fenelon — lie was superlatively the Director. Who can say, by what enchantment he bewitched souls, and filled them with transport? We perceive traces of it in the infinite charms of his correspondence, dis- figured and adulterated as it is*; no other has been more cruelly pruned, purged, and designedly ob- scured. Yet in these fragments and scattered re- mains, seduction is still omnipotent : besides a no- bleness of manner, and an animated and refined turn of thought, in which the man of power is very per- ceptible under the robe of the apostle, there is also what is particularly his own, a feminine delicacy that by no means excludes strength, and even in his subtilty an indescribable tenderness that touches the heart. When a youth, and before he was tutor to the Duke of Burgundy, he had, for a long time, directed the newly converted. There he had had the opportunity of well studying woman's character, and of acquiring that perfect knowledge of the female heart, in which he was unrivalled. The impassioned interest they took in his fortune, the tears of his little flock, the Duchesses of Che- vreuse, Beauvilliers, and others, when he missed the archbishopric of Paris, their constant fidelity to this well-beloved guide during his exile at Cambrai, which ended only with his death — all this fills up the * 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. F 3 102 fenelon's quietism. void of the lost letters, and conveys a strange idea of this all-powerful magician, whose invincible magic defied every attack. To introduce spirituality so refined and so exalted, and such a pretension to supreme perfection, into that world of outward propriety and ceremonial at Ver- sailles, and this, at the end of a reign in which every thing seemed rigidly frozen — was, indeed, a rash undertaking. There was no question here as to aban- doning one's self, like Madame Guy on in her retreat among the Alps, to the torrents of divine love. It was necessary to have the appearance of common sensCj 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 pre- varication, if he differs from the absolute Quietists whom he affects to condemn, it is less in any funda- mental 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 habi- tually passive state. But in acknowledging inaction HIS "MAXIMS OF SAINTS." 103 to be both superior to action, and a state of per- fection, does he not make us wish that the inaction might be perpetual ? The soul habitually passive, 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 ab- sorbed 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 im- portant than it seems to be. The speculative part, with which Bossuet is so much oecupled, 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 assistance of the director. He establishes a system ; but this system cannot work alone; it wants the hand of man. This inert theory requires, every moment, the sup- plement of an especial consultation, and an empirical expedient. The director is a sort of supplementary * Maxims of Saints, article 14., and 8. 20. 39. 45. F 4 104 FENELON AND 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, never- theless, after all, that of reality. Man, then, and 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 illustrious adversaries, Fenelon and Bossuet, to dispute about ideas. I prefer to observe their practice. There, I see that the doc- trine has but a little, and man a very great part. Whether Quietists or Anti-quietists, they do not differ much iu 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 dis- puted, was a woman, a charming soul, full of trans- port and youth, of an imprudent vivacity, and in- genuous loyalty.* She was a niece of Madame Guyon, a young lady whom they called Madame de * A singular destiny was that of this young lady, whose tears one day are wiped away by Racine (she was playing Elise in Esther), and whom Fenelon and Bossuet have caused to weep so often ! See Mr. de Noailles' Saint-Cyr, p. 113. (1843.) MADAME DE LA MAISONFOKT. 105 la Malsonfort, for she was a canoness. This noble, 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 noble families. She knew the king was ever sensible to women, and, conse- quently, 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 har- mony of middling qualities, looked out for an emi- nently 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 Lazaristes. Godet, the Sulpician, whom she took as director both of Saint-Cyr and herself, was a man of merit, though a downright pedant; at least St. 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 F 5 106 FENELOX AND Saint-Cyr*, Racine the Jansenist, and Fenelon the Quietistj she preferred Godet. Those who are ignorant of its history would haye 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 every where 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. JSTo, 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 Jan- senist 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 the 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 Pellegin and Madame de Maintenon who wrote pieces for Saint- * " Either Racine, in speaking to you of Jansenism, would have led you into it, or Mr. de Cambrai," &c. See the Letters of Madame de Maintenon, vol. ii. p. 190. (1757.) MADAME DE LA MAISONEORT. 107 Cyr * ; and the governesses were required to be nuns. This was a great change; it displeased Louis XIV. himself t, and ran the risk of com- promising the new establishment. Madame de Maintenon seems to have been aware of this, and she brought, as a foundation-stone to her edifice, a living one — alas ! a woman full of grace and life I- — It was poor Maisonfort whom they decided to veil, immure, and seal up for ever in the foundations of Saint-Cyr. But she whose wiU was law in every thing, she was unable to do this. Lively and independent as was La Maisonfort, aU the kings and queens in the world would have been unsuccessful. The heart alone, skilfuUy touched, was able to induce her to take the desired step. Madame de Maintenon, wlio desired it extremely, made such vigorous efforts, tliat 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 con- fided 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 * Unpublished Pro«erJi of Madame de Maintenon, 1829. See also her Conversations (1828), and her Spirit of the Institution of the Girls of Saint Louis (1808). f Mr.de Noailles, Saint-Cyr, p. 131. r 6 108 PENELON AND 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 Duchesses 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 every thing 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, sanctity, and liberty at once — it was too much for her poor heart ! St. Simon tells us by what method of espionage and treason Godet proved the presence of Quietism in Saint- Cyr. There was no need of so much cunning. La ]\Iaisonfort 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. * A letter qiioted by Phelippeaux in his Kelation of Quietism, vol. i. p. 43. MADAME DB LA MAISONFORT. 109 Fenelon, suspected as he had then become, was still left with her, till she had made the important step. They waited tUl, 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. Godet, 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 passed 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. Nobody at that time was more at her com- mand than Fenelon. It was then the decisive crisis of Quietism. The question was no less than to know whether its doctor, writer, and prophet, un- palatable as he was to the king, who, however, did not yet thoroughly know him, would be able to ac- quire, 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. 110 FENELON AND Fenelon, who knew perfectly well how little she was inclined to this vocation, sacrificed her, certainly not to his personal interests, but for the advance- ment of his doctrines, and the aggrandisement of his own party. As soon as she had taken the veil, and was im- mured 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 Godet, 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 un- feelingly from Saint- Cyr. She had defended herself too successfully against such persons as Godet, Brisacier, and others of the hostile party. Though abandoned by Fenelon, she endeavoured to remain faithful to his doctrines, and MADAME DE LA MAISONFORT. Ill 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, pass under the control of another. * The whole of this letter is to be found in Phelippeaux, vol. i. p. 161. "It is not a proof of being well, when you re- quire so many physicians." 112 BOSSUET AS A DIRECTOK. CHAPTER IX. BOSSUET AS DIRECTOR. BOSSUET AND SISTER CORNUAU. — HIS LOTAXTT AJsD niPRUDENCE. HE IS PRACTICAXLT A QDIETIST. — DEVOUT DIRECTION INCLINES TO QDIETISM. — A MORAL PARALYSIS. XoTHiXG throws more light upon the real character of the direction than the correspondence of the worthiest and most loyal of directors — I mean Bos- suet. Experience is decisive ; if here, too, the re- sults are bad, we must blame the method and the system, but by no means the man. The greatness of his genius, and the nobleness of his character, would naturally remove Bossuet far from the petty passions of the vulgar herd of directors, their meanness, jealousy, and vexatious tyranny. We may believe what one of his own pe- nitents 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 God, and had made some progress in spiritual life."* His correspondence is praiseworthy, noble, and serious. You will not find in it the too loving * Bossuet's Works, Xotice on Sister Cornuau, vol. xi. p. 300. (ed. Lefebvre, 1836.) BOSSUET AND SISTER CORNUAU. 113 tenderness of Saint Franfois de Sales, and still less the refinement and Impassioned subtilties of Fene- lon, nor indeed any amorous sophistry. 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 ad- dressed, 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 pane- gyrist. These noble 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 happplness 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 114 BOSSUET AND SISTER COENUAU. 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 duU apartment: these are old dwarf, stunted trees, which have entwined their knotty branches and their dark prickly 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 Jurieu and Claude, with the stately history of the Varia- tions, and the deadly battle of Quietism, en- venomed 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 fron the dark little alley, nor from the dull cabinet : a place confined, cold, and of a disagreeable aspect, which, in spite of noble re- miniscences, 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 dociKty and obedience. The good Comuau exercised these qualities in a degree he could hardly have expected. She gives much, and we see that she hides still more, for fear BOSSUET AND SISTER COENUAU. 115 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-Benipie, thus assuming, rather boldly perhaps, Bossuet's own name. These real cares, in which the prudent direc- tor kept her a long time, had an excellent effect upon her, in diverting and pruning her imagination. She was of an impassioned, 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 connexion ; 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 abasement ? 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 116 BOSSUET AND SISTER COENUAU. encourage. What could she do ? Nature had de- nied 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 accom- panied her to Paris, shut herself up with her, took care of her, and at last loved her ; for the very rea- son, perhaps, which just before had produced quite the contrary effect — because she was loved by Bos- suet. Sister Cornuau is evidently mistaken in her jea- lousy : she herself is the person preferred ; we see it now by comparing the different correspondence. For her are 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 bossuet's imprudence. 117 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 nobly 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 he standing with only the point of the foot upon the earth." This perfect honesty, which would never understand any thing 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 impassioned a witness as Sister Cornuau. In presence of this simple, submissive, and in every re- spect 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 lan- guage of the Song of Solomon. Sometimes it is in order to calm his penitent, and strengthen her chastity, that he employs this ardent language. I dare not copy the letter (innocent*, certainly, but so very * Others have given themselves the cheap pleasure to refute all that I have not said, and to prove that Bossuet is an honest man, &e. —Well ! who said the contrary ? — at the same time, as they do not well know what Quietism is (any more than 118 BOSSUETS IMPEUDENCE. imprudent) which he writes from his country house at Germigny (July 10. 1692), and in which he ex- plains the meaning of the Bride's words, " Support Grace and Free-will), in order to justify Bossuet for his Quietism, they quote an eminently Quietist text, " Make no effort, either of head, or even of heart, to unite yourself to your Bridegroom." (October 26. 1694.) What I have said, and what I repeat, is, that the most loyal director in the world is still very dangerous, that his language, dictated doubtless by a pure intention, is not less likely to trouble the flesh. Even when he blames and forbids, he does so precisely in the very terms that are the most likely to awaken what he forbids ; at such times, I do not like to look upon a great man, an old man, one who has a claim to our respect for other reasons. If, how- ever, they absolutely want proofs, let them read (January 17. 1693), "TVlien the tender wound of love," &c. — (June 4. 1695), "Dare every thing with the celestial Bridegroom — seize hold of him — I permit you the most violent transports." — (July 3. 1695), "Jesus wishes you to be with him; he wishes to enjoy, and that you may enjoy with him : his holy flesh is the means of this union and this chaste enjoyment," &c. — (May 14. 1695), " It is in the holy sacrament that we enjoy virginally the body of the Bridegroom, and that he appropriates ours," &c. — (June 1. 1696), "Embrace, at liberty, this dear little bro- ther, who, every day, longs to be united to you," &c. If you want any thing more personal, see the really weak manner in which he repels the tender advances of that noble nun whose sensual confidences he had declined : — ^'^ Indeed 1 wovld not excite these tendernesses of the heart in a direct Tnanner ; but when they come of themselves, or in consequence of other reasons, &c., / am not insensible, thank God, to a certain correspondeTice of sentiments, or of tastes. But, tho-ugh I feel strongly these correspondences," &c. '■'■AU you feel concerning me is, in truth, nothing to me in that matter, and you must not fear to reveal it to me," &c. It seems that the illustrious peni- tent was frightened at his sentiments, and wished to take a less bossuet's imprudence. 119 me with flowers, because I languish for love." This potiouj which is to cure passion 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 fol- low ; but without the soul even thinking of changing itself" This thoroughly Quietlst letter is dated May 30. (1696); and eight days after* — sad inconsistency beloved director : — " I forbid you to adhere to the temptation of quitting, or to believe that I am either fatigued or wearied by your conduct." — (Dec. 1691.) * Bossuet's Works, 'vol. xi. p. 380., and vol. xii. p. 53. (ed. 1836.) 120 DEVOUT DIRECTION INCLINES TO QUIETISM. — 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 de- velopmant of the inert and passive 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 them- selves. The declivity must, indeed, be rapid and insurmountable. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the profound Eusbrock 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 aU point out the abyss, and all fall into it themselves. No matter who the persons may be, there is a lo- gical fatality. The man who, by his character and genius is the farthest removed from passive 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 DEVOUT DIEECTION INCLINES TO QUIETISM. 121 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 weU, 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 constitutes 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 * Montaigne says, also, grow stupid ; but not for the profit of authority : he has another sense, and a different intention. See Pascal, ed. Faugere, vol. ii. p. 168. G 122 MORAL PARALYSIS. of another man will mount, ride, and guide it at his will, as he would a horse. If the automaton should still possess some motion, ho w will they lead it ? According to the probable opinion, for the probabilism of the Jesuits reigned in the first half of the century. Later, when its motion ceased, the paralysed age learned from the Quietists that im- mobility is perfection itself. The decay and impotency which characterised the latter years of Louis XIV. are rather veiled by a remnant of literary splendour ; they are, nevertheless, deeply seated. This was the natural consequence, not only of great efforts which produce exhaustion, but also of the theories of abnegation, impersonality, and systematic nuUity, which had always gained ground in this century. By dint of continually repeating that one cannot walk well without being supported by another, a generation arose that no longer walked at all, but boasted of having forgotten what motion was, and gloried in it. Madame Guyon, in speaking of herself, expresses forcibly, in a letter to Bossuet, what was then the general condition: "You say, Monseigneur, there are only four or five persons who are in this difficulty of acting for themselves ; but I tell you there are more than a hundred thousand. When you told me to ask and desire, I found myself like a paralytic, who is told to walk because he has legs : the efforts he makes for that purpose serve only to make him aware of his inability. We say, in com- MOEAL PARALYSIS. 123 mon parlance, every man who has legs ought to walk : I believe it, and I know it; however, I have legs, but I feel plainly that I cannot make use of them." * ' * A letter of the 10th of February, 1694, Bossuet's Works, vol. xii. p. 14. (ed. 1836). Compare the very sad confessions of the sister of Mans, ibid., vol. xi. p. 558., March 30. 1695, and those of Fenelon himself on the 8th of November, 1700, vol. i. p. 572. (ed. Didot. 1838). o 2 124 MOLOfOS' "GLIDE." CHAPTER X. ilOLiaOS' * GUIDE ; THE PART PLATED IN IT BY THE DIRECTOE ; — HTPOCEITICAL AUSTERITY ; lilMORAI, DOCTRINE. MOLINOS APPROVED OF AT ROME, 1675. MOLKOS CONDEMNED AT HOME, 1687. HIS MANNERS CONFORMABLE TO HIS DOCTRES'E. — SPANISH MOLI- NOSISTS. MOTHER AGtTEDA. The greatest danger for the poor paralytic, who can no longer move by himself, is, not that he may re- main inactive, but that he may become the sport of the active influence of others. The theories which speak the most of immobility are not always disin- terested. Be on your guard, and take care. Molinos' book, with its artful and premeditated composition, has a character entirely its own, which distinguishes it from the natural and inspired writings of the great mystics. The latter, such as Sta. The- resa, often recommend obedience and entire sub- * Miguel Molinos, a Spanish theologian, bom in 1627, in the diocese of Zaragoza, settled in Rome, where he acquired a great reputation for piety, and skill in directing consciences. In 1675 he published, with the approbation of five doctors, his work entitled " The Spiritual Guide ; " in which he professed to direct souls in the way of perfection. He died in prison in 1696. His followers are here called Molinosists. — Transl. MOLINOS' "GUIDE." 125 mission to the director, and dissuade from self-con- fidence. Tliey thus give themselves a guide,. hut in their enthusiastic efforts they hurry their.g:nids away with them : they thiolr thej- follow him, but they lead him. The director has nothing else to do with them but to sanction their inspiration.* The originality of Molinos' book is quite the. con- trary. There, internal activity has actually no longer any existence ; no action but what is occa- sioned by an exterior impulse. The director is the pivot of the whole book ; he appears every moment, and even when he disappears, we perceive he is close at hand. He is the guide, or rather the support without which the powerless soul could not move a step. He is the ever-present physician, who decides whether the sick patient may taste this or that. Sick ? Yes ; and seriously iU ; since it Is necessary that another should, every moment, think, feel,, and act for her ; in a word, live in her place. * Madame Guyon herself, who developed more than any mystic the theory of death, is, as it were, dead in language, though always lively in heart. Even in that ocean " where the poor torrent is lost," it preserves its own life and the freshness of its streams ; so great is its force, so powerful its impetuosity,, and so high the mountains whence it falls ! The Rhone pierces through all its lake — that enormous mass of unfathomable waters, and is still the Rhone at its exit. Occasionally, and at long intervals, we hear the director named. But who directs such an impetuosity ? Poor Father La Combe, as we well know, cannot guide his own bark ; the torrent in which he was hurried alon^ carried him away : he became mad. G 3 126 MOLINOS' "OUIDB." As for the soul, can we say it lives ? Is this not rather actual death. The great mystic sought for death," aacLcoiild not find it ; the living activity re- mained even in me' Sepulehra. To die, singly, in God, to die with one's own wiU and energy, this is not dying completely, but slothftdly to allow your soul to enter the mad vortex of another soul, and suffer, half asleep, the strange transformation in which your personality is absorbed in his. This is, indeed, real moral death ; we need not look for any other. " To act, is the deed of the novice ; to suffer, is immediate gain ; to die, is perfection. Let us go forward in darkness, and we shall go well ; the horse that goes round blind-folded grinds com so much the better. Let us neither think nor read. A practical master wiU teU us, better than any book, what we must do at the very moment. It is a great security to have an experienced guide to govern and direct us, according to his actual intelligence, and prevent our being deceived- by the demon of our own senses." * Molinos, in leading us gently by this road, seems to me to know very well whither he is conducting us. I judge so by the infinite precautions he takes to re-assure us ; by his crying up every where humility, austerity, excessive scrupulousness, and prudence * Molinos, Guida Spirituale (Venetia, 1685), pp. 86. 161. and passim, Lat. transl. (Lipsiae, 1687.) PART PLAYED IN IT BY THE DIKECTOE. 127 carried to a ridiculous extreme. The saints are not so wise. In a very humble preface, he believes that this little book, devoid of ornament and style, and without a protector, cannot have any success : " he will, no doubt, be criticised ; every body will find him insipid." In the last page, his humility is still greater ; he lays his work prostrate, and submits it to the correction of the Holy Roman Church.* He gives us to understand, that the real director directs without any inclination for the task : " He is a man who would gladly dispense with the care of souls, who sighs and pants for solitude. He is, especially, very far from wishing to get the direction of women, they being, generally, too little prepared. He must take especial care not to call his penitent his daughter ; the word is too tender, and God is jealous of it. Self-love united with passion, that hydra-headed monster, sometimes assumes the form of gratitude and filial affection for the con- fessor. He must not visit his penitents at their homes, not even in cases of sickness, unless he he called,"] This is, indeed, an astounding severity : these are excessive precautions, unheard of before the days * This celebrated book, Molinos' "Guide," is not very original^ We find little in it that is not better said in the other Quietists. Kead, however, his enthusiastic eulogy on mdlity or nothingness ; a few passages of which have been translated by Bossuet in his 3d book of " Instruction sur les Etats d'Oraison." f The Guide, vol. ii. ch. 6. G 4 128 IMMORAL DOCTRINE. of Molinos ! What holy man hare we here ? It Is true, if the director ought not to go of his own accord to visit the patient, he may, if she call him. And I say, she will call him. With such a direction, is she not always ill, embarrassed, fearful, and too infirm to do any thing of herself! she wiU wish to have him every hour. Every impulse that is not from him might possibly proceed from the devil; even the pang of remorse, that she occasionally feels within her, may be occasioned by the devil's E^ency.