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 UNIVERSITY 
 
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 FROM 
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 ROGTO P. CLARK 
 1940 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
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 The original of this book is in 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031475126 
 
WOMEN OE CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 EXEMPLARY FOE ACTS Or 
 
 PIETY AND CHARITY 
 
 JULIA KAYANAGH, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " .-WOMAN IN FEANCE " " NATHALIE," " MADELEINE," ETO, 
 
 " Pare religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this : to visit tho 
 fatherless and widows in their- affliction, and to keep unspotted from the world. 1 * 
 —Jambs L 27. 
 
 NEW YOKK: 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 90, 92 & H GRAND STREET. 
 1869. 
 
PREFACE,- 
 
 When I first conceived the idea of writing a ■work on the Women 
 of Christianity, I contemplated including all the women remarkable 
 for character, intellect, and excellence, who had flourished under the 
 fostering influence of the Christian faith. I soon perceived that this 
 design, if it were not too vast to be accomplished, would require the 
 labor of years. I resolved, however, to execute at least a part of 
 that great whole : a part complete in itself ; to be followed by simi- 
 lar works or not, as circumstances and time might determine. 
 
 It was difficult to choose, difficult to decide, with whom to begin. 
 How many great and heroic women suddenly seemed to rise from the 
 barbaric gloom of feudal ages, or appeared mingling with strange 
 daring in the strife, as deadly and as fierce, of recent generations ! 
 How many meditative spirits, living apart from u rude world that 
 knew them not, heralded the dawn of civilization, gave to now for- 
 gotten idioms their sweetest strains, and nobly asserted in their day 
 — not, it is true, so completely as they have been asserted in ours — 
 the intellect and genius of woman ! 
 
 But, from these women of action and thought, my mind turned to 
 other women more lowly, though not less great. 
 
 For eighteen centuries I beheld them fervent in their faith, pure 
 in their lives, patient when it was their lot to endure, heroic when 
 they had to act or suffer ; and I felt that these were essentially the 
 * Women of Christianity," and that to them the first place belonged 
 by right. 
 
 I need say little more concerning the aim of this work, save that it 
 does not profess to include those women whose virtues went not be- 
 yond the circle of home, and whose piety was limited to worship. 
 Love and adoration are beautiful, but sacrifice is the true spirit of 
 Christianity. 
 
 The very foundation of our faith rests on an act of sel.-immola- 
 tion : the death of Jesus on the cross. The women who have in- 
 herited this spirit, who have filled their lives with acts of self-denial, 
 who, like their great Master, have gone about doing good, are those 
 whom I have selected as examples of the women of Christianity. 
 
PKEFACE. 
 
 Such is the object of the wort. I do not 'wish to speak of the 
 trouble I have had, or the pains I have taken in ■writing it. Some 
 difficulties which I had anticipated, I did not find ; others on which I 
 had not reckoned, beset me in my task. I thought of the difficulty 
 of procuring materials, not that the materials would often be imper- 
 fect. I did not know then, as I know now, that the good are quickly 
 forgotten, and neglected in death as -in life ; that their history is too 
 often written by the least gifted amongst those who write, and read 
 by the most humble amongst those who read ; that the limited sym- 
 pathies of the biographer, and the fastidiousness of the reader, have 
 united to keep in obscurity the most noble of their race ; and that, so 
 far as regards the past, the evil is irreparable. I have felt it much 
 during the progress of this work : biography after biography have I 
 read, and — with some interesting exceptions — I have been struck 
 with their painful and wearisome similarity. Now, this need not be. 
 The good are not alike : they differ from one another as much as 
 other people. The fault must lie with the biographers who praised 
 when they should have painted, and suppressed characteristic touches 
 as undignified. I wish I could have changed this ; but as I found 
 things told, even so was I compelled to relate them. 
 
 The limits of this work have rendered it necessary to condense ; 
 but I believe I may say, that no essential matter has been omitted, 
 and no recorded incidents, necessary to develop the character fur- 
 ther, or awaken a new sense of interest in the reader, have been ex- 
 cluded or overlooked. I did not think it desirable, in a work de. 
 voted to the active charity of Christian women, to enter into the 
 minute detail of religious feelings and opinions ; and I have forborne 
 to touch on the difficult subject of supernatural manifestations. My 
 object was to record those marvels of charity and devotedness which 
 are the greatest boast of the Christian faith, and in which man has 
 not as yet surpassed woman. Moreover, I wished to shun discussion, 
 for which I had no room, and controversy, for which I had no inclina- 
 tion. It was my aim to relate simply and truly the history of 
 women who were essentially simple and true ; and I desired that 
 the spirit in which this work was writtec should accord with the sub- 
 ject, and be a spirit of charity 
 
 Julia Kavanaoil 
 Kbn9".ngton, December 6, 1351, 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 Introduction. — Christianity of Woman — Early Martyrs— =Virgins and 
 Widows of the Primitive Church — Rapid Progress of the Faith 9 
 
 PERIOD THE FIRST.— THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 Chapter I. — The First Christian Martyrs — Sufferings of the Church — 
 Heroism of Women — The slave Blandina — Biblis— The Mother of 
 Synrphorian — Donata, Seounda, and Vestina — Vivia Perpetua and 
 Felicitas — Potamiana — Mary — Julia, &c. — Greatness of the Persecu- 
 tion 17 
 
 Chapter II. — Recluses— Female Relatives or Friends of the Greek 
 Fathers — Christian Women of Rome in the Fourth Century — Paula — 
 Eustochium — Marcella — Fabiola — Monica 26 
 
 Chapter III. — Christian Princesses from the Fourth to the Fifth Cen- 
 tury — Helena — Constantia — Flaeilla — Pulcheria and her Sisters — Story 
 of Athenais 44 
 
 PERIOD THE SECOND.— THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 Chapter IV. — Civilizing Influence of Woman — Power of Genevieve — 
 Early Converts — Spirit of Proselytism — Clotildis — Bertha — Ethelborga 
 — Necessity for Convents — Radegonde — Hilda — Bertilla — Bathildis 54 
 
 Chapter V. — Increase of Monasteries — Apostolic Labors of the Nuns — 
 Lioba — Celebrated Nuns and Princesses — Austrebertha — Eaingarda — 
 Giselle — Hroswrta— Herrade — Theodelinda — Ludmilhw-Dombrowka 
 — Maud — Alice — Cunegondes — Margaret of Scotland b3 
 
 Chapter VI. — Spirit of the Middle Ages — Its Exaggeration and Great- 
 ness — Causes — Elizabeth of Hungary " 70 
 
 Chapter VII. — Hereditary Virtues — Hedwiges, Duchess of Poland- 
 Margaret of Hungary— Kinga — Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal — Isabel 
 
 of France — Hedwiges of Hungary — Clare — Agnes 9G 
 
 Chapter VIII. — Catherine of Sienna — Catherine of Sweden 106 
 
 Chapter IX. — Catherine of Genoa — Teresa of Avila 114 
 
 Chapter X. — Decline of the Religious Spirit — Gonovefa Malatesta — 
 Paula Malatesta — Cecilia Gonzaga — Lucia of Marny-^- Women of the 
 House of Gonzaga — Cassandra Fedele — Vieentina Lomelino— Isabella 
 of Castile — Beatrix Galindo — Mary of Escobar — Mary and Catherine 
 of Aragon — Elizabeth of York— Margaret Beaufort — Margaret Roper- 
 Anne Askew — Lady Jane Grey — Lady Mildred Burleigh — Margaret 
 of Lorraine — Margaret Paleologue — Frances of Amboise — Joan of 
 Valois — Cauda — Elizabeth of Austria — Louise of Vandemont .... 1 ?4 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PERIOD THE THIRD.— THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Chapter XI. — The Women of the Seventeenth Century — Madame d« 
 Chantal 139 
 
 Chatter XII. — State of France-^St. Vincent of Paul — Mademoiselle 
 Legras — Sisters of Charity — Madame de Goussault and the Associa- 
 tion — The Foundlings — The General Hospital 156 
 
 Chapter XIII. — Madame de Miramion 168 
 
 Chapter XIV. — Charity of the Women of the Seventeenth Century in 
 France — Madeleine dn Bois — Noble Ladies visit the Hospitals — 
 Martha d'Oraison — Madame de la Sabliere — Mademoiselle de Melun 
 — Madame Heliot — Madame de St. Beuve — Madame de Magnelai — 
 Madame de St. Pol — Madame de Neuvillette — Madame de Banfaing — 
 Madame de Combe — Madame d'Aiguillon — The Princess Palatine — ■ 
 Madame de Longueville — Jeanne Biscot 188 
 
 Chapter XV.— Magdalen of Pazzi — Helena Cornaro — Elizabeth of Bo- 
 hemia — The Empress Eleanor 198 
 
 Chapter XVI. — The Women of England during the Seventeenth Cen- 
 tury — Lady Alice Lucy — Lady Falkland — Lady Vere — Lady Langham 
 — Lady Armyne — The Countess of Pembroke 210 
 
 Chapter XVII. — Mary, Countess of Warwick — Mrs. Godolphin ... 223 
 
 Chapter XVIII. — Lady Mainard— Margaret Baxter — Elizabeth Burnet — 
 Lady Neville — Elizabeth Bury — Catherine Bovey — Lettioe Pigot — 
 Mary Astoll — Lady Bachel Eussel 235 
 
 PERIOD THE FOURTH— THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINE- 
 TEENTH CENTURIES. 
 
 Chapter XIX.— Mrs. Elizabeth Kowe— Lady Elizabeth Hastings— Han- 
 nah More — Countess of Huntingdon 24'i 
 
 Chapter XX. — Rosa Govona — Maria Agnesi — Duchess of Ventadour— 
 Catherine Cahouet — Anne Auverger — Madame de Quatremere . . 263 
 
 Chapter XXI. — Madame Necker — Madame de Fougeret — Madame de 
 Pastoret — Jeanne de Corbion — Sister Martha 278 
 
 Chapter XXII. — Mary Leesinska, Queen of France 289 
 
 Chapter XXIII. — Elizabeth Christina, Queen of Prussia — Mary Fedo- 
 rovna, Empress of Russia , 303 
 
 Chapter XXIV. — The Montyon Prizes '. 818 
 
 CnAPTER XXV. — Elizabeth Fry— Her Youth and first Religious Feel- 
 ings ; 330 
 
 Chapter XXVI. — Elizabeth Fry— Her Married Life— Visits to the 
 
 Prisoners in Newgate , , 841 
 
 Chapter XXVII.— Sarah Martin , , 360 
 
 Conclusion , , , 377 
 
 Index ...,..,., , , , ,.,.,,,. 87S 
 
AUTHORS AND WORKS CONSULTED. 
 
 Abelly. 
 
 Evelyn. 
 
 Michaud. 
 
 Acta Sanctorum. 
 
 Fleury. 
 
 Michelet. 
 
 Arvine. 
 
 Ford. 
 
 Milner. 
 
 St. Augustine. 
 
 Fordun. 
 
 Montagu. 
 
 Baillet. 
 
 Fry. 
 
 Montalembert 
 
 Ballard. 
 
 Genlis. 
 
 Montyon. 
 
 Bareith. 
 
 George. 
 
 More. 
 
 Baxter. 
 
 Gibbon. 
 
 Moore. 
 
 Bede. 
 
 Gibbons. 
 
 Necker. 
 
 Bibliotheque dea Char- 
 
 Qoodwyn. 
 
 Pilkington. 
 
 tes. 
 
 Gregory of Tours. 
 
 Prescott. ' 
 
 Biographie ITniver- 
 
 Guizot. 
 
 Bp. Rainbow 
 
 selle. 
 
 Gurnall. 
 
 Reyre. 
 
 Biographie des Con- 
 
 Halstead. 
 
 Ribera, 
 
 temporains. 
 
 Hays. 
 
 Richard. 
 
 Brant6me. 
 
 Huntingdon. 
 
 Rose. 
 
 Butler. 
 
 Jardine. 
 
 Sherman. 
 
 Campan. 
 
 St. Jerome. 
 
 St. Simon. 
 
 CampbelL 
 
 Bishop Kenn. 
 
 San Severini. 
 
 Carron. 
 
 Kohlrausch. 
 
 Schnitzler. 
 
 St. Catherine of Sien- 
 
 Lacroix. 
 
 Sismondi. 
 
 na. 
 
 Leroux de Liney. 
 
 Starling. 
 
 Chateaubriand. 
 
 Les Princesses de 
 
 Steele. 
 
 Choisy. 
 
 France. 
 
 Strickland. 
 
 Christian Biography 
 
 Library of Christian 
 
 St. Teresa. 
 
 Clairfoutaine. 
 
 Biography. 
 
 Tertullian. 
 
 Clarke. 
 
 Life of Eleanor, Em- 
 
 Theodoric. 
 
 Collet. 
 
 press. 
 
 Thiebault, 
 
 Congreve. 
 
 Life of Frances of Am- 
 
 Thierry. 
 
 Coste. 
 
 boise. 
 
 Touron. 
 
 Dover, Lord. 
 
 Life of Jeanne Biscot. 
 
 Tricalet. 
 
 Dufresnoy. 
 
 Life of St. Margaret. 
 
 Tyrone. 
 
 Duncon. 
 
 Life of Mrs. Rowe. 
 
 Villemain. 
 
 Encyclopedic des Gens 
 
 Life of St. Teresa. 
 
 Walker. 
 
 du Monde. 
 
 Lingard. 
 
 Wilford. 
 
 Eusebius. 
 
 Marabotto. 
 
 Woodward. 
 
 Evangelical Eiography. 
 
 Martin. 
 
 
WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 EXEMPLARY FOE 
 
 PIETY AND CHARITY. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Christianity of Woman — Early Martyrs — Virgins and Widows of the 
 Primitive Church. — Kapid Progress of the Eaith. 
 
 We find it recorded in the Acts of tlie Apostles, that 
 whilst Peter tarried at Lydda, there dwelt in the neighbor- 
 ing town of Joppa "a certain disciple named Tabitha or 
 Dorcas," and that " this woman was full of good works, and 
 alms-deeds which she did." Dorcas sickened and died ; 
 Peter was summoned ; he found her body laid out in an 
 upper chamber, " and all the widows stood by him weeping, 
 and showing the coats and garments which Dorcas made 
 ■while she was with them." 
 
 Of the women who have walked in the steps of this wo- 
 man of the first Christian age, consecrating their souls to 
 God, their lives to the poor, what says history ? 
 
 Men have filled its pages with their own deeds : their per- 
 ilous daring in war — their subtle skill in peace — their designs 
 vast and magnificent — the power of their ideas — the triumphs 
 of their genius — the revolutions in their faith and govern- 
 ment — all they have either done or undergone, has been faith- 
 fully recorded. Thus the past reads like a marvellous story 
 of strange events and stirring deeds, succeeding one another 
 with startling rapidity; and in a confusion that, seen from 
 afar, seems both reckless and magnificent. Like Mirza, we 
 look down on the wonderful vision, and behold at one glance 
 the deeds, wars, glories, oppressions, and struggles of whole 
 1* 
 
10 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ages. But in all this what have we ? The annals of nations, 
 not the story of humanity. 
 
 What share have women in the history of men ? We hear 
 of empresses and queens, of heroines and geniuses, and even 
 of thbse women who won a perilous fame through the power 
 of loveliness or surpassing grace ; but woman in the peace 
 and quiet beauty of her domestic life, in the gentleness of her 
 love, in the courage of her charity, in the holiness of her 
 piety, we must not hope to find. History has been written 
 in the old pagan spirit of recording great events and dazzling 
 actions ; not in the lowliness of the Christian heart, which, 
 without affecting to despise the great, still loves and venerates 
 the good. 
 
 The writer of the following pages has neither the power of 
 supplying so great a deficiency, nor the ambitious aim of 
 opening a new path in history. Leaving the task to others, 
 she intends no more than to record with truth and simplicity 
 what is known of the pure and good women who have lived 
 and died since the opening of the Christian era, — of those 
 women who honored humanity, but whom the historian has 
 rarely mentioned, whom the general biographer has too often 
 forgotten. 
 
 The preaching of the Gospel is an era in the modern world. 
 If we would know what it did for woman, we need only com- 
 pare the earliest Christian women with those of the ancients 
 in their purest days. No doubt there were many noble 
 women before the word of Christ was known or acknowledged 
 in Europe, — women of lofty intellect and high character, ac- 
 complished Greeks or rigid Romans, fit to rule with Pericles, 
 or worthy to suffer with Brutus. But the difference is clear 
 and striking — there was no Dorcas. 
 
 There could not have been one : the virtues of Dorcas were 
 not those which formed the pagan ideal ; and, at the time 
 when she lived, that ideal was already a thing of the past. 
 When the'first dawn of Christianity appeared, the faith of 
 the ancients had been failing them for several ages. Epicu- 
 rism, superstition, and a moral depravity too deep to bear 
 record, held sway over the subjects of the wide empire; 
 until suddenly a secret murmur, welcome as the glad tidings 
 of liberty to the Mien, arose and spread from Jerusalem to 
 Rome. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 To the capricious tyranny of the emperors — to the slavery 
 of thousands of human beings — to the subjection of many 
 nations to one nation — Christianity opposed the equality of 
 all before God, the spiritual freedom of which no bonds can 
 deprive the soul, and the universal brotherhood of men. 
 The evils were not removed, but the principles by which 
 they were to perish had awakened. The "good tidings" 
 were told to the lowly and the great ; to the oppressed and 
 th'! free ; in the market-place and by the household hearth. 
 Th?re they reached woman : woman, alternately the toy or 
 drudge of man, whom only birth, beauty, or genius, could 
 raise to equality ; who, to be something, must be the daugh- 
 ter, wife, or mother of an illustrious citizen, and who seemed 
 destined never to know the moral dignity of individual worth. 
 
 Christianity at first appeared to change little in the con- 
 dition of women. It told them in austere precepts to obey 
 their husbands, to dwell at home, to mind household duties, 
 and to leave the great aims of life to man ; and yet it proved 
 the charter of their liberty. "We must not ascribe this fact 
 to the widows, virgins, and. deaconesses of the early church ; 
 important, as was the part they acted. Had not the pagan 
 creed its vestals, priestesses, and prophetic sibyls ? Not 
 there lay the difference. Christianity freed woman, because 
 it opened to her the long-closed world of spiritual knowledge. 
 Sublime and speculative theories, hitherto confined to the 
 few, became — when once they were quickened by faith — 
 things for which thousands were eager to die. Simple wo- 
 men meditated in their homes on questions which had long 
 troubled p'b'J^sophers in the groves of Academia. They 
 knew this r/f 11. They felt that from her who had sat at the 
 feet of the Master, listening to the divine teaching; down to 
 the poorest slave who heard the tidings of spiritual liberty, 
 they had a '1 become daughters of a great and immortal faith. 
 
 Of that faith they were the earliest adherents, disciples, 
 and martyrs. Women followed Jesus, entertained the wan- 
 dering apostles, worshipped in the catacombs, or died in the 
 arena. The Acts of the Apostles bear record to the charity 
 of Dc.rcas, and the hospitality of Lydia ; and tradition has 
 preserved the memory of Praxedes and Pudentiana, daugh- 
 ters of a Roman senator, in whose, house the earliest Chris- 
 tian meetings were held at Rome. The wealth of the two 
 
12 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 virgins went to relieve the church and the poor ; united in 
 their lives and in their charity, they were not divided in 
 death : they were buried side by side on the Salarian road. 
 The church of Saint Pudentiana, erected on the spot where 
 the palace of their father once stood, is held to be the most 
 ancient in existence. 
 
 Many of those early Christian women won the crown of 
 martyrdom. They were now beings with immortal souls ; 
 they suffered as such both worthily and willingly. The 
 Elysium of the ancients was the home of heroes ; the heaven 
 of the Christians was open to the meanest slave. The new 
 faith showed no favor of sex in its rewards ; and the old, as 
 if knowing this, made no exception in its cruelty. From the 
 days when Nero raised the first general persecution against 
 the church, and lit up the evening sky of Rome with, the 
 fires in which Christians were slowly consumed, women 
 shared all the torments and heroism of the martyrs. 
 
 In every rank they suffered or perished bravely. Two 
 near relatives of Domitian, both bearing the name of Flavia 
 Domitilla, were banished from Rome by the emperor, and 
 lingered many years in exile, for having embraced the faith. 
 Sabina, a lady of Umbria, was converted by her slave Se- 
 raphia, and put to death at Rome under the persecution of 
 Adrian. When Justin, once a heathen philosopher, was 
 brought up before the Praefect for having become a Chris- 
 tian, a woman named Charitana was one of his companions, 
 and like him having answered " that by the divine mercy she 
 was a Christian," was scourged and beheaded. 
 
 They suffered not only for being Christians, but even for 
 exercising ' Christian virtues : for giving aid and shelter to 
 the living ; for burying the dead martyrs ; for reading the 
 holy scriptures, and refusing to deliver up to the heathens 
 the book on which their faith rested. They were included 
 in all the. calumnies vented against the professors of the new 
 creed ; accused of magic, of impiety, of unnatural affections, 
 and of feeding on the flesh of infants. Their austere moral- 
 ity was a silent reproach on the profligacy of the heathen 
 women, felt and not forgiven. In the purest days of an- 
 cient Rome, the institution of six vestals had been supported 
 with the greatest difficulty ; whereas numberless virgins 
 were known to fill the primitive church. When Juvenal 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 wrote, Roman ladies counted their years by their successive 
 husbands ; but Christian widows rarely — and never without 
 a sense of shame — took second vows and belonged to more 
 than one man. This purity, in the midst of a profligacy so 
 deep that it sullies the pages in 'which it is recorded, was, 
 like the love which united them, one of the distinctive marks 
 of the early Christians. 
 
 They were of every race, and yet they formed in essential 
 points a people more distinct than the ancient or modern 
 Jews. They were known by their modest garments, mostly 
 white ; by their grave bearing, temperance, and chastity ; 
 by that love which made them call one another brothers and 
 sisters, support the widows and orphans, and undertake long 
 journeys from pure motives of charity. They fulfilled the 
 duties of active life, but they were not seen in the theatres, 
 public games, or sanguinary amusements of the heathens: 
 they dwelt apart, worshipping God in lonely places — forests, 
 cemeteries, or catacombs — bearing persecution patiently, 
 ever ready to die, and silently protesting by their pure and 
 austere life against the profligacy of their age. 
 
 It showed very forcibly the spirit of the new religion, that 
 to women was chiefly intrusted the practice of its purity and 
 charity in their severest and most extensive meaning. 
 
 From the times of the apostles many maidens consecrated 
 themselves to God, and were, designated as the virgins. 
 The bishop gave them a blessed veil in the church, and this, 
 with their black or gray garments, distinguished them from 
 other unmarried women. In some places the consecration 
 consisted in the virgin laying her head on the altar, and 
 allowing her hair to grow unshorn, like the ancient Naza- 
 renes. In Egypt and Syria, on the contrary, the virgin cut 
 off her hair, as if to renounce one of the greatest charms of 
 her sex, and with it the desire of being pleasing in the eyes 
 of men. 
 
 Everywhere, before the establishment of convents, they 
 led a retired and ascetic life. They seldom went out, and 
 in the churches had places set for them, apart even from the 
 other women. They lived in their own homes, or two or 
 three together. Their days were spent in silence, retirement, 
 poverty, labor, fasts, vigils, and orisons. Those who per- 
 fumed their hair, wo~e garments that swept the ground, or 
 
14 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 adorned themselves with jewels, were not considered real 
 virgins or esteemed as such. If they broke their vows and 
 married, they had to perform a public penance. 
 
 The widows mentioned by the apostolic writers, led a 
 more active though not less ascetic life than that of the vir- 
 gins. Like them they prayed, fasted, and renounced worldly 
 hopes and pleasures ; but their years and experience gave 
 them more liberty to go out. They visited sick people and 
 prisoners, especially martyrs and confessors of the faith. 
 They relieved the indigent, and practised hospitality. When 
 they were rich, they spent their wealth thus ; when poor, 
 they were supported by the church. The most aged widows 
 were made deaconesses by the imposition of hands, and in- 
 cluded amongst the clergy. At first this office was not con- 
 ferred on widows under sixty years of age, but they were 
 ultimately admitted at forty. Virgins were sometimes made 
 deaconesses, and then took the name of widows. 
 
 Their office resembled that of the deacons. They were 
 intrusted with all the deeds of mercy that applied to their 
 own sex. They visited and relieved poor women, instructed 
 the catechumens, led them to baptism, helped them to un- 
 dress for the ceremony, and, for some time after it had been 
 performed, continued to see and exhort them. They kept 
 watch at the entrance reserved to women in the churches, 
 helped them to take their ranks, and saw that they behaved 
 with propriety and reverence whilst the divine mysteries 
 were celebrated. The deaconesses were subject to the gov- 
 ernment of the bishops, to whom they gave an account of 
 the manner in which they performed their appointed tasks. 
 Deaconesses existed as late as the twelfth century. 
 
 Purity and charity were enjoined to the virgins and wid- 
 ows, and expected from every Christian woman. The wri- 
 tings of the early Fathers show of What importance the 
 whole sex had become. Virginity, widowhood, nay, even 
 female attire, were favorite subjects with the gravest writers. 
 Tertullian wrote two books on the ornaments of women : he 
 advised them- to abstain from paint, false hair, and other 
 pagan modes of helping beauty. Christian women, he said, 
 did not go to the temples, theatres, and festivals of the 
 Gentiles ; if they left home, it was to visit sick brethren, to 
 go to the church and hear the word of God. " Cast off de- 
 
INTEODUCTION. 15 
 
 lights," he eloquently adds, " in order not to be oppressed 
 by persecution. Arms accustomed to bracelets would not 
 know how to bear the weight of chains ; feet adorned with 
 sandals could not endure fetters ; and a head covered with 
 pearls and jewels would leave no room to the sword." 
 
 Well might he say so. The sword never spared women 
 when the time came, and the wrath of the persecutors kept 
 pace with the increasing number of the Christians. The 
 faith had journeyed rapidly along those wide roads which 
 had marked the conquests of Rome : a few hundreds had, 
 within a comparatively short space of time, become countless 
 multitudes. As the same Father says so finely, — " It is true 
 we are but of yesterday, and yet we fill all your towns, 
 cities, islands, castles, boroughs, councils, camps, courts, 
 palaces, your senate and forum, — we leave you only your 
 temples." 
 
PERIOD. THE FIRST.-THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The First Christian Martyrs — Sufferings of the Church — Heroism of 
 Women — The slave Blandina — Biblis — The Mother of Symphorian — 
 Donata, Seeunda, and Vestina — Vivia Perpetua and Felicitas — Pota- 
 miana — Mary — Julia, &e. — Greatness of the Persecution. 
 
 It lies not -within our province to relate all. the persecu- 
 tions which the Church endured, from Nero down to Julian ; 
 and it would far exceed our limits to dwell separately on 
 every one of the female martyrs who suffered during those 
 four ages. A few traits, the most remarkable, and the best 
 attested in church history, will bear sufficient testimony to 
 the Christian heroism of woman in those early times. 
 
 la the year 1*7 7, Marcus Aurelius being emperor, there 
 arose in Lyons and Vienna, cities of Gaul, a violent persecu- 
 tion against the professors of the Christian faith. It had been 
 propagated there even in the time of the Apostles, owing to 
 ..he facilities of intercourse between Marseilles and the ports 
 of Lesser Asia. In an affecting letter, attributed chiefly to 
 St. Irenaeus, and which is to be found in the Ecclesiastical 
 History of Eusebius, the sufferings of the Lyonese Chris- 
 tians are recorded with a touching mixture of force and sim- 
 plicity. After a greeting from the " servants of Christ at 
 Lyons and Vienna, in Gaul, to those brethren in Asia and 
 Phrygia having the same faith and hope," the authors of the 
 letter proceed to state how the persecution began by exclu- 
 ding the Christians from houses, baths, and market places, 
 so that nothing belonging to them could even appear in 
 public. They bore all patiently ; " esteeming what was 
 deemed great but little, they hastened to Christ, showing in 
 reality that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be 
 compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. And 
 Irst they nobly sustained all the evils that were heaped upon 
 
18 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 . • 
 
 them by the populace : clamors and blows, plundering and 
 robberies, stonings and imprisonments, and whatsoever a 
 savage people delight to inflict upon enemies. After this, 
 they were led to the forum, and when they had been inter- 
 rogated by the tribune and the authorities of the city, in the 
 presence of the multitude, they were shut up in prison until 
 the arrival of the governor. Afterwards they were led away 
 to be judged by him, from whom they endured all manner 
 of cruelty." 
 
 " Ten of the Christians fell, and sacrificed conscience to 
 safety. Many who had remained free, and attended the 
 martyrs in prison, were in their turn arrested. The pagan 
 slaves apprehended with them, fearing lest they should be 
 included among the Christians, accused their masters of the 
 crimes of Thyestes and (Edipus. The fury of the people 
 and of the magistrates was roused to the utmost. It fell on 
 several of the Christian captives, and amongst the rest on a 
 female slave named Blandina; 'in whom,' as the authors 
 of the letter write, ' Christ made manifest that the things 
 that appear mean, and deformed, and contemptible among 
 men, are most esteemed by God, on account of her cherish- 
 ing that love to him which evinces itself by fortitude, and 
 does not boast of mere profession ; for' whilst we were all 
 trembling, and her earthly mistress, who was herself one of 
 the contending martyrs, was apprehensive lest, through the 
 weakness of the flesh, she should not be able to make a bold 
 confession, Blandina was filled with such power, that hei 
 ingenious tormentors, who relieved and succeeded each other 
 from morning till night, confessed that they were overcome, 
 and had nothing more that they could inflict upon her. 
 Only amazed that she still continued to breathe after her 
 whole body was torn asunder and pierced, they gave their 
 testimony that one single kind of the tortures inflicted was 
 of itself sufficient to destroy life, without resorting to so 
 many and such excruciating sufferings as these.' 
 