* As soon as he is with her, on the contrary, how tranquil she becomes ! How he comforts her with one'word ! How easily he resolves all her scruples ! She is well rewarded for having waited and obeyed, and being ever ready to obey. She now feels that obedience is better than any virtue. Well! let her only be discreet, and she will be led still further. " She must not, when she sins, be uneasy about it ; for should she be grieved at it, it would be a sign that she stiU possessed a leaven of pride. It is the devil, who, to hinder us in our spiritual path, makes us busy with our backslidings. Would it not be foolish for him who runs to stop when he falls, and weep like a child, instead of pursuing his course ? These falls have the excellent effect of preserving us from pride, which is the greatest fall of all. God makes virtues of our vices, and * The Guide, vol. ii. ch. 17. Approved by eome. 129 these very vices, by which the devil thought to cast us into the pit, become a ladder to mount to heaven." * This doctrine was well received. Molinos had had the tact to publish, at the same time, another book, that might serve as a passport to this, a treatise on Daily Communion, directed against the Jansenists and Arnaud's great work. The Spiritual Guide, was examined with all the favour that Rome could show to the enemy of her enemies. There was scarcely any religious order that did not approve of it. The Roman Inquisition gave it three approba- tions by three of its members, a Jesuit, a Carmelite, and the general of the Franciscans. The Spanish Inquisition approved of it twice : — first, by the general examiner of the order of the Capucins ; and, secondly, by a Trinitarian, the Archbishop of Reggio. It was prefaced with an enthusiastic and extravagant eulogy by the Archbishop of Palermo. The Quietists must have been at that time very strong in Rome, since one of them. Cardinal Bona (Malaval's protector), was on the point of being- made pope. The tide turned, contrary to every expectatioui The great Gallic tempest of 1682, which, for nearly ten years, interrupted the connection between France and the Holy See, and showed how easily one may dispense with Rome, obliged the pope to raise the * " Scala per salire al cielo." Guida, p. 138. lib. ii. ch. 18. c 5 130 MOLINOS CONDEMNED AT ROME. moral dignity of the pontificate by acts of severity. The lash fell especially upon the Jesuits and their friends. Innocent XI. pronounced a solemn con- demnation upon the casuists, though rather too late, as these people had been crushed twenty years before by Pascal. But Quietism still flourished; the Franciscans and Jesuits had taken it into fa- vour ; the Dominicans were therefore averse to it. Molinos, in his Manuel, had considerably reduced the merits of St. Dominic, and pretended that St. Thomas, when dying, confessed that he had not, up to that time, written any thing good. Accordingly, of aU the great religious orders, that of the Dominicans was the only one which refused its approbation to Mohnos' Guide. The book and its author, examined under this new influence, appeared horribly guilty. The Inquisition of Rome, without taking any notice of the appro- bations granted twelve years before by their ex- aminers, condemned the Guide, together with some propositions not contained in it, but which they ex- tracted from the examination of Molinos, or from his teaching. This one is not the least curious : " God, to humble us, permits, in certain perfect souls (well enlightened, and in their lucid state), that' the devil should make them commit certain carnal acts. In this case, and in others, which, without the permission of God, would be guilty, there is no sin, because there is no consent. It may happen, that HIS MORALS. 131 those violent movements, which excite to carnal acts, may take place in two persons, a man and a woman, at the same moment." * This case happened to Molinos himself, and much too often. He underwent a public penance, humbled himself for his morals, and did not defend his doc- trine : this saved him. The inquisitors, who had formerly approved him, must have been themselves much embarrassed about this trial. He was treated with leniency, and only imprisoned, whilst two of his disciples, who had only faithfully applied his doctrine, were burned alive without pity. One was a curate of Dijon, the other a priest of Tudela in Navarre. How can we be surprised that such a theory should have had such results in morals ? It would be much more astonishing if it had not. Besides, these immoral results do not proceed exclusively from Molinosism, a doctrine at once imprudent and too evident, and which they would take good care not to profess. They spring naturally from every practical direction that lulls the will, taking from the person this natural guardian, and exposing him thus prostrate to the mercy of him, who watches over the sick couch. The tale told more than once by the middle ages, and which casuists have examined so coldly, the violation of the dead, we * Condemned articles, pp. 41, 42., at the head of the Lat. transl. (Lipsise, 1687.) G 6 132 MOTHER AGUEDA. here meet with again. The person is left as defence- less by the death of the will, as by physical death. The Archbishop of Palermo, in his Pindaric eulogy of the Spiritual Guide, says, that this ad- mirable book is moat especially suitable to the direction of nuns. The advice was understood, and turned to account, especially in Spain. From that saying of Molinos, " That sins, being an occasion of humility, serve as a ladder to mount to heaven," the Molinosists drew this consequence — the more we sin, the higher we ascend. There was among the Carmelites of Lerma 'a holy woman. Mother Agueda, esteemed as a saint. People went to her from all the neighbouring pro- vinces, to get her to cure the sick. A convent was founded on the spot that had been so fortunate as to give her birth. There, in the church, they adored her portrait placed within the choir ; and there, she cured those who were brought to her, by applying to them certain miraculous stones, which she brought forth, as they said, with pains similar to those of child-birth. This miracle lasted twenty years. At last, the report spread, that these confinements were but too true, and that she was reaUy delivered. The Inquisition of Logrono having made a visit to the convent, arrested Mother Agueda, and questioned the other nuns, among whom was the young niece of the Saint, Donna Vincenta. The latter confessed, without any prevarication, the commerce that her MOTHER AGUEDA. 133 aunt, herself, and the others had had with the pro- vincial of the Carmelites, the prior of Jjerma, and other friars of the first rank. The Saint had been confined five times, and her niece showed the place where the children had been killed and buried, the moment they were born. They found the skele- tons.* What is not less horrible is, that this young nun, only nine years of age, a dutiful child, immured by her aunt for this strange life, and having no other education, firmly beUeved that this was really the devout life, perfection, and sanctity, and followed this path in full confidence, upon the faith of her confessors. The grand doctor of these nuns was the provincial of the Carmelites, Jean de la Vega. He had written the life of the Saint, and arranged her miracles ; and he it was who had had the skill to have her glorified, and her festival observed, though she was still alive. He himself was considered almost a saint by the vulgar. The monks said every where that, since the blessed Jean de la Croix, Spain had not seen a man so austere and penitent. According to their custom of designating illustrious doctors by a titular name (such as Angelic, Seraphic, &c.), he was * When Lewis's "Monk" appeared, in 1796, people little ex- pected to see that terrible novel outdone by a real history. The latter has been found in Llorente's Registers of the In- quisition (vol. iv. of the French transl. 1818, pp. 30 — 32.). ^ 134 MOTHER AGTTEDA. called the Ecstatic. Being much stronger than the Saint, he resisted the torture, whereas she died in it : he confessed nothing, except that he had received the money for eleven thousand eight hundred masses that he had not said ; and he got off with being banished to the convent of Duruelo. ON QUIETISM. 135 CHAPTER XL NO MOEE SYSTEMS ; AN EMBLEM. BLOOD. SEX. — THE IMMACULATE WOMAN. — THE SACKED HEAET. MARIE ALACOQUB. — DOUBLE MEANING OF SACKED HEART. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTUET IS THE AGE OP DOUBLE MEANING. — CHIMEEICAL POLICY OF THE JE- SUITS. — FATHEK COLOMBIERE AUD MAEIE ALACOQUE, 1675. — ENGLAND ; — PAPIST CONSPIEACT. FIRST ALTAK OF THE SACRED HEART, 1685. — ETON OF THE GALLI- CANS, 1693; — OF THE QUIETISTS, 1698; — OP PORT ROYAL, 1709. — THEOLOGY ANNIHILATED IN THE EIGH- TEENTH CENTURY. — MATERIALITY OF THE SACRED HEART. — JESUITICAL ART. Quietism, so accused of being obscure, was but too evident. It formed into a system, and esta- blished frankly, as supreme perfection, that state of immobility and impotency which the soul reaches at last, when it surrenders its activity. "Was it not simplicity itself to prescribe in set terms this lethargic doctrine, and give out noisily a theory of sleep ? " Do not speak so loud, if you want to make people doze." This is what the theolo- gians, men of business, instinctively perceived ; they cared little for theology, and only wanted results. We must do the Jesuits the justice to confess, that they were disinterested enough in specu- 136 NO MOEE SYSTEMS. lative opinions. We have seen how, since Pascal, they themselves wrote against their own casuistry. Since then they had tried Quietism: at one time they let Fenelon believe they would support him. But as soon as Louis XIV. had declared himself, " they ducked like divers *," preached against their friend, and discovered forty errors in the Maxims of Saints. They had never well succeeded as theologians. Silence suited them better than all their systems. They had got it imposed by the pope upon the Dominicans, in the very beginning of the century, and afterwards upon the Jansenists. Since then, their affairs went on better. It was precisely at the time they ceased writing, that they obtained from the sick king the power of disposing of benefices (1687), and thus, to the great surprise of the Gal- ileans, who had thought them conquered, they became the kings of the clergy of France. Now, no more ideas, no more systems ; they had grown tired of them. And the public also was get- ting tired of them. Besides, there is, we must con- fess, in the long lives of men, states, and religions, there is, I say, a time, when, having run from project to project, and from dream to dream, every idea is hated. In these profoundly material moments, every " Bossuet, letter dated March 31. 1697. Works (ed. 1836), vol. xii. p. 85. AN EMBLEM. 137 thing Is rejected that is not tangible. Do people then become positive ? No. But they (Jo not re- turn any more to the poetical symbols which in their youth they had adored. The old doter, in his second childhood, makes for himself some idol, some palpable, tangible god, and the coarser it is, the better he succeeds. This explains the prodigious success with which the Jesuits in this age of lassitude spread, and caused to be accepted, a new object of worship, both very carnal and very material, — the heart of Jesus, either shown through the wound in his partly opened breast, or as plucked out and bloody. Nearly the same thing had happened in the de- crepitude of paganism. Religion had taken refuge in the sacrifice of bulls, the sanguinary Mithraic expiation — the worship of blood. At the grand festival of the sacred heart which the Jesuits gave in the last century, in the Coliseum of Kome, they struck a medal with this motto, worthy of the solemnity, " Hg gave himself to the people to eat, in the amphitheatre of Titus * ; " — in^ stead of a system, it was an emblem, a dumb sign. What triumph for the friends of obscurity and equi- vocation ! No equivocation of language can equal a material object, which may be interpreted in a thousand ways, for rendering ideas undecided and * In 1771. On Sacred Hearts (by Tabaraud), p. 82. 138 THE HEART. confused. Tlie old Christian symbols, so often ex- plained, so often translated, and those which are translated, present to the mind, at first sight, too dis- tinct a meaning. They are austere symbols of death and mortification. The new one was far more ob- scure. This emblem, bloody it is true, but carnal and impassioned, speaks much less of death than of life. The heart palpitates, the blood streams, and yet it is a living man, who, showing his wound with his own hand, beckons to you to come and fathom his half-opened breast. The heart ! — that word has always been powerful ; the heart, being the organ of the affections, expresses them in its own manner, swollen and heaving with sighs. The life of the heart, strong and confused, comprehends and mingles every kind of love. Such a sentence is wonderftdly adapted to language of double meaning. And who will understand it best ? — Women : — with them the life of the heart is every thing. This organ, being the passage of the blood, and strongly influenced by the revolutions of the blood, is not less predominant in woman than her very sex. The heart has been, now nearly two hundred years, the grand basis of modern devotion ; as sex, or a strange question that related to it, had, for two hundred before, occupied the minds of the middle ages. Strange ! in that spiritual period, a long discussion. THE SACKED HEART. 139 both public and solemn, took place throughout Eu- rope, both in the schools and in the churches, upon an anatomical subject, of which one would not dare to speak in our days, except in the school of medi- cine! What was this subject ? Conception.* Only imagine all these monks, people sworn to celibacy, both Dominicans and Franciscans, boldly attacking the question, tea,ching it to all, preaching anatomy to children and little girls, fiUing their noinds with their sex, and its most secret mystery. The heart, a more noble organ, had the advantage of furnishing a number of dubious though decent expressions, a whole language of equivocal tenderness which did not cause a blush, and facilitated the in- trigue of devout gallantry. In the very beginning of the seventeenth century, the directors and confessors find a very convenient text in the sacred heart. But women take it quite dif- ferently, and in a serious sense : they grow warm and impassioned, and have visions. The Virgin appears to a country girl of Normandy, and orders her to adore the heart of Mary.f The Visitandines called * See among other books that by Gravois, De ortu et progressu oultus Immaculati conceptus, 1764, in 4to. t Eudes, the brother of Mazerai, the founder of the Eudists, wrote the life of this peasant, and was the real founder of the new worship. The Jesuits revived the thing, and profited by it. (See Tabaraud, p. 111.) I have sought in vain for the manuscript of Eudes in all their libraries. Have they made away with it ? 140 MAEIE ALACOQUE. themselves tbe daughters of the Heart of Jesus: Jesus does not fail to appear to a Visltandine, Ma- demoiselle Marie Alacoque, and shows her his heart half opened. She was a strong girl, and of a sanguine tempera- ment, whom they were obliged to bleed constantly. She had entered the convent in her twenty-fourth year, with her passions entire ; her infancy had not been miserably nipped in the bud, as it often happens to those who are immured at an early age. Her devotion was, from the very first, a violent love, that wished to suffer for the object loved. Having heard that Madame de Chantal had printed the name of Jesus on her breast with a hot iron, she did the same. The Lover was not insensible to this, and ever after visited her. It was with the knowledge, and under the direction, of a skilful superior, that Marie Alacoque made this intimate connection with the divine Bridegroom. She celebrated her espousals with him ; and a regular contract was drawn up by the superior, which Marie Alacoque signed with he? blood. One day, when, according to her biographer, she had cleaned with her tongue the lips of a sick person, Jesus was so satisfied with her, that he permitted her to fix her lips to one of his divine wounds.* There was nothing in this relating to theology. * No legend has been more carefully preserved. See Lan- guet, Galiffet, &c. MARIE ALACOQUE. 141 It was merely a subject of physiology and medicine. Mademoiselle Alacoque was a girl of an ardent dis- position, wliich was heightened by celibacy. She was by no means a mystic in the proper sense of the word. Happier far than Madame Guyon, who did not see what she loved, she saw and touched the body of the divine Lover. The heart he showed her in his unseamed breast was a bloody intestine. The extremely sanguine plethory from which she was suffering, and which frequent bleeding could not relieve, fiUed her imagination with these visions of blood. The Jesuits, who were great propagators of the new devotion, took good care not to explain precisely whether homage was to be paid to the symbolical heart, and celestial love, or whether the heart of flesh was to be the object of adoration. When pressed to explain themselves, their answers depended on per- sons, times, and places. Their Father Galiffet made, at the same time, two contradictory replies : in Kome, he said it was the symbolical heart ; and in Paris, he said in print that there was no metaphor, that they honoured the flesh itself.* This equivocation was a source of wealth. In less than forty years four hundred and twenty-eight brotherhoods of the Sacred Heart were formed in France. * These two answers are to be read in p. 35. and p. 73. of Tabaraud's Sacred Hearts. 142 EQUIVOCATION TEItrMPHS. I cannot help pausing a moment, to admire, how Equivocation triumphed throughout this age. On whatever side I turn my eyes, I find it every where, both in things and persons. It sits upon the throne in the person of Madame de Maintenon. Is this person a queen who is seated by the king's side, and before whom princesses are standing — or is she not? The equivocal is also near the throne in the person of the humble Pere La Chaise, the real king of the clergy of France, who from a garret at Versailles distributes the benefices. And do our loyal GaUicans and the scrupulous Jansenists abstain from the equivocal ? Obedient, yet rebeUious, pre- paring war though kneeling, they kiss the foot of the pope, while wishing to tie his hands ; they spoil the best reasons by their distinguo and evasions. In- deed, when I put in opposition to the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries this Janus of the seventeenth, the two others appear to me as honest centuries, or, at the very least, sincere in good and in evil. But what false- hood and ugliness is concealed under the majestic harmony of the seventeenth ! Every thing is softened and shaded in the form, but the bottom is often the worse for it. Instead of the local inquisitions, you have the police of the Jesuits, armed with the king's authority. In place of a Saint Bartholomew, you have the long, the immense religious revolution, called the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, that cruel comedy of forced conversion; then, the CHAMBER OF POISONS. 143 unheard-of tragedy, of a proscription organised by all the bureaucratical and military means of a modem government! — Bossuet sings the triumph; and de- ceit, lying, and misery reign every where! Deceit in politics : local life destroyed without creating any central life. Deceit in morals : this polished court, this world of polite people receives an unexpected lesson from the chamber of poisons : the king sup- presses the trial, fearing to find every one guilty !* — And can devotion be real with such morals ? — If you reproach the sixteenth century with its violent fanaticism, if the eighteenth appear to you cynical, and devoid of human respect, confess at least also that lying, deceit, and hypocrisy are the predominant features of the seventeenth. That great historian Moli^re, has painted the portrait of this century, and found its name — Tartuffe. I return to the Sacred Heart, which, in truth, I have not quitted, since it is during this period the illustrious and predominant example of the success of the equivocal. The Jesuits, who, in general, have invented little, did not make the discovery, but they perceived very plainly the profit they might derive from it. We have seen how they gradually made themselves masters of the convents of women, though * All tMs will appear in a new light, as soon as we read the passages in the important publication relative to State Prisons, which Mr. Kavaisson, senior, of the Arsenal Library, is now preparing. 144 AETS OF THE JESUITS. professing all the time to be strangers to them. The Visitation, especially, was under their influence.* The superior of Marie Alacoque, who had her confi- dence, and directed her connection with Jesus Christ, gave timely notice to Pere La Chaise. Things were coming to a crisis. The Jesuits sadly wanted some popular machine to set in motion, for the profit of their policy. It was the moment when they thought, at least they told the king so, that England, sold by Charles II., would in a short time be entirely converted. Intrigue, money, women, every thing was turned to account, to bring It about. To King Charles they gave mistresses, and to his brother, confessors. The Jesuits who, with all their tricks, are often chimerical, thought that, by gaining over five or six lords, they would change aU that pro- testant mass, which is protestant not only by belief, but also by interest, habit, and manner of living, — protestant to the core, and with English tenacity. See then these famous politicians, gliding as stealthily as wolves, and fancying they will carry every thing by surprise. An essential point for them was to place with James, the king's brother, a secret preacher, who, in his private chapel, might work silently, and try his hand at a few conversions. To act the part of a converter, they required a man * So much so, that the Visitandines, the daughters of good St. FranQois, became for the Jesuits the guardians and gaolers of the Port-Royal nuns at the time they were dispersed. ARTS OF THE JESUITS. 145 wlio was not only captivating, but especially ardent and fanatical; such men were scarce. The latter qualifications were deficient in the young man whom Pere la Chaise had in view. This was a Father la Colombiere, who taught rhetoric in their college at Lyons : he was an agreeable preacher*, an elegant writer, much esteemed by Patru, mild, docile, and a good sort of man. The only thing that was wanting was a little madness. To inoculate him with this, they introduced him to Mademoiselle Alacoque : he was sent to Paray-lemonial, where she resided, as confessor extraordinary of the Visitandines (1675). He was in his thirty-fourth year, and she in her twenty-eighth. Having been well prepared by her superior, she immediately saw in him the great servant of God, whom her visions had revealed to her, and the very same day she perceived in the ardent heart of Jesus her own heart united to the Jesuit's. La Colombiere, being of a mild and feeble nature, was hurried away unresistingly into this ardent vor- tex of passion and fanaticism. He was kept for a year and a half in this spiritual furnace : he was then snatched away fi'om Paray, and hurled red-hot into * His sermons are weak. His Spiritual Retreats are more curious, being tlae young Jesuit's journal : the efforts he makes to be fanatical show how difBcult fanaticism had become. His portrait, a very characteristic one, is at the head of "the sermons. H 146 PAPIST CONSPIRACY, England. They were, however, still mistrustful of him, fearing he might cool, and sent him, from time to time, a few ardent and inspired lines : Marie Ala- coque dictated, and the superior was her amanuensis. He remained thus two years with the Duchess of York in London, so well concealed and shut up^ that he did not even see the town. They brought to him a few lords, who thought it advantageous to be converted to the religion of the heir presumptive. England having at last discovered the papist conspi- racy. La Colombiere was accused, brought before parliament, and embarked for France, where he ar- rived ill ; and though his superior sent him to Paray to see whether the nun could revive him, he died there of a fever. However little inclined people may be to believe that great results are brought about by trifling causes, they are obliged, however, to confess, that this mi- serable intrigue had an incalculable effect upon France and the world. They wanted to gain England, and they presented themselves to her, not in the persons of the Galileans, whom she respected, but in those of the Jesuits, whom she had always abhorred. At the very moment when Catholicism ought, in prudence at least, to have discarded the idolatries with which the Protestants reproached it, they published a new one, and the most offensive of all, the carnal and sensual devotion of the Sacred Heart. To mingle horror viiih ridicule, it was in 1685, the sad and lamentable ARTS OF THE JESUITS. 147 year of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, that Marie Alacoque raised the first of those altars which overspread the whole of France. We know how England, confirmed in her Protestantism and horror of Eome by the Jesuits, took to herself a Dutch king, carried away Holland in her movement, and by this conjunction of the two maritime powers obtained the dominion of the seas. The Jesuits may boast that they have been the means of setting Protestantism in England upon a very solid foundation. All the Father Mathews in the world will never be able to remove it. Their political work, as we have seen, is important : it ended in marrying England to Holland — a marriage nearly fatal to France. And what was their religious work among us, in the old days of Louis XIV. ? What was the last use made of the omnipotent sway of the La Chaises and the Telliers ? We well know : the destruction of Port-Royal, a mihtary expedition to carry oiF fifteen old women, the dead dragged from their graves, and sacrilege committed by the hands of authority.* This authority expiring in the terrible year 1709, which seemed to carry ofi", at one blow, the king and the kingdom, was employed by them, in all haste, to de- stroy their enemies, j * See the details in the Hist. Mem. on Port-Royal (1756), and in General History (1757). f They pursue them with the same fury in our time, espe- H 2 148 THEOLOGY ANNIHILATED Port-Royal came to an end in 1709, Quietism had finished in 1698, and Gallicanism itself, the great religion of the throne, had been placed at the feet of the pope by the king in 1693. Behold Bossuet laid in the tomb by the side of Fenelon, and the latter next to Arnaud. The conquerors and the conquered repose in a common nullity. The emblem prevailing, and being substituted for every system, people felt less and less the need of analysing, explaining, and thinking ; and they were glad of it. The explanation the most favourable to authority is still a giving of accounts, that is to say, a homage paid to the liberty of the mind. But in the shadow of an obscure emblem, one may, hence- forth, without shaping any theory, or allowing any advantage to be taken, apply indiiferently the prac- tice of all the various theories that had been aban- cially the sisters whom they believe to be Jansenists. The Jansenists wish to suffer and die in silence : they do not want us to pity them. History cannot allow this martyr resignation ; but 'will mention, as one of the most ciirious and unnoticed facts, the excellent review they publish in a few copies for themselves (Sevue Ecclesiastiqtie, Rue Saint- Severin, ISTo. 4.). In it they have replied, forcibly, but moderately, to the unbe- coming declamations against Port-Royal, made by Father Ravignan in Saiut-Severin (1842), as well as to other ultra- montane novelties preached by that Jesuit. TTho would believe that, whilst persecuting and abusing the Jansenists, the Jesuit party has dared to claim (in the House of Peers) the names of the illustrious Jansenists ; for instance, that of Rollin ? Do they inherit from those they assassinate ? IN THE ■ EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 149 doned, and follow them alternately or conjointly, according to the interest of the day. Wise policy, excellent wisdom, with which they cover their nothingness ! Having dispensed with reasoning for others, they lose the faculty of reason- ing altogether, and, in the hour of danger, they find themselves disarmed. This is what happened to them in the eighteenth century. The terribly learned contest that then took place found them m^ite. Voltaire let fly a hundred thousand arrows against them, without awakening them. Rousseau pressed and crushed them, without getting one word out of them. Who then could answer ? Theology was no longer known to the theologians.* The persecutors of the Jansenists mingle in their books, published in the name of Marie Alacoque, both Jansenist and Molinist opinions, and without being aware of it. f They composed, in 1708, the manual which has since be- come the basis of instruction adopted in our semi- naries ; and this manual contains the entirely new doctrine, that on eveiy papal decision Jesus Christ inspires the pope to decide, and the bishops to obey : every thing is an oracle and a miracle in this clown- * It appears to be singularly so in our time. What a sight to see preached solemnly before the highest ecclesiastical authority some sermon or other, which, from first to last, is only a heresy ! The adversaries of their theology are the only per- sons who remember it. -J- Tabaraud, On the Sacred Hearts, p. 3S. H 3 150 MEDAL OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. ish system ; reason is decidedly exterminated from theology. From that time there Is very little of a dogmatical character, and still less of sacred history ; an instruc- tion which would be void, if ancient casuistry did not assist in filling up the vacuum with immoral subtilties. The only part of mankind to whom they have ad- dressed themselves for a long time, namely, women, is the world of sensibility : they pretend not to ask for science ; they wish for impressions, rather than ideas. The less they are busied about ideas, the easier it is to keep them ignorant of outward events, and make them strangers to the progress of time. When they maintain that holiness consists in sacrificing the mind, the more material the worship, the more it serves to attain that end ; the more the mind is degraded, the holier it becomes. To couple salvation with the exercise of moral virtues, would be to require the exercise of reason. But what do they want with virtue ? "Wear this medal : " it will Mot out your iniquities."* Reason would still have a share In religion, if, as reason teaches us, it was necessary for salvation absolutely to love God. * The medal of the Immaculate Conception, made under the auspices of jNIr. de Quelen, has already saved assassins and other wretches. See the notice written by a Lazarist, and the passages quoted by jSIr. Genin, The Jesuits and the University^ pp. 87—97. MATERIALITY OF THE SACRED HEART. 151 Marie Alacoque has seen that it was sufficient not to hate him ; and those who are devoted to the Sacred Heart are saved unconditionally. When the Jesuits were suppressed, they had in their hands no other religious means than this remnant of paganism, and in it they placed all their hope of coming to life again. They had engravings made, to which they added the motto, " I will give them the shield of my heart." The popes, who, at first, were uneasy about the weak point which such a materialism would offer to the attacks of the philosophers*, have found out in our time that it is very useful to them, being addressed to a class of people who seldom read the philosophers, and who, though devout, are nevertheless material. They have therefore preserved the precious equivo- cation of the ideal and the carnal heart, and forbidden any explanation as to whether the words " Sacred Heart " designated the love of God for man, or some bit of bleeding flesh, f By reducing the thing to the idea, the impassioned attraction in which its success consisted would be taken from it. Even in the last century, some bishops had gone farther, declaring that Jiesh was here the principal * Lambertini, De servorum Dei beatificatione, vol. iv. part ii. lib. 4. eh. 30. p. 310. We are sorry to see a man of genius and sense work hard to be only half absurd. t Pius VI. condemned the council of Pistoia, that had tried to make a distinction ; Tabaraud, ibid. p. 79. H 4 152 JESUITICAL ART. object: and they had placed this flesh, in certain hymns, after the Trinity, as a fourth person. Priests, women, and young girls have all, since then, vied with one another in this devotion. I have before me a manual, much used in country places, in which they teach the persons of their community, who pray for one another, how they join hearts, and how these hearts, once united, " ought to desire to enter into the opening of the heart of Jesus, and be incessantly sinking into that amorous wound." The brotherhood, in their manuals, have occasion- ally found it gallant to put the heart of Mary above that of Jesus (see that of Nantes, 1769). In their engravings, she is generally younger than her Son, being, for instance, about twenty, whereas he is thirty years old, so that, at first sight, he seems to be rather her husband or lover than her Son. This very year, at Rouen, in the chapel of the Sacred Heart at Saint Ouen's, I saw, on a drawing, (which the young ladies had made with the pen, and which bears at the foot the approbation of the ecclesiastical authority,) the representation of Jesus on his knees before the kneeling Virgin ! The most violent satire against the Jesuits is what they have made themselves — their art, the pictures and statues they have inspired. They are at once characterised by the severe sentence of Poussin, whose Christ did not appear to them pretty enough : — " We cannot imagine a Christ with his head on one JESUITICAL ART. 153 Side, or like Father Douillet's." Yet Poussin saw the best days of the Jesuit art : what would he have said, if he had seen what followed ? all that decrepit coquetry, that thinks it smiles whilst it grimaces, those ridiculous glances, dying eyes, and such like deformities. The worst is, they who think only of the flesh, know no longer how to represent it. As the thought grows more and more material and insipid, the form becomes defaced, degraded from picture to picture, ignoble, foppish, affected, heavy, dull — that is to say, shapeless.* We may judge of men by the art they admire ; and I confess it is no easy task to augur favourably of the souls of those who inspire this art, and recommend these engravings, hanging them up in their churches, and distributing them by thousands and millions. Such taste is an ominous sign. Many immoral people still possess a sentiment of elegance. But willingly to take to the ignoble and false, discovers a sad de- gradation of the soul. * In 1834, being busy with Christian iconography, I looked over the collections of the portraits of Christ in the Royal Library. Those published within the last thirty years are the most humiliating I have ever seen, both for art and human nature. Every man (whether a philosopher or a believer) who retains any sentiment of religion, wUl be disgusted, with them. Every impropriety, every sensuality and low passion, is there : the childish, dandified seminarist, the licentious priest, the fat curate who looks like Maingrat, &c. The engraving is as good as the drawing — a Skewer and the snuff of a tallow candle. 154 JESUITICAL ART. An undeniable truth is here made manifest ; which is, that art is the only thing inaccessible to falsehood. Being the offspring of the heart and natural inspira- tion, it cannot be allied to what is false, it will not be violated ; it protests, and if the false triumphs, it dies. All the rest may be aped and acted. They very well managed to make a theology in the sixteenth and a morality in the seventeenth century ; but never could they form an art. They can ape the holy and the just; but how can they mimic the beautiful? — Thou art ugly, poor Tartuffe, and ugly shalt thou remain : it is thy token. What ! you reach the beautiful, or ever lay a finger upon it ? This would be impious beyond all impiety ! — The beautiful is the face of God ! 155 PART II. ON DIRECTION IN GENERAL, AND ESPECIALLY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. CHAPTEE I. BESEMBLANCBS AND DITFEEENCES BETWEEN THE SEVEN- TEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTUEIES CHEISTIAN AET. IT IS WE WHO HAVE EESTOEED THE CHUECH. WHAT IT ADDS TO THE POWEE OP THE PEIEST. — THE CONFESSIONAL. There are two objections to be made against all that I have said, and I will state them : — First. " The examples are taken from the seven- teenth century, at a time when the direction was influenced by theological questions, which now no longer occupy either the world or the Church; for instance, the question of grace and free-will, and that of Qiuetism, or repose in love." But this I have already answered. Such questions are obsolete, dead, if you wUl, as theories ; but, in the spirit and practical method which emanate from these theories, they are, and ever will be, living: there are no longer to be found speculative people, simple enough to trace out expressly a doctrine of lethargy and moral annihilation ; but there will always be found enough H 6 156 SEVENTEENTH AND NINETEENTH quacks to practise quietly, this lethargic art. If this be not clear enough, I will, in a moment, make it clearer than some people would desire. Secondly. " Are the examples you have shown from the books and letters of the great men of the famous age sufficiently conclusive for our own time? Might not those profound and subtle men of genius, who dived so deeply into the science of directing souls, have entered into refine- ments, of which the common herd of confessors and directors cannot now conceive any idea ? Can you fear any thing of the sort from the poor simple priests whom we have now ? Pray, where are our St. Fran9ois de Sales, our Bossuets, and our Fene- lons? Do you not see that not only the clergy no longer possess such men, but that they have degenerated generally, and as a class. The great majority of the priests are of rustic families. The peasant, even when he is not poor, finds it con- venient to lighten the expenses of his family, by placing his son in the seminary. To nursery educa- tion, that which we receive from our parents before any other, they are total strangers. The seminary by no means repairs this inconvenience of origin and former condition. If we judge by those who come from the hands of the Sulpicians, Lazarists, &c., we shall be incHned to believe that there has been a deep plan laid among the upper leaders, to form none but indifferent priests, who would be so much the more CEKTUBIES COMPARED. 157 dependent, and blind to the influence exercised over them contrary to their real interests. What then do you fear ? Is not this intellectual degradation of the clergy sufficiently comforting? How could such men follow, in the confession and direction, the learned tactics of the priests of former ages ? The dangers you point out are imaginary." To this it is easy to answer : — Mental distinction and good education are not so necessary as is generally thought, for enslaving souls that are willing to be ruled. Authority, cha- racter, position, and costume fortify the priest, and make good in him what was wanting in the man. He gains his ascendency less by his skill than by time and perseverance. If his mind be but little cultivated, it is also less taken up with a variety of new ideas, which incessantly come crowding upon us moderns, amusing and fatiguing us. With fewer ideas, views, and projects, but with an interest, an aim, and ever the same end invariably kept in view — this is the way to succeed. Must we take it for granted, because you are clownish, you are less cunning on that account? Peasants are circumspect, often full of cunning, and endued with an indefatigable constancy in following up any petty interest. How many long years, what different means, and often indirect ones, will such a one employ, in order to add two feet of land to his field. Do you think that his son. Monsieur le Cure, 158 SEVENTEENTH AND NINETEENTH will be less patient or less ardent in his endeavours to get possession of a soul, to govern tliis woman, or to enter that family ? These peasant families have often much vigour, a certain sap, belonging to the blood and constitution, which either gives wit, or supplies the place of it. Those in the South especially, where the clergy raise their principal recruits, furnish them with intrepid speakers, who do not need to know any thing, and who, by their very ignorance, are, perhaps, but in a more direct communication with the simple persons, to whom they address themselves. They speak out loudly, with energy and assurance : educated per- sons would be more reserved, and less proper to fascinate the weak ; they would not dare to attempt, so audaciously, a clownish mesmerism in spiritual things. In this, I must confess, there is a serious difference between our own century and the seventeenth, when the clergy of all parties were so learned. That culture, those vast studies, that great theological and literary activity were, for the priest of that time, the most powerful diversion in the midst of temptations. Science, or, at the very least, controversy and dis- putation, created for him, in a position that was often very worldly, a sort of solitude, an alibi, as one may say, that effectually preserved him. But ours, who have nothing of the sort, who, moreover, spring from a hardy and material race, and do not know CENTURIES COMPARED. 159 how to employ this embarrassing vigour, must indeed require a fund of virtue ! The great men from whom we have drawn our examples, had a wonderful defence against spiritual and carnal desires ; better than a defence, they had wings that raised them from the earth, at the critical moment, above temptation. By these wings, I mean the love of God, the love of genius for itself, its natural effort to remain on high and ascend, its abhorrence of degradation. Being chiefs of the clergy of France, the only clergy then flourishing, and responsible to the world for whatever subsisted by their faith, they kept their hearts exalted to the level of the great part they had to perform. One thought was the guardian of their lives — a thought which they repressed, but which did not the less sustain them in delicate trials : it was this, " that in them resided the Church." The great experience of the world and domestic life*, their tact and skilful management of men and things, far from weakening morality, as one might believe, rather defended it in them, enabling them to perceive, and have a presentiment of perils, to see the enemy coming, not to allow him the advantage of * Another great diiference between them and those of our age. Ours know neither precedents, diiFerences, times, nor persons. When they come from their hiding-places, they are savage, rough, and violent : they rudely push forward at a ventvire, and fall upon the first passenger, who is forced to check them: 160 CHRISTIAN ART, ETC. unexpected attacks, or, at least, to know how to elude him. We have seen how Bossuet stopped the soft confidence of a weak nun at the very first word. The little we have said of Fenelon's direction shows sufficiently how the dangerous director evaded the dangers. Those eminently spiritual persons could keep up for years, between heaven and earth, this tender dialectic of the love of God. But is it the same in these days with men who have no wings, — who crawl and cannot fly ? Incapable of those ingenious turnings and windings, by which passion went on sportively, and eluding itself, do they not run the risk of stumbling at the first step ? I know well that this absence of early education, and vulgarity or clownishness, may often put an in- surmountable barrier between priests and weU-bred women. ]\Iany things, however, that would not be tolerated in another man are reckoned in them as merits. Stifihess is austerity, and awkwardness is accounted the simplicity of a saint, who has ever lived in a desert. They are measured by a different and more indulgent rule than the laity. The priest takes advantage of every thing that is calculated to make him be considered as a man apart, — of his dress, his position, his mysterious church, that invests the most vulgar with a poetical gleam. WE RESTORED THE CHURCH. 161 Who gave them this last advantage ? Ourselves. We, who have reinstated, rebuilt, as one may say, those very churches they had disregarded. The priests were building up their Saint- Sulpices, and other heaps of stones, when the laity retrieved Notre- Dame and Saint Ouen. We pointed out to them the Christian spirit of these living stones *, but they did not see it ; we taught it them, but they could not understand. And how long did the miscon- ception last ? Not less than forty years, ever since the appearance of the Genie du Christianisme. The priests would not believe us, when we explained to them this sublime edifice ; they did not recognise it ; but who can wonder ? It belongs only to those who understood it.f * I wish to take the liberty of reminding tliem (in answer to their silly attacks), that I have done two things for the art of the middle ages : 1 st, I have explained its principle and life, which my illustrious predecessors in this career, both French and German, had not done ; 2dly, / have explained its ruin, and indicated the innate causes of its decline. I have admired it, but I have classed it, without allowing myself to be carried away by exclusive admiration. See my History of Trance (1833), the last chapter of vol. ii., and particularly the last ten pages. In this same volume I have made a serious mistake, which I wish to rectify. In speaking of ecclesiastical celibacy (temp. Gregory VII.), I have said that married men could never have raised those sublime monuments, the spire of Stras- bourg, &c. I find, on the contrary, that the architects of the Gothic churches were laymen, and generally married. Erwin de Steinbaoh, who built Strasbourg, had a celebrated daughter, Sabina, who was herself an artist. f And they who understood it are the only persons who 162 THE CHUECH ADDS TO THE At length, however, they have changed their opi- nion. They have found it to be political and clever to speak as we do, and extol Christian architecture. They have decked themselves out with their churches, again invested themselves with this glorious cloak, and assumed in them a triumphant posture. The crowd comes, looks, and admires. Truly, if we are to judge of a well-dressed man by his coat, he who is invested with the splendour of a Notre-Dame of Paris, or a Cologne cathedral, is apparently the giant of the spiritual world. Alexander, on his departure from India, wishing to deceive posterity as to the size of his Macedonians, had a camp traced out on the ground in which a space of ten feet was allotted to each of his soldiers. What an immense place is this church, and what an immense host must inhabit this wonderful dwelling ! Optical delusion adds still more to the effect. Every proportion changes. The eye is deceived and deceives itself, respect and regret it. If we were the mortal enemies of those churches, we should do what they are doing at the present time — we would do away with their antique colour, the moss of by-gone ages, their mutilated appearance, and every thing that maies them venerable. We would efface aU that, and set up in them statues of aU ages, as they want to do in Xotre- Dame, and make a museum of them. The church has resisted both revolutions and time ; but it will not be able to withstand the conspiracy of the masons and the priests. The mason makes the priest believe that they build Gothic in 1843. See them both scratching, upsetting, and demolishing the old Gothic, and sure of making a new one. POWER OF THE PRIEST. 163 at the same time, with these sublime lights and deepening shades, all calculated to increase the il- lusion. The man whom in the street you judged, by his surly look, to be a village schoolmaster, is here a prophet. He is transformed by this majestic frame- work ; his heaviness becomes strength and majesty ; his voice has formidable echoes. AVomen and chil- dren tremble and are afraid. When a woman returns home, she finds every thing prosy and paltry. Had she even Pierre Cor- neille for a husband, she would think him pitiful, if he lived in the dull house they stiU show us. In- tellectual grandeur in a low apartment does not affect her. The comparison makes her sad, bitterly quiet. The husband puts up with it, and smiles, or pretends to do so : " Her director has turned her brain," says he aloud, and adds, aside, " After all, she only sees him at church." But what place, I ask, is more powerful over the imagination, richer in illusions, and more fascinating than the church ? It is precisely the church that ennobles, raises, ex- aggerates, and sheds a poetical ray upon this other- wise vulgar man. Do you see that solemn figure, adorned with all the gold and purple of his pontifical dress, ascending, with the thought, the prayer of a multitude of ten thousand men, the triumphal steps in the choir of St. Denis ? Do you see him still, above all that kneeling mass, hovering as high as the vaulted roofs, 164 THE CONFESSIONAL. his head reaching the capitals, and lost among the winged heads of the angels, whence he hurls his thunder? Well, it is the same man, this terrrible archangel himself, who presently descends for her, and now, mild and gentle, goes yonder into that dark chapel, to listen to her in the languid hours of the afternoon ! Delightful hour of tumultuous, but tender sensations ! (Why does the heart palpitate so strongly here ?) How dark the church becomes ! Yet it is not late. The great rose-window over the portal glitters with the setting sun. But it is quite another thing in the choir ; dark shadows envelope it, and beyond is obscurity. One thing astounds and almost frightens us, however far we may be, which is, the mysterious old painted glass, at the farthest end of the church, on which the design is no longer dis- tinguishable, twinkling in the shade, like an illegible magic scroll of unknown characters. The chapel is not less dark on that account : you can no longer discern the ornaments and delicate moulding en- twined in the vaulted roof; the shadow deepening blends and confounds the outlines. But, as if this chapel were not yet dark enough, it contains, in a retired corner, a narrow recess of dark oak, where that man, all emotion, and that trembling woman, so close to each other, are whispering together about the love of God. THE CONFESSION. 165 CHAPTER II. CONFESSION. PRESENT EDUCATION OP THE YOUNG CON- FESSOR. THE CONPESSOE IN THE MIDDLE AGES: FIRST, BELIEVED ; SECONDLY, MORTIFIED HIMSELF ; THIRDLY, WAS SUPERIOR BY CULTURE ; FOURTHLY, USED TO INTERROGATE LESS. THE CASUISTS WROTE FOR THEIR TIME. THE DANGERS OF THE YOUNG CONFESSOR. HOW HE STRENGTHENS HIS TOTTERING POSITION. A WORTHY parish priest has often told me that the sore part of his profession, that which filled him with despair, and his life with torment, was the confession. The studies, with which they prepare for it in the seminaries, are such as entirely ruin the disposition, weaken the body, and enervate and defile the soul. Lay education, without making any pretension to an extraordinary degree of purity, and though the pupils it forms will, one day, enjoy public life, takes, however, especial care to keep from the eyes of youth the glowing descriptions that excite the passions. Ecclesiastical education, on the contrary, which pretends to form men superior to man, pure virgin minds, angels, fixes precisely the attention of its l)upils upon things that are to be for ever forbidden them, and gives them for subjects of study terrible temptations, such as would make all the saints run 166 EDUCATION OF THE TOUN& CONFESSOR. the risk of damnation. Their printed books have been quoted, but not so their copy-books, by which they complete the two last years of seminary edu- cation : these copy-books contain things that the most audacious have never dared to publish. I could not do justice to what has been revealed to me about this idiotic education by those who have been its martyrs, and narrowly escaped destruction from it. No one can imagine the condition of a poor young man, still a believer, and very sincere, struggling between the terrors and temptations with which they surround him, at pleasure, with two un- known subjects, either one of which might drive him mad. Woman ! Hell ! — and yet obliged to look in- cessantly at the abyss, blinded, through these impure books, with his sanguine youthful constitution. This surprising imprudence proceeded originally from the very scholastic supposition, that the body and soul could be perfectly weU kept apart. They had imagined they could lead them like two coursers, by different enticements, the one to the right and the other to the left. They did not reflect that, in this case, man would be in the predicament of the chariot sculptured upon the tablet of the Louvre, which, pulled both ways, must inevitably be dashed to pieces. However different these two substances may be in nature, it is but too manifest that they are mingled in action. Not a motion of the soul but acts upon PRIEST, IN MIDDLE AGES, BELIEVED. 