 " But this blessed, saint, as a noble wrestler, in the midst 
 of her confession itself renewed her strength ; and to repeat, 
 ' I am a Christian: no wickedness is carried on by us,' was 
 to her rest, refreshment, and relief from pain." 
 
 The constancy of this noble woman was a living example 
 which the rest eagerly followed. Even a slave, named 
 
BLANDINA. 19 
 
 Biblis, who had renounced the faith, awoke as from a deep 
 sleep, and instead of the accusations which her tormentors 
 expected, boldly exclaimed, " How can it be imagined that 
 they whose religion forbids them even to taste the blood of 
 beasts should feed upon children?" for the Christians of 
 Gaul still observed the law of abstaining from eating blood 
 enacted by the Apostles. 
 
 Many of the martyrs perished in the midst of the torments 
 inflicted on them ; some died in prison, through the ill-usage 
 they had received ; and others in the arena, in the presence 
 and for the pleasure of a barbarous people. Blandina and a 
 youth of fifteen, named Ponticus, were every day brought 
 forth to witness the tortures of their friends. " Force," .we 
 are told, " was also used to make them swear by the idols ; 
 and when they continued firm, and denied their pretended 
 divinity, the multitude became outrageous at them, so that 
 they neither compassionated the youth of the boy, nor re- 
 garded the sex of the woman. Hence they subjected them 
 to every possible suffering, and led them through the whole 
 round of torture, ever and anon striving to force them to 
 swear, but were unable to effect it. Ponticus, indeed, en- 
 couraged by his companion, so that the heathen could see 
 that she was encouraging and confirming him, nobly bore 
 the whole of these sufferings, and gave up his life. But the 
 blessed Blandina, last of all, as a noble mother that had ani- 
 mated her children, and sent them as victors to the great 
 king — herself retracing the ground of all the conflicts her 
 children had endured — hastened to them at last, with joy 
 and exultation at the issue, as if she were invited to a mar- 
 riage feast, and not to be cast to wild beasts." 
 
 We spare the reader the detail of the torments which 
 closed the life of the heroic slave. Even amongst the hea- 
 thens, no woman had been known to go through so great a 
 course of sufferings with a courage so unshaken. Her re- 
 mains, with those of the other martyrs, were deprived of 
 burial by the hatred of their persecutors, — a hatred which 
 death itself failed to appease. They were burned to ashes, and 
 then cast into the Rhone. The heathens did this because they 
 attributed to the Christian belief in the resurrection on the 
 great judgment day, the ardent faith which led their victims 
 undaunted through the whole array of human suffering. 
 
20 WOMEN OF CHEISTIANITY. 
 
 In spite of all that persecution could do, the Christians 
 remained true to one another. A poor widow exercised the 
 noble and perilous duty of hospitality towards two fugitive 
 Christians, Epipodius of Lyons, and Alexander, a Greek by 
 birth. They were young, nobly bom, fellow-students, at- 
 tached friends, and brethren in the faith. They lay for some 
 time undiscovered in the house of their hostess ; but they 
 were at length detected, apprehended, and executed, shortly 
 after the martyrdom of Blandina and her companions. ' 
 
 In the course of the following year, this cruel persecution 
 .gave a Christian mother the opportunity of making to her 
 God the sacrifice which proved the faith of Abraham. 
 Symphorian, the son of Faustus, and of a mother whose 
 name has remained unknown, descended of a noble Christian 
 family in Gaul, young, accomplished, and virtuous, was led 
 before the consul Heraclius for having refused to join in the 
 impure worship of Cybele. " Why do you refuse to adore 
 the mother of the gods 1" asked Heraclius from his tribunal. 
 " Because I am a Christian, and adore the true God in hea- 
 ven," answered Symphorian. Neither threats nor torments 
 could move him, and he was at length condemned to perish 
 by the sword. 
 
 As they led him out of the town to the place of execution, 
 his mother stood on the walls, to see him pass. True to her 
 proud Roman blood, she had come there : as those stoic 
 matrons, from whom she was perchance descended, went to 
 see their victorious sons led in triumph to the Capitol, so did 
 she stand to behold him whom she had borne, on his way to 
 the heavenly Jerusalem. When her voice could reach him, 
 she raised it, and said in a clear loud tone, " My son, my son 
 Symphorian, remember the living God, and be of good cheer. 
 Raise thy heart to heaven, and think of him that reigneth 
 there. Fear not death which leads to certain life." 
 
 The fifth general persecution was raised by the emperor 
 Severus in the year 202. But, as there always existed a 
 sufficient number of edicts against the Christians to authorize 
 .almost any amount of cruelty, we find that, two years before 
 this persecution, twelve persons of Scillita, a town of Africa, 
 had already suffered at Carthage. Amongst them were 
 three women of remarkable constancy, Donata, Secunda, and 
 Vestina. They were brought before the proconsul, who 
 
VIVIA PERPETTTA — li^ELICITAB. 21 
 
 said to them, " Honor our prince, and offer sacrifice to the 
 gods." Donata replied, " We give to Csesar the honor that is 
 due to Cassar ; but we adore and offer sacrifice to God alone." 
 Vestina said, "I also am a Christian." Secunda said, "I 
 also believe in my God, and will continue faithful to him. 
 As for your gods, we will neither serve nor adore them." 
 They were condemned to be beheaded, and giving thanks to 
 God, were led to the place of execution, where, kneeling in 
 prayer, they calmly waited until the sword of the executioner 
 severed their heads from their'bodies. 
 
 It was not always that woman's faith rose thus high. 
 When, two years later, the great persecution began, Leon- 
 ides, father of the celebrated Origen, was arrested in Alex- 
 andria, and cast into prison. His son, then a youth of sev- 
 enteen, longed to share his glorious sufferings, and would 
 have gone and delivered himself up as a Christian, if his 
 mother had not conjured him to stay with her, and, to se- 
 cure his compliance, kept him at home by locking up his 
 garments. 
 
 This persecution reached Africa in the following year. 
 Five catechumens were apprehended at Carthage. Two 
 were women : Felicitas, a poor slave, and Vivia Perpetua, 
 a lady of rank, twenty-two years of age, with an infant at 
 her breast. The martyrdom of these two women is one of 
 the most touching episodes in early church history. The 
 father of Vivia Perpetua was a pagan. He was somewhat 
 advanced in years, and loved his Christian daughter better 
 than his other children. He visited her in her prison, and 
 strove to shake her resolve : he failed, and parted from her 
 in anger. When he heard, however, that the prisoners were 
 to be examined shortly, he came again, and forgetting wrath 
 in love, made one more effort. " Daughter," said he, " have 
 pity on my gray hairs ! have compassion on your father — on 
 your child, that cannot survive you." He took her hands 
 as he spoke — he kissed them — he called her no longer his 
 daughter, but " Domina," his lady, and knelt weeping at her 
 feet. The heart of Perpetua was pierced with exquisite sor- 
 row, yet she remained firm, though not unmoved. 
 
 On the following day the prisoners we/e examined be- 
 fore Hilarian in an audience-chamber crowded with people. 
 When it came to the turn of Vivia Perpetua to confess her 
 
22 . "WOMEN OF CHKISTLAUfTT. 
 
 faith, her father, holding her infant in his arms, appeared 
 by her side. Again he pleaded, not for his own sake, but 
 for that of the innocent child ; the judge joined in his argu- 
 ments and entreaties, and concluded with the exhortation : 
 " Sacrifice for the prosperity of the emperors." " I will 
 ' not," she answered. " Are you then a Christian ?" inquired 
 Hilarian. " I am," was her firm reply. As her fathe'r heard 
 the words which doomed her, he attempted to draw her off 
 from the platform on which she stood ; Hilarian commanded 
 him to be beaten away ; the wretched old man received a 
 blow with a stick, whilst the judge condemned the five Chris- 
 tians to be exposed to wild beasts. They returned to prison 
 rejoicing ; Perpetua, who had been in the habit of giving 
 suck to her child, asked for it in vain ; her father refused 
 to send it : she had seen the last of what she loved best on 
 earth. 
 
 The condemned Christians were reserved for the shows 
 with which the soldiers were amused on the festival of Geta. 
 Whilst waiting for the hour of martyrdom, Felicitas, who 
 was far gone with child, gave birth to a daughter. She suf- 
 fered much, and could not always remain silent under her pain. 
 One of the guards mockingly asked what she would do when 
 exposed to the wild beasts. Felicitas answered : " It is I 
 that suffer what I now suffer ; but then there will be another 
 in me that will suffer for me, because I shall suffer for him." 
 A certain Christian woman took her child, adopted it, and 
 reared it as her own. 
 
 On the 6th of March the five Christians received the free 
 supper and last meal, which, according to an established 
 custom, the condemned always ate in public. They did their 
 best to convert it into the beautiful Agape or love-feast of 
 the early Christians. The room was full. Many had come 
 to look on : some, Christians in their hearts, were there to 
 gaze with reverence and love on the future martyrs ; others, 
 indifferent pagans, pi-ofessors of a cruel and voluptuous 
 creed, found a strange pleasure in looking on those at whose 
 torments they were to clap their hands on the morrow. The 
 five Christians edified some, and astonished all, by the cheer- 
 ful composure of their bearing. 
 
 On the following day they left the prison for the amphi- 
 theatre. Like all the martyrs of those times, they went 
 
TIVIA PEEl'ETUA — FELICITAS. 2b 
 
 forth to death as to a bridal feast. Perpetua, the lady, with 
 modest look and downcast eyes ; Felicitas, the slave, scarce- 
 ly able to contain, her joy. When they reached the gate of 
 the amphitheatre, the guards gave the men the red mantle 
 of the priests of Saturn, and offered to the women the little 
 fillet -worn by the priestesses of Ceres. They refused these 
 badges of superstition, and Perpetua, speaking for the rest, 
 said they had come thither of their own accord, relying on 
 the promise that they should not be forced to do any thing 
 contrary to their faith. The tribune consented to let them 
 appear habited as they were. 
 
 They entered the amphitheatre. Perpetua sang, like one 
 who had already conquered ; the three Christian men, turn- 
 ing towards the people, threatened them with the judgments 
 of God. As they passed before the balcony where Hilarian 
 sat, they said to him : " You judge us in this world, but 
 God will judge you in the next." On hearing this there was 
 but one cry amongst the people, who all called out for the 
 Christians to be scourged. Each of the venatores or hun- 
 ters, men whose office it was to encounter the wild beasts or 
 whip the condemned, accordingly gave the Christians a lash 
 as they passed before them. A leopard and a bear speedily 
 ended their sufferings. Perpetua and Felicitas were strip- 
 ped, put into nets, and exposed to a wild cow. But a mur- 
 mur of disapprobation rose amongst the spectators, shocked 
 by this mixture of indecency and cruelty. The executioners 
 drew the women out, gave them loose garments, and again 
 brought them to face the wild cow. Perpetua was the first 
 attacked ; the cow tossed her up ; she fell on her back, but 
 soon sat up ; her clothes were torn and disordered ; she 
 gathered them around her, then got up, calmly fastened her 
 loosened hair, and perceiving Felicitas lying on the ground 
 much hurt, she helped her to rise. They stood together in 
 the arena, quietly expecting the rest ; but the people, more 
 eager for blood than for pleasure, cried out that it was 
 enough. They were accordingly led to the gate, where the 
 swords of the confectores usually dispatched those whom 
 the wild beasts had only tortured and not killed. 
 
 Rusticus, one of those faithful catechumens whom no peril 
 could deter, was there to receive and comfort them to the 
 last, Perpetua, awakening as from a dream, asked when 
 
21 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 she was going to meet the wild cow : she believed, with dif- 
 ficulty that the encounter was over. Contrary to the usual 
 custom, and in order to gratify the blood-thirstiness of the 
 spectators, the two women were again led forth into the 
 centre of the amphitheatre, to die there within view of all. 
 They gave one*another the kiss of peace, and meekly sur- 
 rendered to their fate. An unskilful gladiator prolonged 
 the torments of Perpetua, by inflicting many slight wounds 
 before the final one. Her hand, more steady than his in 
 that awful moment, had to guide it to her throat, and direct 
 the sword that was to close her pure and brief life. 
 
 Perpetua and Felicitas are amongst the most illustrious of 
 Christian martyrs. For three centuries their venerable relics 
 were preserved in the great church of Carthage ; where, ac- 
 cording to St. Augustine, their yearly festival drew to honor 
 their memory more than had gone to witness their martyr- 
 dom. The shrine is fallen, the relics are lost ; but the 
 memory of the two noble women still lives. 
 
 Amongst the names of early saints and martyrs, which the 
 Church has faithfully commemorated for many ages as her 
 greatest titles of honor, are those of Perpetua and Felicitas, 
 the lady and the slave of Carthage. 
 
 Many similar- records are preserved : many little traits 
 of woman's nature, touching or sublime, have been trans- 
 mitted by ecclesiastical writers and ancient Fathers of the 
 Church. 
 
 ' r Potamiana of Alexandria, a female slave of exquisite beau- 
 ty, having already received the first seeds of the Christian 
 faiths from her mother, applied to Origen for further instruc- 
 tion. She was progressing under his teaching, when her 
 master, who had conceived a violent passion for her and fail- 
 ed in seducing her, delivered her to the Prsefect Aquila, in 
 the hope of enforcing her compliance. Tortures having 
 failed to move her, she was condemned to be thrown into a 
 caldron of boiling pitch. The only favor she asked was to 
 keep on her garments ; she added that the executioners 
 might let her down by degrees, to see the patience with 
 which Jesus Christ gifted those who trusted in him. Both 
 requests were granted. 
 
 Amongst the martyrs who perished in Numidia in the year 
 259 was a reader in the Church, named Marian. His moth- 
 
JULIA — AGNES CATHERINE OEOLLIA. 25 
 
 er Mary followed him to the place of execution encouraging 
 him. When all was over, she kissed his dead body, and 
 blessed God for having made her mother of such a son. 
 
 Centuries passed, and the same spirit still lived. When 
 Genserie took Carthage in the year 439, a noble maiden 
 named Julia was sold as a slave to a pagan merchant of 
 Syria. She bore her fate with fortitude ; performed every 
 duty of her new state, and devoted to prayer and reading 
 all her spare moments. Her gentle cheerfulness and fidelity 
 endeared her to her master, who esteemed her the most val- 
 uable of his possessions. He took her with him in one of 
 his voyages to Gaul. When they had reached Corsica, he 
 went on shore to join in an idolatrous festival; Julia re- 
 mained apart. Her absence was an implied censure, which 
 Felix, the governor of the island, resented. He caused her 
 to be brought before him, and offered to procure her liberty, 
 if she would sacrifice to the gods. " I am free whilst I serve 
 Christ,'.' replied the undaunted slave. Felix, in a transport 
 of rage, caused her to be first struck on the face, and then 
 crucified. Painters generally represent this illustrious saint 
 with ' the wreath and veil of virgins, standing by the cross 
 through which she found both death and eternal life, bearing 
 in one hand the palm of martyrdom, and in the other the 
 open Scriptures, over which she bends in absorbed mood. 
 
 To the same heroic times belong names held dear by the 
 faith of ages, and immortalized by Christian art with the 
 Madonnas and penitent Magdalenes. Then perished the 
 lovely Agnes, the type of youthful innocence ; Catherine, 
 the learned and royal virgin, the chaste patroness of schools 
 and studious men ; rapt Cecilia, whose sweet strains were 
 said to draw down worshipping angels from heaven : a 
 Christian muse worthy of being painted by Raffaelle. Spite 
 of the obscurity thrown around them by legendary lore, they 
 still embody the heroism and poetry of female martyrs, and 
 lead us back to those far times when women were first called 
 upon to embrace a faith, and held worthy to suffer. 
 
 How far they justified the trust, we ha.ve imperfectly re- 
 corded : those are not facts easily put in words or easily 
 rendered credible. The history of the wprld offers no sec- 
 ond instance of the things that then occurred daily. The 
 wars and oppressions of ages gone often read like the strife 
 
 2 
 
26 WOMEN OF CHKISTIAJSTTY. 
 
 and tyranny of yesterday; but the persecution and con- 
 stancy of the Christians stand alone. 
 
 Hitherto the hatred of triumphant Rome had spent itself 
 on conquered races : she crushed the nations whose gods 
 she admitted into her wide Pantheon. Now it was not peo- 
 ple against people, but faith against faith. The contest last- 
 ed upwards of four centuries. Whilst victims were sacri- 
 ficed on the altars of paganism, Christians perished in the 
 amphitheatre. For four ages the blood of martyrs flowed. 
 The hatred of one creed and the enthusiasm of the othei 
 kept equal pace. The heathens crowded the rows of the 
 circus with cruel eagerness, whilst the Christians entered the 
 arena with fervent joy. It was indeed a strange sight : men 
 and women, whose days were spent in guilty indulgence, 
 coming to the public shows, where other men and women, 
 of pure and austere life, were ready to perish for their 
 pleasure;* and, stranger still, that the spectators of this 
 fierce pageantry should not be more eager to behold death 
 than the actors to die. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Recluses— Female Eelatives or Friends of the Greek Fathers— Christian 
 Women of Eome in the Fourth Century— Paula— Eustochium— Mar- 
 eella — Fabiola — Monica. 
 
 When persecutions and martyrs ceased, religious fervor 
 asserted itself by extraordinary austerities and life-long acts 
 of penance. Those were the times of Paul and Anthony 
 the anchorets, of Simeon Stylites, of saints whose abode was 
 the desert, and who sought a home amidst the grottoes and 
 ruined cities of the lonely Thebaid. 
 
 For three years Thais the courtezan wept over her sins 
 in a monastery ; Mary of Egypt spent her penitent life in 
 the fields of burning sand which lie beyond the Jordan ; and 
 Pelagia, the beautiful comedian, forsook the world for a 
 grotto on the Olive Mount. Past errors were not always 
 
 * Chateaubriand, Etudes Historiques. Etude cinq. 
 
RECLUSES. 27 
 
 needed to lead women into ascetic life. Syncletica, a rich 
 and noble maiden of Alexandria, beautiful and of unsullied 
 purity, early retired to a narrow cell, where she spent the 
 remainder of her days in prayer and solitude. 
 
 Much that now seems exaggerated in all that is told of 
 those penitents and recluses, we must ascribe to the ardor of 
 the Eastern imagination and character. Christianity to them 
 was more than a creed — it was a passion : there was passion 
 in then - austerity, mourning, and longing for*solitude. That 
 thirst of sacrifice, which to modern judgment appears ex- 
 treme, then raised them above the rest, and filled even the 
 heathens with respect and wonder : they felt truly that in 
 their faith, there was nothing akin to the feeling which peo- 
 pled the most dreary deserts of Egypt with worshippers of 
 God. 
 
 But even admitting this, Thais, Mary, and Syncletica must 
 be. considered as exceptions. Another class of Christian 
 women, differing from the first converts and martyrs, had 
 arisen, — women of home, and home virtues. The mothers, 
 wives, sisters, and daughters of saints or Fathers of the 
 Church : saints themselves in life and name ; learned in holy 
 things, pious, austere, and gentle ; of ardent faith, and often 
 of boundless charity ; giving to their sex a higher though 
 calmer dignity than it had yet attained, and, for the first 
 time, calling down on womanhood both the love and rever- 
 ence of man. 
 
 Generations of Christians then edified the world with their 
 faith, genius, and learning. During the persecution of Max- 
 iminus II. in 311, St. Macrina and her husband lost all their 
 estates by confiscation, and lived for seven years hidden in 
 the forests of Pontus. Their son, St. Basil, and his wife, 
 St. Emmelia of Cesarea, had ten children ; of whom four — 
 Macrina the eldest, who helped to rear her brothers and sis- 
 ters in the love of God, the eloquent Basil, the judicious 
 Gregory of Nyssa, and the charitable Peter of Sebaste — have 
 been recognized as saints by the Church : the three sons 
 were celebrated for their learning, and died bishops. 
 
 Macrina was deeply versed in the holy Scriptures. She 
 led a pious and retired life, and after the death of her father, 
 and of a young man to whom he had betrothed her, she in- 
 duced her mother Emmelia to found two monasteries ; one 
 
28 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 for men, the other for women, on their own estate near Ibora. 
 in Pontus. Emmelia and Macrina lived in one house, Basil 
 and Peter in the other. The pleasant Iris flowed between 
 the two monasteries, and around both there spread plains, 
 valleys, and wooded hills of pastoral beauty and primeval 
 solitude. After the death of Emmelia, Macrina disposed of 
 all that was left of their estate in favor of the poor, and 
 lived by the labor of her own hands. Her resignation to 
 the will of God equalled her self-denial. She undertook to 
 console Gregory for the death of their brother Basil in 379. 
 From her arguments, and the subject of their discourse, he 
 composed a dialogue on the soul and on the resurrection, in 
 which he introduced her under the name of the mistress. 
 Within a few months she followed Basil. Gregory wit- 
 nessed and recorded the fortitude of her last moments. The 
 house was so poor that, save her own garments, it held 
 nothing with which to cover the corpse of Macrina as it was 
 borne to the grave ; Gregory threw his episcopal cloak over 
 it. So real was the poverty of the primitive convents, where 
 ladies of high descent and princely wealth, the sisters of 
 Christian bishops, chose to live and die. 
 
 Gregory of Nazienzen, the friend and countryman of Basil, 
 was, like him, the son and brother of holy women. His 
 mother Nonna converted her heathen husband, who became 
 a bishop of Nazienzen, and held the see forty-five years ; 
 Gorgonia "his sister, whose virtues in the married state Gre- 
 gory has affectingly commemorated, was eminent for piety 
 and charity. 
 
 Anthusa, mother of the great St. John Chrysostom, re- 
 mained a widow at twenty, in lovely and voluptuous An- 
 tioch ; that capital of the East where Christian austerity and 
 heathen luxury both held sway. She would never contract 
 a second marriage, but divided her life between religion and 
 the education of her children. On hearing this from her 
 son, who studied under him, the heathen teacher of elo- 
 quence, Libanius, could not help exclaiming, as he turned 
 towards his audience : " Oh ! gods of Greece ! what women 
 there are amongst those Christians !" 
 
 Those Christian women, so noble and simple in their 
 purity, had not, like those of Rome or Sparta, cast away the 
 feelings of nature. When Chrysostom, seized with religious 
 
OLTMPIAS. 29 
 
 fervor, wished to forsake the world, Anthusa took him by 
 the hand, led him into her room, and making him sit down 
 by the bed where she had given him birth, she began to 
 weep ; then, as the saint afterwards expressed it, " said 
 things sadder than her tears." 
 
 Her tender and pathetic entreaties prevailed ; Chrysostom 
 remained, became a celebrated archbishop, an eloquent 
 preacher, and died in exile. Whilst he held the see of Con- 
 stantinople, Nicareta, Olympias, Salvina, Procula, and Pan- 
 tadia, holy virgins and widows, whose names have been con- 
 secrated by the Church, acknowledged his spiritual guidance. 
 Olympias, the most celebrated, was a truly noble woman. 
 She was the daughter of Seleucus, a wealthy lord belonging 
 to the court of Theodosius the Great, and was married in 
 early youth to Nebridius, treasurer to the emperor. Twenty 
 days after their marriage, Olympias remained a widow. Her 
 wealth and beauty attracted many suitors, whom she inex- 
 orably rejected. Theodosius wished her to marry one of his 
 relatives ; she refused to do so ; to punish her, he placed 
 her property in the hands of the Preefect of Constantinople, 
 with orders to act as her guardian until she should be thirty 
 years of age. Olympias calmly thanked him, and said : 
 " Your goodness towards me has been that of an emperor 
 and of a bishop, in thus relieving me from the heavy burden 
 of my property. Add to that goodness, by dividing my 
 wealth between the poor and the Church. I have long 
 been seeking a fit opportunity to avoid the vanity of making 
 this distribution myself, as well as the danger of attaching 
 my heart on perishable goods, instead of keeping it fixed on 
 the true riches." 
 
 Theodosius admired the magnanimity of the youthful 
 widow, and feeling somewhat ashamed of the ungenerous 
 part he had acted, h"" caused all her property to be restored 
 to her in the year 391. The riches of Olympias were im- 
 mense, and she distributed them with princely liberality. 
 Whilst she herself lived in a state bordering on penury, she 
 gave ornaments and sacred vases to the churches ; relieved, 
 almost without ceasing, distressed monasteries, hospitals, 
 beggars, prisoners, and exiles ; and set at liberty several 
 thousand slaves. Her alms were scattered over towns, vil- 
 lages, islands, and deserts, to the extremities of the then 
 
30 WOMEN OF CHKISTIAUITY. 
 
 known world. The poor of every land were to her as hei 
 children, and the most remote churches dear to her in the 
 Lord. With time she became deaconess, and as such visited 
 the sick, the poor, the aged, and the distressed of Constan- 
 tinople. 
 
 Though good and pious, Olympias was not happy. She 
 suffered from ill-health, and was through her whole life 
 exposed to persecutions and odious slanders. Her greatest 
 sorrow was to part from St. John Chrysostom. A pure and 
 tender friendship united them for many years. This great 
 and charitable prelate, who gave all the revenues of his 
 church to the poor, and melted down the sacred vases for 
 their relief in seasons of scarcity, had agreed to accept from 
 Olympias the coarse and frugal food which formed his daily 
 sustenance. When he was banished in the year 404, and 
 bade his friends adieu in the great church of Constantinople, 
 to which Olympias belonged as deaconess, the fortitude with 
 which she had borne other sorrows forsook her, and she fell 
 down at the feet and clung to the garments of the arch- 
 bishop in a transport of grief. 
 
 Chrysostom was exiled for having_ wounded the vanity of 
 Eudocia the empress ; but other women were as faithful in 
 their affection as she was in her hatred. For the sake of 
 their beloved pastor, Olympias, Pantadia, and Nicareta en- 
 dured many grievous persecutions. Nicareta left Constan- 
 tinople, and ended her days in a remote solitude. Olympias 
 lost all her property, was dragged by soldiers before the 
 public tribunals with the grossest insults, and saw the little 
 community of virgins over whom she presided rudely dis- 
 persed. Her exiled friend addressed to her no less than 
 seventeen epistles, one of which contains the fullest account 
 of his sufferings and his faith. The days of the once muni- 
 ficent and wealthy widow closed in sadness and poverty, 
 the year of her death is unknown. 
 
 Olympias is not the first instance of a Christian woman 
 faithful to friendship and opinion : many such cases occur 
 in the history of the persecution of the Catholics by the 
 Arians, or in the dissensions which early arose between civil 
 and ecclesiastic power. Whilst the stern and orthodox 
 Athanasius waged his daring and persevering war against 
 heresy, he was repeatedly obliged to be concealed in Alex- 
 
PAULA — EUSTOCHIUM. 3i 
 
 andria, then celebrated for its learning and frequent tumults. 
 A Catholic virgin of twenty, renowned for her loveliness, was 
 sitting alone at midnight in her house, when Athanasius 1 sud- 
 denly appeared before her, and conjured her to grant him 
 an asylum. She immediately led him into her most retired 
 apartments, and intrusted the secret of his presence to no 
 other person. She waited on him herself, supplied him with 
 books and provisions, managed his correspondence, and be- 
 haved so discreetly, that, though for six years he made her 
 house his hiding-place in times of danger, his presence was 
 never suspected. 
 
 The East, where Christianity had first arisen, possessed 
 great attractions for the faithful of every land. Two noble 
 ladies of Spain, both named Melania — one was the grand- 
 mother of the other — left their western home to retire to 
 Jerusalem. Melania, the younger, was accompanied by her 
 husband Pinian, son of the Prsefect of Rome. They parted 
 with all their estates in Spain, Gaul, and Italy ; freed eight 
 thousand of their slaves, and gave to a relative those who 
 preferred the security of bondage to the chances of freedom. 
 They ended their days in Palestine, prayer and good deeds 
 their occupation, and the reading and transcribing of manu- 
 scripts their innocent amusement. 
 
 Paula and Eustochium are still more illustrious pilgrims 
 from the west to Holy Land. Their names are closely linked 
 with the, name of a great Father of the Church, perhaps 
 the greatest : St. Jerome, author of the Latin translation of 
 the Old and New Testaments known as the Vulgate. Apart 
 from his piety and learning, Jerome was an extraordinary 
 man. His character, austere and melancholy, was inherited 
 from his Dalmatian ancestors ; but in breadth and fire his 
 genius partook of the Eastern deserts, where he strove to 
 quench the passions of his youth ; and where, full of days, 
 wearied of existence, he closed a life of many vicissitudes 
 and stupendous labors. Paula, her daughter Eustochium, 
 and their friends Marcella, Albina, Fabiola, women descend- 
 ed from those illustrious families which gave to Rome her 
 heroes, and to the world its masters, reverently claimed St. 
 Jerome as their spiritual father. They were worthy of the 
 relationship. The ascetic spirit of their teacher, his haughty 
 contempt of the world and its enjoyments, his learning, hja 
 
32 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 passion for solitude, were shared by these adopted daugh- 
 ters ; though tempered by the gentleness of their sex and 
 the tenderness of their charity. 
 
 In the year 381 Jerome came to Borne to attend a Coun- 
 cil of the Church. He formed an acquaintance with Paula, 
 who made him reside in her house. She was then about 
 thirty-five, and had been a widow three years. There is 
 great beauty in the character of Paula. She had a noble 
 and passionate soul, affections deep even to weakness, and 
 with all this the stoicism of a Roman matron ; making to 
 faith and its aspirations the heroic and heart-breaking sacri- 
 fices her ancestors had made to pagan pride and Roman 
 
 glory- 
 In no respect did she belie her illustrious origin. Her 
 father boasted his descent from Agamemnon ; and her moth- 
 er could, with more historic truth, trace Paulus iEmilius 
 amongst her ancestors, and claim a share in the blood of the 
 Scipios and of the Gracchi. Toxotius, the husband of Paula, 
 was of that great Julian family which gave birth to Caesar. 
 They had five children, a son and four daughters. In 379 
 Paula lost her husband : his death threw her into such an 
 agony of grief that she was herself near dying ; when she 
 recovered, it was to give up her life and soul to God. Her 
 wealth was great, but it had limits ; and her alms seemed 
 to know of none : the poor — the sick — the infirm — were dil- 
 igently sought out through the whole city, and relieved at 
 her cost. She held herself defrauded if they received other 
 alms than hers : even the indigent dead were laid out and 
 buried at her expense. When relatives remonstrated, and 
 asked what inheritance she would leave to her children, — ■ 
 " The mercy of God !" answered Paula. Jerome thought 
 that, both in her alms to the poor, and in her own personal 
 austerities — which were great — Paula went too far ; but his 
 remonstrances could not induce her to lessen either her own 
 privations or her liberality to others. 
 
 Prayer and reading had a large share in the daily occupa- 
 tions of the devout widow. Her ardent entreaties induced 
 Jerome to allow her and her daughter, Eustochium, to read 
 over with him the Old and New Testaments, which he ex- 
 plained to them as they went on. Similar assistance was 
 asked and obtained by Albina and her daughter Marcella, 
 
MAECELLA — FABIOLA. 33 
 
 ' r~~ ' 
 
 l»th friends of Paula. They were deeply read in the Scrip- 
 tures, and eager to learn more. They would never allow 
 Jerome to leave them, without having first made him an- 
 swer numerous questions on the true meaning of difficult 
 passages or obscure texts. Albina was critical, acute, and 
 so hard to satisfy, that Jerome protested she was more his 
 judge than his pupil. Marcella was more docile ; yet her 
 own authority in such matters was so great, that she was 
 herself consulted from every part, like a doctor of the Church. 
 It was thus that she mainly contributed to the condemnation 
 of the disciples of Origen. 
 
 When Jerome came to Eome, Marcella was advancing in 
 life, and had been a widow for many years. Her husband 
 died in the seventh month of their marriage ; she was young, 
 and celebrated for the beauty of her person. Cerealis, an 
 old and wealthy consul, wished to marry her. Marcella re- 
 fused ; and to her mother, Albina, who observed that Cere- 
 alis being aged would not live long, and would leave her all 
 his property, she replied, — " If I wished to marry, I should 
 look for a husband, and not for an inheritance." 
 
 Marcella not only persisted in remaining single, but she 
 also became the first nun in Rome ; where monastic life was 
 much despised. She braved the general prejudice, and 
 founded a community of Roman virgins, devoted like her to 
 prayer, the study of the Scriptures, and the relief of the poor. 
 Paula was strengthened by her exhortations in the early part 
 of her widowhood, and for some time Eustochium lived un- 
 der her care. " What must have been the mistress who 
 made such disciples ?" exclaims St. Jerome. These ladies 
 did not remain satisfied with reading the Scriptures in a 
 Latin version ; they studied the original Hebrew, and ac- 
 quired rapidly the knowledge which had cost Jerome so 
 many days and nights of labor. He records that they sung 
 the psalms in Hebrew, without the least trace of a Latin 
 accent. 
 
 Fabiola, less learned, surpassed these illustrious ladies in 
 charity. She was descended and took her name from the 
 noble Fabian family. Her first husband was a heathen, and 
 a licentious man. Fabiola divorced him, and married an- 
 other. After the death of this second husband, she was 
 told that her last marriage, though legal, was contrary to 
 '2* 
 
34 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the precepts of the Gospel. With admirable humility, sift, 
 of her own accord, went to perform public penance, and 
 stood with other sinners, whom their errors excluded from 
 the sacred edifice, beneath the porch of one of the Roman 
 churches. From that time Fabiola forsook the world, and 
 edified Rome with her liberal charity. Jerome, in recording 
 her virtues after her death, styled her " the praise of the 
 Christians, the wonder of the Gentiles, the mourning of the 
 poor, and the consolation of the monks." 
 
 She founded the first hospital which had ever been known 
 in Rome. In that luxurious and magnificent city, public 
 liberality had until then been displayed in providing the cit- 
 izens with occasional distributions of corn, licentious amuse- 
 ments, and sanguinary shows. Fabiola served the sick with 
 her own hands ; she carried them on her shoulders, and 
 dressed wounds and sores which others had not even the 
 fortitude to contemplate. 
 
 The ancients had no love and but little mercy for suffering 
 humanity. Their ideal was one of glorious and godlike men 
 and women ; their pity, for heroic sorrows ; they despised 
 the poor and infirm as degraded beings. The change wrought 
 by Christian charity is one of the greatest triumphs the new 
 religion ever obtained. The long-contemned Lazarus of the 
 parable, a beggar and a leper, was now acknowledged as a 
 brother : he had once lived and died unheeded at the rich 
 man's 'door ; homes were now built to receive him, and the 
 daughters of his oppressor made themselves his servants. 
 
 Towards the close of her life, Fabiola collected all that 
 remained of her property, and uniting it with that of Com- 
 machius, son-in-law of her friend Paula — who, like her, was 
 exclusively devoted to good deeds — they erected near Ostia 
 a vast hospital, in which poor strangers were received and 
 entertained. She died there, poor herself, in the year 400. 
 
 Jerome and Paula were then both residing in separate 
 monasteries at Bethlehem. After the loss of two daughters, 
 whose death again nearly brought on her own — for she loved 
 passionately, and excessive grief was one of her infirmities — ■ 
 Paula resolved to leave Rome, and, like Jerome, to lead a 
 ' life of monastic solitude in Holy Land. Her daughter Pau- 
 lina was married ; her son Toxotius remained under the care 
 of relatives ; Eustochium agreed to accompany her mothei. 
 
PAULA. 35 
 
 Before her departure Paula divided the greater part of her 
 wealth amongst her children. They followed her to the wa- 
 ter-side, beseeching her not to go : the youth Toxotius wept 
 and clasped his hands in entreaty. Paula answered nothing, 
 but raised her eyes to heaven as if imploring strength. 
 When she had embarked, she refused to look at that shore 
 where the loved ones stood, and which she was never to be- 
 hold again. 
 
 In this journey to the East, the two Roman ladies visited 
 places famous in ancient classic lore and in sacred history : 
 the cell in the island of Pontia, where Flavia Domitilla had 
 spent her exile ; voluptuous Cyprus ; Antioch ; Sidon ; the 
 land of the Philistines ; Cesarea, the city of the apostles ; 
 Jerusalem ; Bethlehem ; the banks of the Jordan ; and ev- 
 ery spot, in city or wilderness, where Christ had once healed 
 the sick, or fed the hungry multitudes. Paula resolved to 
 fix her home in Bethlehem : with the remainder of her wealth 
 she built two monasteries ; one for men, where Jerome dwelt 
 — the other for women, where, with her daughter Eustochi- 
 um, she took up her abode. She also erected, on the road 
 leading to Bethlehem, hospitals for the sick and houses for 
 strangers, so that none might need shelter in the place where 
 Joseph and Mary had once sought for it in vain. 
 
 From his retreat Jerome continued to correspond with his 
 friends in Rome. Marcella still questioned him on scriptural 
 matters ; and so great was the renown of his knowledge, 
 that Aglasia and Hebidia, two ladies from the furthest end 
 of Gaul, sent a friend to Bethlehem for the express purpose 
 of submitting twenty-three scriptural questions to his deci- 
 sion. His epistles show that he tried to lure Marcella and 
 Fabiola away from Rome, with charming pictures of the 
 rural home their friends possessed in Bethlehem, where the 
 laborer and the reaper cheered their toil by singing the psalms 
 of David. He failed, but did not cease to remember the two 
 ladies with evident affection : friends who ask for copies of 
 his works are referred to Fabiola and to "Marcella, who 
 dwells on Mount Aventine." The end of the pious widow 
 w£« sad. The Goths of Alaric took and plundered Rome 
 in 410. They entered the house of Marcella, and enraged 
 at not finding treasures, which she had long before distrib- 
 uted amongst the poor, they beat and scourged her cruelly. 
 
36 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Marcella rejoiced in the cause of her sufferings : she thankea 
 God " that she had secured her wealth before, and that the 
 loss of the city had found her poor, and not made her so." 
 She did not long survive this event. 
 
 Paula had then been dead some time. After ruling her 
 monastery with much wisdom and charity for nearly twenty 
 years', she fell dangerously ill. Her end was serene and 
 beautiful. On the last day of her life, Jerome heard her 
 often repeating in a low tone verses from the psalms. He 
 asked if she suffered ; she replied in Greek, that she was 
 free from pain, and saw all things calm and peaceful. She 
 said no more, and as if already contemning every thing mortal, 
 she continued to repeat texts from Scripture until her last 
 breath. 
 
 The room and the monastery were filled with bishops, 
 priests, virgins, and monks ; yet when the saint expired, no 
 cries, no lamentations were heard ; but psalms were sung 
 aloud in the languages of many races. The palor of death 
 had not altered the beauty of Paula's countenance : grave 
 and majestic, she looked not dead, but sleeping. For three 
 days psalms were sung, in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Syriac, 
 around the corpse. Eustochium never left it. The mother 
 and daughter had had but one heart : for many years they 
 had never taken a meal or gone to sleep without one an- 
 other. Eustochium had nursed her mother through her ill- 
 ness with the tenderest care ; she now remained near her, 
 faithful to the last, kissing the closed eyes, and embracing 
 the body of her who had given her life. 
 
 On the third day, bishops carried Paula to the grave ; 
 other prelates accompanied, bearing lighted torches, and lead- 
 ing the singers. The poor and the widows were there too ; 
 and, even as in the days of Dorcas, they showed the garments 
 which she whom they named their mother had made " while 
 she was with them." She was buried in the church erected 
 on the spot, where, according to tradition, once stood the 
 humble dwelling in which Mary gave birth to the Saviour. 
 
 It is through Jerome that we know Paula. He loved her 
 very tenderly, and called her faults the virtues of others. 
 To console Eustochium, he wrote an account of her mother's 
 life, and touchingly explains how his own grief had long de- 
 layed and often interrupted the task. Paula died in 404, in 
 
MONICA, MOTHER OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 37 
 
 the fifty-sixth year of her age. Eustochium, who was cho- 
 sen abbess in her stead, died in 419, three years after her 
 monastery had been burned down by Pelagian heretics. 
 Jerome — who was much attached to her, and as a token of 
 respect for her sanctity and virtues, styled her " his lady 
 Eustochium" — did not long survive her. They were both 
 buried near Paula. Their empty tombs are still shown to 
 travellers in that now stationary land, where ages slowly 
 pass, and seem to leave no trace. 
 
 These Greek and Roman ladies whose lives we have briefly 
 recorded, exercised a public and domestic influence which it 
 is difficult to understand, without bearing in mind that pa- 
 ganism, though declining, was not yet conquered. Lseta, the 
 Christian wife of Toxotius, was the daughter of a priest of 
 Jupiter ; Paula, the younger, who afterwards became abbess 
 of the monastery of Bethlehem, was reared in a home where 
 heathen gods and Jesus Christ were both adored. She sang 
 Christian hymns in the arms of her pagan grandfather, and 
 lisped " Alleluia" in the midst of her childish endearments. 
 Jerome wrote an excellent letter to Lssta on the education 
 of this child : he recommended that she should be carefully 
 taught Greek and Latin literature. The education of women 
 who were to act as missionaries of the faith in their homes, 
 was no unimportant matter. Almost every one of the ladies 
 we have mentioned was learned as well as pious. Lseta was 
 one of the best beloved disciples of Jerome ; she emulated 
 the ardent charity of Paula, and finally converted her father 
 by the example of her many virtues. 
 
 We should, perhaps, have mentioned first, as earlier in 
 point of time, Marcellina, r the sister of St. Ambrose, and 
 Monica, the mother of St. Augustine. Of the former little 
 is known, save that she reared her brother, and was a pious 
 virgin. Monica has been admirably painted by her son. 
 
 It was probably in Tagasta, a small town of Numidia, 
 that the mother of Augustine was born, in 332, of Christian 
 parents, who reared their children in the fear and love of 
 God. An old nurse, who had often carried the father of 
 Monica on her shoulders during his infancy, was now intrust- 
 ed with the guardianship of his daughters. She was austere, 
 vigilant, and her authority was great. The young girls took 
 their meals at the frugal table of their parents ; they drank 
 
38 WOMEN OF CHEISTIANTTT. 
 
 no wine, and were allowed water but sparingly : their gov- 
 erness would never let them drink between their meals, 
 howsoever great their thirst might be. When they begged 
 hard for just one cup, the severe monitress inflexibly re- 
 plied, " Now you want water because you cannot have wine ; 
 but when you are married, and mistresses of the cellar, you 
 will despise water, and yet the habit of drinking will stick 
 to you." 
 
 As Monica grew up, her parents, confiding in all the les- 
 sons of temperance she had received, intrusted her with the 
 task of daily fetching from the cellar the quantity of wine 
 needed for the family. After filling her flask from the cup 
 which she had dipped in the cask for that purpose, Monica 
 could not resist the temptation of taking a sup, just to see 
 how it tasted. She disliked it, but found it more palatable 
 on the following day, and still more pleasant as she went on ; 
 she ended by liking it so well, that in the end she could drink 
 off a cupful easily. This secret habit was fortunately checked 
 by a quarrel with a maid-servant who accompanied her 
 young mistress to the cellar, and who, in the heat of her re- 
 sentment, rather disrespectfully called her " drinker of pure 
 wine." The insult stung so deeply the proud soul of the 
 young girl, that from that day she observed the most exact 
 temperance. 
 
 Soon after this Monica received baptism, and being of 
 marriageable age, was given by her parents to a citizen of 
 Tagasta ; an idolater, but a man of probity and honor. Such 
 unions, though censured by the most devout, were not un- 
 common ; and never was the precept, " Wives, submit your- 
 selves unto your husbands, as unto the Lord," more faith- 
 fully followed than by this Christian wife of an idolatrous 
 husband. Monica sought to convert him by the example of 
 her own purity, patience, and gentleness ; and the conver- 
 sion was sadly needed. Patricius was hasty in temper and 
 licentious in habits, yet he never once heard an impatient or 
 reproachful word in his home : if he blamed her unjustly, 
 Monica heard the reproof in silence, waited until his anger 
 was exhausted, and then calmly justified her conduct. When 
 ladies of Tagasta, whose husbands bore more likeness to Pa- 
 tricius than they to Monica, came to her with the marks of 
 ; Jll-usage on their faces, and complained bitterly of the vices 
 
MONICA, MOTHEB OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 39 
 
 and violence of those to whom they had been united, Monica 
 scrupled not to say, " Lay the blame rather on your own 
 tongues ;" then with an appearance of pleasantry, under 
 which she hid her' perfectly serious meaning, she added, 
 " Kemember that when your marriage contract was read to 
 you, you heard the contract of your servitude. Forget not 
 then what you are, and strive not against your masters." 
 
 Few obeyed the austere and humble counsel. Four ages 
 of Christianity had nearly elapsed, and woman had still only 
 the choice of evils : submission to the caprices of a tyran- 
 nical and licentious master, or ill usage. Need we then 
 wonder at those crowds of virgins and widows to whom 
 their vows of chastity gave honor amongst men, and the 
 freedom of hearts that owned no master save God ? Alas ! 
 it was not always divine love that filled the cloisters of the 
 olden time, and gave, for ages, so many brides to heaven. 
 
 Monica had three children — Augustine, another son, and 
 a daughter, who died an abbess. Augustine was born in 
 354, and immediately numbered among the catechumens by 
 receiving on his forehead the sign of the cross, and on his 
 lips the mysterious and symbolic salt : infant baptism was 
 not then in use. Spite of his many faults, Patricius loved 
 his wife and children. Proud of the dawning genius of his 
 eldest son, he strained his means to give him a good educa- 
 tion ; even the devout Monica, growing somewhat worldly 
 for the sake of her favorite child, shared all his eagerness on 
 this subject. Augustine was sent to the neighboring town 
 of Madaura, to study belles-lettres and eloquence ; he sub- 
 sequently prosecuted his studies at Carthage, amidst all the 
 dangers and the dissipation of a great city. Monica, in 
 earnest and touching language, begged of him to lead a 
 pure life, and above all never to attempt to seduce a mar- 
 ried woman. In his Confessions the penitent saint acknowl- 
 edges that he listened to her impatiently, and held her advice 
 mere" woman's talk, which he would have been ashamed to 
 heed or obey. , 
 
 Patricius died in 371. For a year he had wholly relin- 
 quished his dissolute courses, received baptism, and lived 
 like a sincere Christian. The father rose from his slough, 
 but the son fell : he became the slave of his passions, re- 
 nounced the Catholic faith, in which he had been brought 
 
40 WOMEN OF CHEKTIAKITT. 
 
 up, and embraced the creed- of the Manicheans ; who con- 
 tended for the existence of two first principles, one good, the 
 other evil. Yet in the midst of all his errors, Augustine 
 continued to display that admirable genius which stamps 
 every thing he has left and written with a lofty and eloquent 
 tenderness. To relieve his mother from the expenses of his 
 education he opened a school of grammar and rhetoric in 
 Tagasta. 
 
 Monica mourned over him with deep and yearning grief. 
 Shocked at his blasphemies, she would no longer allow him 
 to reside under her roof, or to sit at her table ; but she wept 
 and prayed for him incessantly. Her dreams became the 
 image of her waking thoughts. One of those nightly visions 
 comforted her greatly : she saw herself sorrowfully standing 
 alone on a rule of wood, when a youth, radiant with light, 
 came up and asked her why she wept. When she answered 
 that it was for the soul of her fallen son, he bade her look 
 well, for that where she was she should see Augustine. 
 She looked round, and beheld him standing on the same rule 
 of wood with her. "When she mentioned this dream to Au- 
 gustine, he slighted it, and endeavored to interpret it in the 
 sense that his mother would adopt his creed, and not that 
 he should return to hers. " No, not so," very promptly re- 
 plied Monica, " for it was not said to me, where he is you 
 also are, but he is where you are." The quickness of the 
 answer struck her son more than the dream itself; which, 
 however, gave her so much hope that she once more allowed 
 him to dwell in her house. 
 
 For nine years Augustine persisted in his dissolute life and 
 false faith, Monica prayed for him, and omitted no human 
 means of bringing him over to her belief. A certain bishop, 
 urged by her to come and argue with him, discreetly re- 
 fused, and said he would himself end by finding out the 
 truth ; but as Monica persisted, and with fervent entreaties 
 and many tears besought him to make at least the attempt, 
 he replied, as if weary of her importunities, " Continue as 
 you have begun ; surely the son of so many tears cannot 
 perish." Struck with his words, Monica took them as a 
 prophecy, and insisted no more. 
 
 The weariness of the world and its pleasures, of life and 
 its aims — nay, of the heart itself, and of all its promised de- 
 
MONICA, MOTHER OF SI. AUGUSTINE. 41 
 
 lights, is no new sorrow : it clings to humanity as the bitter- 
 est portion of the curse which fell on Adam and his posteri- 
 ty. This curse overtook Augustine, in spite of his fame, 
 genius, and pleasures. His dearest friend died ; the guilty 
 love in which he had indulged for years was imbittered by 
 quarrels and jealousies ; fame when won seemed worthless ; 
 his very belief failed him, and no other faith came to fill the 
 void of soul and heart. He was scarcely thirty ; yet, in the 
 strength of manhood and prime of life, the sweetness of ex- 
 istence was over, and nothing seemed left to quaff but the 
 bitter dregs of the once enchanting cup. Wearied of Africa, 
 he resolved to go to Rome. Monica was filled with grief. 
 The shadow which darkened the days of the erring son, had 
 fallen lightly on the pure life of the mother : patient beneath 
 her hard destiny, she had made the happiness of life consist 
 in the peace of home, and its ambition in the aspirations of 
 her soul to God. Her heart still owned one human tie — her 
 children. She followed Augustine to the sea-side, hoping 
 that her tears would induce him to remain, or to take' her 
 with him. He wished to do neither ; but she kept so close 
 on his steps, that he was compelled to deceive the love he 
 could not shake off. He assured her that in going on board 
 he only meant to bid farewell to a friend, with whom he 
 wished to remain to the last moment. The distrustful 
 mother wept, and clung to his garments ; at length she was 
 persuaded to pass the night in a chapel consecrated to the 
 memory of St. Cyprian. It stood on the shore, not far from 
 the spot where the vessel lay at anchor. Whilst she spent 
 the night in vigil and prayer, the ship set sail. Dawning 
 day found her in the little oratory, and her son far away on 
 the' waters. She returned, sad and alone, to her home in 
 Tagasta. 
 
 From Rome, Augustine proceeded to Milan; where his 
 mother joined him ere long, braving the terrors of a long 
 voyage to see him again. A great joy awaited her : after a 
 long and bitter struggle, Augustine cast off the trammels of 
 his former passions, until his soul at length stood pure and 
 free before God, confessing the faith of Christ, and rejoicing 
 in its liberty. Soon after nis conversion, which he has him- 
 self admirably related in the memorable " Confessions," 
 Augustine gave up the school of rhetoric which he held at 
 
42 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Milan, and retired to a country house at Cassiacorum, lent 
 to him by one of his friends. Monica, his brother, two of 
 his late pupils, and some friends, accompanied him. In this 
 quiet retreat, devoting themselves to prayer, contemplation, 
 and social converse, they spent that most pleasant part of the 
 year in -southern climates, the warm and genial vintage-time. 
 
 When the little household had prayed together, Augustine 
 and his friends walked forth to enjoy the cool morning time. 
 Monica remained within, engaged in household tasks. She 
 however shared in the religious and literary conferences, of 
 which some have been preserved by her son ; he speaks 
 with admiration of her remarks, and of her firm and manly 
 heart, strong in its faith. After the baptism of St. Augus- 
 tine, this little society resolved to embark for Africa, and 
 seek a home where they might all live together in religious 
 and philosophic retirement. They began their journey in 
 the autumn of 387, and stopped at Ostia, near the mouth of 
 the Tiber, whence they thought to embark. Here Monica 
 suddenly sickened and died. 
 
 The pages in which Augustine records the last hours and 
 aspirations of this noble woman are amongst the best he ever 
 wrote ; they breathe the very spirit of tenderness and prayer. 
 But they must be read with what preceded : taken apart, 
 the style seems peculiar and obscure — scarcely any thing of 
 the charm remains. " The day now approaching wherein 
 she was to depart this life," writes Augustine, *' it came to 
 pass that she and I stood alone in a certain window, which 
 looked into the garden of the house where we now lay at 
 Ostia ; and where, removed from the din of men, we were 
 recruiting from the fatigues of a long journey for the voyage. 
 We were discoursing then together, alone, very sweetly ; 
 and forgetting the past in the future, we were inquiring be- 
 tween ourselves of what sort the eternal life of the saints 
 was to be, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath 
 it entered into the heart of man to conceive. But yet we 
 longed with all our hearts after those heavenly streams of 
 the fountain of life, that we might in some sort meditate upon 
 so high a mystery. And then our discourse was brought to 
 that point, that the very highest delights of the earthly 
 senses, in the very purest material light, were, in respect of 
 *-he sweetness of that life, not only not worthy of comparison, 
 
MONICA, MOTHER OP ST. AUGUSTINE. 4:3 
 
 but not even of mention. Raising ourselves with a more 
 fervent affection towards the eternal, we passed by degrees 
 through all corporeal things ; even the very heavens, whence 
 sun, and moon, and stars shine upon the earth : yea, we 
 were soaring higher yet, by inward musing and discourse, 
 and admiring of Thy works ; and we came to our own minds, 
 and went beyond them, that we might arrive at that region 
 of never-failing plenty, where Thou feedest Israel forever 
 with the food of truth." 
 
 Thus soaring in spirit, they sought to imagine how it would 
 be if the tumult of the senses, and all they perceive of the 
 soul herself and her imaginings, were suddenlyjiushed : if 
 God spoke to her not through external signs, angel's voice, 
 or mysterious parable, but in living reality. Then compar- 
 ing her state to that rapid thought which for a moment had 
 raised them so high, they found that this bliss of intellect 
 and love surpassed all other, and they placed eternal happi- 
 ness in the mere presence of the divinity. 
 
 " As we spake," adds Augustine, " this world with all its 
 delights became contemptible to us. My mother said, ' Son, 
 for mine own part, I have no further delight in any thing in 
 this life. What I do here any longer, and to what end I am 
 here, I know not, now that my hopes in this world are ac- 
 complished. One thing there was for which I desired to 
 linger for a while in this life — that I might see thee a Cath- 
 olic Christian before I died. My God hath done this for 
 me, and more ; since I now see thee despising earthly hap- 
 piness, and become his servant : what, then do I here ?' " 
 
 Five or six days after this, Monica was seized with a fever. 
 Recovering from a fainting fit, she said to her sons, " You 
 will bury your mother here." The brother of Augustine, 
 knowing with what care she had formerly prepared her own 
 grave near that of Patricius, seemed to deplore that she 
 should die and sleep in a foreign land. Monica chid him, 
 and bidding both her sons lay her body wherever she died, 
 and not trouble themselves about it, she added but one re- 
 quest, " that they should remember her before the altar of 
 the Lord." 
 
 On the ninth day of her illness, and in the fifty-sixth year 
 of her age, Monica died. " I closed her eyes," writes Au- 
 gustine, " and there flowed withal a mighty sorrow into my 
 
44 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 heart.'' Time brought consolation, but not forgetfulnp«s. 
 It is strange and touching, after so many ages have passed 
 away, to read the request which he addresses to all those 
 who may peruse his Confessions, " that at the altar of God 
 they may remember Monica, and Patricius her husband ;" 
 that so his mother's last request may be, "through the 
 prayers of many, more abundantly fulfilled to her." 
 
 We have lingered too long, perhaps, over this life of a 
 simple woman of the fourth century. Her existence was 
 calm and domestic ; happy because her soul was with God. 
 Such as it was we give it, as one of the last glimpses of the 
 sphere within which woman's hopes grew and died, or blos- 
 somed into immortality, until the great Barbarian invasion 
 shattered to pieces the foundations of the old world ; and, 
 in the midst of seeming ruin, laid the seeds of that other 
 civilization which has not yet run its course of ages. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Christian Princesses from the Fourth to the Fifth Century — Helena — 
 Constantia — Flacilla— Puleheria and her Sisters — Story of Athenais. 
 
 The conversion of Constantine the Great to Christianity, 
 in the early part of the fourth century, introduced a series 
 of religious princesses, who differed more honorably from 
 their predecessors on the throne, than their Christian hus- 
 bands or fathers differed from the degenerate Csesars whom 
 they replaced. 
 
 First, and (save Puleheria) greatest, was the Empress 
 Helena, the mother of Constantine. She was the daughter 
 of a British king, according to some authorities — of an inn- 
 keeper at Tarsus, according to others : she was certainly a 
 pious and munificent princess, who, though converted to 
 Christianity in old age, left, and deserved to leave, the name 
 of a great saint. Her grand-daughter, Constantia, inherited 
 her fervent piety. Mlia, Flacilla, the gentle and worthy wife 
 of Theodosius the Great, endeared herself to her husband 
 and his subjects by many virtues. The beautiful and impe- 
 
PULCHERIA. 45 
 
 rious Eudocia, who persecuted St. John Chrysostom with 
 relentless hatred, had three daughters of eminent piety. 
 The eldest, jElia Pulcheria Augusta, has left a name the 
 more worthy of record for appearing as it does through the 
 slow degeneracy of the Eastern empire, then ruled by imbe- 
 cile emperors and insolent eunuchs. 
 
 Virgin, empress, and saint, Pulcheria imparted to her long 
 sway the prudence, wisdom, and gentleness of her own char- 
 acter. Mildness was one of her favorite virtues ; but in the 
 hour of need she could be both firm and vigorous. " She 
 alone," justly observes Gibbon, " among all the descendants 
 of the great Theodosius, appears to have inherited any share 
 of his manly spirit and abilities." Her father, Arcadius, died 
 in 408. Pulcheria was then about nine years of age : she 
 had two younger sisters, Arcadia and Marina, and a brother 
 a year younger than herself, Theodosius the Second. An- 
 themius, his tutor and minister, governed the empire in his 
 name for a few years. 
 
 The precocious wisdom and talents of Pulcheria were so 
 remarkable, that in 414, when she was little more than fif- 
 teen years of age, she was, in the name of her brother, de- 
 clared Augusta and his partner in the imperial dignity ; and 
 from that day she governed the" empire, and superintended 
 the education of Theodosius. 
 