167 the body, which re-acts in the same manner. The most cruel discipline inflicted upon the body will destroy it rather than prevent its action upon the soul. To believe that a vow, a few prayers, and a black robe, wiU deliver you from the flesh, and make you a pure spirit— is not this perfect childishness? They will answer me by the middle ages, and by the multitudes who have lived mortified lives. For this I have not one answer, but twenty, which admit of no reply. It is too easy to show that priests in general, and especially the confessor, were then totally different from what they have been for the two last centuries. I. The first answer wiU seem, perhaps, harsh — Then the priest believed. " What ! the priest no longer believes ? Do you mean to say, that in speaking of his faith with so much energy, he is a hypocrite and a liar ? " No, I will allow him to be sincere. But there are two manners of believing, there are many degrees in faith. We are told that Lope de Vega (who, as it is known, was a priest) could not ofiiciate : at the moment of the sacrifice, his fancy pictured the Passion too strongly; he would burst into tears and faint. Compare this with the coquettish panto- mime of the Jesuit who acts mass at Fribourg, or with the prelate whom I have seen at the altar showing to advantage his delicate small hand. The priest believed, and his penitent believed. Un- heard of terrors, miracles, devils, and hell, filled 168 PKIEST MORTIFIED HIMSELF. the church. The motto, " God hears you," was en- graven not only in the wood, but in the heart. It was not a plank that partitioned oiF the confessional, but the sword of the archangel, the thought of the last judgment. II. If the priest spoke in the name of the spirit, he was partly justified in doing so, having purchased spiritual power by the suicide of the body. His long prayers at night would have sufficed to wear him out; but they found more direct means in excessive fasts. Fasting was the diet of those poor schools of Beggars and Cappets, whose scanty meal was composed of arguments. Half dead before the age of manhood, they cooled their blood with herbs producing a deadly chill, and exhausted it by frequent bleedings. The number of bleedings to which the monks had to submit, was provided in their rules. Their stomachs were soon destroyed, and their strength impaired. Bernard and Theresa were weakened by continual vomitings, even the sense of taste was lost : the Saint, says his biographer, took blood for butter. Mortification was not then an idle word, it was not a separation of the body and soul, but a genuine and honest suppression of the body. III. The priest believed himself to be, in this sense, the man of the spirit, and he really was so, by the superiority of culture. He knew every thing, the layman nothing. Even when the priest was young, he was truly the father, the other the child. In our PRIEST USED TO INTEREOGATE LESS. 169 days it is just the contrary ; the layman, in cities at least, is generally more learned than the priest ; even the peasant, if he be a father of a family, with business and interests, or has served in the army, has more experience than his cure, and more real know- ledge; his speaking more ungrammatically is of no consequence. But the contrast is still more striking, when this inexperienced priest, who has known nothing but his own seminary, sees at his knees a fashionable, intriguing, impassioned woman, who now, perhaps, at the close of her seventh lustrum, has passed through every thing sentimental and ideal. What ! she ask his advice ? she call him father ? Why, every word she utters is a revelation for him — astonishment and fear take possession of his soul. If he is not wise enough to hold his tongue, he will be ridiculous. His penitent, who came to him all trembling, will depart laughing. lY. There is another difference which will strike only those who are acquainted with the middle ages — the lajiguage was not developed as it now is. No one being then acquainted with our habits of analysing and developing, confession was naturally reduced to a simple declaration of sin, without any detail of circumstances. Still less could they deduce the phe- nomena which accompany passion — the desires, doubts, and fears which give it the power of illusion, and make it contagious. There was, if you will, con- fession ; but the woman could not express herself, nor I 170 PRIEST USED TO INTERROGATE LESS. could the priest have understood her ; she was not able to reveal the depth of her thought, nor could he have reached it if she had done so. Confession on one side, and sentence on the other, nothing more ; there was neither dialogue, confidence, nor disclosing of the heart. If the priest has not enough imagination and wit to put the questions from the store of his own mind, he has had in his hands, for the last two centuries, ready-made questions, which he may ask in due order, and by which he will force his fair penitent to dive into her own thoughts, sift her own secrets to deliver them over to him, open her heart's fibres, as one may say, thread by thread, and wind off before him the complete skein, which he henceforth holds in his hands. This terrible instrument of inquiry, which in unskilful hands may corrupt the soul by its inju- dicious probing, must necessarily be modified when morals change. ^Morality does not vary, but morals do, according to the lapse of time ; yet this very simple truth never once entered their heads. They have adhered to the morals of the period, when the intellectual movement ceased, as far as they were concerned. The manuals they put into the hands of the young confessor, are grounded upon the authority of the casuists, whom Pascal annihilated long ago. Even if the immorality of their solutions had not been demonstrated, remember that Escobar and Sanchez made their questions for a horribly cor- THE CASUISTS WROTE FOR THEIR TIME. 171 rupt period, from -wHcli, thank God, we are far removed. Their casuistry was from the first ad- dressed to the corrupt and disordered state of society occasioned by long religious warfare. You will find among them crimes that were jjerhaps never perpetrated, except by the brutal soldiers of the Duke of Alva, or by the exiled, lawless, and godless band that Wallenstein drew after him, a wandering mass of iniquity which would have been abhorred by ancient Sodom. We know not how to qualify this culpable routine. These books, composed for a barbarous age, un- paralleled in crimes, are the same that you give to your pupils in our own civilised age. And this young priest, who, according to your instructions, believes that the world is still that dreadful world, who enters the confessional* with all this villanous science, and his imagination full of monstrous cases, you, im- prudent men! (what shall I call you?) you confront him with a child who has never left her mother's side, who knows nothing, has nothing to say, and whose greatest crime is that she has not learned her cate- chism properly, or has hurt a butterfly ! I shudder at the interrogatory to which he will subject her, and at what he will teach her in his con- * Read the fine passages in P. L. Courrier and Mr. Genii's works, so full of spirit and eloquence, and so glowing with the indignation of an honest man. The Jesuits and tlie University^ part ii. ch. v. I 2 172 DANGERS OF THE TOUNG CONPESSOE. scientious brutality. But he questions her in vain. She knows nothrag, and says nothing. He scolds her, and she weeps. Her tears will be soon dried, but it will be long before she ceases to reflect. A volume might be composed on the first start of the young priest, and his imprudent steps, aU fatal either to himself or others. The penitent is occa- sionally more circumspect than the confessor. She is amused at his proceedings, and looks at him coldly when he becomes animated and goes too far.* Some- times, forgetting himself in his impassioned dream, he is suddenly and roughly awakened by a lesson from an intelligent and satirical woman kneeling before him. This cruel lesson has given him an icy chiU. Confessors do not suffer such a repulse, without remaining a long time bitter, sometimes spiteful for ever. The young priest knew well that he was the victim, the disinherited of this world, but it had not been forced home upon him. Gall drowns his heart. He prays to God (if he can still pray), that the world may perish ! * And how would not this animation be caused by such con- tiguity ? It is sufficient that persons of different sexes pray toge- ther in the same room for madness to seize them and turn their heads. This is what happens in the meetings of the exalted Protestants in the United States and elsewhere. Read Swift's sensible and judicious little work, " Fragment on the me- chanical Operations of the Spirit." (See especially towards the end.) HOW HE STRENGTHENS HIS POSITION. 173 Then returning to his senses, and seeing himself irremediably limed in that black winding sheet, that death-robe that he will wear to the grave, he shrouds himself within it as he curses it, and muses how he may make the best of his torment. The only thing he can do, is to strengthen his position as a priest. He has two ways of succeeding, either by an understanding with the Jesuits, or by paying a servile court to Monseigneur the bishop. I recommend him especially to be violent against the philosophers, and to bark at pantheism. Let him also blacken his fellow-priests, and he will appear so much the purer himself. Let Mm prove himself a thorough hater, and they will forgive him his love. The brotherhood will henceforth protect, defend, and cover him. What would have ruined the solitary priest, becomes sanctity itself when he becomes one of a party. Before, he would have been suspended, and sent perhaps for six months to La Trappe — now he is made Vicar-general. Only let him be prudent in the delicate business which the fraternity wishes to conceal ; let him learn the arts of priests — to feign, to wait, to know when and how to be satisfied ; to advance but slowly, openly and above ground sometimes, but more often secretly, underneath. I 3 174 CONFESSION. CHAPTER III. CONFESSION. — THE CONFESSOK AND THE HUSBAND. — HO"W THET DETACH THE WIPE. THE DIEECTOE. — DIEEC- TOES ASSOCIATED TOGETHEE. — ECCLESIASTICAL PO- LICY. When I reflect on all that is contained in the words confession and direction, those simple words, that immense power, the most complete in the world, and endeavour to analyse their whole meaning, I tremble with fear. I seem to be descending endless spiral stairs into the depths of a dark mine. Just now I felt contempt for the priest ; now I fear him. But we must not be afraid ; we must look him in the face. Let us candidly put down in set terms the language of the confessor. " God hears you, hears you through me ; through me God will answer you." Such is the first word ; such is the literal copy. The authority is accepted as infinite and absolute, without any bargaining as to measure. " But you tremble, you dare not tell this terrible God your weakness and childishness ; well ! tell them to your father; a father has a right to know the secrets of his child ; he is an indulgent father, who wants to know them only to absolve them. He is a CONFESSION. 175 sinner like yourself; has he then a right to be severe? Come, then, my child, come and tell me — what you have not dared to whisper in your mother's ear ; teU it me; who will ever know?" Then is it, amid sobs and sighs, from the choking, heaving breast that the fatal word rises to the lips : it escapes, and she hides her head. Oh ! he who heard that has gained an immense advantage, and wiU keep it. Would to God that he did not abuse it ! It was heard, remember, not by the wood and the dark oak of the confessional, but by ears of flesh and blood. And this man now knows of this woman, what the husband has not known in all the long effusion of his heart by day and night, what even her own mother does not know, who thinks she knows her entirely, having had her so many times a naked infant upon her knees. This man knows, and will know — don't be afraid of his forgetting it. If the confession is in good hands, so much the better, for it is for ever. And she, she knows full well she has a master of her intimate thoughts. Never will she pass by that man without casting down her eyes. The day when this mystery was imparted, he was very near her, — she felt it. On a higher seat, he seemed to have an irresistible ascendency over her. A magnetic influence has vanquished her, for she wished not to speak, and she spoke in spite of herself. 1 4 176 THE CONFESSOE AST) THE HUSBAND. She felt herself fascinated, like the bird by the serpent. So far, however, there is no art on the side of the priest. The force of circumstances has done every- thing, that of religious institution, and that of nature. As a priest, he received her at his knees, and listened to her. Then, master of her secret, of her thoughts, the thoughts of a woman, he became man again, ■without, perhaps, either wishing or knowing it, and laid upon her, weakened and disarmed, the heavy hand of man. And her family now ? her husband ? W ho will dare to assert that his position is the same as before ? Every reflecting mind knows full well, that thought is the most personal part of the person. The master of a person's thoughts is he to whom the person belongs. The priest has the soul fast, as soon as he has received the dangerous pledge of the first secrets, and he will hold it faster and faster. The two hus- bands now take shares, for now there are two — one has the soul, the other the body. Take notice that in this sharing, one of the two really has the whole ; the other, if he gets any thing, gets it by favour. Thought by its nature is pre- vailing and absorbing ; the master of her thought, in the natural progress of his sway, will ever go on reducing the part that seemed to remain in the possession of the other. The husband may think himself well off, if, a widower with respect to the THE CONFESSOR AND THE HUSBAND. 177 soul, he still preserves the Involuntary, inert, and lifeless possession. How humiliating, to obtain nothing of what was your own, but by authorisation and indulgence * ; to be seen, and followed into your most private inti- macy, by an invisible witness, who governs you and gives you your allowance; to meet in the street a man who knows better than yourself, your most secret weaknesses, who bows cringingly, turns and laughs. It is nothing to be powerful, if one is not powerful alone ■ — alone ! God does not allow shares. It is "with this reasoning that the priest is sure to comfort himself in his persevering efforts to sever this woman from her family, to weaken her kindred ties, and, particularly, to undermine the rival authority — I mean the husband's. The husband is a heavy en- cumbrance to the priest. But if this husband suffers at being so well known, spied, and seen, when he is alone, he who sees all suffers still more. She comes now every moment to tell innocently of things that transport him beyond himself. Often would he stop her, and would willingly say, " Mercy, madam, this is too much ! " And though these details make him suffer * St. Frangois de Sales, tlie best of them all, takes compassion on the poor husband. He removes certain scruples[of the wife, &c. Even this kindness is singularly humiliating. (See ed. 1833, vol. viii. pp. 254. 312. 347, 348.) Marriage, though one of the sacraments, appears here as a suppliant on its knees before the direction, seems to ask pardon, and suffer penance. I 5 178 HOW THE CONFESSOR AND THE the torment of the damned, he wants still more, and requires her to enter further and further into these avowals, both humiliating for her, and cruel for him, and to give him -the detail of the saddest circum- stances. The confessor of a young woman may boldly be termed the jealous secret enemy of the husband. If there be one exception to this rule (and I am willing to believe there may be), he is a hero, a saint, a mar- tyr, a man more than man. The whole business of the confessor is to insulate this woman, and he does it conscientiously. It is the duty of him who leads her in the way of salvation, to disengage her gradually from all earthly ties. It re- quires time, patience, and skill. The question is not how these strong ties may suddenly be broken ; but to discover well, first of all, of what threads each tie is composed, and to disentangle, and gnaw them away thread by thread. And all this may easily be done by him who, awakening new scruples every day, fills a timid soul with uneasiness about the lawfulness of her most holy affections. If any one of them be innocent, it is, after all, an earthly attachment, a robbery against God : God wants all. No more relationship or friend- ship ; nothing must remain. " A brother ? " no, he is stiU a man. " But at least my sister ? my mother?" "No, you must leave all — leave them intentionally, and from your soul ; you shall always HUSBAND DETACH THE WIFE. 179 see them, my child ; nothing will appear changed ; only, close your heart." A moral solitude is thus es- tablished around. Friends go away, offended at her freezing politeness. " People are cool in this house." But why this strange reception ? They cannot guess ; she does not always know why, herself. The thing is commanded ; is it not enough ? Obedience consists in obeying without reason. " People are cold here : " this is all that can be said. The husband finds the house ' larger and more empty. His wife is become quite changed : though present, her mind is absent ; she acts as if un- conscious of acting ; she speaks, but not like herself. Every thing is changed in theirintimate habits, always for a good reason: " To-day is a fast-day"- — and to- morrow ? — "is a holy day." The husband respects tliis austerity ; he would consider it very wrong to trouble this exalted devotion ; he is sadly resigned : " This becomes embarrassing," says he : "I had not foreseen it ; my wife is turning saint." In this sad house there are fewer friends, yet there is a new one, and a very assiduous one : the habitual confessor is now the director*; a great and important change. As her confessor he received her at church, at regular hours ; but as director he visits her at his * The name is rare in our days, but the thing is common ; he who confesses for a length of time becomes director. I 6 180 THE DIRECTOE. own hoar, sees her at her house, and occasionally at his own. As confessor he was generally passive, listening much, and speaking little : if he prescribed, it was in a few words ; but as director he is all activity ; he not only prescribes acts, but, what is more im- portant, by Intimate conversation he influences her thoughts. To the confessor she tells her sins ; she owes him nothing more ; but to the director every thing must be told : she must speak of herself and her relations, her business and her Interests. When she entrusts to that man her highest interest, that of eternal sal- vation, how can she help confiding to him her little temporal concerns, the marriage of her children, and the will she intends to make ? &c. &c. The confessor is bound to secrecy ; he is silent (or ought to be). The director, however, is not so tied down. He may reveal what he knows, especially to a priest, or to another director. Let us suppose about twenty priests assembled In a house, (or not quite so many, out of respect for the law against meetings,) who may be, some of them the confessors, and others directors of the same persons : as directors, they may mutually exchange their information, put upon a table a thousand or two thousand consciences In common, combine their relations, like so many chessmen, regulate beforehand aU the movements and Interests, DIRECTORS IN CONCERT. 181 and allot to one another the different parts they have to play to bring the whole to their purpose. The Jesuits alone formerly worked thus in con- cert ; but it is not the fault of the leaders of the clergy, in these days, if the whole of this body, with trembling obedience, do not play at this villanous game.* By their all communicating together, their secret revelations might produce a vast mysterious science, which would arm ecclesiastical policy with a power a hundred times stronger than that of the state can possibly be. Whatever might be wanting in the confession of the master, would easily be supplied by that of his servants and valets. The association of the Blandines of Lyons, imitated in Brittany, Paris, and elsewhere, would alone be sufficient to throw a light upon the whole household of every family. It is in vain they are known : they are nevertheless employed ; for they are gentle and docile, serve their masters very well, and know how to see and listen. Happy the father of a family who has so virtuous a wife, and such gentle, humble, honest, pious ser- vants. What the ancient sighed for, namely, to live in a glass dwelling, where he might be seen by every one, this happy man enjoys without even the ex- pression of a wish. Not a syllable of his is lost. * We know it full well by the loyal priests who have refused to join them. 182 ECCLESIASTICAL POLICY. He may speak lower and lower, but a fine ear has caught every word. If he writes down his secret thoughts, not wishing to utter them, they are read ; — by whom ? no one knows. What he dreams upon his pillow, the next morning, to his great astonish- ment, he hears in the street. POWER OF HABIT. 183 CHAPTER IV. HABIT. ITS POWEK. ITS INSENSIBLE BEGINNING. ITS PROGRESS. SECOND NATURE. OFTEN EATAL. — A MAN MAKING THE MOST OP THE POWER OP HABIT. CAN WE GET CLEAR OF IT ? If spiritual dominion be really of the spirit, if the empire over thought be obtained by thought itself, by a superiority of character and mind, we must give way ; we have only to be resigned. Our family may protest, but it wiU be in vain. But, for the most part, this is not the case. The influence we speak of by no means supposes, as an essential condition, the brilliant gifts of the mind. They are doubtless of service to him who has them, though, if he have them in a superior degree, they may possibly do him harm. A brilliant superiority, which ever seems a pretension to govern, puts the minds of others on their guard, warns the less pru- dent, and places an obstacle on the very threshold ; which here is every thing.* People of mediocrity * Novelists scarcely ever understand this principle. Most of them begin with an adventure or some surprising action. But this is what startles, warns,'and deters us of beginning any. They are prodigal of adventures and actions, and certainly nothing is more likely to awaken the attention, and make fascination impossible. What we say in this chapter on the .. 184 POWER OF HABIT. do not alarm us, they gain an entrance more easily. The weaker they are, the less they are suspected ; therefore are they the stronger in one sense. Iron clashes against the rock, is blunted, and loses its edge and point. But who would distrust water ? Weak, colourless, insipid as it is, if, however, it always continues to fall in the same place, it will in time hollow out the flinty rock. Stand at this window every day at a certain hour in the afternoon. You will see a pale man pass down the street, with his eyes cast on the ground, and always following the same hne of pavement, next the houses. Where he set his foot yesterday, there he does to-day, and there he will to-morrow ; he would wear out the pavement, if it was never renewed. And by this same street he goes to the same house, ascends to the same story, and in the same ca- binet speaks to the same person. He speaks of the same things, and his manner seems the same. The person who listens to him sees no difference between yesterday and to-day : — gentle uniformity, as serene as an infant's sleep, whose breathing raises its chest at equal intervals with the same soft sound. You think that nothing changes in this monoto- nous equality ; that all these days are the same. You power of habit will be perhaps little understood by people of fashion, especially in Paris : in a life of so much amusement and variety, they can scarcely imagine the duU uniformity which time may have elsewhere. POWER OF HABIT. 185 are mistaken ; you have perceived nothing, yet every day there is a change, slight, it is true, and imper- ceptible, which the person, himself changed by little and little, does not remark. It is like a dream in a bark. What distance have you come, whilst you were dreaming ? Who can tell ? Thus you go on, without seeming to move - — still, and yet rapidly. Once out of the river, or canal, you soon find yourself at sea ; the uniform immensity in which you now are, will inform you stiU less of the distance you go. Time and place are equally uncertain ; no sure point to occupy attention ; and attention itself is gone. The reverie is profound, and becomes more and more so : — an ocean of dreams upon the smooth ocean of waters. A pleasant state, in which every thing becomes insensible, even gentleness itself. Is it death, or is it life ? To distinguish, we require attention, and we should awake from our dream. — No, let it go on, whatever it may be that carries me along with it, whether it lead me to life or death. Alas ! 'tis habit ! that gently sloping, formidable abyss, into which we slide so easily ! we may say every thing that is bad of it, and, also, every thing that is good, and it will be always true. Let us be frank : if the action that we did in the first instance knowingly and A'oluntarily, was never done but with will and attention, if it never became habitual and easy, we should act but little and 186 INSENSIBLE BEGINNING OF HABIT. slowly, and our life would pass away in endeavours and efforts. If, for instance, every time we stepped forward we had to reflect upon our direction, and how to keep our balance, we should not walk much better than the child who is trying to go alone. But walking soon becomes a habit, an action that is per- formed without any need of invoking the constant and intermediate operation of the wOl. It is the same with many other acts which, still less voluntary, become at last mechanical, automatical, foreign, as I may say, to our personality. As we advance in life, a considerable portion of our activity escapes our notice, removes from the sphere of liberty to enter that of habit, and becomes as it were fated : the re- mainder, relieved in that respect, and so far absolved from attention and effort, finds itself, by a process of compensation, more free to act elsewhere. This is useful, but it is also dangerous. The fatal part increases within us, without our interference, and grows in the darkness of our inward nature. "What formerly struck our attention, now passes un- perceived. What was at first difficult, in time grows easy, too easy : at last we can no longer say even that it is easy, for it takes place, of its own accord, independently of our will ; we suffer, if we do not do it. These acts, being those of aU others that cost the least trouble, are incessantly renewed. We must, at last, confess that a second nature is the result, which, formed at the expense of the former, becomes. SECOND NAT0EE. 187 in a great measure, its substitute. We forget the difficulties of our early beginnings, and fancy we have always been so. This favours at least our idle- ness, 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 dis- appeared; even though we desired to go back, we could not. It is as though a bridge were broken down behind us ; we have passed 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 * This difference is not, as far as I know, pointed out either by Maine de Biran, or by Mr. Felix Ravaisson, in liis ingenious and profound dissertation on habit. 188 MAKING THE MOST OF THE 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, chastisement, 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 passive than active habits. Accustomed to let things take their course, to suiFer and to enjoy, we become incapable of re- suming our activity. At last we do not even re- quire the enticement of pleasure; even when it is no more, and pain usurps its place, inexorable habit pours out stiU 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 wiU, a heart, 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 POWER OF HABIT. 189 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, tune, irresistible time, the tamer of all human things, time, that can eat away iron and brass ! 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 any thing, 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 * This reminds one of the adventure of the enchanter Merlin, who, at Viviane's request, lay down in his tomb ; but no longer knowing the words that might deliver him, he remains, and will remain there till doomsday. 190 POWER OF HABIT. 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 wan- dering 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 re- maining 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 passed 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 wUl 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 contiaues too, and is ever renewed with a ma- licious obstinacy. What is she to do ? She is over- * A rough wild forest of tufted trees ! The very thought of it renews my fears. How did I enter it ? I cannot tell ; so sleepy was I when I left the true way ! — Dante, Inferno. POWEK OF HABIT. 191 come 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 prin- cess ! poor fly ! now you are caught ! But why did you stay in that fairy dwelling, and give the spider time to spin his web ? 192 ON CONVENTS. CHAPTER V. ON CONTENTS. OMNIPOTENCE OF THE DIRECTOE. CON- DITION OF THE NUN FORLORN AND WATCHED CON- VENTS THAT ARE AT THE SAME TLSIE BRIDEWELLS ANTO BEDLAMS. INVEIGLING. BARBAROUS DISClPLrN'E. STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE SUPERIOR NUN AND THE DIRECTOR. CHANGE OF DIRECTORS. THE MAGIS- TRATE. 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 Kogation-day, I heard nu- merous weak, very weak voices, chanting prayers, as the procession passed 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 nosj' the song of hope which invokes the benediction of the God of life upon fruitful nature. This jNIay-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 ON CONVENTS. 193 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 chastity than of sterile widowhood, a state of emptiness, inaction, disgust — of an intellectual* and moral fast, the state in which these unfortunate creatures are kept by their absolute rulers. * I have already spoken of Sister Marie Lemonnier, per- secuted for knowing too well how to write, and draw flowers, &c. — " My confessor,'' says she, " forbade me to gather flowers, and to draw. Unfortunately, walking in the garden with the nuns, there were on the edge of the grass two wild poppies, which, without any intention, I lopped between my fingers, in passing. One of the sisters saw me, and ran to inform the superior nun, who was walking in front, and who immediately came towards me, made me open my hand, and, seeing the poppies, told me that I had done for myself. And the con- fessor having come the same evening, she accused me before him of disobedience, in having gathered flowers. It was in vain I told him that it was done unintentionally,- and that they were only wild poppies ; I could not obtain permission to confess myself." Note of Sister Marie Lemonnier, in Mr. Til- liard's Memoire. The newspapers and the reviews in March, 1845, give extracts from it. K 194 OMNIPOTENCE OF THE DIEECTOE. 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 de- pendent women ; as there is no outward influence to counterbalance the impression that one person, ever the same person, makes on them daily. The least skUful priest may easUy 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 : nothiDg 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 agaiu, 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 class is, after all, but a book, a dumb, inanimate thing, which, though you may call it as animated as you please, does not OMNIPOTENCE OF THE DIRECTOR. ] 95 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 in- trudes, 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 circumstance of his being of the opposite sex has much to do with it, even with the purest, and with those who had never dreamed of sex. 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 eflace from this docile heart even the thought of a mother that might still* * It is often from an instinctive tyranny, that the superiors delight in breaking the ties of kindred. " The curate of my parish exhorted me to write to my father, who had just lost my mother. I let advent go by (during which time nuns are not permitted to write letters), and the latter days 'of the K 2 196 CONDITION OP THE NU^^ be cherished within it ! To inherit every thing, and remain alone and be master of this heart by the ex- tinction of all natural sentiments ! Tlie 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 every thing to what we are always in the habit of seeing : whether month -whicli are passed in retirement, in the institution, to prepare us for the renewing of our vows, which take place on new-year's day. But, after the holy term, I hastened to fiilfil my duty towards the best of fathers, by addressing to him both my prayers and good wishes, and endeavouring to offer him some consolation in the afflictions and trials with which it had pleased God to visit him. I went to the cell of the superior nun, to beg her to read over my letter, fix the convent seal to it, and send it off; but she was not there. I therefore put it in my cell upon the table, and went to prayers ; during which time our Reverend Mother the superior, who knew that I had written, because she had sent one of the nuns to see what I was about, beckoned to one of the sisters and bid her to take from me my letter. She did so every time I wrote, seven times running, so that my father died five months after- wards, without ever obtaining a letter from me, which he had so much desired, and had even asked me for, on his death-bed, by the curate of his parish. Note of Sider Lemonnier, in ilr. Til- liard's ^lemoire. See also the Nationruil, March, 1845. rOKLOKN AND WATCHED. 197 it be man or thing, we must speak. Even if it were a stone, we should tell it every thing ; 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 wiU find in the convent the united sufferings of solitude, and of the world. Alone, without being able to be alone ! * 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, every thing deceived her, and enticed her onward to eternal confinement. We almost always fancy ourselves * The preliminary confession of the nuns to the superior, easily acceded to in the first fit of enthusiasm, soon becomes an intolerable vexation. Even in Madame de Chantal's time, it was much complained of. See her letters, and Fichet, 256. ; also Eibadeneira, Life of St. Theresa. 198 FOELOEN STATE OF THE NUN. called to God, when we follow an amiable, enchanting person, one who, with that smiling, captivating de- votion, 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 compassion; they are not so in- sensible 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 de- ceive itself. She will soon find out some young friend, some lively 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 God — he makes his objections for the sake of God alone. What wonder then, if this woman be sad, sadder every day, frequenting the most melancholy-looking avenues, and no longer speaks ? Then her solitude be- comes 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 CONVENTS MADE BRIDEWELLS AND BEDLAMS. 199 and day must strangely trouble all the powers of tlie 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 day- light 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 passages of catacombs growing closer and closer. In these dreadful prisons, which are punishments, you may perceive, more- over, 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 ? * 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 * Sister Marie Lemonnier was shut up with mad girls : here she found a Carmelite nun, who had been there nine years. The third volume of the Wandering Jew contains the real history of Mademoiselle B. She has passed latterly not into a mad-house, but into a convent. Since I have this oppor- tunity of saying a word to our admirable novelist, let him permit me to ask him, why he thought proper to idealise the Jesuits to this extent ? who does not know that certain digni- taries of their order have become immortal by ridicule ? It is difficult to believe stupid writers to be strong minds, or profound machinators. I look in vain for a Kodin, and find only Loriquets. K 4 200 CAPTATIOX. mad-houses by the police, both stop at the convent doors : the law is afraid, and dares not pass the threshold. The inspection of convents, and the precise designa- tion 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 noble family, Avhether living as nobles, 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 hun- dred 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, tiU she re- duces 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 excel- lent 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 CAPTATION. 201 need no longer envy Bologna that learned female jurisconsult, who, occasionally wrapped in a veil, pro- fessed 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 they ex- plain the rapid and unheard-of increase of religious houses. Lyons, that in 1789 had only forty convents, has now sixty-three.* 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 ! f Captation, so suspicious in the busy world, is not so in the convents ; though it * I quote from memory the statistical account given by Mr. Lortet, in 1843. ■j- All tliese people buy and sell, and become brokers. Pre- lates speculate in lands and buildings, the Lazarists turn agents for military recruits, &c. The latter, the successors of St. Vincent de Paul, the directors of our Sisters of Charity, have been so blessed by God for their charity, that they have now a capital of twenty millions. Their present chief, Mr. Etienne, then a procurer of the order, was lately the Lazarist agent in a distillery company. The very important lawsuit they have at the present moment wUl decide whether a society engaged by a general, its absolute chief, is freed from every engagement by a change of generals. K 5 202 BARBAROUS DISCIPLINE. 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 pass 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 If It preaches spiritualism to meet valiantly the seduction of the flesh, and ma- teriahsm when required to annihilate the will ! What ! when the law forbids to strike even our * At Sens, a magistrate ventured to enter, and a neo-catho- lic newspaper regrets they did not throw him out of window. ■j" Did not this horrible art calculate well on the influence of the body ? this art that does not awaken man's energy by pain, but enervates it by diet, and the misery of dungeons ? (See Mabillon's Treatise on Monastic Prisons.) The reve- lations of the prisoners of Spielberg have enlightened us upon this head. SUPERIOR AND DIRECTOR. 203 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 weak- ness How are these chastisements 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 dijSficult for him at last not to be affected for the poor girl, who tells him every thing, 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 K 6 204 CHANGE OF DIEECTOKS. every one else only insult and ill-treatment, a com- passionate confessor is still a welcome refuge. We have known superiors demand and obtain several times from their bishops a change of con- fessors, without finding any sufficiently austere. There is ever a wide difference between the harsh- ness of a 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 passions to torment her xinfortunate, defenceless sisters. Far from being the adversary of the confessor ia 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 hell, where the law cannot penetrate, he is the only per- son who can say a word of humanity. I know very well that this iaterference 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. This priest will be removed, driven away, and ruined, if it be necessary. Nothing is easier to an active, influential superior. He dares not venture THE MAGISTRATE. 205 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 spi- ritual judges ; nor will they refuse absolution to the tyrant of the nuns, as Las Casas did to those of the Indians. There are, fortunately, other judges. The law sleeps, bnt it still lives, f Some courageous magis- trates have been willing to do their duty.| No doubt they will be thwarted. But the nights of the guilty have been troubled : they know that every violence which is committed there, every blow given in defiance of the law, is an accusation against them before heaven and earth. Exsurge, Domine, etjudica causam tuam ! * I find a confirmation of this in the notes of the nun already quoted. See the preface of this third edition. f The affairs at Avignon, Sens, and Poictiers, though the guilty parties have been but slightly punished, permit us to hope that the law will at length awake. J The inspection of convents ought to be shared between the judiciary and municipal magistracy, and the administrations of charity. The bar is too much occupied to be able to under- take it alone. If these houses are necessary as asylums for poor women, who dread a too solitary life, at least let them be free asylums like the beguinages of Flanders ; but not under the same direction. 206 ABSORPTION OF THE AVILL. CHAPTER VI. AESOEPTION OP THE "WILL. GOVBENMENT OF ACTS, THOUGHTS, AND WttLS. — ASSIMILATION. TRANSHV- MANATION. — TO BECOME THE GOD OF ANOTHER. PRIDE. — PRIDE AND DESIRE. If we believe politicians, happiness consists in reign- ing. They sincerely think so, since they accept in exchange for happiness so much trouble and so many annoyances ; a martyrdom often that perhaps the saints would have shrunk from. But the reign must be real. Are we quite sure that it is really to reign, to make ordinances that are not executed, to enact with great effort, and as a supreme victory, one law more, which is doomed to sleep in the bulletin of laws at the side of thirty thousand of the same kin ? It is of no use to prescribe acts, if we are not first masters of the mind; in order to govern the bodily world, we must reign in the intellectual world. This is the opinion of the thinking man, the profound writer ; and he believes he reigns. He is, indeed, a king ; at least for the next age. If he is reaUy original, he outsteps his century, and is postponed till another time. But he wiU reign to- morrow, and the day after, and so on for ages, and CHARACTER OF A PRIEST. 207 ever more absolute. To-day he will be alone ; every success costs a friend ; but he acquires others ; and I am willing to believe both ardent and nu- merous ; those he loses were^ no dpubt, worth less, but they were those he loved ; and he will never see the others. Work, then, disinterested man, work on : you will have, for your reward, a little noise and smoke. Is not that a suiBcient reward for you ? King of ages yet unborn, you will live and die empty-handed. On the shore of that sea of un- known ages, you, a child, have picked up a shell, which you hold to your ear, to try to catch a faint sound, in which you fancy you hear your own name. Look on the other hand at that man, that priest, who, at the very time he is telling us his kingdom is above, has adroitly secured for himself the reality of the earth beneath. He lets you go, as you please, in search of unknown worlds ; but he himself seizes on the present one ; your own world, poor dreamer ! that which you loved, the nest where you hoped to come back, and be cherished. Accuse no one but yourself, it is your own fault. With your eyes turned towards the dawn, you forgot yourself, whilst you were peeping to catch a glimpse of the first ray of the future. You turn round when it is rather too late ; another possesses the cherished casket in which you had left your heart. The sovereignty of ideas is not that of the will. We can only get possession of the will by the will 208 ASSIMILATION OF THE SOUL. itself: not general and vague, but an especial and personal will, which, attaches itself perseveringly to, and really commands, the person, because it makes it ia his own image. Really to reign, is to reign over a soul. What are all the thrones in comparison to this kingly sway ? What is dominion over an unknown crowd? The really ambitious have been too shrewd to make a mistake ? They have not exhausted their eiForts in the extension of a vague and weak power, which loses by being extended ; they have aimed rather at its solidity, intensity, and immutable possession. The end thus settled, the priest has a great advan- tage which no one else possesses. His business is with a soul ivhich gives itself up of its own accord. The great obstacle for other powers is that they do not well know the person acted upon ; they see only the outside *, but the priest looks withiu. Whether he be clever, or only of an ordinary stamp, still, by the sole virtue of hopes and fears, by that magic key which opens the world to come, the priest opens also the heart, and that heart wishes to lay itself open ; all its fear is lest it should conceal any thing. It does not see itself entirely ; but when- ever it is at a loss, the priest sees his way clearly, * Confession, even incomplete, as when made before a judge, enlightens greatly the moralists, and the painter of manners. Walter Scott was a greffier, and Fielding a justice of the peace. ASSIMILATION OF THE SOUL. 209 and penetrates into it, by the simple method of obtaining revelations from servants, friends, and relatives, and comparing them together. With all this enlightening he forms a mass of light, which, concentrated upon the object, renders it so thoroughly luminous, that he knows not only its present exist- ence, but its future state, deciphering, from the very first day, in its instinct and sentiment, what will be its thoughts on the morrow. He, therefore, truly knows this heart, both by sight and foresight. This rare science would remain inexplicable with- out a word in explanation. If it knows its subject to this degree, it is because it is its own work. The director creates the directed ; the lat- ter is his work, and becomes in time one and the same man. How is it possible the former should not know the ideas and wishes, which he liimself has inspired, and which are his own? A transfusion takes place between the two in this in- cessant action, in which the inferior, receiving every thing from the other *, goes on gradually losing his personality. Growing weaker and more idle every day, he thinks himself happy in no longer having a wiU of his own, and is glad to see that troublesome * He receives especially from the other whatever is bad in him — his negative, exclusive, hateful, hard, and harsh qualities. We perceive something of this in the sad and unpleasant picture attributed to Zurbaran : a man of copper raising his hand over two women of lead. (The St. Dumiuic in the Louvre, Standish Collection.) 210 TKANSHUMANATION. will, which has caused too many sufferings, die away and be lost. Even so a wounded man sees his blood, his life-blood, flowing away, and feels himself the easier. But who is to make good within you, and fill up the void left by this draining away of moral person- ality, by which you escape from yourself ? — in two letters — he. He, the patient cunning man, who, 'day by day, taking from you a little of yourself, and substituting a little of himself, has gently subtilised the one, and put the other in its place. The soft and weak nature of women, almost as yielding as that of children, is well adapted for this transfusion. The same woman, seeing ever the same man, takes, without knowing it, his turn of mind, his accent, his language, nay more, something of his gait and physiognomy. She speaks as he does, and walks in the same manner as he. In only seeing her pass by, a person of any penetration would see that she is he. But this outward similarity is but a weak sign of the profound change within. What has been trans- formed is the intimate, most intimate part. A great mystery has been effected, that which Dante calls transhumanation ; when a human person, melting away without knowing it, has assumed (substance for sub- stance) another humanity ; when the superior re- placing the inferior, the agent the patient, no longer needs to direct him, but becomes his being. He is. TO BECOME THE GOD OF ANOTHER. 211 the other is not ; unless we consider him as an ac- cident, a quality of his being, a pure phenomenon, an empty shadow, a nothing. Why did we just now speak of influence, dominion, and royalty ? This is a much higher thing than royalty — this is divinity. It is to be the god of another. If there be in this world an occasion on which we may become mad, it is this. The thought of the man who has reached this point, in whatever humility he may cloak himself, is that of the pagan : " Deus factus sum ! " I was man, I am God ! More than God. He will say to his creature, "God has created you so, and I have made you another person ; so that, being no longer his, but mine, you are myself, my inferior self, who are only to be distinguished from myself by your adoring me." Dependent creature, how could you have helped yielding? — God yields to my word when I make him descend to the altar. Christ becomes humble and docile, and comes down at my hour, at my sign, to take the place of the bread that is no more.* * " Origen thinks that the priest must be a little God, to do an act that is beyond the power of angels." Father Fichet (a Jesuit), " Life of Madame de Chantal," p. 615. If you require a more serious Jesuit than Fichet, here is Bourda- loue : " Though the priest be in this sacrifice only the substitute of Jesus Christ, it is nevertheless certain, that Jesus Christ submits to him, that he becomes his subject, and renders him, 212 PRIDE. We are no longer surprised at the furious pride of the priest, who, in his royalty of Rome, has often carried it to greater extremes than all the follies of the emperors, making him despise not only men and things, but his own oath, and the word, which he gave as infallible. Every priest being able to make God, can just as well make odd even, or things done things undone, things said things unsaid. The angel is afraid of so much power, and stands back respect- fully before this man to see him pass.* Go, boast to me now of your privations and mor- tifications ! I am indeed much touched by them ! — Do you think, then, that through that plain robe and meagre body, ay, in that pale heart, I do not see the deep, exquisite, and maddening enjoyment of pride, which composes the very being of a priest ? every day upon our altars, the most prompt and exact obedience. If faith did not teach us these truths, could we think that a man could ever attain to such an elevation, and be invested with a character that enables him, if I may say so, to command his sovereign Lord, and make him descend from heaven ? " * One of the new priests, under the orders of St. Frangois de Sales, often saw his guardian angel. Having arrived at the church-door, he stopped. They asked him the reason : he answered ingenuously, that " he was accustomed to see his guardian angel walk before him, and that this prince of heaven had then stopped and stood aside, out of respect for his character, giving him the precedence." Maupas du Tour, Life of St. Fran- Qois de Sales, p. 199. Molinos says boldly (Guida, lib. ii. c. 1.), " If God had given angels to guide men, they might have been blinded by the demons, who disguise themselves as angels of light. Happily,'' &c. PRIDE. 