 A child in years, a woman in gravity and wisdom, Pul- 
 cheria seemed to have passed unscathed through that ardent 
 period of life, which gathers within a space so brief, hopes, 
 dreams, and feelings enough to agitate a whole existence. 
 Her very piety was calm : the unquiet thoughts which so 
 often trouble the devotion of fervent hearts were unknown 
 to the youthful Augusta. Serene without coldness, she 
 seemed to temper her actions, and even her feelings, with 
 the sedate majesty of her rank. 
 
 One of her first acts as Augusta was very characteristic. 
 She knew and dreaded the evils which foreign alliances en- 
 tailed upon the State, and she resolved not to marry : her 
 piety, though quiet, was deep ; it rendered self-denial easy, 
 and her firm mind could contemplate without fear a life of 
 solitude and liberty. With the natural ascendency of an in- 
 tellect both calm and strong, Pulcheria induced her two sis- 
 ters to follow her example. In the presence of the clergy 
 
46 WOMKN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and of the people, the three youthful sisters of Theodosius 
 solemnly consecrated themselves to God. Pulcheria caused 
 their vow to be inscribed in large letters on a gold tablet 
 adorned with precious stones, which was publicly offered in 
 the great church of Constantinople. •> 
 
 The imperial palace now became as secluded and as sa- 
 cred as a monastery. To authorize no suspicions, howsoever 
 slight or groundless, the princesses received no men in their 
 private apartments : it was recorded of Pulcheria that she 
 never spoke to any man, save in public or open places. The 
 three imperial virgins had no other society than that of the 
 chosen maidens with whom they formed a sort of religious 
 community. Their attire was simple and without ornament ; 
 they lived frugally, and fasted often ; they divided- their 
 time between useful studies and light works of embroidery, 
 and devoted several hours of the day and night to prayer 
 and psalmody. They were assiduous in their public devo- 
 tions, and liberal in their alms to the poor. One feeling ani- 
 mated them : they ate, worked, and prayed together, and 
 whatever they did was marked with all the unity of religious 
 and sisterly love. The only difference in the condition of 
 the three sisters was, that Pulcheria alone ruled the State — 
 a difference which Arcadia and Marina, conscious of her su- 
 periority, bore with modest humility. They were not Au- 
 gustae, like their sister, but nobilissimse — " most noble." 
 They lived with ascetic simplicity, but were called queens, 
 and knew how to keep up royal dignity. Arcadia erected 
 at her own expense the public baths of Constantinople, 
 which took from her the name of Arcadian. 
 
 Pulcheria was excellently adapted to the exercise of that 
 power which she had neither received nor taken, but which 
 had been tacitly relinquished to her ; and which she had as 
 tacitly assumed, because she alone, of all the members of 
 the imperial family, was equal to its duties. She transacted 
 the affairs of the State with dispatch and indefatigable ac- 
 tivity. Her extensive learning, her familiar knowledge of 
 the Greek and Latin tongues, the elegance with which she 
 could use both these languages on all the occasions of speak- 
 ing or writing on public business — gave both ease and dig- 
 nity to the exercise of her extensive power. But prudence 
 still remained her great characteristic : in all her difficulties 
 
PtJLCHEEIA. 47 
 
 she prayed to Heaven for the aid of good counsel, then re- 
 flected maturely, and consulted -with her ministers. Her 
 measures were slowly conceived, but were cai-ried out with 
 promptness and decision. She took little or no honor to 
 heiself, and always acted in the name of her brother ; to 
 whom she ascribed the peace and prosperity of his long 
 reign. 
 
 The education of Theodosius was one of her most import- 
 ant and least successful tasks. Pulcheria gave him the best 
 masters ; surrounded him with youths who were to share 
 his studies and excite his emulation ; and judiciously alter- 
 nated his more serious pursuits with manly and military ex- 
 ercises. To herself she carefully reserved the task of instruct- 
 ing him in those arts of government, which her clear and 
 vigorous understanding had learned without a master. But 
 Theodosius the Younger, like his weak father, Arcadius, was 
 made to be governed. Hunting, painting, carving, and the 
 transcribing of manuscripts, were the only occupations for 
 which he showed any taste. He had the piety without the 
 talents or energy of his sister. Yet he was chaste, temper- 
 ate and so merciful of heart, that he pardoned every crimi- 
 nal who implored his pity. When Pulcheria censured this 
 indiscriminate mercy, "Ah! sister," replied Theodosius, "it 
 is easy to make a man die, but God alone can bring him 
 back to life." 
 
 It was only to exercise this amiable leniency that the 
 young emperor interfered in the government of his domin- 
 ions : all the real burden of ruling the State, therefore, fell 
 on Pulcheria. The only relaxations which she sought were 
 such as became the grave and austere devotion of a virgin 
 consecrated to heaven. Unless when urgent business de- 
 tained her, she always shared the pious exercises of her sis- 
 ters, and devoted several hours of the day to the attentive 
 study of the holy Scriptures. Such was her thirst of the 
 divine word that she often forsook her lonely couch, consist- 
 ing of a few boards covered over with a carpet, and pursued 
 her uninterrupted studies through the silent night. Ages 
 separate us from Pulcheria ; the language which she spoke 
 has died away, the empire which she ruled has long been 
 fallen ; but even through the lapse of centuries, the mind 
 can look back and greet the pure vision of the virgin em- 
 
4:8 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 press, forgetting sleep for 'wisdom, and sitting up -alone to 
 meditate on the word of God. 
 
 Like her sisters, Pulcheria was liberal in her alms to the 
 poor. The praise of the historian, who asserted that the 
 generosity of the three sisters of Theodosius had banished 
 mendicity from his empire, may be exaggerated ; but it is 
 honorable to have rendered such praise probable. Gibbon 
 acknowledges that in Pulcheria " the piety of a Christian 
 virgin was adorned by the zeal and liberality of an empress. 
 Ecclesiastical history describes the splendid churches which 
 were built at the expense of Pulcheria in all the provinces 
 of the East ; her charitable foundations for the benefit of 
 strangers and the poor ; the ample donations which she 
 assigned for the perpetual maintenance of monastic societies ; 
 and the active severity with which she labored to suppress 
 the opposite heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches." 
 
 The romantic marriage of Theodosius displays the kind 
 and liberal feelings of Pulcheria — austere for herself, but to 
 others indulgent. "When the emperor reached his twentieth 
 year, he asked his sister to find him a bride, " a virgin of 
 loyal or patrician blood, more beautiful than all the maidens 
 af Constantinople ;" he confessed, however, that beauty was 
 much more important than a noble or royal origin. None 
 of the noble maidens whom Pulcheria, with a view to her 
 brother, had caused to be brought up in the palace, answered 
 his expectations ; she accordingly requested Paulinus, the 
 friend of Theodosius, to look out for such a young girl as her 
 brother wished to find. 
 
 Whilst Paulinus was engaged in this search, there died at 
 Athens a heathen sophist, named Leontius. He bequeathed 
 every thing he possessed to his two sons, and to his daughter, 
 Athenais, left only a hundred pieces of money ; declaring 
 that he gave her no more, "because her learning and beauty, 
 which raised her above her sex, were in themselves a suffi- 
 cient fortune." Athenais was then twenty-seven years of 
 age ; but she was beautiful and very learned : her father had 
 instructed her in literature, in all the philosophy of the 
 schools, besides geometry, astronomy, and eloquence. This 
 eloquence proved fruitless when she besought her brothers 
 to give her a share in their father's inheritance : they turned 
 her out of doors; and Athenais, having no, other remedy, 
 
PULCHEEIA — EUDOCIA. 49 
 
 came to Constantinople and appealed to the empress. Her 
 beauty, unblemished name, and accomplishments, impressed 
 Pulcheria so favorably, that she promised to protect her : 
 as an earnest of her favor she received her at once into the 
 palace. 
 
 On the following day Pulcheria said to her brother : " I 
 have found a maiden of pure morals ; her brow is well 
 formed ; her hair curled and golden. She has fine eyes, 
 a straight nose, a fair complexion, grace in every motion, 
 and a modest bearing. She is a Greek, a virgin, and very 
 learned." This categorical description inflamed Theodosius. 
 His passion increased when, hidden by a drapery, he beheld 
 the beautiful stranger conversing with his sister. Athenais 
 was a heathen, but the prospect of a throne readily made 
 her a Christian. Pulcheria instructed her herself, caused 
 her to be baptized under the name of Eudocia, and, though 
 the younger of the two by some years, adopted her as her 
 daughter. Eudocia was married to Theodosius in 421. 
 Two years later she gave birth to a daughter, and was 
 raised to the rank of Augusta. Thus was realized a fortune 
 far more splendid than any which the Athenian sophist could 
 have foreseen for his daughter. 
 
 The only vengeance which Eudocia took of her unkind 
 brothers, was to call them to court and raise them to the 
 rank of prsefects and consuls. Those studies and sciences 
 which had charmed her youth in the solitude of her Athe- 
 nian home, were still dear to her in the imperial palace of 
 Constantinople. She paraphrased in verse the first eight 
 books of the Old Testament, and the prophecies of Daniel 
 and Zachariah. She also wrote a life of St. Cyprian, and 
 composed a panegyric on the Persian victories of Theodosius. 
 To these productions may be added a singular life of Christ, 
 composed from verses of Homer : a common practice in 
 that degenerate age. In the year 428, Eudocia undertook 
 a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her progress through the East 
 was marked by. ostentatious magnificence. Seated on a 
 throne of gold and gems, she pronounced, before the senate 
 of Antioch, an eloquent oration, in which she gloried in 
 sharing with them the blood of the Greek. She promised 
 to enlarge the walls of Antioch, gave a considerable sum to 
 restore the public baths, and accepted the statues which the 
 
 3 
 
50 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 grateful city erected in her honor. When she reached the 
 gates of Jerusalem, Melania, the younger, came forth to 
 meet her ; and the empress received the saint with every 
 token of esteem and respect. After displaying throughout 
 all Holy Land a zeal and munificence in charitable gifts and 
 pious foundations which exceeded even the far-famed liber- 
 ality of Helena, Eudocia returned in triumph to Constanti- 
 nople. 
 
 The passionate fondness of the emperor for his wife in- 
 creased with time ; her influence at length superseded that 
 of his sister, who had continued to govern the State with her 
 usual zeal and prudence. Pulcheria has been accused of 
 ambition and love of power ; unjustly, we think ; she ruled 
 because the indolent emperor was unfit to rule, even in the 
 simplest things. She injured herself to rouse him from this 
 disgraceful apathy. Theodosius never read the papers which 
 he signed daily ; after many useless remonstrances, Pulcheria 
 at length offered for her brother's signature a document by 
 which he sold to her his wife. Shortly afterwards, Theodo- 
 sius sent for the empress, who was then in the apartment of 
 his sister ; Pulcheria refused to let her go, and proved to her 
 brother that he had sold Eudocia to her to be her slave. 
 This practical lesson did not please Theodosius, and greatly 
 offended his wife. 
 
 Eudocia had not a generous heart : she forgot how much 
 she owed to her benefactress, and urged her husband to 
 banish her from his court by forcibly conferring on her the 
 rank of deaconess. It was then no uncommon practice to 
 exclude thus from the world, women of rank who were 
 found to be in the way. No less ungrateful than his wife, 
 Theodosius consented : he summoned Flavian, bishop of 
 Constantinople, and ordered him to make Pulcheria dea- 
 coness, by the imposition of hands. Flavian refused, and 
 privately sent word to Pulcheria to keep out of his way, 
 lest he should be compelled to do that which might dis- 
 please her ; she took the hint, and, leaving the palace, retired 
 to a country-seat in the plains of Hebdomon. This happened 
 in the year 447. Marina and Arcadia had both been dead 
 some time. 
 
 Eudocia was superior in learning to Pulcheria, but she 
 had neither her wisdom nor her experience. Her rule was 
 
PULCHEEIA — ETJDOCIA. 51 
 
 marked by the greatest disorders, both civil and religious , 
 it was brief. Theodosius, notwithstanding the mature age 
 of his wife, suddenly became jealous of her, and accused 
 her of a criminal intrigue with his bosom-friend Paulinus. 
 In the' heat of his resentment, he publicly separated from 
 the empress ; and, forgetting the clemency of his youth, 
 caused Paulinus to be put to death. Eudocia took a second 
 pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where she died in 460, solemnly 
 protesting her .innocence. 
 
 Pulcheria learned in her solitude the fall of Eudocia ; but 
 it required the heresy of the Eutychians and the entreaties 
 of Pope Leo to make her come to court. She saw her 
 brother, and spoke to him with so much force on the sub- 
 ject of his religious errors, and on the evils of the govern- 
 ment of eunuchs which he sanctioned, that, yielding to her 
 old influence, he restored her at once to her former power. 
 He died soon after this in the year 450. Pulcheria was 
 unanimously proclaimed empress of the East, and was thus 
 the first woman to whose publicly recognized sway the 
 Romans submitted. With a wisdom worthy of admiration, 
 and an entire freedom from that ambitious vanity ascribed to 
 woman, Pulcheria, instead of centering the power of the 
 State in her own hands, resolved to share it with Marcian, an 
 excellent general and statesman ; and moreover a zealous 
 Christian, eminent for his piety to God and his charity to 
 the poor. The empress was then fifty-one, Marcian was 
 sixty-five, and a widower ; Pulcheria offered to give him her 
 hand and raise him to the throne, provided he would agree 
 to consider himself only her nominal husband. Marcian 
 readily consented : they were married, and for three years 
 these two great souls governed the empire in concert, and 
 directed all their thoughts and efforts towards the public 
 weal. Their union remained unbroken until the death of 
 Pulcheria, on the 10th of September of the year 453. Mar- 
 cian, who survived her four years, then remained sole master 
 of the empire. 
 
 The end of Pulcheria was calm, and worthy of a life so 
 noble and so dignified. Death had been one of the points 
 of her daily meditation for many years : it found her pre- 
 pared, as Christian and as sovereign, to go and surrender 
 her long acdount to God. The poor, whom she had faith- 
 
52 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 fully assisted in Her lifetime, were the heirs to -whom she 
 bequeathed all her riches and possessions. The name of 
 saint has long been bestowed on her by both Greeks and 
 Latins ; and Pope Benedict XIV. (called the Protestant 
 Pope, on account of the little respect which he showed for 
 many names in th.3 calendar), always professed a singular 
 veneration for St. Pulcheria. 
 
 A calmer glory than that which has rendered the names 
 of the Elizabeths and Catherines of later years so celebrated, 
 lingers around the gentle memory of the Greek princess. 
 She made no foreign conquests ; she did not extend the 
 limits of the empire, but she preserved it in peace and 
 prosperity : her prudence warned off misfortune ; her jus- 
 tice prevented rebellion. Like the wise virgins of the Gos- 
 pel, Pulcheria carefully guarded the lamp that was to guide 
 her steps to the heavenly bridegroom : . human passions nev- 
 er extinguished its pure flame, or darkened it with that be- 
 setting sin of the austere and the chaste — spiritual pride. 
 Whilst she embraced a life of solitude — the ideal type of 
 female purity — she forgot not humility, that other chosen 
 virtue of woman. The even flow of her days, the sedate 
 gravity of her character and actions, gave little scope to the 
 details in which biography finds its deepest charm ; but 
 there is high moral beauty in this calmness and repose of a 
 life spent on a throne, amidst all the agitation inseparable 
 from the government of a large empire. We read in that 
 deep peace, the thoughtful wisdom which ruled Pulcheria, 
 from her early vow of virginity to her late marriage with 
 Mareian ; and the wisdom which springs from motives so 
 excellent and so pure, is surely virtue before God. 
 
 Here closes all that seemed to us most worthy of record 
 in the history of Christian women for the first five ages of 
 their faith. They were eminent for fervor in the days of the 
 martyrs, and for learning and charity in the calmer times 
 which followed. Elegant and dignified as became the pa- 
 trician daughters of an ancient civilization, they stand essen- 
 tially apart from the barbarian princesses, and not always 
 gentle nuns, of succeeding ages. 
 
 Calm Monicas, dwelling in austere homes, where some- 
 thing of Greek elegance and old Roman virtue still lingers ; 
 mild and yet impassioned Paulas ; Fabiolas, great in charity ; 
 
CLOSE OF THE FIEST PEKIOD. 53 
 
 imperial and learned Pulcherias, shall no longer rise before 
 us. Through the wild passions, brutality, and ignorance of 
 barbarian races, must the native spirituality of woman now 
 assert its claims. Long banished and oppressed, it shall 
 dwell apart and seek convent , solitudes ; . until awakens, 
 after centuries of gloom, the impassioned adoration of the 
 middle ages ; when, for the sake of her who bore Jesus, 
 every woman is dear and sacred to the heart of Christian 
 chivalry. 
 
PERIOD THE SECOND —THE MIDDLE AGES, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ijivilizing influence of Woman — Power of Genevieve — Early Converts — 
 Spirit of Proselytism — Clotildis — Bertha. — Ethelberga— Necessity of 
 Convents — Kadegonde — Hilda — Bertilla — Bathildis. 
 
 A long period of rude and ignorant barbarism followed 
 the decline of Roman power. Then seemed ready to perish 
 all that the old world had through ages gathered of learn- 
 ing and civilization. Wilder and far more ungovernable 
 passions than those which had ever troubled the republics 
 of Greece or Rome, decided the fate of races and empires. 
 
 Happily for the modern world, there still existed many 
 principles to prevent total degradation. Christianity, wo- 
 men, and monasteries, though with many degrees between, 
 exerted their respective influence. Christianity — we speak 
 now without reference to its divine origin — stood, a great 
 spiritual and moral power, in the very stronghold of the 
 barbarian world : women, who were themselves raised by 
 religion, softened and refined men ; whilst convents were 
 even as an ark where the studious took refuge, and which 
 carried down through many a stormy sea the venerable 
 classic lore of past ages. Many other causes no doubt 
 tended to modify the primitive rudeness and ferocity of the 
 barbarians, who had invaded Europe and triumphed over 
 Rome ; but it neither lies within our scope, nor is it our in- 
 tention, to dwell upon them here. 
 
 We have already said, and we must repeat, that the wo- 
 men of whom we are going to speak have little in common 
 with the early Greek and Roman converts to Christianity. 
 From them we are descended, but what we are they were 
 not : religion to them was more than the exercise of gentle 
 and feminine virtues ; . it helped them to subdue passions in 
 ill their native strength, and which the stern and degrading 
 
CIVILIZING INFLUENCE OF WOMAN. 55 
 
 bondage of their masters had failed to tame. The blood 
 which flowed in the veins of the daughters and mothers of 
 the primitive and warlike nations could not be either calm 
 or slow. Women have little share in the history of those 
 times ; but when they do act, what perfect embodiments 
 they seem of the virtues, vices, and crimes of their race ! 
 The women of Sparta or Lacedasmon never showed a spirit 
 more indomitable than those Gaulish matrons, who, on see- 
 ing their army defeated, murdered their children, and hung 
 themselves from their chariots, sooner than fall into the 
 hands of the Romans. We may search ancient or modern 
 tragedy for a destiny and death more heroic than that of 
 Boadicea, or for .a hatred more relentless than the fierce con- 
 test of Brunehaut and Fredegonde, the two Frank queens. 
 
 Religion did not at once cool this ardent spirit — it rather 
 modified than subdued it ; and we must remember that the 
 modification was slow. The progress of Christianity owes 
 much, however, to these women. They embraced it for 
 reasons similar to those which had instinctively impelled the 
 first Christian converts, and which in their case were ren- 
 dered more powerful by their degraded condition, their ig- 
 norance, and the harshness with which they were treated. 
 To those whom this world has not favored, the glorious 
 promises of the next will ever be most dear. Excluded 
 from active and intellectual life, despised and oppressed in 
 their homes, the barbarian women took refuge in a faith 
 which soothes the heart and elevates the soul. They had 
 little personal influence, and thus their action was not per- 
 ceived at first ; but the virtues of Christianity, purity, tem- 
 perance, forgiveness, and resignation were essentially femi- 
 nine virtues : they were more easily practised by women 
 than by men ; and this gave to the weaker sex a moral su- 
 periority over the stronger one, which is visible even through 
 the primitive rudeness of those dark ages. 
 
 Christianity had early penetrated into Gaul ; it had there 
 resisted the pagan worship of Rome, and with time it con- 
 quered the ruder idolatry of the barbarians, whose lawless 
 power superseded the rule, civilized, though stern, which 
 had once spread over the whole western world. The north- 
 ' ern invaders oppressed their women, but they recognized in 
 them something divine. This impression was strengthened 
 
56 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 by the pure and moral dignity they witnessed in those who 
 had embraced the Christian faith. The Velledas and Druid 
 priestesses of Germany and Gaul prepared the way for 
 women of power as great, and of inspiration far more pure. 
 
 In the course of the fifth century, Genevieve, a simple 
 shepherd girl of Nanterre, near Paris, was revered as the 
 earthly providence of the city ; which afterwards chose hes 
 for its heavenly patroness. Her charity in times of fever, 
 famine, or danger, was unequalled. When Childeric, king 
 of the Franks, besieged Paris, Genevieve boldly went out 
 at the head of a brave little band to procure provisicms, and 
 brought back boats laden with corn to the starving citizens. 
 Childeric became master of the city ; but though a foe and 
 a heathen, he respected the pious and patriotic maiden. It 
 is said that he seldom refused any thing to her prayers, and 
 that when there were any prisoners whom he did not wish 
 to forgive, he caused the gates of Paris to be closed on the 
 saint — a touching acknowledgment of her merciful influence. 
 The power of Genevieve with heaven, was held to be still 
 greater than that which she possessed over earthly sover- 
 eigns ; and to her prayers the Parisians attributed the deliv- 
 erance of their city from the threatened visit of Attila, " the 
 scourge of God." She died advanced in years, universally 
 venerated and beloved. 
 
 The important and interesting series of events described 
 in ecclesiastical history as the conversion of nations, took 
 several ages to accomplish. It is difficult to estimate now 
 how far the personal influence of pure and revered women 
 like Genevieve may have aided the work. It is at least cer- 
 tain that in those remote lands where the zeal of missionaries 
 carried Christianity, the new religion derived its earliest tri- 
 umphs from the enthusiasm of women. A divine instinct 
 seemed to reveal to them how much they would owe to the 
 faith ; for they were ever amongst the first converted, and 
 the most eager to convert. The charm of poetry and ro- 
 mance lingers around the legends of those early times. 
 When the great apostle of Ireland fearlessly journeyed over 
 the whole island on his jnission of peace, he once chanced, 
 with his companions, to rest for the night near a fountain. 
 As day broke they began chanting the morning service ; 
 two royal virgins, Ethnea and Fethlimia, coming to the 
 
CLOTILDIS. f>7 
 
 fountain to bathe, were surprised at the sight of these ven- 
 erable strangers, clad in white garments, and holding books 
 in their hands. A conversation ensued ; Patrick spoke so 
 eloquently of the true God, that the princesses became con- 
 verts, and received baptism at the fountain. Shortly after- 
 wards they were consecrated virgins of the Church. 
 
 The first religious community of women in Ireland was 
 founded by St. Bridget beneath the oak of Kill-dara ; thence 
 other sisterhoods spread over the land, still acknowledging 
 her for their spiritual mother. Many pious virgins leaving 
 the isle of saints, crossed the seas, like missionaries of truth, 
 to make their homes amongst nations still lingering in the 
 darkness of idolatry; and bequeathed their names to the 
 veneration of foreign lands. 
 
 In Gaul and Britain, the wives of kings early led to the 
 propagation of the faith. Clovis, king of the Franks, heard 
 of the beauty and virtues of Clotildis, a princess of Burgundy, 
 who had been spared by her usurping uncle in the massacre 
 of her family. A messenger, disguised as a beggar, entered 
 the remote castle where Clotildis was kept ; when the pious 
 princess had washed his feet, the messenger discovered his 
 real errand, and offered her the ring of Clovis. She accept- 
 ed it, and became the wife of the Frank king. 
 
 Clovis was a heathen, Clotildis a Christian. She was 
 beautiful and beloved ; and she resolved to convert her hus- 
 band. Whenever Clovis came to visit her in the peaceful 
 though homely villas, more farms than palaces, where she ■ 
 resided whilst he and his rude chiefs were away at war, she 
 spoke to him long and earnestly on the dogmas of the Chris- 
 tian faith. It required, however, a battle, in which he con- 
 quered, and attributed his victory to the power of the God 
 his wife worshipped, to convince Clovis. Towards the close 
 of the fifth century he was baptized with his sister and three 
 thousand of his warriors. But the value of these conver- 
 sions must not be overrated : Clovis, though a Christian, 
 was still a barbarian. The recital of the passion of Christ 
 roused him to fury, and made him exclaim : " Had I been 
 present at the head of my valiant Franks, I would have 
 avenged him." To the Frank chief, the sacrifice of mercy 
 gave no thoughts save those of war and vengeance. 
 
 Clotildis, pious, charitable to the poor, and humble in the 
 3* 
 
58 WOMEN OF CHKISTIAlTCTr. 
 
 midst of greatness as she was, knew not the divine virtue of 
 forgiveness : after the death of Olovis she urged her sons to 
 avenge ner murdered kindred. The evil passions which she 
 thus fostered wrought their own ,punishment : two of her 
 sons murdered their nephews and her grandchildren, for the 
 sake of their inheritance. It required ages of Christianity 
 and civilization to efface these savage and cruel instincts from 
 the barbarian races. Clotildis retired to a cloister, where 
 she died in 531. 
 
 This spirit of proselytism was carried down through sev- 
 eral generations of pious queens. Bertha, grand-daughter of 
 Clotildis, married Ethelbert, king of Kent, and prepared her 
 husband to embrace the Christian faith when it was preached 
 in Britain by St: Augustine. Their daughter Ethelberga 
 was asked in marriage by Edwin, king of Northumberland. 
 Her brother Eadbald replied, " that a Christian maid could 
 not lawfully marry an idolater, lest the faith and its myste- 
 ries should be profaned by the company of one who knew 
 not the worship of the true God." Edwin having promised 
 that the princess should enjoy entire freedom of conscience, 
 the objection was waived, and Ethelberga was sent to him. 
 Pope Boniface entreated her by letter to convert her hus- 
 band ; and she contributed much to that great change, which 
 led Edwin to embrace the faith and die for it, in fighting 
 against Penda, the idolatrous king of Mercia. This persecu- 
 tor of Christianity, who sought to extirpate it by-the sword, 
 could not conquer it in his own home : his son Peada be- 
 came a Christian to marry Alaflede, and his four daughters 
 consecrated themselves to God, in those calm retreats for 
 which Anglo-Saxon princesses already began to forsake the 
 rude palaces of their fathers. 
 
 Cloisters early formed a part of the social system. They 
 screened their wearied or timid inhabitants from the polished 
 corruption of the old world, or sheltered them from the strife 
 and tumult of .the new. Their importance increased with 
 every succeeding age : these homes of prayer and learning 
 superseded the gardens of heathen philosophy. In classic 
 lands they often rose on the ruins of pagan altars : the re- 
 treat of Benedict, patriarch of the western monks, was 
 erected on Mount Cassino, on a spot where a temple to 
 Apollo had once stood; and a nunnery, governed by his 
 
RADEGONDE. 59 
 
 sister Scholastica, was situated within a short distance. In 
 lands farther west, where the tide of barbarian invasion had 
 flowed in more deep, convents arose on the brow of steep 
 hills, or in wild and desolate places ; it was only when the 
 times grew more secure that monasteries were to be found 
 m fertile plains and large cities. The recluses gave the chief 
 portion of their time to religion and study : much of their 
 leisure was spent in transcribing ancient manuscripts — a la- 
 bor of time and love in which both monks and nuns were 
 engaged. 
 
 We cannot give a better illustration of the causes which 
 peopled those religious and learned asylums, than in the his- 
 tory of St. Radegonde, who founded the monastery of Holy 
 Cross, in the town of Poitiers. Radegonde was the daugh- 
 ter of a king of Thuringia, and was carried off by Clotaire, 
 king of Neustria in Gaul, who conquered and plundered her 
 native land in the year 529. She was then a mere child, 
 but exquisitely beautiful. Her master resolved to make her 
 his queen on some future day ; in the mean while he caused 
 her to be carefully instructed in ancient and ecclesiastical 
 learning. Radegonde grew up in the knowledge and hatred 
 of the fate to which she was destined. She could not love 
 the oppressor of her race ; and her soul, elevated and re- 
 fined by religion and study, could have no sympathy in com- 
 mon with a cruel and licentious prince, who disgraced the 
 Christian faith which he professed. The young girl longed 
 for a life of silence, prayer, and calm studies. She fled in 
 terror when her marriage-day came, but was overtaken, 
 brought back, and forcibly united to Clotaire. 
 
 The rude and often cruel amusements of her husband's 
 court had no charm for Radegonde. Clotaire had presented 
 her with the mansion in which she had been reared ; she 
 gave it to the poor and sick, whom she loved to serve with 
 her own hands. She often introduced lepers into the royal 
 palace, washed their feet, and waited on them, whilst they 
 partook of the good cheer which she had caused to be pre- 
 pared for these poor afflicted creatures. When these char- 
 itable tasks were over, the queen retired to her most remote 
 apartments, and forgot her hard destiny in the gentle com- 
 panionship of books — those kind and faithful friends whose 
 power to charm away care has been gratefully attested in 
 
60 WOMEN OF CHKISITANITY. 
 
 every age. Learned clerks and bishops sometimes visited 
 the court of Clotaire ; and when Radegonde could converse 
 with one of these welcome guests, she was happy. But 
 those pleasant hours were few and far between : such visit- 
 ors came seldom and soon departed ; with them fled the 
 brief happiness of the poor queen. 
 