213 What he carries within his robe, and broods over so jealously, is a treasure of terrific pride. His hands tremble with it, a bright ray of delight gleams in his downcast eyes. Oh ! with what fervour he hates every thing that is an obstacle to him, every thing that prevents his infinity from being indeed infinite ! How does he desire with all his infinite heart to annihilate it ! Oh ! how diabolical it is to hate in God ! A great suffering is connected with this great en- joyment of being the God of another soul : all that is wanting to complete this divinity causes horrible pangs. You cannot be surprised if this man pursues with an insatiable ardour the absorption of a soul which he hopes to assimilate. You may easily under- stand the real and profound cause of this strange avi- dity, which wants to see and know every thing, both the trivial and the important, the principal and the accessory, the essential and the indifferent, and which not satisfied with enveloping it outwardly, tries to reach the bottom, and probing lower and lower in the very depth, would attain the essence. Suppose even this to be reached, still it will cry out for — ^more ! Alas ! it may ever acquire more, and again more ; but something will ever remain beyond. Who can measure a soul ? It preserves in its recesses, un- known to itself (and to you also), both space and depth. That soul which seemed to you already acquired, and which you thought in your entire possession, hides 214 PRIDE AND DESIEE. behind it, perhaps, a world of liberty which you can never reach. This is humihatiag, gloomy, nay, almost despair. Horrible suffering ! not to have aU, is, for a god, to have nothing. Then, even then, in their very pride, an ironical voice is heard, scoffing at their pride ; it is the voice of desire, which it had sUenced till now : " Poor god," says she, " you are no god : it is your own fault ; I told you so before. Come, leave off your school-divinity, and your distinguo of the corporeal and spiritual natures. To possess, is to have all. He alone has possession who can both use and abuse. For the soul to be really thiae, one thing is still wanting — the body." DESIRE. 215 CHAPTER VII. DESIRE. ABSORPTION AND ASSIMILATION CONTINUED. TERRORS OP THE OTHER WORLD. THE PHYSICIAN. AND THE PATIENT. ALTERNATIVES. POSTPONE- MENTS. THE EFFECTS OF FEAR IN LOVE. TO BE ALL-POWERFUL AND ABSTAIN. STRUGGLES BETWEEN THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH. MORAL DEATH MORE POTENT THAN PHYSICAL LIFE. IT CANNOT REVIVE. Let us pause a moment at the brink of the abyss that we have just had a glimpse of, and before we descend into it, let us know well where we are. The unlimited dominion, of which we spoke just now, could never be sufficiently explained by the power of habit, strengthened by all the arts of seduc- tion and captation ; it would be especially impossible to understand how so many inferior men succeed in obtaining their ends. We must repeat here what we have said elsewhere : If this power of death has so much hold upon the soul, the reason is, that it generally attacks it in its dying state ; when weakened by worldly passions, and crushing it more and more by the ebb and flow of religious passions, it finds at last that it has neither strength, nor nerve, nor any thing that can offer resistance. Which of us has not known, in his life, those 216 ABSORPTION. monfieiits when violent activity having ruffled our hearts, we hate action, liberty, and ourselves ? — when the wave that bore us 'upon its gentle, but treacherous bosom retires suddenly and harshly from beneath, leaving us upon the dry strand • — where we remain like a log? Never could the soul, thus stranded, be set in motion again, if it were not, independently of its wUl, floated off by the waves of Lethe. A low voice then says, " Move not ; act no more, do not even wish ; die in wUl." — " Happy release ! wish for me ! There, I give up to you that troublesome liberty, the weight of which oppressed me so much. A soft pillow of faith, a childish obedience is all I now want. Now I shall sleep happily ! " But such people do not sleep, they only dream. How can they, nervous and trembling with weak- ness, expect to repose ? They lie still, it is true ; but they are also plunged in dreams. The soul will not act, but the imagination acts without her ; and this involuntary fluctuation is but the more fatiguing. Then, all the terrors of childhood crowd upon the patient, and more stedfastly than they did upon the chUd. The phantasmagoria of the middle ages, which we thought forgotten, revives ; the dark in- fernal region of heU, which we had laughed away, exacts a heavy interest, and takes a cruel revenge : this poor soul belongs to it. What would become of her, alas! had she not a spiritual physician at her THE PHYSICIAN AND HIS PATIENT. 217 beside to succour and encourage her? "Do not leave me, I am too much afraid ! " — " Do not fear ; you are not responsible for all this : God will pardon you these disordered emotions ; they are not yours ; the devil stirs thus within us." — " The devil ! ah ! I felt him ; I thought, indeed, this violent and strange emotion was foreign to me. But how hor- rible to be the sport of the malignant spirit ! " • — "I am here ; be not afraid ; hold me fast ; go straight on ; the abyss, it is true, is gaping wide on the right and on the left ; but, by following the narrow bridge, with God's assistance, we shall walk along this razor- edge to Paradise." Great, indeed, is the power to be so necessary, ever called and desired ! to hold, as it were, the two threads of hope and fear, which drag the soul at pleasure. When troubled, they calm her; when calm, they agitate her ; she grows more and more feeble, and the physician is so much the stronger; he perceives it, and he enjoys it. He, to whom every natural en- joyment is forbidden, feels a gloomy happiness, a mawkish sensuality, in exercising this power ; making the ebb and the flow, afflicting in order to console, wounding, healing, and wounding again. " Oh ! let her be ill for ever ! I suffer, let her suffer with me. It is at least something to have pain in common." But they do not gather these sighs, and support the languid head with impunity. He who wounded, is wounded in his turn. In these outpourings of the L 218 THE PHYSICIAN AND HIS PATIENT. heart, the most simple person often says, without knowing it, things that inflame the passions. He draws back, as if indignant and angry, before the scorching flame that a gentle hand has applied without being aware of it : he endeavours to conceal his emotion under a well-feigned pious anger ; he tries to hate sin, but he only envies it. How gloomy he seems that day ! See him ascend the pulpit. What ails this holy man of God ? People see too plainly ; it is the zeal of the law that devours him — he bears all the sins of the people. What thunder and lightning in his discourse ! is it the last judgment? every one flinches. One woman, how- ever, has received the whole force of the thundering denunciation ; she grows pale, her knees no longer support her ; the blow struck home ; for he who knows her inmost soul found too easily the terrible word, the only word that could strike and touch her to the quick. She alone felt it ; she finds herself now alone in the church (the crowd no longer exists for her), and alone she sees herself falling into the in- fernal dark abyss. " Father, reach me your hand ! I feel I am sinking ! " Not yet, it is not yet time ! She must struggle and fall still lower, then rise a little to sink lower still. Now, she comes to him every day more grieving, and more pressing. How she prays and insists ! But she will not yet get the comforting word : " To-day ? no, on Saturday." And on Saturday he puts her ofl" POSTPONEMENTS. 219 till Wednesday.* What ! three days and three whole nights in the same anxiety ? She weeps like a child. No matter ; he resists and leaves her, hut he is troubled even in resisting her. In thus humbling this belle madame, he tastes a secret pleasure of pride ; and yet he thinks himself that he has been too harsh towards her : he loves her, and he has made her weep ! Cruel man ! do you not see that the poor woman is dying ? that she is becoming weaker at every burst of grief ? What is it you want ? her downfall ? But in this prostration of strength, in this terror of despair and abandonment of dignity, is there not already a complete downfall ? No ; what he wants till now, is, that she may suiFer as he does, resemble him in sufferings, and be his partner in his woes and frenzy. He is alone ; then let her be alone. He has no family ; he hates her as a wife and mother ; he wants to make her a lover, a lover of God : he is deceivinsr himself in deceiving her. But in the midst of all this, and fascinated as she is, she is not, however, so blind as you might believe. Women, even children, are penetrating when they are afraid ; they very soon get a glimpse of what may comfort them. This woman, whilst she was dragged * This postponing manoeuvre is admirably calculated to draw from a woman a secret, that does not belong to confession, that she will not tell, her husband's secret, her lover's real name, &c. &c. — They always get it out of her at last. L 2 220 EFFECTS OF FBAE IN LOVE. at his feet as a frightened yet caressing suppliant, did not fail to notice, through her tears, the emotion she excited. They were both in emotion together — this is to be an accomplice. They both know (without, however, knowing it clearly, but confusedly through instinct and passion,) that they have a hold upon each other, she by desire, and he by fear. Fear has much to do with love. The husband in the middle ages was loved by the wife for his very severity. His humble Griselda recognised in him the right of the paternal rod. The bride of William the Conqueror, having been beaten by him, knew him by this token for her lord and husband. Who has this right in our age ? The husband has not preserved it — the priest has it, and uses it : he ever holds over woman the rod of authority ; he beats her submissive and docile with spiritual rods. But he who can punish, can also pardon ; the only one who can be severe, he alone has also what with a timid person is accounted supreme grace • — clemency. One word of pardon gains for him instantly, in that poor frightened heart, more than the most worthy would obtain after years of perseverance. Kindness acts just in pro- portion to the severities and terrors that have pre- ceded it. No seduction is comparable to this. How can that man be resisted, who, to force one to love him, can entice by the offer of Paradise, or frighten by the terrors of hell ? This unexpected i-eturn of kindness is a very dangerous moment for EFFECTS OF FEAE IN LOVE. 221 her, who, conquered by fear, with her forehead in the dust, expects only the fury of the thunderbolt. "What ! that formidable judge, that angel of judg- ment, is suddenly melted ! . She, who felt already the cold blade of the sword, feels now the wai-mth of a kind friendly hand, which raises her from the earth. The transition is too great for her ; she had still held up against fear, but this kindness overcomes her. Worn out by her alternate hopes and fears, the feeble person becomes weakness itself. * * * * To be able to have all, and then abstain, is a slippery situation ! who will keep his footing on this declivity ? Here we find again, in the path of desire, the very point at which we had just now arrived by the path of pride. Desire, despised at first by pride, as brutal and coarse, turns sophist, and puts before him the terrible problem at which love, mingled with dread, flinches, and turns away his sight. He sees without daring to look, he puts up his hand before his eyes, but with his fingers apart, like the Vergognosa of the Campo- Santo. " Are you sure you possess the heart entirely, if you have not the body ? WDl not physical possession give up corners of the soul, which otherwise would remain inaccessible ? Is spiritual dominion complete, if it does not comprehend the other? The great popes seem to have settled the question: they J. 3 222 STRUGGLES BETWEEN THE thought popedom implied empire ; and the pope him- self, besides his sway over consciences, was king in temporal matters." Against this sophism of the flesh, the spirit still struggles, and does not fail to answer, " That spiritual conquest, as soon as it is completed in this manner, ceases to be spiritual ; that this ambitious conqueror, the spirit, cannot have all without perishing at the moment of victory." The flesh is not embarrassed ; but taking refuge in hypocrisy, makes itself of no importance, and becomes humble to regain its advantage : " Is then the body so important that we should trouble our heads about it ? A simple dependent of the soul ought to follow wherever she goes." The mystics are never behind hand, in this matter, in their insults to the body and the flesh. The flesh is the brute animal, says one, which we must cudgel. " Let her pass," says another, " through any muddy brook ; what does it signify to the soul that rides above, sublime and pure, without deigning to look down?" Afterwards comes the vUe refinement of the Quietists : " If the inferior part be without sin, the superior grows proud, and pride is the greatest sin : consequently the flesh ought to sin, in order that the soul may remain humble; sin, producing humility, becomes a ladder to ascend to heaven." "Sin! — But is it sin? (depraved devotion finds here the ancient sophism :) The holy by its essence. SPIRIT AND THE FLESH. 223 being holiness Itself, always sanctifies. In the spiritual man, every thing is spirit, even what in another is matter. If, in its superior flight, the holy should meet with any obstacle that might draw it again towards the earth, let the inferior part get rid of it; it does a meritorious work, and is sanctified for it." Diabolical subtilty! which few avow clearly, but which many brood over, and cherish in their most secret thoughts. Molinos is forgotten, but Moli- nosism stUl exists.* Besides, false reasonings are hardly necessary in the miserable state of.dreaming in which a soul lives, when deprived of will and reason. Beside herself, and out of her senses, having lost all connection with reality, ever buried in miracles, intoxicated with God, and the devil, she is weakened to death : but the excess of this weakness is yet strong enough to give poison and fever in return ; terrible contagion — you thought that this morally dead person * This word Molinosism reminds us of an old forgotten system. In practice, it is a thing of all times, an instinct, a blind belief, which is natural to the weak, and which may be thus expressed : — with the strong, every thing is right ; a saint cannot sin. See the patient, if he is lucky enough to invite his physician to dinner with him : he has recovered his assur- ance and boldness, and indulges in every dish without being afraid. I believe, moreover, that real Molinosism is always a powerful argument with the simple. See the narrative of a contemporary writer, Llorente (vol. iii. ch. 28. art. 2. ed. 1817.). I. 4 224 MOKAIi DEATH MORE POTENT would toil after you, but it is you who will follow her : she will bear away the living. Here end the subtilties with which desire had been satisfied. A horrible light breaks upon them, and sophistry finds no longer any clouds to darken it. You see then, when it is too late, that you have done more than you wanted. You have destroyed pre- cisely what would have served you ; for each of these suppressed powers, the will, the mind, and the heart, which now are no more, would have been for you, had they remained alive. But alas ! they are crushed, faded, and void. The essence of existence once destroyed, no longer feels; it can neither attach itself to any thing, nor be captivated by any thing. You wanted to biad it fast, but you have stifled it. Xow you would wish her, whose life is annihilated, to be alive, or at least to revive. That is a miracle beyond your power. The thing you see is, and ever will be, a cold shadow, without any life to answer you. Do what you will, you wiU find no responsive throbbing. This wiU be your despair. You can feign every thing, and say every thing, except one word, which we defy you to pronounce without grief — the sacred name of love. Love ! why, you have assassinated it ! In order to love, you must have a person ; but what was a person you have made a thing. Proud man ! you who every day summon your Creator to descend upon the altar, you have in- THAN PHYSICAL LIFE. 225 verted the order of creation : you have destroyed a being. You, who, with a grain of corn, can make a god, tell me, was it not also a god that you held just now in that credulous and docile soul ? what have you done with that interior god of man, that we call liberty ? You have put yourself In its place ; in the place of that power, by which man is man, I see nonentity. ."Well ! that nonentity shall be your torment. You wiU probe it in vain; however low you penetrate, you will find but a void, nothing, neither will nor power. There every thing that could have loved has perished. I 5 226 PART III. FAMILIES. CHAPTER I. SCHISM IN FAMH.IES. THE DAUGHTER ; BT WBOM EDU- CATED. IMPORTANCE OP EDUCATION, AND THE AD- VANTAGE or THE FIRST INSTRUCTOR. INFLUENCE OF PRIESTS UPON MARRIAGE, WHICH THEY OFTEN RETAIN AFTER THAT CEEEMONT. The drama ■which I have endeavoured to sketch does not always, thanks be to God, go so far as the annihilation of the will and personality. One cannot well discern where It stops, owing to the dark cloak of reserve, discretion, and hypocrisy, with which this black community Is enveloped. Besides, the clergy have been doubly guarded in their conduct during the present contentions.* It is out of the Church, in houses, and family circles, that we must seek for what will throw the principal light upon what the Church conceals. Look weU ; there you see a reflec- * This circumspection would bear carrying a little fartlier, if we are to judge of it by the public adventures of the Abbes C. and N., who, by-the-by, will not prosper the less on this account, as two others, of high rank, and known to every body, have already shown. SCHISM IN FAMILIES. 227 tion, unfortunately too clear, of what is passing else- where. We have already said, if you enter a house in the evening, and sit down at the family table, one thing will almost always strike you; the mother and daughters are together, of one and the same opinion, on one side ; whilst the father is on the other, and alone. What does this mean? It means that there is some one more at this table, whom you do not see, to contradict and give the lie to whatever the father may utter. He returns fatigued with the cares of the day, and full of those which are to come ; but he finds at home, instead of repose and comfort for the mind, only the struggle with the past. We must not be surprised at it. By whom are our daughters and wives brought up ? We must repeat the expression, by our enemies, the enemies of the Revolution, and of the future. Do not cry out here, nor quote me this or that sermon you have preached. What do I care for the democratical parade which you make in the pulpit, if every thing beneath us, and behind us, all your little pamphlets which issue by thousands and millions, your ill-disguised system of instruction, your confessional, the spirit of which now transpires, show us altogether what you are, the enemies of liberty? You, subjects of a J. 6 228 THE DAUGHTER. foreign prince ; you, who deny the French church, how dare you speak of France ? Six hundred and twenty thousand* girls are brought up by nuns under the direction of the priests. These girls will soon be women and mothers, who, in their turn, will hand over to the priests, as far as they are able, both their sons and their daughters. The mother has already succeeded as far as con- cerns the daughter ; by her persevering importunity, she has, at length, overcome the father's repugnance. A man who, every evening, after the troubles of business, and the warfare of the world, finds strife also at home, may certainly resist for a time, but he must necessarily give in at last ; or he will be allowed neither truce, cessation, rest, nor refuge. His own house becomes uninhabitable. His wife having nothing to expect at the confessional, but harsh treatment, as long as she does not succeed, wiU wage against him every day and every hour the war they make against her ; a gentle one, perhaps ; politely bitter, implacable, and obstinate. She grumbles at the fire-side, is low-spirited at table, and never opens her mouth either to speak or eat; then at bed-time, the inevitable repetition of the lesson she has learned, even on the pillow. The * Mr. Louandre gives the figure six hundred and twenty- two thousand girls, in his conscientious statistics. Revue des Deux-Mondes, 1844. BY WHOM EDUCATED. 229 same sound of the same bell for ever and ever ; who could withstand it? what is to be done? Give in, or become mad ! If the husband were firm, obstinate, and perse- vering enough to stand this trial, the wife, perhaps, would not resist. " How can I see her so unhapjjy, pining, uneasy, and ill ? She is evidently growing thinner. I had much rather save my wife." Such is the language of the husband. If he be not sub- dued by his wife, he is by his own heart. The next day, the son leaves his school for the Christian school, or the college for the little seminary. The daughter is led triumphantly by her mother to the excellent boarding-school close by, where the good abbe con- fesses and directs. In less than a year the boarding- school is found to be not quite good enough, being still too worldly ; the little girl is then given over to the nuns, whose superior our abbe happens to be, in some convent of his, that is, under his protection, and his lock and key. Good-humoured parent, lie easy, and sleep sound. Your daughter is in good hands ; you shall be con- tradicted tUl your death. Your daughter is really a girl of good sense ; and on every subject, having been carefully armed against you, wiU take, what- ever you may say, the opposite side of the question. What is very singular, the father, generally, is aware that they are bringing up his child against him. Man, you surprise me; what do you expect 230 IMPOETANCE OF EDUCATION, then ? " oil ! she will forget it ; time, marriage, and the world wiU wear away all that." Yes, for a time, but only to re-appear ; at the first disappoint- ment in the world, it will all return. As soon as she grows somewhat in years, she wUl return to the habits of the child ; the master she now has will be her master then, whether for your contradiction, good man, or for the despair and daily damnation of her father and husband. Then will you taste the fruit of this education. Education ! a mere trifle, a weak power, no doubt, which the father may, without danger, allow his enemies to take possession of! To possess the mind, with all the advantage of the first possessor ! To write in this book of blank paper whatever they will ! and to write what wiU last for ever! For, remember well, it will be in vain for you to write upon it hereafter; what has once been indited, cannot be erased. It is the mystery of her young memory to be as weak in receiving impressions, as it is strong in keeping them. The early tracing that seemed to be effaced at twenty re-appears at forty or sixty. It is the last and the clearest, perhaps, that old age will retain. What ! will not reading, and the press, the great overruling power of our own days, give a stronger education than the former one ? " Do not rely on this. The influence of the press partly annuls itself; it has a thousand voices to speak, and a thousand AND ADTANTAGE OF FIRST INSTETJCTOK. 231 others to answer and destroy what it has said. Edu- cation does not make so much noise ; it does not talk; it reigns. Look, in that little class, without witness, control, or contradiction, a man is speaking ; he is master, an absolute master, invested with the most ample power to punish and chastise. His voice, not his hand, has the power of a rod ; the little, trembling, and believing creature, who has just left her mother's apron, receives his weighty words, which enter the soft tablet of her memory, and stick into it, like so many nails of iron. This is true in speaking of the school, but how much more so as regards the church ! especially in the case of the daughter, who is more docile and timid, and certainly retains more faithfully her early impressions. What she heard the first time in that grand church, under those resounding roofs, and the words, pronounced with a solemn voice by that man in black, which then frightened her so, being ad- dressed to herself; ■ — • ah ! be not afraid of her ever forgetting them. But even if she could forget them, she would be reminded of them every week : woman is all her life at school *, finding in the confessional her school-bench, her schoolmaster, the only man she fears, and the only one, as we have said, who, in the present state of our manners, can threaten a woman. * Especially with the catechisms of perseverance. Month of Mary, &c., which keep girls under the hand of the priest. 232 INFLUENCE OF PEIESTS What an advantage has he in being able to take her quite young, in the convent where they have placed her, to be the first to take in hand her young soul, and to be the first to exercise upon her the earliest severity, and also the earliest indulgence which is so akin to affectionate tenderness*, to be the father and friend of a child taken so soon from her mother's arms. The confidant of her first thoughts will long be associated with her private reveries. He has had an especial and singular privilege which the husband may envy : what ? — why, the virginity of the soul, and the first-fruits of the will. This is the man of whom, young bachelors, you must ask the girl in marriage, before you speak to her parents. Do not deceive yourselves, or you wiU lose all chance. You shake your heads, proud children of the age ; you think you can never be induced to humble yourselves so far. All I hope then is, that you may be able to live single, and wed philosophy ; otherwise, I can see you, even now, in spite of all your fine speeches, gliding stealthily, sneaking like a hound or a wolf into the church, and kneeling down * What is direction generally ? — 1st, Lore before love ; it cultivates ia the little girl that power which is now awakening, and it cultivates it so well, that on leaving the convent, her parents see the necessity of a speedy marriage to support her, for she is in danger of falling : — 2dly, Lore after loves. An aged female is, in a layman's estimation, an old woman : but according to the priests, she is a woman : the priest begins where the world ends. UPON MARRIAGE. 