 Clotaire cared little for the coldness with which his wife 
 met his unwelcome love ; but he resented her refined tastes 
 and reserved habits. " I have got a nun, and no queen," 
 he would say impatiently ; and he scolded her, because, 
 wrapt in her books and studies, Radegonde was always late 
 at meal-times. They had no children ; and the last tie be- 
 tween them was broken, when, in_a fit of jealous policy, Clo- 
 taire caused the brother of his wife to be put to death. 
 
 Radegonde went to Noyon, seemingly to visit the bishop. 
 On entering the cathedral where he officiated, she exclaimed, 
 in words that show the passionate and long! repressed aspira- 
 tion of her soul : — " Priest of God, I want to leave the world : 
 consecrate me to the Lord." The Frank chiefs present drew 
 their swords, and forbade the bishop to comply. Rade- 
 gonde entered the sacristy, threw the robe of a nun over her 
 royal garments, and coming forth, threatened the bishop 
 with the judgment of God if he refused to grant her request.' 
 He then made her deaconess by the imposition of hands. 
 Radegonde joyfully took off her bracelets, girdle, and other 
 gold ornaments, and laying them on the altar, she solemnly 
 presented them to the poor. 
 
 Clotaire at first threatened to take back his wife by force ; 
 but her entreaties and the remonstrances of the clergy pre- 
 vailed : he allowed her to found in the town of Poitiers the 
 magnificent monastery of Holy Cross, which she entered in 
 550, with a considerable number of maidens who wished to 
 share her retirement. In this pleasant abode — soothing 
 alike to the senses and the heart — there were gardens, baths, 
 porticos, and galleries, besides a large church. The recluses 
 prayed, read the Scriptures, studied ancient letters, and tran- 
 scribed manuscripts, without neglecting needlework. Learned 
 men visited them frequently ; and, at certain times of the 
 year, dramatic performances, the germ of the mysteries of 
 the middle ages, took place in the presence of numerous 
 guests. 
 
HILDA — BATHILDIS. 61 
 
 It was thus that monasteries became asylums where the 
 most spiritual and intellectual Christians loved to retire, and 
 that their inhabitants rose into importance, even in the eyes 
 of those who cared least to break the bonds of active life. 
 Hilda, one of those Anglo-Saxon princesses to whom we 
 alluded a few pages back, founded monasteries for both men 
 and women ; and from her convent decided on State matters, 
 and shared in the councils of kings. In her presence, and 
 in that of her sisterhood, a great religious controversy, con- 
 cerning the time for celebrating Easter, took place at Whitby 
 in the year 664. 
 
 The monastery of Chelles, near Paris, was one of the most 
 celebrated. Thither resorted to live under the rule of the 
 abbess St. Bertilla, princesses, and holy women of every land. 
 Amongst others Hereswith, sister of Hilda, and queen of the 
 East Angles ; and St. Bathildis, the Anglo-Saxon slave, first 
 queen-consort, then queen-regent, of the Franks ; illustrious 
 for her piety, and for the active zeal with which she endeav- 
 ored to extirpate slavery. 
 
 Christianity, though essentially opposed to slavery, did 
 not succeed in abolishing it at once : Christian nations long- 
 owned slaves, and trafficked in human flesh and blood. The 
 Anglo-Saxons distinguished themselves by their avidity in 
 carrying on this infamous commerce : their brethren and 
 their children were to be seen in all the market-places of 
 Europe ; their sons were sold to till the soil of Ireland ; 
 their daughters to become the victims of foreign insolence 
 and brutality. William of Malmesbury has left a harrowing 
 picture of that slave-trade, as carried on opposite the Irish 
 coast, where " whole rows of wretched beings of both sexes, 
 fastened" together with ropes, like cattle — many adorned with 
 beauty, and in the bloom of youth — were daily offered up to 
 any who chose to buy." 
 
 The same trade existed on the coast facing France ; and 
 thus it happened that a young Anglo-Saxon girl named Ba- 
 thildis was sold by her parents in Kent to slave-dealers ; 
 from whom Archambauld, French mayor of the palace, pur- 
 chased her for a small sum. According to another, but far 
 less probable account, Bathildis was of royal blood, and had 
 been carried away by pirates — a plausible story framed to 
 justify her subsequent elevation. Archambauld proved an 
 
62 "WOMEN OF CHKISTIANITY. 
 
 indulgent master : the only task of the Anglo-Saxon giri 
 was that of cup-bearer to himself, his wife Lanthilde, and 
 the Frank or Gaulish lords who sat at his board. The 
 beauty, modesty, and grace he thus daily witnessed in his 
 young slave, gradually induced in the powerful mayor other 
 feelings than those of mere indulgence. When his wife 
 died, he eagerly pressed Bathildis to take her place, and as- 
 sume a rank second only to that of queen ; but the young 
 girl had long sought in the aspirations of ardent piety, that 
 only freedom and refuge then open to souls that looked be- 
 yond the rude pleasures and enjoyments of the world. She 
 shrank from marriage with fear, left the palace of the mayor 
 by stealth, and did not return until she learned that her mas- 
 ter had taken another wife : then she came back, and quietly 
 resumed her former station. This one act paints her char- 
 acter ; which nobly blended the pride and. liberty of the 
 woman with the humility and fidelity of the slave. 
 
 Archambauld showed no resentment : he even contributed 
 to the greatness of her who had refused to become his wife. 
 Clovis II., king of the Franks, saw and loved the beautiful 
 girl who filled his cup every time he sat down at the board 
 of his mayor ; Archambauld encouraged his passion, and 
 urged him to marry her. This time Bathildis could not, or 
 did not dare, to resist the joint authority of her master and 
 her king : she yielded, and in the year 649 became queen. 
 Such, we are told, was the fame of her virtues and endow- 
 ments, that her elevation created no envy and scarcely any 
 wonder. The latter fact is probable enough ; as the wives 
 of the Frank kings were chosen from amongst princesses, or 
 from the daughters of bondsmen, according as policy or in- 
 clination prevailed. Young, dissolute, and apathetic, Clovis 
 was one of those degenerate Merovingians who allowed 
 themselves to be ruled by the mayors of their palaces, 
 and who still bear in history the degrading name of Rois 
 faineants. 
 
 A young woman, beautiful and energetic in her very 
 gentleness like Bathildis, could not fail to obtain great influ- 
 ence over the weak and vacillating Clovis. She did not 
 meddle in State affairs, but gladly undertook the exclusive 
 direction of ecclesiastical matters, which then comprised the 
 care and relief of the poor. She restored and endowed 
 
BATHILDIS. 6S 
 
 anew the celebrated female abbey of Chelles, near Paris, 
 founded by Clotildis, the first Christian queen of France. 
 On her request, Theodechilde, abbess of Jouarre, sent her 
 Bertilla, a learned and pious maiden, under whose spiritual 
 rule Chelles became one of the most celebrated abbeys in 
 Christendom. " In the monastery of Chelles, near Paris," 
 observes the Protestant historian Michelet, " men and women 
 heard with equal respect the lessons of St. Bertilla. The 
 kings of Great Britain asked her for some of her disciples 
 to found schools and monasteries. She sent them both 
 teachers and books." Many legends are told of the piety 
 and charity of Bathildis. Warned, it is related, by a vision, 
 she once sold all her jewels for the benefit of the indigent : 
 her gold bracelets, the distinctive badge of her royal rank, 
 were the only ornaments which she retained. She imparted 
 the same spirit to her husband during the severe famine 
 which afflicted France under his reign. All their plate was 
 sold, and the money distributed to the poor ; in the zeal of 
 their charity they scrupled not to strip the venerated tomb 
 of St. Denis of the sheets of gold and silver with which the 
 piety of their predecessors had adorned it, in order to re- 
 lieve more fully the wants of the distressed. 
 
 Clovis II. closed his inglorious reign in 655. Clotaire, 
 the eldest of his three sons, being then only five years of 
 age, Bathildis became regent. She found the kingdom la- 
 boring under two great evils : simony and slavery. The 
 Church then represented religious and moral law ; she wield- 
 ed immense power ; it was most urgent that this power 
 should be pure in its source. With the aid of the better 
 portion of the clergy, the queen-regent succeeded in eradi- 
 cating simony from the bosom of the Gallican Church. 
 Slavery was more deeply rooted ; in her struggle against it 
 Bathildis labored alone, unaided, save by her own energetic 
 spirit, and the living memory of the past. The Franks had 
 found slavery^ established by the Eomans in Gaul. They 
 tolerated and adopted it ; showing, however, a tendency to 
 mitigate its worst features. In her elevation, the pious Ba- 
 thildis had never forgotten the thousands whose miseries 
 she had witnessed, and whose degradation she had once 
 shared. She bought back a large number of the most op- 
 pressed and miserable slaves, and set them at liberty. When 
 
64 WOMEN OF CHEISTTANITF. 
 
 the heavy taxes, then imposed on the poorer part of the pop- 
 ulation, compelled many unhappy beings to sell themselves 
 into bondage, in order to pay the sum exacted from them, 
 the queen acquitted their debt ; but as the same cause evei 
 reproduced the same effects, she took a bold step, and abol- 
 ished the tax which lowered human beings to the level ot 
 cattle. She gave to freedmen the right of property, and 
 declared them citizens of the State. Although it surpassed 
 her power to abolish slavery completely, she waged against 
 it incessant war. The law of the Gospel she held to be a 
 law of freedom, and would not suffer that Christians, whom 
 the pure blood of the Saviour had delivered from the bond- 
 age of sin, should bow beneath the yoke of mortal men. 
 She strictly forbade that any Christian should henceforth be 
 made a slave, and was amongst the first of those noble 
 spirits who, interpreting the Gospel in its purest meaning, 
 opened to future ages the broad path of liberty. 
 
 The consolation which she derived from these sacred tasks 
 atoned to Bathildis for the many trials and mortifications 
 which she found otherwise attached to the exercise of power. 
 So deep at length became her disgust of the world, that in 
 the year 665 she retired to the monastery of Chelles, and 
 there took the religious vows. From the day that she en- 
 tered the convent, Bathildis showed herself the most humble 
 and submissive of the daughters of Bertilla. Deep sorrows 
 followed her in this calm retreat : the errors of her sons, 
 who refused to heed her wise counsel, the crimes of her en- 
 emies, and the cruel persecutions endured by those whom 
 she had most loved and trusted, saddened her heart, but 
 could not dismay her faith. One of her chosen and cher- 
 ished tasks in the abbey of Chelles was to attend on the 
 sick sisters. She herself gave an example of heroic patience 
 during the last painful illness which preceded her death. 
 She died on the 30th of January, of the year 680, sur- 
 rounded by the whole sisterhood, whom she exhorted tc 
 holy charity and love of the poor. She has been canonized 
 by the Church, and the Anglo-Saxon girl is still highly ven- 
 erated in France, and remembered by tradition in the neigh- 
 borhood of Chelles. 
 
 The name of St. Bathildis is invariably mentioned by his- 
 torians in terms of the highest praise. It is recorded (and 
 
INCREASE OF MONASTEBIES. 65 
 
 much is implied by the simple fact) that this pious and gen- 
 erous princess was the first to create in France the office of 
 almoner, rendered necessary by the immense number of her 
 charities. But no eulogy can be more noble or complete 
 than the brief one of President Heinault : " Queen, she never 
 forgot that she had been a slave ; and nun, she never re- 
 membered that she had been a queen." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Increase of Monasteries — Apostolic Labors of the Nuns — Lioba — Cele- 
 brated Nuns and Princesses — Austreberthar — Baingarda — Giselle — 
 Hroswrta — Herrade — Theodelinda — Ludmilla — Dombrowka — Maud — 
 Alice — Cunegondes — Margaret of Scotland. 
 
 Nuns, princesses, and queens are, for several ages, the 
 only charitable and pious women of whose lives and actions 
 there exists any record. Women of charity and household 
 virtues no doubt existed then, as now ; but they lived un- 
 heeded, and died unremembered : the veil and the crown 
 eclipsed all else. 
 
 The importance of monastic retreats continued to increase. 
 They arose in every land, and acquired a celebrity which 
 endured for ages. In some cases the nuns were called upon 
 to assume apostolic labors. St. Thecla, a nun of Winburn 
 in Dorsetshire, was invited over into Germany by St. Boni- 
 face ; and she became Abbess of Kitzengen, near Wurtz- 
 burg, about the same time that St. Lioba was appointed 
 Abbess at Bischofsheim, St. Walburge at Heidenheim, in 
 Bavaria, and Kynegild in Thuringia. These holy women 
 were to instruct the new converts of their own sex, and train 
 them up in piety and virtue. 
 
 The most illustrious of these nuns is Lioba, the relative, 
 friend, and fellow-laborer of Boniface. In the year 719, 
 Boniface left England, his native land, to go to Rome. There 
 he begged the apostolic blessing of Pope Gregory II., and 
 the permission of preaching the Gospel to the northern idola- 
 ters. Both requests were granted. Boniface crossed the 
 
66 WOMEN OF CHKISTIANITT- 
 
 lower Alps, and travelled through Bavaria and Thuringia, 
 baptizing infidels and reforming Christian churches on his 
 way. His labors extended to Friesland, whence he went 
 into Hesse and Saxony ; he ultimately became Primate of all 
 Germany, and won the far more glorious title of Apostle of 
 the North. 
 
 To civilize the rude barbarians amongst whom he dwelt, 
 Boniface requested the assistance of religious men and wo- 
 men. His cousin Lioba left her monastery in Dorsetshire to 
 answer the call. She had long maintained a correspondence 
 with Boniface ; her Latin epistles to him still exist. Lioba 
 was learned even for a nun : she spoke and wrote Latin, and 
 was familiar with the Scriptures, the Fathers, and every 
 point of ecclesiastical law. The Bible seldom left her hands : 
 she had it read aloud to her when she lay down to rest ; so 
 ardent and constant was her thirst for the divine word. 
 
 It was not, however, so much by her learning as by her 
 cheerful bearing, hospitality, and great charity, that Lioba 
 seconded the designs of Boniface, and earned during her 
 lifetime the name of a saint. Boniface loved her very ten- 
 derly ; before undertaking that last journey into Friesland 
 which ended with his martyrdom, he earnestly recommended 
 Lioba to his friend Lullus and his monks at Fulda. He re- 
 quested that after her death she might be laid by him : " I 
 wish," he said, " to await near her the day of resurrection. 
 Those who have labored together for Christ should receive 
 together their reward." The request was complied with, 
 and during her lifetime Lioba was, by a special privilege, 
 allowed to enter the abbey and assist at the divine services 
 and conferences which took place within its walls. 
 
 Lioba survived the martyrdom of her friends twenty-four 
 years. Bishops often came to consult her in her monastery ; 
 her sanctity was acknowledged and venerated by Pepin the 
 Frank king, and his two sons Charlemagne and Carloman. 
 Hildegardis, the most amiable and best beloved of the five 
 wives of Charlemagne, had a great affection for Lioba, and 
 once induced her to come to Aix-la-Chapelle ; but after a 
 few days Lioba returned to her solitude. She bade the 
 young queen a tender and last adieu : kissing her robe, her 
 forehead, and her mouth, she said : " Farewell, precious 
 part of my soul ; may Christ, our Creator and Redeemer, 
 
IU.INGAEDA. 67 
 
 grant that we may see each other without confusion on the 
 day of judgment." 
 
 She died, not long after this, in 779 ; having for some 
 time relinquished the government of her monastery, as well 
 as of the various nunneries which she had founded in Ger- 
 many. Her remains were laid near those of Boniface, by 
 the altar of Fulda : the two friends and apostles still sleep 
 there peacefully, and wait side by side for the great judg- 
 ment day. 
 
 Convents had many and well known abuses ; our province 
 is not to dwell upon them, but to speak of those recluses 
 only whose virtues sanctified the monastic state. Nuns like 
 Lioba certainly contributed much to the progress of Chris- 
 tianity ; and it must be borne in mind that, in those early 
 times, cloisters generally secluded, for many obvious reasons, 
 the most generous, pious, and intellectual members of either 
 sex. When the beautiful Icasia was rejected by the Em- 
 peror Theophilus, for having answered him with more wit 
 than he approved of in a wife, she retired to a convent, 
 where she lived peacefully engaged in literary pursuits. In 
 the seventh century, Austrebertha, a noble maiden of the 
 north of Gaul, caressingly said to her mother, who wished 
 her to remain in the world : " Oh ! my dear mother, you 
 have given me a heart so tender that creatures can never fill 
 it. Let me, then, be the bride of Christ, and of none other." 
 Edburge, grand-daughter of King Alfred, on being offered in 
 her childhood a royal robe and a religious habit, eagerly 
 chose the latter, and remained faithful to the state thus early 
 embraced. Editha, another Anglo-Saxon princess, refused, 
 it is said, the chance of a crown, to live and die in the mon- 
 astery where she had been reared. 
 
 Virgins who left home in all their early freshness and purity, 
 and wearied widows, whose tasks in life were ended, thronged 
 to these calm retreats. After the death of her husband, the 
 pious and charitable Raingarda retired to the monastery of 
 Marsigny. A train of noblemen and friends accompanied 
 her ; and even at the gates of the convent, they attempted 
 to dissuade her from entering ; but, turning towards them 
 with a severe look, she said : "Do you return into the world, 
 for my part I go to God." 
 
 The love of study and science drew many to the cloister. 
 
W01IEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 It could not but be so, when an author who v ^ote on th3 
 education of war in the thirteenth century, limited their 
 education to spinning and sewing, and expressly declared 
 that, unless when she was intended to become a nun, no 
 maid ought to be taught reading or writing. Giselle, the 
 beloved sister of Charlemagne, abbess of the convent ot 
 Chelles, was the declared patroness of scientific and literary 
 men. In the ninth century, the convent of Gandersheim, 
 in Lower Saxony, was greatly celebrated for the learning 
 and piety of the nuns. One of the abbesses, named Hros- 
 wrta, excelled in logic and rhetoric, and was an author of 
 some fame. A young nun bearing the same poetic name 
 (white rose) received in this convent a classical education, 
 and composed six comedies, which modern learning has 
 carefully analyzed, and pronounced the most remarkable 
 productions of • those times. In a later age Herrade of 
 Landsberg, abbess of the convent of Hohenburg, perpetu- 
 ated the fame of her predecessors, Relinde and Gerhnde. 
 She composed for her nuns a Latin work, entitled " The 
 Garden of Delights," in which she collected all the literary 
 and scientific knowledge of her age. To the learning of a 
 clerk, Herrade united the charity of a Christian woman : she 
 caused to be erected, at the foot of a neighboring hill, a 
 monastery, in which she founded a hospital. 
 
 We might give numerous instances in which learning 
 and piety were thus united ; but we have said enough. 
 It now remains to us to speak of the queens who con- 
 tinued the pious task of Clotildis and Bertha, and of those 
 who, for several ages, added the halo of the saint to the 
 -ueenly diadem. 
 
 Towards the close of the sixth century, Theodolinda, 
 <jueen of the Lombards, encouraged the apostolic labors of 
 Columban, and extirpated the Arian heresy from her do- 
 minions. Christianity penetrated more slowly in the north 
 than in the genial south : it was not until the ninth century 
 that it reached Bohemia, then governed by Duke Bozivor ; 
 who embraced the faith with Ms wife Ludmilla. After his 
 death and that of her eldest son, she governed the State for 
 her eldest grandson, Wenceslas ; but his mother, Draho- 
 mira, soon claimed and obtained the regency. Drahomira 
 was a pagan : she persecuted the Christians, shut up their 
 
LUDMILLA — DOMBEOWKA — MAUD — ALIu'E. 69 
 
 churches, and forbade the priests to teach ; it was not, how- 
 ever, in her power to prevent Ludmilla from training Wen- 
 eeslas in the fervent piety that ultimately made him a saint 
 and a martyr. 
 
 Drahomira hated her mother-in-law intensely ; and her 
 aversion increased when Wenceslas began to reign, and 
 preferred the advice of Ludmilla to that of his pagan mother. 
 She laid a plot to take away the life of the aged duchess ; 
 Ludmilla learned this, but she thought it either unworthy of 
 her, or too difficult, to shun her fate. She calmly prepared 
 herself for death, by distributing her wealth amongst her 
 servants and the poor, and devoutly receiving the last sacra- 
 ments of the Church. The assassins sent by Drahomira 
 found Ludmilla praying in her chapel ; they strangled her 
 with her own veil, before the altar of the faith for which 
 she died, and which has numbered her amongst its martyrs. 
 A similar fate awaited Wenceslas : -he was murdered as he 
 prayed in a church. The last of the assassins who struck 
 him was his brother Boleslas ; the instigator of the crime 
 was their impious mother, Drahomira. But the efforts of 
 both mother and son could not prevent the Christian faith 
 from prevailing in Bohemia. Dombrowka, one of their 
 descendants, was married in 965 to Micislas, duke of Poland, 
 on the express condition that both he and his people would 
 embrace Christianity. He agreed to this, and the princess 
 left Bohemia for Poland, accompanied by a considerable 
 number of priests, who were to teach the new faith to the 
 northern idolaters. In 955, the Russian Princess Olga was 
 baptized at Constantinople, and on her return, contributed 
 much to the progress- of the faith in the dominions of her 
 son Svientoslaf. 
 
 In the same age, Maud, empress of Germany, rendered 
 herself eminent for her charity to the poor. After the 
 death of her husband, Henry the Fowler, her two elder 
 sons strove for the crown ; both agreed, however, in strip- 
 ping her of her dowry. The pretence they took was, that 
 she squandered the revenues of the State on the poor. It 
 was long before they consented to restore to her the wealth 
 which she applied to charitable purposes. She died piously 
 in 968. 
 
 Her successor on the imperial throne, Alice of Burgundy, 
 
70 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 was like her a princess of great charities and virtues. She 
 married Lothaire, king of Italy, in her sixteenth year 
 Berengarius, margrave of Ivrea, poisoned Lothaire in 950, 
 and insisted on marrying his son to the young widow. She 
 refused, and was imprisoned by the tyrant in a strong castle, 
 near the lake of Garda. A priest named Martin dug a 
 subterranean passage, through which the captive made her 
 escape. He took her to the other side of the lake ; hid 
 her in the reeds, and fed her with fish from the lake. The 
 Lord of Canozza, warned by this faithful friend, came and 
 carried off Alice to his impregnable fortress, built on a 
 steep rock ; where she remained until Otho I., son of Maud 
 and Henry, invaded Italy, and freed it from the yoke of 
 Berengarius. He met Alice at Pavia, and married her in 
 order to conciliate the Italians, who felt deeply interested 
 in the fate of the young and widowed queen. Like Maud, 
 Alice incurred the reproach of prodigality, through a charity 
 that knew no bounds : and like her she was persecuted 
 in her widowhood by her son, who banished her from his 
 court. After his death, she became regent, and governed 
 the empire with wisdom and firmness. She died in 980. 
 Her contemporary, the pious and learned Pope Silvester 
 II., called Alice " the terror of kingdoms, and the mother 
 of kings." 
 
 The virtues of Maud and Alice revived in Cunegondes, a 
 sainted empress of the following age. During the lifetime 
 of her husband St. Henry, Cunegondes distinguished her- 
 self by her charity and munificence. When he died in 1024, 
 she retired to a monastery, where she spent the last fifteen 
 years of her life in attending on the sick. She would never 
 allow any distinction to be made between herself and the 
 other nuns. As she lay dying on a bed of coarse haircloth, 
 weak with disease, and exhausted by fasts and austerities, 
 she perceived, whilst the prayers of the dying were beino- 
 read to her, that a cloth fringed with gold had been pre- 
 pared to throw over her corpse ; the ex-empress changed 
 color, and ordered it to be removed, nor could she rest until 
 she had exacted and obtained a promise that she should be 
 interred in her poor religious habit. 
 
 The most illustrious of these crowned saints is the gentle 
 and pious Margaret, queen of Scotland. Though born far 
 
MAKGAEET OF SCOTLAND. 71 
 
 from England, Margaret was of Anglo-Saxon race ; being the 
 grand-daughter of the heroic Edmund Ironside, and the lit- 
 tle niece of Edward the Confessor. In the year 1017, Ed- 
 mund was assassinated by Count Edric, and Canute the 
 Dane ascended the throne of England. He sent Edward 
 and Edmund,^the two infant sons of his predecessor, to the 
 King of Sweden. This sovereign, in his turn, sent the 
 young princes to the King of Hungary, by whom they were 
 hospitably received and educated. Edmund died childless ; 
 but Edward married a princess named Agatha, by whom 
 he had Edgar Atheling, Christina, who became a nun, and 
 St. Margaret. 
 
 After the death of Canute and his son Hardicanute, 
 Edward the Confessor was called to the throne in 1041. 
 Some years elapsed before he thought of his exiled nephew, 
 the rightful heir, and invited him over to England. Ed- 
 ward came, with his wife and children. He died before his 
 uncle, and bequeathed his rights to his son Edgar Atheling, 
 who had never the courage or good fortune to assert them. 
 He was set aside b.y Harold, who perished on the fatal field 
 of Hastings, and by the Norman William, who conquered 
 England. Edgar thought it more prudent to flee than to 
 engage in a doubtful struggle. The young prince secretly 
 embarked with his mother and sisters ; but they had not 
 been long at sea when a tempest drove their ship into the 
 Frith of Forth ; they were then hospitably received by King 
 Malcolm III. 
 
 The Scottish sovereign could sympathize with the hard 
 fate of the royal exiles : his father was that " gracious Dun- 
 can," whose sad destiny has been immortalized by the ge- 
 nius of Shakspeare ; and for seventeen years Malcolm wan- 
 dered in foreign lands, whilst the usurper Macbeth held his 
 kingdom. Edward the Confessor at length gave him ten 
 thousand men, with whom, aided by his own friends, the 
 prince recovered his crown. Gratitude, no less than the 
 hospitable temper of his race, therefore, induced Malcolm 
 to make the English fugitives welcome in his dominions. 
 He refused to deliver them up to William of Normandy ; 
 with whom he engaged in a war for their sake. Margaret 
 was virtuous and beautiful ; her host fell in love with her, 
 and offered her his hand ; she hesitated, but her relatives 
 
72 
 
 WOMEN OF CHEISTIAOTTT. 
 
 pressed her and she complied. In the year 1072, she was 
 married to Malcolm in the royal Castle of Dunfermline. 
 Margaret was no portionless bride : her dowry consisted 
 of immense treasures which she had brought away from 
 England, besides many precious relics ; one of which, the 
 black cross, was for several ages much venerated in Scot- 
 land. 
 
 At the time of her marriage, Margaret was twenty-four 
 years of age ; her husband was much older ; but this did not 
 prevent her from ever loving him with the deepest tender- 
 ness. She became celebrated for her conjugal love, no less 
 than for those other virtues which she possessed in an emi- 
 nent degree ; and which, though unobserved in the exiled 
 princess, drew down universal love and admiration on the 
 queen. Theodoric, monk of Durham, and her confessor, to 
 whom we owe an excellent account of this amiable woman, 
 speaks highly of her penetration, memory, and graceful elo- 
 quence. He often admired how the queen, who shared with 
 her husband the cares of State, the diligent housewife, the 
 attentive mother, could still find time for study ; and, as if 
 her mind had never been otherwise engaged, enter with 
 learned men into subtle theological discussions, in which 
 none displayed a clearer intellect, or expressed themselves in 
 more ready and elegant language. But it was perhaps still 
 more remarkable that, though living in the world, and seem- 
 ingly distracted by so many various occupations, Margaret 
 never once lost the early fervor and tenderness of her devo- 
 tion. " When she spoke to me of the sweetness of everlast- 
 ing life," writes Theodoric, "her words were full of all 
 grace. So great was her fervor and compunction on these 
 occasions, that she seemed as if she would quite melt into 
 tears ; so that her devotion drew also from me tears of com- 
 punction. In the church no one was more silent, no one 
 more intent in prayer." 
 
 The piety of Margaret was eminently practical. She 
 made the noblest use of the extensive influence which she 
 derived from the love and esteem of Malcolm. She re- 
 formed church abuses, and earnestly labored to suppress 
 simony, usury, sacrilege, and other sources of public scan- 
 dal. She herself gave a living example of every Christian 
 virtue to her subjects: and her conjugal love was prover- 
 
MAKGAKET OF SCOTLAND. 73 
 
 bial. She early surrounded her six sons and two daughters 
 with able masters, and often instructed them herself. "Fear 
 the Lord, my children," she would say, " for those who 
 fear Him shall never want. If you delight in Him, children 
 of my heart, He will bestow on you earthly happiness and 
 eternal felicity with all the saints." 
 
 The favorite virtue of this excellent woman was charity : 
 she gave away all her own money to the poor, and was often 
 obliged to supply herself from the coffers of the king ; a 
 liberty he allowed her to take. Every time she walked or 
 rode out, troops of widows and orphans flocked to her as to 
 a common mother. When Margaret had distributed all that 
 she had brought with her for the use of the poor, she gave 
 them the garments of her servants, so that none might go 
 away sad and unrelieved. The hall of her palace was al- 
 ways filled with indigent persons, whose feet she washed. 
 She never sat down to a meal without having first fed and 
 waited on nine orphan children and twenty-four grown up 
 poor. In the same spirit she frequently visited the hospi- 
 tals, tnd attended on the sick herself. To this private char- 
 ity, Margaret united the public liberality which becomes a 
 queen : she freed debtors, helped families in distress, ran- 
 somed captives of every nation, but especially the English, 
 founded hospitals for poor strangers, and churches and 
 monasteries for her own subjects. 
 