233 before the priest. There they were lying in wait for you, and there they catch you. You had not foreseen it. Now you are a lover, poor young man, and will do whatever they wish. I only wish that this girl, bought so dearly, may be really yours. But what with that mother and that priest, the same influence, though diminished for a moment, will soon resume its strength. You will have a wife, minus heart and soul, and you will understand, when it is too late, that he who now gives her away knows well how to keep her.* * Let us add to this chapter a fact, which (being compared with what we have said about ecclesiastical discipline, p. 203.) inclines us to think, that the clergy do not lose sight of the girls who are brought up in the convents under their direction. A friend of mine, whose high position and character render his testimony very important, lately told me, that having placed a young relation of his in a convent, he had heard from the nuns, that they sent to Rome the names of the pupils who distinguished themselves the most. The centralisation of such private information, about the daughters of the leading families of the Catholic world, must indeed facilitate many combinations, and be of especial service to Ultramontane politics. The Jesu, if it were so, would be a vast marriage office. 234 THE HUSBAND DOES NOT CHAPTER n. WOMAN. — THE HUSBAND DOES NOT CONSOCIATE "WITH HIS WIFE. HE SELDOM KNOWS HOW TO INITIATE HEE INTO HIS THOUGHTS. WHAT MUTUAL INITIATION WOULD BE. — THE WIFE CONSOLES HEESELF WITH HEE SON. HE IS TAKEN FROM HEE. HEE LONELINESS AND ENNUI. A PIOUS YOUNG MAN. THE SPIBITVAL AND THE WORLDLY MAN. WHICH OP THE TWO IS NOW THE MOETIFIED MAN. Marriage gives the husband a single and momen- tary opportunity to become in reality the master of his wife, to withdraw her from the influence of another, and make her his own for ever. Does he profit by it? very rarely. He ought, in the very beginning, when he has much influence over her, to let her participate in the activity of his mind, his business, and ideas, initiate her in his projects, and create an activity in her by means of his own. To wish and think as he does, both acting with him and suffering with him — this is marriage. The worst that may happen is not that she may suffer, but that she may languish and pine away, living apart, and like a widow. How can we wonder, then, if her affection for him be lessened ? Ah ! if, in the beginning, he made her his own, by making her share his ambition, troubles, and uneasiness : — if CONSOCIATE WITH HIS WIFE. 235 they had watched whole nights together, and been troubled with the same thoughts, he would have re- tained her affections. Attachment may be strength- ened by grief itself ; and mutual sufferings may maintain mutual love. Frenchwomen are superior to those of England or Germany, and, indeed, to any other women, in being able not only to assist man, but to become his companion, his friend, his partner, his alter ego. None but the commercial classes, generally speaking, are wise enough to profit by this. See, In the shop- keeping quarters, in the dark storehouses of the Rue des Lombards, or the Rue de la Verrerie, the young wife, often born of rich parents, who nevertheless re- mains there, in that little glazed counting-house, keep- ing the books, registering whatever is brought in or taken out, and directing the clerks and porters. With such a partner, the house will prosper. The household is improved by it. The husband and wife separated by their occupations during the day, are the better pleased to unite together in common thought. Without being able to participate so directly in the husband's activity, the wife might also, in other professions, be able to associate with him in his business, or at least in his ideas. What makes this difficult (I have not attempted to disguise it), is the spirit of specialty which goes on Increasing in our dlfiferent professions, as well as in our sciences, and driving us into minute details ; whereas woman. 236 HUSBAND SELDOM KNOWS HOW TO being less persevering, and, moreover, less called upo, to apply herself with precision, is confined to a know- ledge of generalities. The man who will seriously initiate a woman into his own life, can do it safely and completely, if she love him, but he would require to possess both patience and kindness. They have come together, as it were, from the two opposite poles, and prepared by a totally different education. Since it is so, how can you expect that your young wife, intelligent as she is, should understand you at once ? If she do not understand you, it is too fre- quently your own fault : this almost always proceeds from the abstract, dry, and scholastic forms which you have imbibed from your education. She re- maining in the sphere of common sense and senti- ment, understands nothing of your formulas, and seldom, very seldom indeed, do you know how to translate them into plain language. This requires address, will, and feeling. You will want, sir, let me tell you, both more sense, and more love. At the first word she does not understand, the husband loses his patience. " She is incapable, she is too frivolous." He leaves her, and all is over. But that day he loses much. If he had persevered, he would gradually have led her along with him ; she would have lived his life, and their marriage would have been real. Ah ! what a companion he has lost ! how sure a confidant ! and how zealous an ally ! INITIATE HIS WIFE INTO HIS THOUGHTS. 237 In this person, who, when left to herself, seems to him too trifling, he would have found in moments of difficulty a ray of inspiration, and often useful advice. I am here entering upon a large subject, where I should wish to stop. But I cannot. One word more : the man of modern times, a victim of the division of work, and often condemned to a narrow specialty, in which he loses the sentiment of general life, and becomes a morbid sort of a being, would require to have with him a young and serene mind, more nicely balanced, and less given to specialty than his own, that might lead him from the confined notions of trade, and restore him to the charms of a well-regulated mind. In this age of eager opposition, when the day is taken up with active business, and we return home worn out with toil or disappoint- ment, it is necessary to have a wife at the domestic fire-side to refresh the burning brain of the husband. This workman, (what are we all but workmen, each in his own particular line ? ) this blacksmith, panting with thirst, after beating the iron, would receive from her the living fountain of the beautiful and good, of God and nature ; he would drink for a moment of eternal streams. Then he would yb;-^e?, take courage, and breathe freely again. Having been relieved by her, he would in his turn assist her with his powerful hand, lead her into his own 238 THE WIFE CONSOLES HEESELF world, his own life, his way of progress and new ideas — the way of the future ! * Unfortunately this is not the way of the world. I have sought every where, but in vain, for this fine ex- change of thought, which alone realises marriage. They certainly try for a moment, in the beginning, to communicate together, but they are soon discouraged; the husband grows dumb, his heart, dried up with the arid influence of interests and business, can no longer find words. At first she is astonished and uneasy : she questions him. But questions annoy him ; and she no longer dares to speak to him. Let him be easy, the time is coming when his wife, sitting thoughtful by the fire-side, absent in her turn, and framing her imaginary plans, will leave him in quiet possession of his taciturnity. First of all, she has a son. It is to him, if he be left to her, that she will devote herself entirely. Should she go out, she gives him her hand, and soon * It is impossible to remain ever fixed to the same spot. We either rise higher, or sink lower. If our whole life must be a continual progress, this may be obtained much better in the natural family than in the artificial one of convents, &c. Does a woman end like a woman, when she begins life like a mother, or grandmother ? She has ever new motives to recommence her own moral education, and to carry it still farther. Woman would always rise higher (and this is the reason why she attaches herself to man). Well, then ! nature gives her for a ladder, not the direction of a single man, but a successive association with better generations, each of which reproduces the mother, renewed and improved. WITH HER SON. 239 her ami ; he is now like a young brother, " a little husband." How tall he has growu already ! how quickly time passes ! and it is a pity he grows so ; for now comes the separation, his Latin and his tears. Must he not become a learned man ? must he not enter, as soon as possible, into the world of violence and opposition, where he will acquire the bad passions which are cultivated so carefully in us, pride, am- bition, hatred, and envy ? The mother would like to wait longer : " what is the hurry ? he is so young, and those colleges are so strict ! He will learn much better at home, if they will let him remain with her ; she will engage masters and superintend his studies herself ; she will discontinue going to balls." — " Im- possible, madam, impossible ! you would make a milksop of him." The fact is, the father, though he likes his son very much, finds, that in a well-regulated house this movement and constant noise and bustle are intolerable. He is unable to support any thing of the sort: fatigued, disgusted, and ill-humoured, he wants silence and repose. Wise husbands, who make so little of the resistance of a mother, do you not perceive that it is also by an instinct of virtue that this woman wishes to keep her son the pure and irreproachable witness, before whom she would always have remained holy ? If you knew how useful the presence of the child is to the house, you yourself would desire to keep him. As long as that child remained there, the house was 240 LONELINESS OF THE WIPE. blessed. In his presence liow difficult it is to loosen the family tie ! What completes marriage and the family ? the child, the object of their hopes. Who maintains the family ? the child they possess. He is the aim and the end, the mediator — I had almost said the whole. We cannot repeat it too often, for nothing is more true — woman is alone. She is alone, if she has a husband, she is also alone, even with a son. Once at college, she sees him only by favour, and often at long intervals. When he leaves college, other prisons await the youth, and other exiles. A brilliant evening party is given : — enter those well-lighted rooms, you see the women sitting in long rows, well dressed, and entirely alone. Go, about four o'clock, to the Champs-Elysees, and there you will see again the same women, sad and spiritless, on their way to the Bois de Boulogne, each in her own carriage, and alone. These are in a calash, those at the far end of a shop ; but all are equally alone. There is nothing in the life of women, who have the misfortune to have nothing to do, that may not be explained by one single word — loneliness, ennui. Ennui, which is supposed to be a languishing and negative disposition of the mind, is, for a nervous woman, a positive evil impossible to support. It grasps its prey, and gnaws it to the core * : whoever '^ Love itself remedies it much less than is supposed. Our fine novels of the day have had a totally contrary effect to LONELINESS OF THE WIFE. 241 suspends the torment for a moment is considered a saviour. Ennui makes them receive female friends, whom they know to be inquisitive, envious, slandering enemies. Ennui makes them endure novels in newspapers, which are suddenly cut short, at the moment of the greatest interest.* Ennui carries them to concerts, where they find a mixture of every kind of music, and where the diversity of styles is a fatigue for the ear. Ennui drags them to a sermon, which thousands listen to, but which not one of them could bear to read. Nay, even the sickening half-worldly and half-devout productions, with which the neo-oatholics inundate the Faubourg Saint Germain, wiU find readers among these poor women, the martyrs of ennui. Such delicate and sickly forms can support a nauseous dose of musk and incense, which would turn the stomach of any one in health. One of these young authors explains, in a novel, all the advantage there is in beginning gallantry by yfh&t was supposed. The passions are lessened. Real passion often loses much, in spite of what is said to the contrary, in presence of these powerful pictures ; it suffers by the com- parison. Woman very soon finds her own personal romance, weak and insipid, in presence of Indiana and Valentine. Love soon grows pale, and loses its charms in the eyes of a woman of sense, whose experience is enlightened by this pitiless light. * This is said only against the form ; and by no means against the admirable talent that some writers have shoTft in them. M 242 A PIOUS YOUNG MAN, gallant devotion. The proceeding is not new. All I wish is, that those who borrowed it from TartuiFe would not give it to us, without its fair portion of wit and humour. But they have no great need of it. Women listen to their disguised declarations and ambiguous endear- ments, as a matter of conscience to earn their salva- tion. The woman, who, with the most sober friend, would be offended at the very first word of friend- ship, suffers patiently this double-meaning language of the young Levite. The intelligent woman of ex- perience and the world, who has read and seen much, shuts her eyes to the mischief. If he has but little talent, if he is heavy and uninteresting, yet his in- tentions are so good ! Father such-a-one answers for him ; he is an excellent young man. The fact is, that whilst he pretends devotion, he speaks of love ; this is his merit. Even though it be spoken of in a weak and' insipid manner, it is still a merit with her who is no longer young. The hus- band, however distinguished he may be, has the fault of being a positive man, entirely taken up, as they say, wilh worldly interests. It is very true, he is working for the interest of his family ; he provides for the future welfare of his children ; he consumes his life to support the luxurj'' in which his wife lives, and beyond his fortune. Perhaps this husband would be justified in saying that all this, however material may be the result, is SPIRITUAL AND WORLDLY MAN. 243 also for him a moral interest, an interest of the heart. Perhaps he might add, that in being engaged with worldly interests in our assemblies and tribunals, besides a thousand other different positions for the profit of others, we may show ourselves to be more disinterested, and consequently more spiritualised, than all those brokers of spirituality who turn the Church into an exchange. Let us here point out a contrast which is not suf- ficiently noticed. In the middle ages the priest was the spiritual and mortified man. By the studies to which he alone devoted himself, by nocturnal prayers and vigils, by the excess of fasting, and by monastic flagellations he mortified his body. But in these days very little remains of all that ; the Church has softened down every thing. The priests live as others do : if many pass a mean and pitiful life, it is, at least, generally unattended with risk. We see it, moreover, in the freedom of mind with which they engage the leisure of women with interminable conversations. Who is the mortified man in the present day, in this time of hard work, eager efforts, and fiery oppo- sition ? It is the layman, the worldly man. This man of the world, full of cares, works all day and all night, either for his family, or for the state. Being often engaged in details of business or studies, too thorny to interest his wife and children, he cannot communicate to them what fills his own mind. Even M 2 244 WHICH THE MORTIFIED JIAN. at the hour of rest, he speaks little, being always pursuing his idea. Success in business and inven- tion in science, are only obtained at a liigh price — the price that Newton mentions, hy ever thinking of it. Solitary among his fellows, he runs the risk, in making their glory, or their fortune, to become a stranger to them. The Churchman, on the contrary, who, in these days, to judge of him by what he publishes, studies little, and invents nothing, and who no longer wages against himself that war of mortifications imposed by the middle ages, can, coolly and quietly, pursue two very different occupations at the same time. By his assiduity and fawning words, he gains over the family of the man of business, at the very moment that he hurls down upon him from the pulpit the thunders of his eloquence. THE MOTHER. 245 CHAPTEE IIL THE MOTHER ALONE, FOK A LONG TIME, SHE CAN BBIN& UP HEE CHILD. INTELLECTUAL NOURISHMENT. GESTATION, INCUBATION, AND EDUCATION. THE CHILD GUARANTEES THE MOTHER. THE MOTHER GUARANTEES THE CHILD. SHE PROTECTS ITS NA- TURAL ORIGINALITY. PUBLIC EDUCATION MUST LIMIT THIS ORIGINALITY. EVEN THE FATHER LIMITS IT. THE MOTHER DEFENDS IT. MATERNAL WEAKNESS. T'HE MOTHER WOULD MAKE HER SON A HERO. THE HEROIC DISINTERESTEDNESS OF MATERNAL LOVE. We have already said. If you wish your family to resist the foreign influence which dissolves it, hee-p the child at home as much as possible. Let the mother bring it up under the father's direction, till the moment when it is claimed for public instruction by its great mother, its native land.* If the mother bring up the child, the consequence will be, that she win always remain by her husband's side, needing his advice, and anxious to receive from him fresh supplies of knowledge. The real idea of a family will here be realised, which is for the child to be * And even then it is a great advantage for the mother to see him again every evening. She will see at the first glance every useful or injurious change, many things which the master or even the father would not have remarked till much latter. M 3 246 INTELLECTUAL NOURISHMENT. initiated by the mother, and the wife by the hus- band. The mother's instinct is just and true ; it deserves to be respected. She wishes to keep her child : forcibly separated from him at the moment of birth, she is ever seeking to rejoin that part of herself which a cruel violence snatched from her, but which has its root ia her heart. When they take it from her to bring it up at a distance, it is a second separation. The mother and the child weep in common, but their tears are disregarded. This is not right. These tears, in which we think we see only weakness, ought not to be disregarded. They show that the child needs her still. Nursing is not yet finished. Intellectual nourishment, like physical food, ought in the beginning to be administered to the child under the form, as it were, of milk, fluid, tepid, mUd, and full of life,* Woman alone can so give it. Men expect too much at once of this new-bom babe, whose teeth, scarcely formed, are painful. They want to give it bread, and they beat it if it does not bite. In God's name give him more milk, it will drink willingly, f * Which excludes whatever makes a. plaything of science, such as the muemotechnics, &c. &c. f Michael Angelo, the painter of sibyls and prophets, and himself a prophet, has taught us, in his own manner, how initiation belongs especially to woman. Under the feet of the terrible virgins in whose mouth thunders the word of God, he has introduced the initiation of children and mothers in the most ingenuous manner. GESTATION, INCUBATION, AND EDUCATION. 247 Who will believe, some future day, that men have thus undertaken to nurse and feed these sucklings ? Ah ! leave them alone to women ! * A lovely sight to see a child rocked in the arms of a man! Take care, awkward idiot! It is fragile; handling it in your clownish hand, you may break it This is the dispute between the master and child: man imparts science by methods proper to man, and his state of fixed rules, by very precise classifications, with angular, and, as it were, crystallised forms. WeU ! these crystal prisms, as luminous as they may be, wound by their angles and sharp points. The child, in a soft and tender state, cannot for a long time, receive any thing which has not the fluidity of life. The master grows angry and impatient at the slowness of the pupil, and knows not how to succeed with him. There is but one person in the world who has the delicate perception of the careful management which the child requires, and this one person is she who has borne it, and who forms for ever with it an identical whole. Gestation, incubation, and education, are three words which have long been synonymous. Much longer than people would believe. The influence of the mother over the child, whose faculties are developing, is greater and more decisive than that which she exercised over the suckling infant. I do * A writer, of enlarged ideas, has said, that schools for girls should be founded before those of boys ; and that every girl, who will be a wife and mother, will become a school herself. M 4 248 EECIPROCATION OF THE not know whether it be indispensable for the mother to feed it from her breast ; but I am very sure it is necessary that she should nourish it from her heart. Chivalry was perfectly aware that love was the most powerful motive for education. That alone did more in the middle ages to advance humanity than all the disputes of school-divinity have been able to do to retard it. We also have our school-divinity, the spirit of empty abstractions and verbal disputes : we shall be able to combat its influence only by prolonging that of the mother, associating her with education, and by giving the child a weU-beloved teacher. Love, they say, is a great master. This is especially true of the greatest, the deepest, and the purest of all aifections. How blind and imprudent we are ! "We take the child from its mother, at a time when it was most necessary to her. We deprive her of the dear oc- cupation for which God had formed her ; and we are afterwards surprised if this woman, cruelly separated^ now languishing and idle, give herself up to vain musings ; suffer anew the yoke she formerly bore ; and, if, as is often the case, fancying herself to remain faithful, she listen to the tempter, who speaks to her in the name of God. Be prudent, be wise ; leave her her son. Wo- man must ever be loving. Leave her rather the lover whom nature gives her; him whom she MOTHER AND CHILD. 249 would have preferred to all others, whilst you are occupied with your business (with your passions, perhaps). Leave on her arm the tall and slender youth, and she will be proud and happy. You fear lest, having been kept too long by his mother, he may become effeminate. But on the contrary, if you left her her son, she would become masculine. Try her, she will change, and you wiU be astonished yoiurself. Little excursions on foot, and long ones on horseback — no trouble will be too much for her. She begins bravely and heartily the exercises of the young man ; she makes herself of his own age, and is born again in this vita nuova ; even you on your return wiU think, when you see your Rosalind *, that you have two sons. It is a general rule to which, at least, I have hardly ever seen any exception, that superior men are all the sons of their mother. She has stamped upon them, and they reproduce, her moral as well as her physical features. I am about to surprise you. I will tell you that without her you will never be a man. The mother alone is patient enough to develope the young crea- ture, by taking proper care of his liberty. We must be on our guard, and take especial care not to place the child, still too weak and pliable, in the hands of strangers. People of the best intentions, by pressing * Shakspeare's " As you Like it." M 5 250 child's NATUBAIi OEIGINALITT. too much upon him, run the risk of so crushing his faculties, that he will never be able to enjoy the free use of them again. The world is full of men, who remain bondsmen all their lives, from having borne a heavy load too soon. A too solid and too pre- cocious education has injured something within them ; their originality, the genius, the ingegno, which is the prime part of man. Who respects in these days the original and free ingenuity of character, that sacred genius which we receive at our birth ? This is almost always the part which offends and gets blamed ; it is the reason why " this boy is not like every body else." Hardly does his young nature awake, and flourish in its liberty, than they are all astonished, and all shake their heads : " What is this ? we never saw the like." — Shut him up quickly — stifle this living flower. Here are the iron cages. — Ah ! you are blooming, and display- ing your luxuriant foliage in the sun. Be wise and prudent, O flower ! become dry, and shut up your leaves. But this poor little flower, against which they are all leagued — what is it, I pray you, but the in- dividual, special, and original element by which this being would have distinguished itself from others, and added a new feature to the great variety of human characters — a genius, perhaps, to the series of great minds. The sterile spirit is almost always that plant which, having been tied too fast to the dead wood PUBLIC EDXJCATION, 251 which serves to support it, has dried upon it, and gradually become like it : there it is, very regular, and well fastened up, you may fear nothing eccentric from it ; the tree is, however, dead, and will never bear leaf more. What do I mean ? that the support is useless, and that we must leave the plant to itself ? nothing is further from my thoughts. I believe in the necessity of both educations, that of the family and that of the country. Let us distinguish their influence. The latter, oar public education, which is certainly better in our days than it ever was — what does it require ? What is its end and aim ? It wishes to harmonise the child with his native land, and with that great country the world. This is what con- stitutes it§ legitimacy and necessity. It purposes especially to give him a fund of ideas common to all, to make him a reasonable being, and prevent him from being out of tune with what surrounds him ; it hinders him from jarring in the great concert where he is going to take his part, and it checks what may be too irregiilar in his lively sallies. So far for public education. Family life is liberty. Yet even here there are obstacles and shackles to his original moral activity. The father regulates this activity: his uneasy foresight imposes on him the duty to bring early this wild young colt to the fur- row, where he must soon toil. It too often happens that the father makes a mistake, consults, first of all, hL? M 6 252 ON THE son's education. own conveniences, and seeks the profitable and ready traced career, rather than that to which his young and powerful colt was called by nature. The triumphs of the courser have frequently been lost in the trammels of the riding-school. Poor hberty! Who then will have eyes to see thee, or a heart to cherish thee ? Who will have the patience, the infinite indulgence required to support thy first wanderings, and encourage occasionally what fatigues the stranger, the indifierent person, nay, the father himself? God alone, who has made this creature, and who, having made him, knows him well enough to see and love what is good in him, even in what is bad, God, I say, and with God the mother : for here it is one and the same thing. When we reflect that ordinary life is so short, and that so many die very young, we hesitate to abridge this first, this best period of life, when the child, free under its mother's protection, lives in Grace, and not in the Law. But if it be true, as I think, that this time, which people believe lost, is precisely the only precious and irreparable period, in which among chUdish games sacred genius tries its first fiight, the season when, becoming fledged, the young eagle tries to fly — ah ! pray do not shorten it. Do not banish the youth from the maternal paradise, before his time ; give him one day more ; to-morrow, all well and good ; God knows it will be soon enough ! To- morrow, he wUl bend to his work and crawl along ON THE son's education. 