 In all that she did the queen obtained and merited tha 
 approbation of her husband. From her Malcolm, who, 
 though rough, was naturally inclined to virtue, learned to 
 be just, merciful, almsgiving, and pious. He loved Marga- 
 ret passionately, despised that which she contemned, and 
 prized whatever she held dear. Though he was himself ig- 
 norant and careless of literary knowledge, he liked to see 
 and hold the books in which his more learned wife read 
 and prayed. So precious did he consider whatever her 
 hands had touched, that he would often call in a jeweller, 
 and bid him adorn with gold and gems some favorite vol- 
 ume, which he then carried himself to the queen. If he 
 heard that there was any of these books which she prized 
 more highly than the rest, he, too, liked to have it oftener in 
 his hands, and would kiss it repeatedly. Those men of the 
 middle ages, who now seem so rude and stern, felt suffi- 
 
 4 
 
74 WOMEN OF CHEISTTAlTITr. 
 
 ciently secure of their own manliness not to exclude simplt 
 love and tenderness from their hearts. 
 
 Malcolm had reigned thirty-three years when he engaged 
 in a war with England. He was treacherously slain by an 
 English soldier; and his eldest son, Edward, was killed in 
 attempting to avenge his death. Margaret was at that 
 time lying dangerously ill, and well aware of her approach- 
 ing end. " She had a foresight of her death long before it 
 happened," writes Theodoric ; " and, speaking to me in 
 secret, she began to repeat to me in order her whole life, 
 pouring out floods of tears at every word with unspeakable 
 compunction, so that she obliged me also to weep ; and 
 sometimes we could neither of us speak for sighs and sobs. 
 At the end she spoke thus to me : — ' Farewell ; for I shall 
 not be here long : thou shalt stay some little time behind 
 me. Two things I have to desire of thee : the one is, that 
 so long as thou livest thou wilt remember my poor soul in 
 thy masses and prayers ; the other is, that thou wilt assist 
 my children, and teach them to fear and love God. These 
 things thou must promise me, here in the presence of God, 
 who alone is witness of our discourse.' " 
 
 About six months after this Margaret died. She bore 
 the pains of disease with humility and patience : she never 
 uttered one word of complaint in the midst of all her suffer- 
 ings. Four days before her death Malcolm was killed in 
 Northumberland. On that day Margaret, who had vainly 
 endeavored to dissuade him from this expedition, looked op- 
 pressed with sadness ; and turning towards those who sat 
 around her, she suddenly said — " Perhaps to-day there has 
 befallen the kingdom of Scotland a greater evil than any 
 this long time back." She did not explain her meaning, and 
 none of those who heard these words understood their real 
 sense, until tidings of the king's death arrived. 
 
 On the fourth day after uttering this prophetic sentence, 
 Margaret, feeling somewhat better, rose, went into her ora- 
 tory, and there received the viaticum. Her fever soon re- 
 turning, she was obliged to lie down again ; and whilst her 
 chaplains read the psalms to her, she held the black cross, 
 and, keeping her eyes fixed upon it, recited the Miserere. 
 She was gradually sinking into unconsciousness, when her 
 son Edgar, who had returned from the army, entered hei 
 
MAJRGAKET OF SCOTLAND. 75 
 
 apartment. The dying queen roused herself from her agony 
 to question him concerning the fate of his, father and brother. 
 Edgar replied that they were both well; but- she, sighing 
 heavily, said, — " I know, my son, I know ; by this holy 
 cross, by our consanguinity, I conjure thee to tell me the 
 truth." Thus solemnly adjured, Edgar related all. Mar- 
 garet heard him without a murmur, and when he had done 
 she said, — " Thanks and praise I give to thee, Almighty 
 God, who, to purify me from my sins, sendest me so many 
 sorrows to endure in my last hour." 
 
 Not long after this, feeling the approach of her last mo- 
 ments, she said, in the words of the Church, — " Oh Lord 
 Jesus Christ, who by thy death hast given life to the world, 
 from all evil deliver me !" As she uttered the words " de- 
 liver me," she gently expired. This event took place on the 
 16th of November, 1093. Queen Margaret was then forty- 
 seven years of age. She was canonized in 1251 by Pope 
 Innocent IV. At the period of the Reformation her relics 
 were removed from Scotland to Spain, and deposited with 
 the remains of her husband in a chapel of the Escurial, built 
 to receive them by Philip II. " Saint Malcolm, king, and 
 Saint Margaret, queen," may still be read on the shrine be- 
 neath which the two sovereigns of Scotland sleep side by 
 side. " They were lovely in their lives, and in their deaths 
 were not divided." 
 
 A succession of saints adorned the posterity of this royal 
 couple ; and from them descended some of the best Scottish 
 sovereigns. Their daughter Matilda, or Maud Atheling, 
 married Henry the First of England. It was through her 
 that the blood of the Saxon and Norman sovereigns first 
 blended in the royal line of England. Matilda was pious 
 and charitable, like her sainted mother, and to this day bears 
 in history the name of " Good Queen Maud " 
 
76 WOMEN OF CHEISTIANITT. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Spirit of the Middle Ages — Its Exaggeration and Greatness — Causes — 
 Elizabeth of Hungary. 
 
 Before proceeding further, we must beg our readers to 
 remember that the middle ages are characterized by a cer- 
 tain breadth or greatness, an exaggeration in good or in evil, 
 almost unknown to our modern times. There is now more 
 personal liberty, but there was then more individual inde- 
 pendence of action, more indifference to opinion ; for reli- 
 gion was not a matter of opinion, but of faith : it was this, 
 and not human power, that rendered it so long inviolable 
 and sacred. 
 
 This era of great virtues and great crimes is past. We 
 may place our civilized coldness far above the exaggerated 
 spirit of our ancestors ; we may congratulate ourselves on 
 passions more calm, and tempers more sedate ; but we can- 
 not change that which has been : we cannot efface from his- 
 tory the burning spirit which roused the whole western 
 world to redeem the sepulchre of Christ, and sent forth 
 countless multitudes to the land of their redemption: we 
 cannot banish into oblivion that strange and impressive train 
 of religious men and women, who astonished even their con- 
 temporaries by the singleness of their faith, and the might 
 of their charity ; whose lives, apart from every supernat- 
 ural feature, read like marvellous romances, and, when the 
 first strangeness is worn off, impress us by the depth and so- 
 lemnity of feeling they reveal. 
 
 What shall we say to St. Mary of Oignies and her hus- ■ 
 band, both young, noble, and rich, who forsook the world to 
 make themselves servants of the lepers of Villembroke ? By 
 what standard shall we judge Francis of Assissi, who, fired 
 with, the love of God, hailed every living thing as a brother, 
 and held nothing mean which the Almighty had thought it 
 worth his while to create ? Keligion was then a passion, or 
 it was nothing : that calm modern feeling, that cold belief 
 which inspires not one great or good action, had not yet been 
 sanctified by the name of piety. If we wish to know the 
 
SPIRIT OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 77 
 
 difference between the present and the past, we may com- 
 pare the lives of the saints of the middle ages with the reli- 
 gious biographies of modern times. Arrayed in combat 
 against the temptations of this world, and the terrors of the 
 next, they overcame their passions through spirits of evil ; 
 who to them were no symbols, but awful realities. No 
 doubt we may boast of more wisdom, and of more modera- 
 tion ; but where is the generosity and the greatness? 
 
 These remarks are not intended to imply that people were 
 infinitely better some five or six hundred years ago than they 
 are now : but they were certainly very different ; and we 
 must know how to accept that difference. Good is the pro- 
 test against evil, and great crimes call forth great virtues : 
 the excess of oppression produces excess of pity. We have 
 triumphed over much : many petty and vexatious tyrants 
 are low ; many cruel oppressions are gone and past ; many 
 sanguinary persecutions shall never be renewed : but have 
 we not lost something ? Why is faith so dead, or charity so 
 low, that a sort of apology is needed for those who took the 
 Gospel in its literal meaning ? — who were not ashamed to 
 trust in God, or to give one of their two garments to some 
 suffering brother ? We do not choose to imitate them : let 
 that pass ; but where is our right to ridicule or censure ? 
 Was it so difficult to add to our better regulated charity, not 
 the actions, but the lofty and enthusiastic spirit of our an- 
 cestors ? Admitting even that we cast aside that spirit, with 
 a smile at our superior wisdom ; was it then impossible to 
 understand it ? Why tax — as they have been taxed — with 
 insanity and superstition, Radegonde, who kissed a leper, and 
 Margaret, who washed the feet of beggars ? — noble women, 
 who thus professed the spiritual brotherhood and love which 
 not even the most loathsome disease could repel, — the equal- 
 ity before God which rank could not efface, and who thought 
 that in so doing they followed the very spirit of the Gospel. 
 To those who think differently, we can only recommend to 
 pass over the following pages : they have not been written 
 without the knowledge that amongst our readers there are 
 many who will feel more surprise than admiration. 
 
 In the beginning of the thirteenth century, Hermann, land- 
 grave of Thuringia and of Hesse, and Count Palatine of Sax- 
 ony, ranked amongst the greatest princes of Germany. He 
 
78 WOMEN OF CHEISTIAlriTT. 
 
 was allied to Frederick Barbarossa, to the houses of Bohemia, 
 Saxony, Bavaria, and Austria ; he made -or unmade empe- 
 rors at his pleasure, and ruled over vast dominions, that ex- 
 tended from tha Lahn to the Elbe. Warned, it is said, by 
 a prediction of the celebrated Klingsohr, minstrel and necro- 
 mancer, the landgrave resolved, in the year 1211, to request, 
 for his eldest son Lewis, the hand of Elizabeth of Hungary, 
 then four years of age. An embassy of noble lords and 
 ladies was sent to the court of the pious and warlike An- 
 drew II., king of Hungary. Both Andrew and his wife 
 Gertrude agreed to give their daughter in marriage to the 
 son of Hermann. The little Elizabeth, clothed 'in a robe of 
 silk, embroidered with gold and silver, was brought in a 
 cradle of massive gold, and given up to the Thuringian am- 
 bassadors. " I confide her to your knightly honor," said 
 the king to the Lord of Varila, the chief of the knights of 
 Thuringia. After three days spent in rejoicing, the embassy, 
 laden with rich presents, took away the young princess to 
 the land of her future husband. She was solemnly betrothed 
 to him immediately on her arrival, and brought up with him 
 at the court of the landgrave. Lewis was then eleven years 
 old, and the two children, according to the custom of the 
 times, gave one another the tender and familiar names of 
 brother and sister. 
 
 The childhood of Elizabeth was marked by a piety and 
 purity both touching and rare : even then, God seemed the 
 centre of her soul, heart, and desires. Her father allowed 
 her a yearly income, worthy the daughter of a king ; and all 
 of it that was at her disposal went to the poor. Her pro- 
 pensity to give was irresistible : she drew down on herself 
 the murmurs, and almost the aversion, of the officers of the 
 household, by lingering about the kitchen and pantry, in 
 order to pick up fragments of broken meat, which she be- 
 stowed in charity. 
 
 Elizabeth was about nine years old when the landgrave, 
 who had always loved her very tenderly, died. Her be- 
 trothed was now sovereign prince ; but he was still too 
 young to rule his dominions, or to possess any power. With 
 the landgrave, Elizabeth had lost her only efficient protector. 
 Sophia, his widow, disliked her ; and her daughter Agnes, 
 vain of her dazzling beauty, looked down with contempt on 
 
ELIZABETH OF HTJNGABY. 79 
 
 the humble Elizabeth, and plainly told her that she was only- 
 fit to be a chambermaid or a servant : indeed all the cour- 
 tiers agreed that there was nothing in her noble or princely. 
 Her love of retirement, her mod.esty of bearing, her tender 
 familiarity with the poor, and the affection she showed for 
 the young Hungarian attendants sent with her by her father, 
 were imputed as so many crimes to the little stranger. 
 
 Once, on the festival of the Assumption, the mother of the 
 young landgrave said to Agne^ and Elizabeth, " Let us go 
 down to Eisenach, to the church of Our dear Lady, and hear 
 the fine mass of the Teutonic knights : perchance they will 
 preach something about her. Put on your rich garments, 
 and your crowns of gold." The young princesses obeyed. 
 As they entered the church they knelt down. Before them 
 stood a large crucifix ; on beholding it, Elizabeth took off 
 her crown, and prostrated herself bareheaded. The Princess 
 Sophia sharply reproved her,«and asked if the crown were 
 too heavy for her ? Elizabeth looked up, and humbly an- 
 swered, " Be not angry with me, dear lady. Here, before 
 my eyes, is my God and my King, the mild and merciful 
 Jesus, crowned with sharp thorns : shall I, who am only a 
 vile creature, remain before him crowned with pearls, gold, 
 and precious stones, and by my crown mock his ?" So say- 
 ing, she began to weep with love and tenderness, and again 
 bowed down. To avoid a contrast that would have been no- 
 ticed, Sophia and Agnes were compelled to follow her example. 
 
 Their hatred and ill usage of her daily increased, and the 
 haughty Agnes once went so far as to say, " Lady Elizabeth, 
 you strangely mistake if you imagine my brother will marry 
 you. For this you must become very different indeed from 
 what you are." It was to this — to break off the marriage 
 of the young stranger with the landgrave — 'that all the efforts 
 of her enemies tended ; and since the family of her betrothed 
 looked coldly upon her, the mean instinct of the servile had 
 given Elizabeth enemies in the whole of that court, which 
 she had ever edified with examples of modesty, humility, 
 and devotion. 
 
 But, in the midst of this ungenerous persecution, Elizabeth 
 found a faithful and steadfast friend in her future husband. 
 Neither the influence of a mother, nor the sneers of courtiers, 
 could induce him to break the faith he had plighted to his 
 
80 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 childish bride. He loved her for those virtues which drew 
 down on her the envy and hatred of others ; nor was she 
 less dear to the generous and chivalrous heart of the youth 
 for being persecuted by all save him. He would see and 
 console her privately ; and every time that, in the course of 
 his travels, he saw some rare or precious object, he bought 
 it for his betrothed : he never came back empty-handed. 
 Beads of coral, a crucifix, an image of devotion, a little knife 
 or purse, gloves, jewels, chains or pins of gold, were his 
 usuai presents. No sooner did Elizabeth hear of his return 
 than she would all joyously run forth to meet him. The 
 young man would then take her in his arms, and, caressing 
 her tenderly, give her whatever he had brought, as a token 
 of his love, and of the faithful remembrance he had kept of 
 her during their separation. 
 
 It once happened that, "being in company with .some for- 
 eign knights, he forgot to bring his usual gift. Elizabeth 
 was mortified ; for her enemies publicly rejoiced at this 
 proof of forgetfulness. The young princess confided her 
 sorrow to an old friend, that Lord of Varila to whose honor 
 her father had intrusted her ; and he promised to mention 
 the matter to the prince. A fit opportunity soon offered. 
 As the Lord of Varila and the landgrave were resting from 
 the chase, and lying down in the grass within the shadow 
 of a wood, whence they could clearly see the Inselberg, the 
 highest mountain of all Thuringia, the former said to the 
 prince, " May it please you, my lord, to answer a: question I 
 shall put to you ?" " Speak freely," was the answer. " Do 
 you mean," resumed the Lord of Varila, " to marry the 
 Lady Elizabeth whom I brought to you, or will you send 
 her back to her father ?" Lewis rose, and extending his 
 hand towards the Inselberg, he said, " Seest thou this hill 
 before us ? Well, then, if it were of pure gold from the 
 base to the summit, and that the whole of it should belong 
 to me on the condition of sending back mine Elizabeth, I 
 would never do it. Let the world think and say of her all 
 it likes ; I say this — I love her, and love nothing more. I 
 will have mine Elizabeth : she is dearer to me, by her virtue 
 and piety, than all the lands and riches of this world." The 
 Lord of Varila asked and obtained the permission of re- 
 peating this to Elizabeth ; and as a token of his faith, the 
 
ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY. 81 
 
 prince commissioned him to present her with a little pocket 
 mirror, double bottomed and mounted in silver, with an 
 image of our Lord crucified, under the glass. Elizabeth 
 smiled joyously -as the Lord of Varila repeated the words of 
 her betrothed, and gave her his present; and when she 
 opened the mirror, and beheld within it the image of the 
 Saviour, she kissed it, and devoutly pressed it to her heart. 
 
 In 1218, Lewis was dubbed knight ; and, two years later, 
 he married Elizabeth, in the midst of splendid festivities. 
 The tournament alone, to which all the knights of Thuringia 
 had been invited, lasted three days. Lewis was twenty, 
 his young bride was thirteen ; and both were remarkable 
 for great personal attractions : the manly beauty of the 
 young landgrave was celebrated amongst his contempo- 
 raries. His bearing was dignified and noble ; and his long 
 fair hair, transparent complexion, and mild countenance, 
 gave him something of angelic serenity : his whole aspect 
 inspired love ; and nothing, it is said, could surpass the 
 charm of his voice and smile. 
 
 Elizabeth, though so young, was not unfit to stand near 
 him as his bride ; for Heaven had "been prodigal to her of 
 the gifts which constitute the loveliness of woman. She was 
 tall, and of a most noble and graceful figure : historians 
 mention with admiration the matchless dignity of her mien, 
 as well as the pure and perfect beauty of her face. Though 
 a daughter of the North, she had the clear olive complexion 
 of a southern maiden ; hair of the darkest hue, and eyes 
 full of tenderness and love. 
 
 The outward graces of this accomplished pair were far 
 surpassed by the inward gifts of their high and noble na- 
 tures. We have spoken of the youth of Elizabeth ; that 
 of her husband had not been less pure. He had early 
 chosen as his motto, " Piety, chastity, justice ;" and he 
 remained true to all it implied. In him blended in a rare 
 degree the virtues of the Christian, of the knight, and of 
 the sovereign : he was faithful to his God, to his love, and 
 to his people. He delighted in pious exercises, in the so- 
 ciety of monks and learned men, in the relief of the sick 
 and the poor ; to whom he often gave his own garments. 
 With all this, he was a valiant knight, excelling in all mar- 
 tial exercises ; and so full of daring that, without arms, 
 4* 
 
82 WOMEN OF CHEBTIAJSmT. 
 
 and by the mere might of his strong heart, he once quelled 
 the rage of an escaped lion, and made him lie down cowed 
 and subdued at his feet. To piety and bravery Lewis united 
 a rare degree of modesty : a light word made him blush 
 like a maiden. Both before and after his marriage, licen- 
 tious courtiers vainly endeavored to seduce him into sin ; he 
 repelled their attempts with the calm indignation of a virtue 
 nothing could move. Magnanimous, cheerful, and gentle, 
 he had but one passion : justice. He held himself bound 
 to redress the wrongs of his meanest subject, as well as to 
 punish the crimes of the most mighty. Under his sway 
 the prosperity of Thuringia rose to the highest degree it 
 could attain, and her people spent their days in happiness 
 and peace. This good and pious prince has never been 
 canonized : but for several years after his death, the people 
 came to his tomb in pilgrimage ; and in history he is still 
 designated as "The Saint." 
 
 The affection which united the landgrave to his wife was 
 deep ; it rendered their marriage a sort of heaven upon 
 earth. They loved one another with divine and human 
 love ; and seeing them so pure, " angels," says an old 
 German chronicler, " abode with them." The love which 
 she bore her husband by no means diminished the fervent 
 piety of Elizabeth. Every night whilst Lewis slept she 
 rose to pray. When he woke and missed her, he chid her 
 mildly, calling her " Dear Sister," according to that habit 
 of their childhood which they had both preserved ; he en- 
 treated her not to injure her health, and taking her hand 
 gently, compelled her to return to rest. Sometimes he fell 
 asleep in the midst of his entreaties, and the eyes of Eliza- 
 beth closed, spite of her wish to pray. Often when her 
 women entered her room in the morning, they found her 
 sleeping on the carpet by the bedside, with her hand still 
 clasped in that of her husband. 
 
 It was seldom indeed that they could bear to be apart : 
 contrary to the etiquette which already prevailed, they sat 
 by one another at table ; and unless when the journeys he 
 took were too distant, Elizabeth always accompanied the 
 landgrave. She braved heat, frost, snow, and overflowing 
 rivers, the worst roads and most violent storms, for the 
 pleasure of bearing him company: Tf he could" not take 
 
ELIZABETH OE HUNGARY. 83 
 
 her with him, she clothed herself in widow's weeds, and 
 lived in deep retirement until the time of his return. Then 
 indeed she adorned herself carefully, and ran forth to meet 
 him with the joyful eagerness of love. 
 
 The landgrave deserved that love, by an affection and 
 fidelity over which absence and temptation had no power. 
 Whilst he was once travelling without his dear Elizabeth, 
 some lords who accompanied him endeavored to render him 
 unfaithful. He heard them silently, but as they insisted, he 
 angrily replied : " If you wish for my good- will, speak thus 
 no more. I have a wife, and am bound to keep my faith to 
 her." On another occasion, when a perfidious host, wish- 
 ing either to try or tempt him, introduced into the apart- 
 ment of Lewis a young girl of singular beauty, the landgrava 
 said to the Lord of Varila, " Send away this woman quietly, 
 and give her a mark of silver to buy herself a new cloak, 
 so that want shall no more make her sin. Verily, I tell 
 thee, that even though such an action were not a sin against 
 God and a scandal in the eyes of my brethren, yet should 
 I never think of it, solely for the love of my dear Eliza- 
 beth, and not to trouble or sadden her soul." Shortly after 
 his return, the Lord of Varila related this circumstance to 
 Elizabeth in the presence of the landgrave ; kneeling with 
 much emotion, she said : " Lord, I am not worthy of so 
 good a husband ; but help us both to observe the holiness 
 of wedded life, so that we may eternally abide together 
 near thee." 
 
 We have hitherto dwelt more on the trials and joys of 
 Elizabeth, than on those actions which show us the happy 
 girlish* bride under the pure and immortal aspect of a saint. 
 Her austerities were great, but they never affected her nat- 
 ural cheerfulness : she was gay and merry in the very midst 
 of penance. She saw. no sin in innocent amusements, where 
 she never placed her heart : she shared in the festivities of 
 her court, and danced and played like other ladies. She 
 blamed those whose gloomy and severe faces were a reproach 
 to religion. " They look," said the cheerful Elizabeth, " as 
 if they wished to frighten God. Let them give him what 
 they can gayly, and with a willing heart." 
 
 This free and generous spirit by no means led Elizabeth 
 10 love or indulge in the vanities of the world. She once 
 
84: WOMEN OF CHKISTIA1HTT. 
 
 went to Eisenach magnificently clothed, covered with jewels, 
 and wearing a golden crown ; but as she entered the church, 
 and beheld the image of the crucified Saviour, the same de- 
 vout emotion which she had felt once before assailed her so 
 violently, that she fell down in a swoon. From that day 
 she resolved to renounce dress, unless when state occasions 
 or the will of her husband should oblige her to assume it as 
 a token of her rank. She gave up dyed stuffs, veils of bright 
 colors, narrow-plaited sleeves, and long trailing robes, all of 
 which were then articles of great luxury. 
 
 Though rigid to herself, Elizabeth was to others full of 
 tenderness and charity. Her husband set no bounds to 
 her liberality ; yet she was ever short of money. Several 
 times, when his court was visited by foreign princes and am- 
 bassadors, Elizabeth could not appear before them because 
 she had given away all her rich garments to the poor : this 
 was with her a constant practice. As she went down one 
 day from the castle to the town, richly clad, and wearing 
 her crown, she was beset by a great number of beggars ; to 
 whom she gave away the money she had about her. When 
 she had thus distributed it all, a poor man came up, and plain- 
 tively asked to be relieved. Elizabeth was filled with pity, and, 
 having nothing else to bestow, she took off and gave him one 
 of her gloves, richly embroidered and adorned with jewels. 
 A young knight who followed her, seeing this, turned, back, 
 and having bought the glove from the beggar, he fastened 
 it to his helmet. From that day, as he afterwards declared, 
 with the enthusiastic faith of the age, he conquered in battle 
 and tournament. He joined the crusade, fought against in- 
 fidels, and returned home unharmed ; on his deathbed he 
 attributed his success and glory to this token of a pure and 
 sainted woman, which he had ever faithfully preserved. 
 
 In her canonization Elizabeth is styled " Patroness of the 
 Poor." Her whole life shows how truly she deserved the 
 title : her affection for them was constantly expressed ; and 
 she left her stately castle of Wartburg to visit them in their 
 own wretched homes. She paid their debts, attended their 
 wives in their lying-in, clothed their new-born babes, watch- 
 ed by the dying, laid out the dead, and piously followed to 
 the grave the meanest of her subjects. At home it was still 
 of the poor that she thought : she spun wool for them with 
 
ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY. 85 
 
 her maidens ; and often got coarse food prepared for herself, 
 in order to know, by personal experience, how they fared. 
 Elizabeth scarcely needed such knowledge. 
 
 The expenses of the landgrave's table were defrayed by 
 certain taxes, which Lewis either thought just, or could not 
 remove. The confessor of his wife, Conrad of Marburg, an 
 austere, domineering priest — to whom cannot, however, be 
 denied the merit of ever seeking to defend the oppressed — 
 declared that this tax ground down the poor ; and forbade 
 his penitent to taste the food thus procured. Elizabeth 
 obeyed ; but as of all the dishes on her husband's table, 
 there were only a few which she could touch, and as she did 
 not wish to seem to make a difference, she was often starv- 
 ing in the midst of plenty. Once, being on the point of ac- 
 companying the landgrave on a journey, she could find 
 nothing to eat save a piece of brown bread, so hard that it 
 had to be soaked in warm water. That same day she rode 
 sixteen leagues on horseback. 
 
 These privations were more welcome than painful to the 
 devout princess : surrounded by riches, she yet preserved in 
 her heart the love of Gospel poverty. Putting on the gray 
 cloak and torn veil of a poor woman, she would gayly say 
 to her ladies, — " Even thus should I be were I a poor beg- 
 gar;" and she took evident pleasure in the thought. One 
 night that both she and her husband lay awake, she said to 
 him, — " Sir, if it annoy you not, let me tell you by what 
 life we might serve God." " Speak, sweet love," replied 
 Lewis, "what is your thought?" ' "I should'wish," said 
 Elizabeth, " that we had only one piece of land, that would 
 give us wherewithal to live, and about two hundred sheep. 
 You could thus plough the ground, lead the horses, and un- 
 dergo these labors for the love of God ; whilst I should 
 mind the sheep, and shear them." The landgrave laughed, 
 and said, — " Gentle sister, if we had so much land and so 
 many sheep, we should not, methinks, be very poor ; and 
 many would certainly think us too rich." 
 
 But charmed, we are told, with the tender simplicity of 
 his young wife, the landgrave mentioned this incident to a 
 friend, through whom it became known to one of the early 
 biographers of Elizabeth. 
 
 The many opportunities she found of exercising charity 
 
WOMEN OF CHKISTTAOTTY. 
 
 did not satisfy her ardent heart. Leprosy, now so rare, was 
 then a common disease ; the lepers were, perforce, secluded 
 from society. The sympathy of the Church and of their 
 brethren followed them in their solitude ; but with it ever 
 blended repulsion and mysterious fear. Persons of eminent 
 virtue often set aside this feeling, and braved the popular 
 prejudice and the real danger, in order to restore these poor 
 afflicted creatures to that kindly communion, of which, whilst 
 surrounded by the living, they were as effectually deprived 
 as the dead. Elizabeth delighted in visiting and consoling 
 them : she fearlessly sat down by them, and exhorted them 
 to patience, in soothing and tender language. Her maidens 
 of honor once found her sitting in a retired spot of her or- 
 chard with a leper, whose head rested on her lap : Elizabeth 
 had just been cutting off his hair, and was dressing his head, 
 when her maidens surprised her. She only looked up, and 
 smiled silently. 
 
 On another occasion, whilst Lewis was away, she carried 
 her charity so far towards a poor leprous child named Elias, 
 whom no one else would touch or assist, that, after washing 
 him with her own hands, she placed him in the bed which 
 she shared with her husband. The landgrave just then hap- 
 pened to return ; and on learning this circumstance from his 
 mother Sophia, he could not help feeling somewhat angered. 
 Going up to the bed, he drew back the coverlet ; but sud- 
 denly, says one of the early historians of the saint, "the 
 eyes of his soul were opened, and instead of the leprous 
 child, he saw Jesus Christ himself." This vision — typical 
 of the true sense of Christian charity, that what is done to 
 the meanest human being is really done to God — affected 
 the landgrave so deeply, that he permitted his wife to build 
 a hospital on the slope leading to their castle of Wartburg. 
 Twenty-eight sick or infirm persons were admitted within its 
 walls, and were daily visited by Elizabeth, who loved to 
 bring them food herself, and thus spare them the trouble of 
 climbing up the steep path leading to the castle. She often 
 went down to the town on similar errands of charity ; and, 
 to shun observation, generally took a narrow and dangerous 
 path, still called break-knee. As she once went down thus, 
 loaded with bread, meat, and eggs, wrapped up in the folds 
 of her mantle, she was, according to a popular tradition, 
 
ELIZABETH OF HIWGAKY. 8T 
 
 met by her husband, who opened her cloak, and found it 
 filled -with red and white roses. This poetical legend is still 
 told by the now Protestant inhabitants of the spot where the 
 good Elizabeth once lived. 
 
 In the year 1226, the landgrave being then at the Impe- 
 rial Diet, the province of Thuringia suffered extremely from 
 the great dearth which afflicted all Germany. The poor 
 ate roots, wild fruit, dead horses, and yet died by hundreds 
 on the high-roads. The charity of Elizabeth was boundless. 
 The treasury then possessed the large sum of sixty-four 
 thousand gold florins ; and she did not hesitate to distribute 
 it all amongst the poor. Notwithstanding the strong oppo- 
 sition of all the officers of the household, she opened the 
 granaries of her husband, and gave away the whole of the 
 corn : it amounted to the value of several towns and castles. 
 Elizabeth caused as much bread to be baked as the ovens of 
 the castle would hold, and daily gave away the hot loaves to 
 those that came to ask for them : their number often amount- 
 ed to nine hundred. 
 
 We have already mentioned that the roads leading to the 
 Castle of Wartburg were steep. The weak and the infirm 
 could not climb so high ; but they were not neglected : 
 Elizabeth went down to them every morn and evening. She 
 founded two new hospitals in Eisenach, and attended on 
 their inmates with a zeal nothing could check. In one of 
 those hospitals sick or orphan children were received, whom 
 Elizabeth treated with peculiar tenderness. They no sooner 
 saw her than they ran to meet her, and clung to her gar- 
 ments, calling out, " Mamma, mamma !" She made them 
 sit around her, gave them toys, and only caressed the more 
 tenderly those that were most afflicted. 
 
 The three hospitals, which she now daily visited and at- 
 tended, did not so much engage the time of Elizabeth but 
 that she still found means to visit the homes of the poor. 
 She once entered a cottage where a poor man lay sick and 
 alone ; he begged of her to milk his cow, as weakness pre- 
 vented him from getting up ; the good princess cheerfully 
 made the attempt, but failed, from not being accustomed to 
 such an office. The prisoners were not forgotten by her : 
 she visited them frequently, prayed with them, dressed the 
 wounds their chains had inflicted, and when they were de- 
 
88 WOMEN OP CHEISTIANITY. 
 
 tained for debt, bought their liberty. So great was hex 
 charity, in this season of sharp distress, that she ordered the 
 revenues of the four dukedoms belonging *to her husband 
 to be exclusively devoted to the relief of the poor of his 
 dominions ; and she sold all her jewels and valuables for the 
 same object. 
 
 When the harvest-time came, Elizabeth gathered together 
 all the poor that were able to labor, gave them scythes, new 
 shirts and shoes, so that their feet might not be hurt by the 
 stubble fields, and then sent them to work. Those who 
 were too weak were dismissed with a little money and gar- 
 ments ; often lier own rich veils and robes, which she gave 
 them to sell. In the mean while, the landgrave, hearing of 
 the sad state of his dominions, obtained from the emperor 
 the permission of returning to Thuringia. As he approach- 
 ed Wartburg, all the officers of the household, fearing his 
 anger, went forth to meet him, and complained of his wife's 
 prodigality. The anger of the landgrave was indeed roused, 
 but against the accusers. "Is my dear wife well?" he 
 asked ; " this is all I wish to know : what do I care about 
 the rest?" He added, — "I wish you to let my good little 
 Elizabeth give away as much as she likes : you must help, 
 and not thwart her. Let her only leave us Eisenach, Wart- 
 burg, and Naumburg ; God will give us back the rest when 
 he thinks fit : alms will never ruin us." 
 
 With this the good prince hastened to meet his dear wife. 
 Never since their marriage had they been so long apart ; 
 and her joy on seeing him again was extreme : she could not 
 weary of kissing and caressing him. As Lewis held her 
 clasped in his arms, he kindly said, — " Dear sister, how fared 
 thy poor people during this bad year?" She gently an- 
 swered, — "I gave to God what, belonged to him, and God 
 kept us what was thine and mine." 
 
 Hitherto Elizabeth had known as much happiness as ever 
 fell to the lot of woman. She h&d been married nearly sev- 
 en years, and the affection of her husband had rather in- 
 creased than diminished. God had given her three children, 
 honors, great wealth, and every earthly blessing. Heavy 
 calamities were to follow this happiness and prosperity. A 
 crusade was preparing for the year 1227. Lewis took the 
 cross. He did not dare to tell his wife, who was then near 
 
ELIZABETH OF HUNGAKY. 89 
 
 giving birth to her fourth child ; and instead of wearing the 
 cross openly, he kept it in the purse suspended from his' belt. 
 They were sitting together one evening, when Elizabeth, 
 playfully putting her hand in the purse, drew forth the cross. 
 On seeing it she fainted away with grief. When she was 
 restored to consciousness, the landgrave vainly sought to 
 console her. After long remaining silent, and weeping much, 
 Elizabeth said, — " Dear brother, if it be not against the will 
 of God, stay with me." " Dear sister," he answered, " al- 
 low me to go, for it is a vow I have made to God." She 
 submitted at length, and the landgrave, having now no fur- 
 ther reason for concealment, prepared every thing for his 
 departure. He recommended his wife to his mother, broth- 
 ers, and officers. The butler said, — " I know that the lady 
 Elizabeth will give all she finds, and reduce us to misery." 
 Lewis answered, " he did not care, for that God would know 
 how to replace what his wife would give away." Unable 
 to tear herself from him, Elizabeth accompanied her husband 
 to the frontiers of Thuringia. They reached the limits of 
 his dominions, and still she would not leave him : another 
 day she journeyed by his side, and again another ; until at 
 length their old friend, the Lord of Varila, was obliged to 
 separate them. The landgrave and his knights pursued 
 their journey, whilst Elizabeth returned sorrowful and alone • 
 to the castle of Wartburg. Immediately on her arrival she 
 put on widow's weeds. Her biographers narrate that a fa- 
 tal presentiment was at her heart ; and the event justified 
 her fears : Lewis died on his way to Holy Land a few 
 months after their separation. The news reached Thuringia 
 in winter ; and Elizabeth was kept in total ignorance of it 
 until she had safely given birth to her fourth child. 
 
 As she sat one day in her- apartment, her mother-in-law, 
 Sophia, entered it with several ladies. When they were all 
 seated, Sophia said, — " Take courage, dearly beloved daugh- 
 ter, and be not disturbed by what has happened to your 
 husband, my son, through the will of God, to whom, as you 
 know, he had wholly given himself up." "If my brother 
 be captive," replied Elizabeth, " with the aid of God and of 
 our friends, he shall be ransomed : my father, I feel sure, 
 will help us, and 1 shall soon be comforted." " Oh, my 
 dear daughter," resumed Sophia, " be patient, and take this 
 
90 WOMEN OF CHKISTIAETTIT. 
 
 ring which he has sent you ; for, to our woe, he is dead." 
 "Madam," cried Elizabeth, "what do you say?" "He is 
 dead," repeated Sophia. Elizabeth turned pale, then be- 
 came crimson ; her hands fell on her knees, and, clasping 
 them passionately, she exclaimed in a broken voice, — " Ah ! 
 Lord my God ! Lord my God ! Behold the whole world is 
 dead for me : the world and all its delights." 
 
 Then she rose, and, like one bereft of sense, she ran through 
 halls and galleries exclaiming — " He is dead, dead, dead." 
 At length a wall opposing her passage, she stopped short, 
 and leaning against it, wept long and bitterly. Her mother- 
 in-law and the other ladies led her away and attempted to 
 console her ; but she only answered in broken exclamations, 
 " I have lost all ! Oh, my beloved brother — oh, the friend 
 of my heart — oh, my good and pious husband, thou art dead, 
 and hast left me in misery ! How shall I live without thee ? 
 Ah, poor lonely widow and miserable woman that I am; 
 may He who forsakes not widows and orphans console me. 
 Oh ! my God, console me ! Oh ! my Jesus, strengthen me 
 in my weakness." 
 
 She asked for resignation, and it came not near her. She 
 had loved her husband with impassioned human love, with 
 all the tenderness of a saint and all the weakness of a woman. 
 She of whom a priest once declared that he had seen 'her 
 from the altar, lost in prayer, and shining with a divine light, 
 could yet, during the celebration of the most sacred myste- 
 ries of her faith, forget all around her in contemplating him 
 to whom her life was not more firmly bound than her heart. 
 She had loved him too much, perhaps, and he was now re- 
 moved forever: no more would that fair yet manly face 
 charm her eyes and trouble her devotions. That pure fidelity 
 which the passions of youth could never shake, that love 
 which had protected her from childhood, that boundless 
 trust which grew the stronger with accusation : all, in short, 
 that could render conjugal affection dear and sacred, were 
 taken from her with him. Well might she weep and call 
 this world a desert. 
 
 On leaving his wife and children, the late landgrave had 
 confided them to the care and love of his two brothers. 
 They resolved to repay that trust by despoiling the widow 
 and her poor orphans of their lawful inheritance. Elizabeth 
 
ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY. 91 
 
 was mourning in her apartment with her mother-in-law, 
 when insolent courtiers, sent by the princes Henry and Con- 
 rad, entered the room ; and, after accusing her of squander- 
 ing the money of the State, ordered her, in punishment of 
 her crimes, to leave the castle instantly. Elizabeth asked at 
 least for a delay, whilst her mother-in-law, taking her in her 
 arms, exclaimed, — " She shall stay with me : no one shall 
 take her from me.'' Force was used to separate them. So- 
 phia could not see her sons, and was only allowed to accom- 
 pany Elizabeth to the gates of the castle. In the court, the 
 widow of the late sovereign found her children and two of 
 her maids of honor. She was not permitted to take away a 
 single thing. On a bleak winter's day, carrying in her arms 
 her young infant, and followed by the three other children 
 (of whom the eldest, her little Hermann, was not more than 
 four years old), Elizabeth descended that steep path leading 
 from Wartburg to Eisenach, and along which she had so 
 often gone down on errands of charity. 
 
 Her pitiless brothers-in-law had ordered that no house 
 should be opened to receive her, and none of the ungrateful 
 beings whom Elizabeth had so often assisted, dared to dis- 
 obey : every door was closed against her. At length she 
 stopped at a miserable tavern, which she refused to leave, 
 saying it was open to all. The master of the house could 
 not, or dared not, give her any other place to sleep in than 
 a miserable hut ; from which he turned out his hogs to admit 
 her and her children. The soul of Elizabeth only rose the 
 higher with her trials : she wept ; but she also returned 
 thanks to God for thus visiting her. At length a poor priest 
 of Eisenach ventured to receive her ; but her brothers-in-law 
 no sooner learned this, than they bade her lodge in the house 
 of a lord who had always shown himself her bitter enemy. 
 He treated her so cruelly, that she left on the following day. 
 It seems that trustworthy persons offered to take charge of 
 her children, for whose safety she feared, and that Elizabeth 
 accepted, though nearly heart-broken by this separation : 
 she thus remained alone with her maidens, earning a scanty 
 living by spinning wool. 
 
 The poor and hospitable priest who had given her a night's 
 lodging, is the only instance mentioned of any thing like sym- 
 pathy received by Elizabeth in Eisenach : the people gener- 
 
92 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ally treated her with brutal ingratitude. One old woiiian, 
 whom she had often assisted, meeting her on a narrow bridge 
 thrown over a muddy stream, pushed her in, and said, " Thou 
 wouldst not live like a princess when thou wert one : lie now 
 in the mud ; I shall not pick thee up." Elizabeth only 
 laughed at this, and saying, " This is instead of the gold and 
 jewels I wore formerly," she went and washed her garments 
 at a neighboring fountain. 
 
 Her calamities at length came to the knowledge of her 
 relatives. She first went to reside with one of her aunts, 
 abbess of the convent of Kitzingen-on-the-Mein ; and after- 
 wards with her uncle Egbert, prince and bishop of Bamberg : 
 he gave her the castle of Bottenstein ; where, with her chil- 
 dren and her two faithful maidens, she at length lived in 
 peace. 
 
 Elizabeth was little more than twenty; and her uncle 
 thought her too young to live single : he wished her to 
 marry the Emperor Frederick II., who desired the match 
 ardently, for she was one of the most beautiful princesses of 
 the day. She refused, with modest firmness. Her sorrow 
 for the loss of her husband had not yet subsided : besides 
 she had, of her own accord, solemnly vowed to Lewis never 
 to belong to any other man should he happen to die first. 
 To shun the importunities of her ambitious relative, she took 
 a pilgrimage to the monastery of Andechs ; and, as a token 
 that she had now done with human love, she laid on the 
 altar her rich wedding-robe, which is still preserved in the 
 church. 
 
 Whilst Elizabeth resided at the castle of Bottenstein, the 
 procession, bearing the remains of her late husband, passed 
 by Bamberg on its way to Beinhartsbrunn. On her request 
 the coffin was opened. She kissed with impassioned tender- 
 ness all that was now left of him she had so much loved ; 
 then, raising her soul to God, she exclaimed aloud, in words 
 that have been transmitted, " I give thee thanks, Lord, 
 for having deigned to hear the prayer of thy handmaiden, 
 and for having granted my ardent wish of beholding again 
 the remains of my beloved ; who was also thine. I give 
 thee thanks for having thus mercifully comforted mine af- 
 flicted soul. He had offered himself, and I had offered him 
 to thee, for the defence of thy Holy Land. I regret it not, 
 
ELIZABETH OF HUNGAET. 93 
 
 even though I loved him with all the might of my heart. 
 Thou knowest how I loved him, who loved thee so much : 
 thou knowest that to all the joys of this world I would have 
 preferred that of his delightful presence ; that I would have 
 been glad to live with him, and beg with him from door to 
 door through the whole world, merely for the happiness of 
 being with 'him, if thou hadst permitted it. But now I 
 abandon him, and I abandon myself to thy will ; and I 
 would not, even though I could, purchase back his life with 
 one hair of my head, unless it were thy will, O my God !" 
 
 The lords who were bringing back the remains of Lewis 
 to his native land were the bravest of his court, being those 
 who had accompanied him in his crusade. They learned 
 with indignation the treatment their Lady Elizabeth had re- 
 ceived, and promised to see her and her children righted ; 
 they kept their word so effectually, that, shortly after their 
 return, Elizabeth, who willingly consented to a reconcilia- 
 tion, re-entered the castle of Wartburg, from which she had 
 been so cruelly expelled. The government of Thuringia was 
 left to her brother-in-law Henry, but the rights of her son 
 Hermann were acknowledged. A year after this, she asked 
 Henry to give her a separate residence ; he granted her the 
 town of Marburg and its revenues. 
 
 We have not space to dwell at full length on the remain- 
 ing years of Elizabeth. She filled them with deeds of an 
 heroic charity that almost surpasses belief. She was now 
 a wealthy lady ; but her wealth was not her own — it be- 
 longed to the poor. She lived in a little house, and earned 
 her livelihood by spinning wool, whilst thousands subsisted 
 on her bounty, and the sick were cared for in the hospital 
 which she had founded immediately on her arrival. The 
 world called her mad, because her riches were not squan- 
 dered in luxurious amusements ; but she only smiled at 
 the imputation. She once gathered together an immense 
 number of poor people, and distributed abundant alms 
 amongst them ; their joy was so great, that they began to 
 sing. Elizabeth heard them from her house, and exclaimed, 
 in words that paint her heart, " Did I not tell you that we 
 must render men as happy as we can !" and she went forth 
 to rejoice with them. 
 
 Her confessor, Conrad, seems to have thought that she 
 
94 WOMEN OF CHKISTIAOTTY. 
 
 found too much pleasure in such tasks : he had already for- 
 bidden her to take a vow of poverty, and he now forbade 
 her to be so prodigal. Elizabeth strove to elude his prohi- 
 bition : he had told her to give only one farthing at a time, 
 and she caused silver farthings to be struck. The poor, 
 accustomed to larger donations, complained ; but, with the 
 finesse of a woman, she said to them, " I am forbidden to 
 give you more than one farthing at a time, but I am not 
 forbidden to give to you every time you shall come." It 
 need not be said that the hint was readily taken. Conrad 
 was much irritated, and, in his resentment, did not scruple 
 to strike her. It is painful to read how far this harsh and 
 domineering priest carried his authority over his docile 
 penitent. In many things his prohibitions were justified, 
 for he checked the excessive austerities in which Elizabeth 
 had always been prone to indulge ; but the way in which 
 he exercised his dominion was harsh, and often cruel. He 
 was indeed a stern father ; yet there is no doubt that, in his 
 own austere way, he loved her, and held himself bound to 
 treat her with severity for the greater good of her soul. 
 When he once thought himself near dying, his distress at 
 the prospect of leaving her was great : he knew that, though 
 he was only a poor monk, he stood between her and many 
 enemies, who would take advantage of his death to work 
 her ill. The danger was averted : Elizabeth, though still in 
 the prime of youth, was the first to die. 
 
 A burning fever seized and carried her off quickly. Several 
 times during the course of her illness she was heard to sing 
 with ravishing sweetness. She died in all the transports of 
 a heavenly piety, on the 19th of November of the year 
 1231 ; being then little more than twenty-four. Rarely has 
 a life so varied and so brief been graced by so many virtues. 
 So great was the renown of her sanctity, that, a few days 
 after her death and funeral, her tomb was already crowded 
 with pilgrims, who waited not the sanction of the Church to 
 proclaim her holy. The stern Conrad, who had given her 
 so many opportunities of practising the virtues of patience 
 and submission, suggested her canonization to the pope ; 
 and it took place four years later. The translation of her 
 relics drew immense crowds. The emperor, Frederick II., 
 whom Elizabeth had refused to marry, placed on her head 
 
ELIZABETH OF HUNGAEY. 95 
 
 a crown of gold, saying, " Since I could not crown her 
 living as my empress, I will at least crown her to-day as an 
 immortal queen in the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 For several ages, the fame of Elizabeth continued to in- 
 crease. The romantie" interest of. her story, and the heroic 
 virtues which she practised, have rendered her one of the 
 most popular saints of the Catholic Church. One of her 
 daughters married, and left a son, from whom are descended 
 the various branches of the house of Hesse: There are few 
 of the reigning sovereigns of Europe who may not claim St. 
 Elizabeth of Hungary as their ancestress. In the year 1539, 
 Philip of Hesse, one of her descendants, who had adopted 
 the doctrines of Luther, caused her shrine to be opened and 
 despoiled of all its ornaments : the relics were buried at 
 night in some unknown spot. 
 
 The land where Elizabeth lived has undergone great chan- 
 ges : the churches where she was honored, now hold an- 
 other creed ; the mansions of charity which she founded, 
 exist no longer. A modern traveller,* to whose enthusiasm 
 for the character of this noble woman we owe the best 
 biography of her that exists, has recorded with sorrow how 
 few traces of her existence he found, in places whence the 
 changes of time and religious opinion need not have effaced 
 her memory : spots once named after her now bear the 
 names of other princesses. One token, however, the traveller 
 found both characteristic and touching. The hospital which 
 Elizabeth built at Wartburg is there no more, but the little 
 fountain that once belonged to it exists : the clear waters 
 still flow in their stone basin, surrounded with grass and 
 flowers. Here the wife of the landgrave was wont to wash 
 with her own hands the linen of the poor. No other prin- 
 cess has come there to perform this humble office, and give 
 her name to the fountain : it is still called " the Fountain of 
 Elizabeth." 
 
 * Count Charles of Montalembert 
 
96 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 Hereditary Virtues — Hedwiges, Duchess of Poland — Margaret of Hun- 
 gary — Kinga — Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal — Isabel of Srance — Hed- 
 wiges of Hungary — Clare — Agnes. 
 
 We have already had occasion to remark that piety and 
 charity were often hereditary in families ; the family of St. 
 Elizabeth of .Hungary may be adduced as another instance : 
 for several generations it produced women of eminent piety 
 and virtue. 
 
 The aunt of Elizabeth, Hedwiges, duchess of Poland, ex- 
 hausted her revenues to relieve the poor ; and in order to be 
 able to assist them from the monastery, where she retired 
 after the death of her husband, she took no vows. Her pa- 
 tience under heavy sorrows, her humility, her boundless 
 charity, have been deservedly extolled. 
 
 Margaret of Hungary, the niece of Elizabeth, died in her 
 twenty-eighth year, in odor of sanctity. 
 
 Her sister, Kinga or Cunegondes, was married to Boleslas 
 the Chaste, sovereign of Lesser Poland. Whilst she was 
 still a child, Kinga was in the habit of giving away to the 
 poor her garments of purple and gold ; and, as a princess, 
 she loved to humble her pride and mortify her senses by 
 attending on poor lepers. She carried this charity so far, 
 that, although she remained unharmed in the midst of infec- 
 tion, her attendants refused to eat the food she had touched, 
 or to approach her too nearly. A romantic legend relates, 
 that as a reward for the peril which she so heroically braved, 
 Kinga was once enabled to heal a leprous woman by a kiss 
 of her pure lips. She died in 1292, deeply venerated. 
 
 Elizabeth, queen of Portugal, was the grand-daughter of 
 Violante, sister of Elizabeth of Hungary ; after whom she 
 was named. She inherited many of her virtues, and had 
 also a virtue of her own, which she found many occasions of 
 exercising ; and which might well entitle her to be styled 
 " the Peacemaker," even as her relative was styled " the 
 Patroness of the Poor." Her birth, in 1271, restored har- 
 mony between her grandfather, James I., king of Aragon, 
 
ELIZABETH OF PORTUGAL. 97 
 
 and her father, who was afterwards Peter III. It was per- 
 haps owing to this circumstance that Elizabeth was so much 
 beloved both by James and by her own father. Scarcely, 
 however, had she reached her twelfth year, when Peter 
 promised her in marriage to Denis, the young King of Portugal. 
 He was the only reigning sovereign who sued for the hand of 
 Elizabeth, and was for this reason preferred to his rivals. 
 
 The King of Aragon was, however, sorely troubled when 
 he had to part from his favorite daughter. He accompanied 
 her part of the way, and as they separated he embraced her, 
 weeping much, and saying : " Was there ever seen a more 
 miserable man than I am ? Behold ! I send away from me 
 the thing I hold most beloved and most dear." Then he 
 blessed her over and over, and said : " My daughter, thou 
 seekest a strange country : I reared thee ; I taught thee ; in 
 nothing more may I counsel thee. Assuredly I never saw 
 a creature that could compare to thee with regard to the in- 
 telligence and virtues with which thou art dowered." " And 
 thus," says an old chronicler, " the king went away from his 
 daughter." 
 
 The arrival of Elizabeth in Portugal was marked by a 
 characteristic incident. She reconciled her husband Denis 
 to his brother, the Infant, with whom he was at variance. 
 So great was her love of peace, that she did not merely seek 
 to soften the animosity of contending parties by arguments 
 and entreaties, but when money was the cause of quarrel, 
 she restored harmony by giving whatever sums were needed. 
 To this kind and amiable disposition the young queen united 
 many other virtues. From the day that she became sove- 
 reign of Portugal, she devoted herself to the welfare of her 
 subjects. All pilgrims and poor strangers were by her 
 orders provided with food and lodgings. She founded a 
 hospital near her palace at Coimbra, a house for penitent 
 women at Torres-Novas, and a hospital for foundlings. 
 She secretly assisted persons of gentle blood fallen into dis- 
 tress, portioned and married poor maidens exposed to temp- 
 tation, and visited, to serve and relieve them with her own 
 hands, sick and suffering persons. At home she employed 
 all the time she could spare from her devotions in working 
 for the poor : a pious task in which she was assisted by her 
 maidens of honor. 
 
 5 
 
98 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Denis was a great and good king : he prepared the com 
 mercial greatness of Portugal, he was a patron of the arts 
 and sciences, and history has deservedly styled him "the 
 just," and " the father of his country ;" but this good mon- 
 arch was an indifferent husband, and stained his private life 
 with a long course of licentiousness. Elizabeth endured his 
 infidelities with great patience : such were her meekness and 
 her love of peace, that she reared her husband's natural chil- 
 dren as tenderly as her own. With time the king reformed ; 
 but not before he had put his pure and virtuous wife to the 
 strange trial of seeing her fidelity questioned. Denis soon 
 became convinced that his suspicions were both ill-founded 
 and disgraceful ; he discarded his mistresses, and in that 
 way, at least, gave his wife no further cause of complaint. 
 Other afflictions were in store for Elizabeth. 
 
 She had two children by the king : Alfonso, who suc- 
 ceeded his father, and Constantia, who married Ferdinand 
 IV., king of Castile, and died in her youth. Elizabeth had 
 to restore peace between her brother, James II. of Aragon, 
 and her son-in-law. They were on the verge of making war, 
 when her entreaties induced them to keep their forces for 
 the common Moorish foe, and submit their quarrel to the 
 arbitrament of her husband ; with whom she took a journey 
 into Spain for that purpose. The reconciliation was happily 
 effected ; and similar success awaited the praiseworthy efforts 
 of Elizabeth when she interfered between her son-in-law, 
 Ferdinand, and his cousin, Alfonso, who disputed his right 
 to the crown. She soon had occasion to exercise in the 
 bosom of her own family her zeal for peace. Her son, Al- 
 fonso, afterwards styled the Brave, was a prince of a proud 
 and impatient spirit. Soon after his marriage with the In- 
 fanta of Castile, he quarreEed with his father. Elizabeth 
 favored his escape ; but interceded in his favor with Denis, 
 who' was so much irritated against her that he banished her 
 to the city of Alanquer. The queen bore this disgrace with 
 great patience, and refused to side with the malcontents. 
 After some time, the king recalled her to court, and she suc- 
 ceeded in reconciling him to their son. 
 
 The quarrel soon broke forth again. The Infant wanted 
 to enter a town where the king resided, and Denis came 
 forth to meet and prevent him. The armed followers of the 
 
ELIZABETH OF FOETUGAL. 99 
 
 prince insisted on advancing, and the supporters of the king 
 forbade the way. An army was rapidly drawn up on either 
 side, and a combat began with an exchange of stones and 
 arrows. Some were killed, and many badly wounded. As 
 the strife began to wax warm, the queen suddenly appeared, 
 mounted on a mule, without a servant to hold the bridle, or 
 male or female attendant that dared to follow ; she rode 
 fearlessly between the two contending armies, exposed to 
 the stones and arrows that flew around her from either side. 
 " God, whose service she intended," writes a pious biog- 
 rapher, "permitted her to pass thus unhurt." She reached 
 the presence of the king ; from him she went to the Infant ; 
 she thus journeyed alternately between father and son, until 
 at length Alfonso agreed to submit, and kiss the hand of 
 Denis, who consented to forgive him, and bestow on him his 
 paternal benediction. They parted reconciled; "and thus 
 on that day, through the intercession and prayers of this 
 queen, God chose to deliver many men of the kingdom of 
 Portugal from death, and other irreparable evils." 
 
 After reigning forty-five years, Denis fell sick, and died 
 in 1325. Elizabeth retired to a convent of poor Clares. 
 She did not take the vows, because she would thus have 
 lost her privilege of bestowing alms, and of supporting at 
 her cost a great number of poor people. " She practised 
 the seven works of mercy," writes one of her biographers ; 
 " for she clothed the naked, she fed the hungry, visited the 
 sick, and supported hospitals ; she caused the dead to be 
 laid out and buried, she released prisoners for debt, redeemed 
 captives, and brought back erring sinners to virtue." The 
 same biographer commends Elizabeth highly for several sin- 
 gular virtues, such as never resenting an offence, and never 
 once being seen to wear an angry face. He praises highly 
 her charity to the poor, and to unfortunate sinning women : 
 to keep them from temptation, the good queen prorided 
 them with food and clothing. 
 
 Whilst Elizabeth resided at Coimbra, a great dearth fell 
 on the land. The queen caused bread, meat, and money to 
 be daily distributed amongst the people ; but this did not 
 prevent many men and women from dying of hunger. Eliz- 
 abeth saw to their burial ; with a charity that extended be- 
 yond the grave, she caused the rites of the dead to be per- 
 
100 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 formed over them, and masses to be offered up for theii 
 souls. So profuse were her alms, even in proportion to her 
 great revenues, that her servants murmured amongst them- 
 selves, and reproved her, saying, " She would keep nothing 
 for herself for the time yet to come." To whom the queen 
 replied : " I w»uld rather die of hunger myself than deny 
 aid to the poor in this season, and thus become guilty of 
 their death before God." One last act of charity crowned 
 worthily this pure and noble life. 
 
 Whilst Elizabeth resided at Coimbra, a war broke out be- 
 tween her son, Alfonso IV., king of Portugal, and her grand- 
 son, Alfonso XI., king of Castile. Their armies were al- 
 ready on foot, but no encounter had taken place. Elizabeth 
 resolved to attempt to reconcile them in person. Her at- 
 tendants represented that, with her disease — she was afflict- 
 ed with a tumor in one of her arms — such a journey taken 
 in the burning heats of summer might prove fatal. Eliza- 
 beth replied that health and life could not be better expend- 
 ed than in seeking to save two kingdoms from the miseries 
 of war. The news of her journey disposed the contending 
 parties to a peace, which her presence at Estremoz, on the 
 frontiers of Portugal and Castile, finally effected. She ar- 
 rived ill of a fever, which rapidly increased, and soon be- 
 came fatal. She died with the serene piety of a saint. As 
 her daughter-in-law, Queen Beatrix, sat in her chamber by 
 her bed, shortly before her death, Elizabeth suddenly turned 
 towards her, and said : " My lady daughter, make way for 
 that lady who is passing there by you." " My lady mother," 
 answered Beatrix, wondering, " who is that lady ?" " She 
 who came in here clad in white garments," answered the 
 dying queen. Beatrix looked, and saw no one ; whence she 
 concluded that the holy Virgin, whom Elizabeth had always 
 much honored, had sent this lady to visit and comfort the 
 sick queen. No more heavenly messengers came to soothe 
 her pain, or summon her away ; the hour of her departure 
 had arrived ; it found Elizabeth calm and prepared. She 
 received the last sacrament of the Church with fervent 
 piety, then repeated to herself the Creed and the Lord's 
 Prayer, until the words died on her lips, and she quietly ex- 
 pired. She died on the fourth of July, 1336, in the sixty- 
 fifth year of her age. 
 