253 the furrow. But to-day, leave him there, let him gain full strength and life, and breathe with an open heart the vital air of liberty. An education which is too zealous and restless, and which exacts too much, is dangerous for children. "We are ever in- creasing the mass of study and science, and such ex- terior acquisitions; but the interior suffers for it. This one is nothing but Latin, the next shines in Mathematics ; but where is the man, I pray you ? * And yet it was the man precisely, that was loved and taken care of by the mother. It was man she respected in the wanderings of the Child. She seemed to depress her own influence, and even her super- intendence, in order that he might act and be both free and strong ; but, at the same time, she ever sur- rounded him as if with an invisible embrace. There is a perU, I am well aware of it, in this education of love. What love wishes and desires more than all, is to sacrifice itself, and every thing else — ■ interests, conveniences, habits, and even life, if necessary. The object of this self-sacrifice may, in his own childish egotism, receive all the sacrifices as a thing due, allow himself to be treated as an * If we fear lest the inward moral man may perish in schools of too strict and too learned a character, what must we say of those, in which masters make a direct attack upon morality, by giving the chUd habits of disloyalty and de- nunciation, which they practise among themselves ? See farther, one of the last notes. 254 HEROIC DISINTERESTEDNESS inert, motionless idol, and become the more inca- pable of action, the more they do for him. This danger is real, but it is counterbalanced by the ardent ambition of the maternal heart, which places, almost always, her best hopes upon her child, and burns to realise them. Every mother of any value has one firm belief, which is, that her son is destined to be a hero, in action or in science, no matter which. All that has disappointed her expectations in her sad experience of this world will now be realised by this infant. The miseries of the present are already re- deemed by the prospect of this splendid future : every thing is miserable now ; but only let him grow, and every thing will be prosperous ! O poetry ! O hope ! where are the limits of maternal thought ? " I am only a woman, but here is a man : I have given a man to the world." Only one thing per- plexes her: will her child be a Bonaparte, a Voltaire, or a Newton ? If, in order to be so, he absolutely must leave her — well ! let him go, let him depart from her ; she consents to it : if she must tear her own heart-strings, she wiU. Love is capable of doing every thing, even of sacrificing love itself. Yes, let him depart, follow his high destiny, and accomplish the grand dream she had when she bore him in her bosom, or upon her knees. And then, a miracle : this fearful woman, who just before durst not see him walk alone, with- out fearing he might fall, is become so brave, that OF MATERNAL LOVE. 255 she launches him forth in the most dangerous career, on the ocean, or else to that bloody war in Africa. She trembles, she is dying of uneasiness, and yet she persists. What can support her ? Her belief that her child cannot perish, since he is destined to be a hero. He returns. How much he is changed ! What ! is this fierce soldier my son ? He departed a child, and he comes back a man : he seeks to be married. This is another sacrifice, which is not less serious. He loves another ! And his mother, in whose heart he is, and ever will be the first, will possess the second place in his affections — alas ! a very small place in the moments of his passion. She seeks for, and chooses her own rival : she loves her on his account ; she adorns her ; she becomes her attendant, and leads her to the altar ; and all she asks for there is, that the mother may not be forgotten in the wife! 256 LOVE WISHES TO BAISE, CHAPTEE IV. LOVE LOVE WISHES TO KAISE, NOT TO ABSORB. THE FALSE THEORY OF OUR ADVERSARIES, AND THEIR DAN- GEROUS PRACTICE. — LOVE WISHES TO FORM FOR ITSELF AN EQUAL WHO MAT LOVE FREELT. LOVE IN THE WORLD, AND IN THE CIVIL WORLD. — LOVE IN FA- MILIES. LITTLE UNDERSTOOD BT THE MIDDLE AGES. FAMILY RELIGION. "Will it be said that, in the preceding chapter, being seduced by a sweeter subject, I have lost sight of the whole subject in dispute hitherto pursued in my book? I think I have, on the contrary, thrown much light upon the question. Maternal love (that miracle of God) and maternal education, enable us to under- stand what every education, direction, or initiation ought to be. The singular advantage which the mother has in education is, that, being more than all others de- voted and disinterested, she respects infantine per- sonality in the fragile little thing which is becoming a person. She is, for the chUd, the defender of his original individuality. She wishes, even at the ex- pense of her own feelings, that he should act ac- cording to his genius, and that he may grow up and NOT TO ABSORB. 257 rise. What can education and true direction require ? What love desires in its highest and most distin- terested idea — that the young creature may rise. Take this word in both its acceptations. She wishes the child may rise above herself, up to the level of him who helps her, and even above him, if he can. The stronger party, far from absorbing the weaker, wishes to make him strong, and put him on an equal footing. She endeavours to effect this by developing in him not only whatever is similar in their natures, but even whatever is characteristically distinctive between them, by exciting his free originality, pro- voking activity in this being born for action, and by appealing to the person, and what is most personal in the person, his wiU. The dearest wish of love is to excite the wiU, and the moral force of the person loved, to its highest degree — to heroism ! The ideal of every mother, and it is the true one in education, is to make a hero, a man powerful in actions and fruitful in works, who may be endowed with will, power, and a creative genius. Let us compare with this ideal, that of ecclesiastical edu- cation and direction. The latter wishes to make a saint, and not a hero : it believes these two words to be diametrically oppo- site. It is mistaken also in its idea of sanctity, in making it consist not in being in harmony with God, but in absorption in God. All this priestly theology, as soon as we provoke 258 FALSE THEORY OF OUR ADVERSARIES, it a little, and do not allow it to remain in incon- sistency, falls headlong down the irresistible declivity, right into this abyss. There it ended, as it was obliged to end, ia the seventeenth century. The great directors of that time, who, by being the last, had the advantage of analysing the thing, show us perfectly well the bottom of it, which is annihilation, the art of annihilating activity, the will, and per- sonality. " Annihilate ? — Yes, but in God." — But does God wish it ? — His active and creating spirit must wish us to resemble him, to act, and to create. You have a wrong idea of God the Father. This false theory is convicted in practice. By followiag it closely we have seen that it arrives at quite an opposite goal. It promises to absorb man in God : and it consoles him for this absorption, by promising him that he shall participate in the infinite existence which he is entering. But, in reality, it does nothing more than absorb man in man, in infinite littleness. The person directed being an- nihilated in the director, of two persons there re- mains but one : the other, as a person, has perished, and become a thing. Devout direction, noticed in our first part among the most loyal directors, and among very pious women, gives me two results, which I state thus : — 1st, A saint who discourses for a long time with AND THEIR DANGEROUS PRACTICE. 259 a female saint on the love of God, infallibly converts her to love. 2dly, If this love remain pure, it is a chance ; it is because the man is a saint ; for the person directed, losing gradually all her own will, must, in course of time, be at his mercy. We must suppose, also, that he who may do every thing will take no advantage of it, and that this miracle of abstinence will be renewed every day. The priest has always thought himself, in his interior strength, to be a great master in matters of love. Accustomed to control his own passions, to be deceitful, and to beat about the bush, he believes he is the exclusive possessor of the real secret, how passions are to be managed. He ad- vances under cover of ambiguous expressions, and he advances in safety ; for he is patient, and waits till he has gained a footing in habits and in custom.?. He laughs in his sleeve at our impassioned vivacity, imprudent frankness, and ungoverned impetuosity, which cause us to pass wide of the mark. If love was the art of surprising the soul, of sub- jugating it by authority and insinuation, and of conquering it by fear, in order to gain it by indul- gence, so that, when wearied and drowsy with exertion, it may allow itself to be enveloped and caught in an invisible net ; if this were love, then certainly the priest would be its great teacher. Clever masters ! learn from ignorant and unskilful men, that, with all your little arts, you have never 260 MOLIEEE AND SHAKSPEAEE. known what is this sacred thing. It reqviires a sincere heart, and loyalty in the means, as its first condition ; the second is, that generosity which does not wish to enslave, but rather to set at liberty and fortify what it loves ; to love it in liberty, leaving it free to love or not to love. Come, my saints ! and listen to worldly men on this subject : to dramatists, to Moli^re, and to Shak- speare. These have known more about it than you. The lover is asked who is the loved object ? of what name ? of what figure ? and of what shape ? " Just as high as my heart."* A noble standard, which is that of love, as well as that of education, and of every kind of initiation : a sincerely wished for equality, the desire of raising the other person to one's own height, and of making her one's equal, "just as high as one's heart." Shak- speare has said so ; Moli^re has done so. The latter was, in the highest degree, " the educating genius J;" one who wishes to raise and set free, and who loves in equality, liberty, and intelligence. He has de- nounced, as a crime %, that unworthy love which surprises the soul by keeping it apart in ignorance, and holding it as a slave and captive. In his life, conformable to his works, he gave the noble example of that generous love, which wishes * Shakspeare's " As you Like it." f The ingenious and very just remark of E. Noel. X In his Ecole des Femmes, and elsewhere. THE SUBLIME IN LOVE. 261 that the person loved should be his equal, and as much as himself, which strengthens her, and gives her arms even against himself. This is love, and this is faith. It is the belief that sooner or later the eman- cipated being must return to the most worthy. And who is the most worthy ? Is it not he who wished to be loved with liberty? Nevertheless, let us well weigh the meaning of this important word his equal, and all the dangers it may contain. It is as if this creator said to the creature, whom he has made and is now emancipating, " Thou art free ; the power under which thou hast grown up holds thee no more : being away from me, and attached to me now only by the heart and memory, thou mayest act and think elsewhere, nay, against me if thou wilt ! " This is what is so sublime in love ; and the reason why God pardons it so many weaknesses ! It is because in its unlimited disinterestedness, wishing to make a free being, and to be loved freely by it, it creates its own peril. The saying, " You may act elsewhere," contains also "to love elsewhere," and the chance of losing the object. That hand, so weak before, but now strengthened and made bold by all the cares of affection, receives the sword from love : even would she turn it against him, she can ; there . is nothing to hinder her, for he has reserved nothing for himself. Pray let us exalt this idea, and extend it from the 262 LOVE IN THE WOKLD. love of woman, to universal love, to that which makes the life both of the world and of civU. society. In the world, it calls incessantly from kingdom to kingdom the ever-quickening life, which receives the flame, and goes on rising. It raises from unknown depths beings which it emancipates, and arms with liberty, with the power of acting well or ill, and even of acting against him, who creates them, and makes them free. In the civil world, does love (charity, patriotism, or whatever they call it,) do any thing but this ? Its work is to call to social life and political power whatever is yet without life in the city- It raises up the weak and poor in their rough path, where they crawl on their hands and feet against destiny, and bestows upon them equality and liberty. The inferior degree of love is a desire to absorb life. Its superior degree is to wish to exalt life in energy and fruitfulness. It rejoices in raising, aug- menting, and creating what it loves. Its happiness is to see a new creature of God rise under its in- fluence, and to contribute its aid to the creation, whether it be for good or for ill. " But is not love, with this disinterestedness, an uncommon miracle ? One of those very short instants when the night of our egotism is iUumined by a ray from God ?" No, the miracle is permanent. You see it, you have it before your eyes, but you turn away your LOVE IN FAMILIES. 263 head. Uncommon, perhaps, in the lover, it is every where visible in the mother. Mortal, you seek God in heaven and under the earth, but he is in your own domestic circle. Man, woman, and child, the unity of the three persons, and their mutual mediation — this is the mystery of mysteries. The divine idea of Chris- tianity is to have thus put the family upon the altar. It placed it there, and there it has left it, for fifteen hundred years : my poor monk, in the middle ages, contemplated it there in vain. He could never understand the mother as initiation.* He exhausted his energies by taking the sterile side : he pursued the Virgin!, and left us Our Lady. " The middle ages go either too high or too low : they inew no middle course. The triumph of woman is quite ideal in Beatrice, and the passion of woman falls too low in Griselda, who is resigned, even as a mother. There is nothing practical. This ignorance of a middle course is shocking, and assuredly- still more so in the sermons of the present day. Nothing but heaven or hell ; nothing between. Woman, in their estimation, is either a saint or a harlot. But they say not a word for the prudent spouse, or the respectable mother. This spirit of exaggeration makes their language singularly sterile. f This poetry of monks and unmarried men is every where perceptible. They make the Virgin younger and younger, ever more childish, and less motherly. They preserve a thousand silly and indecent legends, and they throw aside the essential legend, that would have fertilised the middle ages — " The education of Jesus hy the Virgin." They must have perceived, however, that he too had a maternal heart. He weeps for Lazarus. — "Let the little children come unto me," &c. 264 FAMILY EELIGION. Man of modern times ! thou shalt do what he could not. This shall be thy work. Mayest thou only, in the height of thy abstract genius, not disdain women and children, who will teach thee life. Instruct them in science and the world, and they wiU speak to thee of God. Let the family-hearth become firm and strong, then the tottering edifice of religion, political religion, will quietly settle down. Let it never be forgotten, that humble stone, in which we see only our good old domestic Lares, is the comer-stone of the Temple, and the foundation-stone of the City. OXE WORD TO THE PRIESTS. I have finished, yet my heart has not. Therefore, one word more. One word to the priests. I had handled them gently, yet they have attacked me. Well! even now, it is not them that I attack. This book is not against them. It attacks their own slavish state, the unnatural position in which they are kept, and the strange conditions which make them at once unhappy and dangerous : if it has any effect, it will prepare for them the period of deliverance, personal and mental freedom. Let them say and do what they please, they will not THE PRIESTS, 265 'jirevent me from being interested in their fate. I impute nothing to them. They are not free to be just, or to love or to hate ; they receive the words they are to say, their sentiments and thoughts, from higher powers. They who set them on against me are the same men who are, at this moment, preparing against them the most cruel inquisition.* The more insulated and miserable they are made, the greater will be the advantage derived from their restless activity ; let them have neither home, family, country, nor heart, if it be possible : to serve a dead system, none but dead rnen are wanted — wandering and troubled spirits, without a sepulchre and without repose. By means of the words unity and universal church, they have made them quit the ways of the Church of * The result of the details given by a newspaper about the last ecclesiastical retreats, ia, that the majority of the bishops impose upon their priests the Jesuitical rule called manifestation of conscience, which obliges them to confess to the confessor delegated hy the bishop, and to denounce one another. The obligation extends to the women whom the faults of the priests have compromised. See the SzVn "Social, Journal du Clerge secondaire (Nov. 1844) : this catholic paper, after one year's circulation, is already subscribed to by 3000 priests. See also an excellent article in the Reveil de TAin (Nov. 17. 1844), and the courageous letters of M. I'Abbe Thions, in the Bien Public of Magon. To be able to speak out, when they have such a mountain upon their breasts, shows a heroic heart. — Let us name with respect the two Saints Alignols. But, alas ! what do they expect to do in their journey to Rome ? what do they expect to iind in that empty sepulchre ? N 266 THE PEIESTS, France. They now enjoy the fruits of this change I They well know what Rome is, and what a Jesuitical bishop is. If the universality of mind (which is the only true one) was ever possessed by Rome, she lost it a long time ago ; it is to be met with again, in modem times, and it is in France. For two cen- turies past, we may say, morally speaking, that France is the pope. The authority is here, under one form or another ; it is here by Louis XIV., by !Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau, by the Con- stituante, the Code and Xapoleon. -Europe has always its centre ; every other nation is on the outside. The world goes on, and flies away, far, very far from the middle ages. Most people think of them no more ; but I shall not forget them. The shame- ful parade made of them by any one before my eyes, will not induce me to turn my heart from those dark and mournful ages, with which I have been so lonor acquainted, suffering when they have suffered.* The sympathy I retain for that by-gone age, whose ashes I have warmed again, prevents me from being indif- ferent to its most faithless representatives. I da not hate, but I make comparisons, and am sad. I cannot pass the front of the church-porch without * Even in 1833 I formed a wish, and expressed a hope, that the principle of the middle ages would be transformed : " It will be transfoi'med, to lire again." History of France, last page of vol. ii. See also my introduction to Universal Historv, 1831. SUFFERINGS OF THE PRIESTS. 267 saying to Notre Dame, in the words of the ancient, " O miseram domum, quam dispari dominaris do- mino ! " Alas ! poor house, thou hast made a sad change of masters ! I have never been insensible either to the humilia- tion of the church, or to the sufferings of the priest. I have them all present, both before my imagination and in my heart. I have followed this unfortunate man in the career of privations, and in the miserable life into which he is dragged by the hand of a hypo- critical authority. And in his loneliness, on his cold and melancholy hearth, where he sometimes weeps at night, let him remember that a man has often wept with him, and that I am that man. "Who would not pity this victim of social contra- dictions? The laws tell him things diametrically opposite to one another, as if to sport with him. They wiU and they will not have him obey nature. The canon law says No, and the civil law says Yes. If he take the latter to be serious, the man of the civil law, the judge, whose protection he expects, acts like a priest, seizes him by the robe, and hands him over degraded to the yoke of the canon law. Agree together, then, O laws ! and let us be able to find authority somewhere. If this be law, and the other one directly contrary be also law, what will he do, who believes them both to be sacred ?* * The clergy (good Catholics) of several parts of the south of Germany have formally expressed a wish that this disagree- N 2 268 THE SOLDIER AND THE PRIEST. Oh how my heart swells for all these unfortunate men ! How many prayers have I made that they may be permitted to abandon a condition, which gives so rude a contradiction to nature and to the progress of the world! Oh that I might with my hands build up and cheer the domestic hearth of the poor priest, give him the first rights of man, re-establish him in truth and life, and say to him, " Come and sit with us, leave that deadly shadow, and take thy place, O brother, in the sunshine of God ! " Two men have always deeply touched my heart, two solitary beings, two monks — the soldier and the priest. I have seen, often in my thoughts, and always with sadness, these two great sterile armies, to whom intellectual food is refused, or measured out with so niggardly a hand. They whose hearts have been weaned would require to be nourished with the vivifying food of the mind. What will be the ameliorations and the remedies ment should cease, and that the church should join the progress of the age, which makes marriage the true modern state, as celibacy was (at least ideally) that of the middle ages. The situation of the priest, alone yet not alone, free and not free, in the midst of a world in discord with him, reminds us of that of a man condemned to the cellular treatment, who should carry his cell about with him. Nothing would be more likely to make him mad. (See the fine articles of Leon Faucher). Every one has read the late history of that Benedictine abbe, (I think, in the Tyrol,) who, not wishing to violate his vows, and not being able to be released from them, stabbed himself to the heart. THE SOLDIER AND THE PRIEST. 269 for these serious evils ? We shall not attempt to tell them now. Either means and contrivances are found out by time, or it manages to do without them. What we may safely say is, that one day or other, these terms priest and soldier will indicate two ages, rather than two conditions. The word priest, in its origin, meant old man ; a young priest is a nonsensi- cal contradiction. The soldier is the youth who, after the school of childhood, and that of work, comes to be proved in the great national school of the army, and to gain strength, before he settles down to the quiet state of matrimony and the family table. Military life, when the state has made it what it ought to be, will be the last education, varied with studies, voyages, and perils, the experience of which will be of advantage to the new family which the man will form on his return. The priest, on the contrary, in the highest accep- tation of the term, ought to be an old man, as he was at iirst, or at least a man of a mature age, who, having passed through the cares of this world, and being well acquainted with family life, has been taught by his experience to understand the sense of the Great Family of the Universe. Seated among the old men, like the elders of Israel, he would commu- nicate to the young the treasures of his experience ; he would be the man for all parties ; the man who belongs to the poor, the conciliating umpire to pre- 270 THE PEIEST. vent law-suits, and the physician of health to jorevent diseases. To be all that, something more is required than an excitable, hot-headed young man. It ought to be a man who has seen, learned, and suffered much, and who has at last found' in his own heart the kind words, which may comfort us on our way to the world to come. THE END. London : Printed by A. Spqjtjswoooe, New- Street-Square. Y ■w \"1 >-- \ \ I ,,-*'■. -rf' t) ■■<^°->-,.. -j^ VJ..1 .«'