BLANCHE OF CASTILE. 101 
 
 Another royal family of the same age, offers the same 
 instances of female virtue and piety which we have traced in 
 that of Hungary. Elizabeth of Hungary left a son, who 
 died young : poisoned, it is said, by one of his uncles. Be- 
 fore his death he visited the court of France, where Blanche 
 of Castile received him kindly. Out of reverence to his 
 mother, the French queen often kissed the brow which the 
 lips of the sainted Elizabeth had pressed. 
 
 Blanche . was, herself, a woman of eminent, though not 
 always gentle, virtues. Her mother, Eleanor of England, 
 queen of Castile, and her sister, Uraca, queen of Portugal, 
 were reverenced for their goodness. Two of the eleven 
 children of Blanche left the name of saints : Louis IX., one 
 of the best and greatest of French kings, and the pious and 
 humble Isabel. 
 
 Blanche of Castile was a noble woman : she once said to 
 St. Louis : " I love you, but I would rather behold you dead 
 at my feet than see you commit one mortal sin." These 
 words, uttered by a mother who loved him with the most 
 impassioned tenderness, produced on Louis a horror of sin 
 which nothing could ever efface. To every royal and manly 
 virtue he united a severe purity rarely displayed on the 
 throne. Isabel was worthy to be the daughter of this illus- 
 trious woman, and the sister of this good king. She lived 
 in retirement at the court of her brother, showing no incli- 
 nation either for the cloister or for the married state. Blanche 
 and L'ouis wished her to contract some powerful alliance, and 
 the pope strongly urged her to comply with this reasonable 
 request ; but Isabel defended her freedom with mingled 
 humility, firmness, and good sense. She dwelt in such 
 forcible language on the miseries of unhappy princesses sent 
 into exile, and sacrificed to state policy, that her relatives, 
 who loved her tenderly, at length gave up the point. 
 
 Blanche had given her daughter a religious and learned 
 education ; and Isabel attained so perfect a knowledge of the 
 Latin language, that she often corrected the compositions of 
 her chaplains. Her great delight was to remain in her closet 
 reading the holy Scriptures, or some book of devotion, whilst 
 the princesses of the ,royal family and their ladies shared in 
 the amusements of the court. To please her mother, she 
 sometimes appeared in those festivities ; but although she 
 
102 WOMEN OF CHEISTIAOTTT. 
 
 had, like Blanche, inherited the memorable beauty of Eleanoi 
 of Guyenne, their maternal ancestress, the young princess 
 took no pleasure in adorning her person : it was very reluc- 
 tantly that she allowed her attendants to dress her hair ; 
 which, like her mother's, was of extraordinary length and 
 beauty. Some of those women, who already revered her as 
 a holy being, .carefully preserved the hair which they combed 
 out of the head of their mistress ; Isabel, perceiving this, 
 asked to know the reason. " Madam," answered one of the 
 women, " we keep it to make relics of it, for the time when 
 you shall have become a saint." Isabel laughed very much 
 on hearing this. 
 
 Charity to the poor was her favorite virtue. Her brother 
 Louis one day found her spinning wool for a cap ; he asked 
 her to give it to him, saying, he should wear it for her sake. 
 " This," answered Isabel, " is the first work of the kind that 
 I have spun ; I therefore owe it to Jesus Christ, to whom all 
 my first fruits are due." Jesus Christ, in the pious phrase- 
 ology of the age, meant the poor. The cap was given to an 
 old woman, from whom two of the attendants of Isabel 
 bought it, to keep it as a token of the charity of their young 
 mistress. Louis, much pleased with the answer of his sister, 
 hoped that she would at least give him the second fruits of 
 her industry ; she promised to do so, as soon as the first cap 
 was finished. The days of Isabel were devoted to such 
 labors : she also practised the more difficult charity of at- 
 tending on the sick, with whatever infectious and repulsive 
 diseases they might be afflicted. She ultimately founded a 
 monastery of poor Clares near Paris, to which she retired ; 
 and where she died, without having taken the vows, in 
 1269. She was canonized in 1521. 
 
 Her sister-in-law, the good and amiable Margueritte of 
 Provence, the worthy wife of St. Louis, was a saint herself 
 in all save the name. She is celebrated for her conjugal 
 love, and her heroism in misfortune ; but her own humility, 
 and the jealousy of her mother-in-law, have rendered her 
 private life obscure : we know her through what she under- 
 went, not through what she did. Historians agree in prais- 
 ing the faultless beauty of her character. 
 
 In the following age lived St. Hedwiges of Hungary ; 
 descended through her father from Blanche of Castile, and 
 
HEDWIGES OF HUNGARY. 103 
 
 through one of her maternal ancestors from the same royal 
 family of Hungary which had already produced so many 
 eminent women. Hedwigis was elected queen of Poland in 
 her thirteenth year. The Polish magnates who chose her 
 for their sovereign, exacted that she should marry Jagellon, 
 duke of Lithuania. She complied, and sacrificed her own 
 inclination, in favor of an Austrian prince, to the good of her 
 kingdom and the extension of her religion ; for on his mar- 
 riage with Hedwiges, Jagellon received baptism, and after- 
 wards labored with her to spread Christianity amongst his 
 subjects. Hedwiges was both a great and a good sovereign : 
 she sold her jewels to relieve the poor, and to complete the 
 buildings of the university at Cracow. There is a little anec- 
 dote which paints her under a very charming aspect. Some 
 poor peasants came to her in tears, complaining that the ser- 
 vants of the king had carried off their cattle ; Hedwiges 
 went to her husband and obtained instant redress. " The 
 cattle have been restored to them," said the queen, " but who 
 shall give them back their tears?" Only a woman, and 
 perhaps, we may add, only a Christian woman, could have 
 said this. Hedwiges died in 1399, in her twenty-eighth 
 year. She left a memory deeply venerated in Poland, and 
 the name of having been the most beautiful and accomplish- 
 ed princess of her age. 
 
 We have occasionally alluded in the preceding pages to 
 the convents of the poor Clares, where Cunegondes of Hun- 
 gary, Isabel of France, and Elizabeth of Portugal, retired. 
 This order was then recently established ; but neither caprice 
 nor the love of novelty had dictated the choice of these 
 princesses. 
 
 For several ages monastic establishments had progressed : 
 sovereigns had endowed and erected magnificent abbeys ; 
 great lords and ladies had enriched them with ample reve- 
 nues ; and the pious, high and low, had brought offerings 
 more or less costly, to their shrines. Abbots and abbesses 
 lived with the state of prinoes : they had lands and vassals ; 
 they could raise levies and make war on their neighbors ; in 
 short, they exercised the great and almost irresponsible power 
 vested in them as feudal lords. But precisely as they reach- 
 ed this state of temporal prosperity, some fervent and ascetic 
 spirits began to remember that the monastic state was prop- 
 
104: WOMEN OF CHKISTIA2JITT. 
 
 erly a state of penance, mortification, and gospel poverty y 
 Then arose the austere orders of the Franciscans, Domini- 
 cans, Augustines, and Carmelites. These mendicant and 
 preaching friars were meanly clad and poorly lodged ; they 
 refused to possess domains or revenues : they lived partly on 
 alms, partly on their own industry ; they went about preach- 
 ing with great fervor; they were learned, humble, and 
 pious ; and the contrast which their simple mode of exist- 
 ence offered to the luxurious life of the other religious orders, 
 secured them universal pre-eminence ; until they too forgot, 
 with time, the strictness and poverty enjoined by their origi- 
 nal founders. 
 
 It was in the thirteenth century that St. Francis of Assissi, 
 one of the most eminent and extraordinary men of his age, 
 founded the great order of the Franciscans. His work 
 would not have been complete had it not included women. 
 He did not at first think of them ; they came to him ; his 
 peculiar character, his boundless charity, his humility, the 
 fervor of his devotion, impressed both their imagination and 
 their heart. 
 
 At the time when the religious fame of the saint began to 
 spread in Italy, there dwelt in his native town of Assissi (so 
 called from the stony hill of Assi on which it is built), a no- 
 ble knight named Favorino Sciffo ; who, with his wife Hor- 
 tulana, held the first rank in the place. They had three 
 daughters, Clare, Agnes, and Beatrice. Clare was charita- 
 ble and devout : she disliked the thought of marriage, and, 
 wishing to leave the world, applied to Francis for advice. 
 He strengthened her in her resolve ; she left her home one 
 evening in the spring of the year 1212, and went out of town 
 to the Portiuncula, where Francis and his brethren resided. 
 The friars received her at the door of the church with lighted 
 tapers, singing the hymn, Veni Creator. Clare entered the 
 church, and before the altar of the Virgin put off her sump- 
 tuous garments for a robe of sackcloth tied round her with a 
 cord. Francis cut off her hair and placed her in a Benedic- 
 tine nunnery : she was then eighteen. 
 
 Her parents and friends, exasperated at the step she had 
 taken, came to draw her from her retreat. They attempted 
 to use force ; Clare passionately clung to the altar and held 
 it fast, though their violence was such that they dragged 
 
CLAEE. 105 
 
 Jown the cloths with which it was covered. She remon- 
 strated with them, and, uncovering her head, showed them 
 her shorn locks ; declaring that she was now the bride of 
 heaven, and would never own a mortal spouse. They re- 
 proached her — for this was her chief offence — that she dis- 
 graced her family by embracing a rule so mean as that of 
 the mendicant friars ; but she bore their insults with pa- 
 tience. At length they left her. 
 
 Soon after this, Clare was joined by her sister Agnes, a 
 girl of fourteen. Twelve men succeeded in entering the 
 convent and attempted to carry her off : they struck her, 
 and dragged her by the hair along the pavement of the 
 church. " Help me, dear sister," she cried, addressing 
 Clare, who prayed, prostrate and weeping : " Help me, nor 
 let me be taken from the Lord Jesus Christ." The men 
 finding it impossible to conquer the resistance of this young 
 girl, ended by retiring. Soon after this, Agnes took the 
 habit, and went to live with her sister in a mean house of 
 Assissi. They were joined by their mother Hortulana, who 
 had become a widow ; and sixteen noble ladies followed 
 their example. 
 
 The order of the poor Clares spread rapidly. They prac- 
 tised austerities hitherto unknown amongst women, and made 
 it their fundamental rule never to possess any thing. A. large 
 fortune devolved on Clare by the death of her father ; but 
 she would not bestow the least part of it on her monastery, 
 and distributed it amongst the poor. When Pope Innocent 
 IV. visited her, she requested him to confirm to her order 
 the singular privilege of perpetual poverty. He promised 
 to do so, declaring, at the same time, that no such demand 
 had ever before been addressed to the apostolic see. Pope 
 Gregory IX. vainly endeavored to persuade Clare to accept 
 a yearly revenue, which he offered to settle on her monas- 
 tery of St. Damian's. " If your vow prevents you," he said, 
 " I will release you from it." " Holy father," answered 
 Clare, "I have no wish to be released from amongst the 
 followers of Christ." 
 
 She died in 1253, poor as she had lived. The pope and 
 the whole sacred college assisted at her funeral. 
 5* 
 
106 WOMEN OF CHEIBT'IANITY. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Catherine of Sienna — Catherine of Sweden. 
 
 Dominic, the contemporary and friend of Francis of As- 
 sissium, established a female religious order, which was 
 afterwards known as the third order of St. Dominic. It 
 enjoined few austerities, but great regularity. Some of the 
 members were nuns, took the vows, and resided in cloisters ; 
 others were women who lived in their own houses, but who 
 devoted themselves to works of mercy, and especially to 
 serve the poor in hospitals. It was this order which St. 
 Catherine of Sienna joined, in the second age of its estab- 
 lishment. 
 
 Catherine is one of the many instances of the democratic 
 power inherent to Christianity. The purity and holiness of 
 her life alone raised this young and obscure nun to a position 
 so high, that she became a negotiator between contending 
 States, a support to the Church in her peril, and the con- 
 templated ambassadress of a pope to a great queen. These 
 honors have induced some of the biographers of Catherine 
 to derive her origin from one of those Italian families of 
 illustrious citizens who vied in power and magnificence with 
 the princes of other lands ; but the plain truth is, that her 
 ancestry was obscure, and that her father, Jacopo Benincasa, 
 was no more than a prosperous dyer of Sienna. 
 
 Both Jacopo and his wife Lapa loved Catherine more than 
 their other children. She was beautiful, highly gifted, and 
 devout beyond her years. Her parents treated her with 
 marked indulgence until she had reached her twelfth year ; 
 they then wished her to marry, but Catherine unexpectedly 
 declared that she had solemnly vowed to know no other 
 spouse than Christ. Lapa was greatly incensed : to divert 
 the thoughts of her daughter from the religious state, she 
 deprived her of the little room to which she was in the habit 
 of retiring for meditation and solitude, and gave her all the 
 drudgery of the house to perform. Catherine bore with 
 great patience the anger of her parents, the insults of her 
 jealous sisters, the humiliation of the menial tasks set to her, 
 
CATHERINE OF SIENNA. 107 
 
 and the loss of her dear little room. She at length supplied 
 its place by making, as she said herself, a cell and oratory 
 in her heart, so calm and secure that, in the midst of the 
 most distracting occupations, she could ever retire to it, and 
 rest in peace within the shadow of her own thoughts. 
 
 A temper so resolute, and a mind that could so early ex- 
 ercise the philosophic power of abstraction from external 
 occupations, were not of the order that is controlled or in- 
 fluenced easily. We find, accordingly, that all the time 
 this domestic persecution lasted, but one compliance was 
 wrung from Catherine : her sisters prevailed on her to 
 assume a dress somewhat more elegant and becoming than 
 that which she usually wore. This momentary indulgence 
 of feminine vanity was the great sin of Catherine's youth. 
 It is easy to smile at so much rigidity : but to the pure 
 nothing is light; and to all, any deviation from their own 
 principles of right and wrong ought to seem a sin. 
 
 The parents of Catherine, seeing there was no chance of 
 succeeding with their inflexible daughter, at length gave up 
 the point, and allowed her to resume her former mode of 
 life. She practised great austerities, relieved the poor, and 
 visited the prisoners and the sick. Many severe illnesses, 
 aggravated by the remedies the physicians prescribed to 
 her, tormented her for some years : she bore her sufferings 
 with exemplary patience. 
 
 In the year 1365, Catherine, who was then eighteen, re- 
 ceived the habit of the third order of St. Dominic, in a nun- 
 aery of Sienna. She suffered much from those spiritual 
 troubles which seem to exceed all others in bitterness, but 
 she never relaxed from her charitable pursuits : people often 
 met her in the streets of Sienna bending beneath the weight 
 of the corn, wine, oil, and other provisions which she was 
 carrying to the poor. She practised, to its fullest extent, 
 the heroic charity of the good Elizabeth of Hungary. An 
 old leprous woman named Tocca, had, by order of the magis- 
 trates of Sienna, been sent out from the hospital into the 
 city. The entreaties of Catherine obtained her readmittance 
 into the hospital, where she promised to attend on her ; she 
 accordingly visited Tocca twice a day until her death, when 
 she laid her out with her own hands. The only return she 
 ever received for so much goodness was the most bitter 
 
108 WOMEN OF CHKISTLAOTTT. 
 
 abuse the tongue of old Tocca could bestow on her, and 
 which Catherine endured with true Christian patience. In 
 another case, that of a woman whose cancer she dressed, 
 Catherine fared no better : this woman, abetted by a sister 
 of the convent, invented and spread calumnious reports 
 against the reputation of her benefactress. Lapa, on learn- 
 ing this, angrily forbade her daughter to attend any longer 
 this ungrateful wretch ; but Catherine, with that excess of 
 charity which makes it a sort of passion, threw herself at her 
 mother's feet, and would not rise until she had wrung from 
 her the permission of continuing her generous task. So 
 much patience and goodness at length touched the two sin- 
 ners, they implored the forgiveness of Catherine, and re- 
 tracted those slanders which originated in their own mean 
 jealousy of her virtues. 
 
 Catherine possessed a gift which does not, like charity, 
 depend on the will and holiness of those who own it — the 
 gift of eloquence : the young nun of St. Dominic, who tend- 
 ed the leprous and the sick, could speak so as to move the 
 hearts of worldly men, and soften into penitence blasphem- 
 ing sinners. Factions ran high in the republican cities of 
 Italy ; long and sanguinary feuds divided the chief families 
 of every State, and Sienna had her share of the universal 
 strife. The persuasive eloquence of Catherine in reconciling 
 recent or hereditary enemies became celebrated in her native 
 city : when her arguments failed, she prayed. 
 
 A powerful citizen of Sienna named Nanni, distinguished 
 for the relentless bitterness of his animosities, was urged by a 
 certain religious man to go and see the saint. He long re- 
 fused to do so, and when he ended by consenting, he solemnly 
 declared before going that nothing Catherine might say 
 should induce him ever to forgive his enemies. All her re- 
 monstrances having failed in producing the least effect 
 Catherine began to pray that God would touch the unforgiv- 
 ing sinner. Nanni wished to leave the place, but a force he 
 could not withstand had already seized his heart ; he threw 
 himself at the feet of Catherine, and promised with tears to 
 obey her. " My dear brother," she gently said, " I spoke to 
 thee, and thou wouldst not hear me ; I spoke to God, and 
 he did not despise my prayer. Do penance, lest tribulation 
 should befall thee." 
 
CATHEEINB OF SIENNA. 109 
 
 In the year 1374, when pestilence laid waste Sienna and 
 the surrounding country, Catherine displayed her apostolic 
 zeal : she tended the infected with all the assiduity and ten- 
 derness of a woman, and exhorted them in strains so fervent 
 and moving, that they touched the most hardened. Her 
 fame spread, and thousands flocked from remote parts of 
 Italy to hear her. " I myself," writes her friend, Eaymond 
 of Capua, "have sometimes seen more than a thousand per- 
 sons of either sex, who had never before left their hills 
 unless to see and hear this virgin, held the wonder of her 
 age." 
 
 So powerful were her exhortations, that Raymond of Ca- 
 pua and another priest were specially appointed by the pope 
 to hear the confessions of those whom Catherine had con- 
 verted. They were often thus engaged for the whole of the 
 day and of the night without being able to break their fast : 
 nothing but the example of zeal and energy which Cathe- 
 rine gave them could have enabled them to bear so much 
 fatigue. 
 
 By command of her superiors, and at the earnest request 
 of the citizens of Pisa, Catherine undertook a journey to that 
 city in the year 1375. The superior of a convent near it 
 immediately begged that she would come and address his 
 monks ; which she did, we are told, with surprising wisdom 
 and eloquence. Catherine was still at Pisa when the great 
 league of the Italian States was formed against the Holy See ; 
 Florence was at the head of the movement. By her pray- 
 ers, letters, and entreaties, Catherine contributed to preserve 
 Arezzo, Lucca, and Sienna to the cause of the pope. With 
 a sorrowful heart she prophesied, it is said, that the troubles 
 of the Church were only commencing, and foretold the great 
 schism which took place three years later. 
 
 The diocese of Florence having been laid under an inter- 
 dict, the citizens thought proper, for a time at least, to re- 
 trace the course they had adopted. The magistrates sent to 
 Sienna to beg that Catherine would become their mediatrix 
 with the Holy See ; she willingly consented, and immediately 
 went to Florence. She was met outside the city by the 
 priors or chiefs of the magistrates, who agreed to leave to 
 her the management of the whole affair, and said that am- 
 bassadors should follow her to Avignon, and ratify whatever 
 
110 WOMEN OF CHKISTIA1TITY. 
 
 terms she might have made. Relying on these promises, 
 Catherine proceeded to Avignon, which she reached in June 
 of the year 1376. 
 
 The pope and the cardinals, received her with the greatest 
 distinction. In reference to the matter which had brought 
 her, Gregory XI., after conferring with her, went so far as to 
 say, " I desire nothing but peace : I put the affair entirely 
 into your hands ; only, I recommend to you the honor of the 
 Church." Spite of this apparent good-will on either side, 
 the negotiation failed as soon as the Florentine ambassadors 
 reached Avignon. 
 
 The journey of Catherine was not, however, wholly un- 
 productive of good. In leaving Italy for the French city, 
 where the bishops of the Roman Church had chosen their 
 abode for the last seventy-four years, Catherine had at heart 
 a project dear to her national feelings — the return of the 
 pope to the great city, which he and his predecessors had 
 deserted for a foreign home ; and which, irritated at such 
 treatment, now openly threatened a schism. Gregory had 
 indeed taken a secret vow to return to Rome, but foreseeing 
 much opposition to his project, and not knowing how to ex- 
 ecute it, he consulted the saint : she is said to have answered, 
 "Fulfil what you have promised to God." Whatever may 
 be the truth of this,' it is acknowledged that she persuaded 
 the pope to leave Avignon : he did so in the month of Sep- 
 tember, shortly after her departure : he overtook her at 
 Genoa, where she had been detained by the illness of her 
 attendants, on whom she waited herself, with the zeal she 
 had not ceased to evince in such tasks. 
 
 She was soon again in her convent at Sienna, caring for 
 the poor and the sick, converting sinners, and reconciling 
 enemies. Wherever she went, she spread her own holiness 
 and peace ; for there was that in her presence which, accord- 
 ing to Pius II., her fellow- citizen, .made those who approach- 
 ed her leave her better than when they came. 
 
 Virtues so eminent, joined to an influence seldom exercised 
 by, and distinctions rarely bestowed on, a woman, were of a 
 nature to create envy. Whilst Catherine was at Avignon, 
 three prelates one day asked the pope what was his opinion 
 of this young girl ; he answered briefly, that she was a per- 
 son of great prudence and rare sanctity. They wished to 
 
CATHERINE OF SIENNA. HI 
 
 know whether they might visit her ; he consented, assuring 
 them they would, not be disappointed. They went forthwith ; 
 said they were sent by the pope, and asked if it were really 
 true that the republic of Florence had intrusted her with so 
 great a negotiation. Without waiting for an answer, the 
 prelates reprimanded her for her temerity in presuming to 
 accept an office of this importance. A witness of this inter- 
 view assures us that their words were sharp, and that their 
 tone was bitter and scornful ; Catherine, on the contrary, was 
 calm, modest, and respectful. From political, the conver- 
 sation took a theological turn : the prelates pressed the 
 young nun with difficult questions, in the hope of finding her 
 at fault ; but her answers proved a spirit so enlightened, and 
 a doctrine so pure, that they were compelled to confess 
 themselves conquered. A similar triumph awaited Cathe- 
 rine in her native city, where certain Italian doctors came to 
 expose her ignorance, and after conferring with her, depart- 
 ed, ashamed and astonished. 
 
 Gregory had kept his promise : he was at Rome ; but 
 Catherine, whose heart bled at the distracted state of her 
 native land, wrote to him, earnestly imploring him to con- 
 tribute to the peace of Italy. The pope bade her go to 
 Florence, which was again at war with the Holy See. In 
 the midst of the factions, murders, and confiscations which 
 disgraced the turbulent city, Catherine, though she was often 
 personally menaced, showed the most undaunted spirit. She 
 sought to moderate the zeal of the partisans of the pope ; 
 yet their excesses were unjustly attributed to her : the popu- 
 lace asked for her death by fire or sword ; and her own 
 friends were so much terrified at the fury her name excited, 
 that they would no longer receive or shelter her in their 
 houses. A large body of people, learning that she had re- 
 tired to a certain garden, went to seek her there with drawn 
 swords, and crying out aloud, "Where is that accursed 
 Catherine ?" She came forth to meet them with untroubled 
 aspect, and said, "If I be her whom you seek, here I am. 
 Do that which the Lord will permit ; but in his name I for- 
 bid you to harm those that are with me." The chief of the 
 insurgents, putting his sword into the scabbard, said, " Re- 
 tire, and save your life by flight." " No, I will not retire," 
 replied the courageous woman ; " if by shedding my blood 
 
112 WOMEN OF CHEISTUlNITY. 
 
 I can promote peace, why should I fly, now that the honoi 
 of Christ, and the peace of his spouse, are in peril ?" Her 
 spirit and dignity saved her : the crowd departed, and left 
 Catherine unhurt. She consented to leave Florence for a 
 while; but she remained in the vicinity of the city until 
 peace was concluded. 
 
 This did not happen until the year 1378. Gregory had 
 died ; Urban VI. sat in the chair of St. Peter. His pontifi- 
 cate was marked by the fatal schism Catherine had foretold. 
 Urban, though legitimately elected, was disowned by several 
 cardinals, whom his harsh temper had alienated ; and who, 
 after electing the anti-pope, Clement VII., retired with him 
 to Avignon. Catherine wrote to them, pathetically exhort- 
 ing them to retract their error. She likewise addressed Ur- 
 ban, strongly advising him to modify that harsh temper to 
 which he owed some of his misfortunes'; Urban had the 
 good sense and policy to heed this advice ; he wrote to 
 Catherine to come to Rome. She modestly objected, that 
 so many journeys were not advantageous to a virgin ; but 
 when the pope insisted, she complied with his request. Her 
 discourse comforted him so much, that he desired her to 
 speak in the presence of the whole sacred college ; Cathe- 
 rine did so, with much grace, modesty, and success. When 
 she had ceased, the pope, turning towards the cardinals, em- 
 phatically said, " Here, my brethren, is what should make us 
 blush : the courage of a maiden reproves us." Much more 
 he added in the same strain, greatly praising the faith of the 
 young nun. 
 
 The value Urban set on her zeal and talents, is proved by 
 the fact that he intended sending her to Joan, queen of 
 Sicily, who had sided with Clement. The project being 
 attended with great personal peri], was abandoned ; to the 
 regret of Catherine. She wrote to Joan, likewise to the 
 kings of France and Hungary, exhorting them to renounce 
 the schism. In this contemplated embassy Catherine was to 
 have had a companion ; like her, a woman, a nun, and a 
 saint : the beautiful Catherine of Sweden, daughter of St. 
 Bridget, through whom she descended from the royal 
 Swedish line, and from one of the ancient Gothic kings. 
 Both mother and daughter left their home in Sweden, to 
 undertake a pilgrimage to Holy Land. It was on returning 
 
CATHERINE OF SWEDEN. 113 
 
 from this long and fatiguing journey that Bridget died at 
 Rome ; whence Catherine conveyed her remains to the 
 monastery of Vatzen, in Sweden. Before her death Bridget 
 wrote to Pope Gregory XL, entreating him to leave Avi- 
 gnon for Rome ; a step to which, as we have seen, he was 
 strongly and successfully exhorted by Catherine of Sienna. 
 
 In the year 1375 Catherine of Sweden came to Rome to 
 procure the canonization of her pious mother ; and it was 
 during her sojourn in the capital of the Christian world that 
 Urban VI. designated her as a fit person to share the mission 
 of Catherine of Sienna. To two women, one scarcely forty, 
 the other several years younger, one a princess, the other a 
 dyer's daughter, was to have been confided a task in which 
 the peace of Christendom and the honor of the Church were 
 engaged. Catherine of Sweden died in 1381 ; and, like her, 
 Catherine of Sienna did not long survive this intended dis- 
 tinction. Worn out by the infirmities which had early 
 afflicted her, she died at Rome on the 29th of April, 1380, 
 in the thirty*third year of her age. She was canonized in 
 1461 ; but long before this her remains were held as relics, 
 and her mother, Lapa, who reached the age of ninety, was 
 always venerated as the mother of a saint. In the Strada 
 dell Oca of the city of Sienna stood the house where Cathe- 
 rine was born ; it was converted into an oratory, which still 
 exists. Her cell was shown to Evelyn when he visited 
 Sienna in 1645, and he records that the door of deal wood 
 was half cut out into chips, by the many devout persons 
 -who came to visit the spot once hallowed by her presence. 
 
114 WOMEN OF CHEISTIANTTT. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Catherine of Genoa — Teresa of Avila. 
 
 The charity of Catherine of Sienna shone forth in her 
 namesake, Catherine of Genoa, in the succeeding age ; 
 whilst more than her enthusiasm and genius revived in the 
 great St. Teresa of the sixteenth century. 
 
 Catherine Fieschi was born at Genoa in 1447. She be- 
 longed to one of the first families of that illustrious city, and 
 was married in her sixteenth year to Julian, of the noble 
 house of Adorno. Julian was an ill-tempered profligate, who 
 squandered the fortune of his wife, and rendered her very 
 unhappy for ten years. Her patient virtues at length 
 brought him to a sense of his errors ; and soon afterwards 
 he died, in sentiments of great penitence. 
 
 In early youth Catherine had ardently desired to enter 
 the religious state ; but her short stature and delicate health 
 had caused her parents to refuse their consent, and in obe- 
 dience to their wish she had contracted her unhappy mar- 
 riage. She was now at liberty to dispose of herself as she 
 thought fit ; and, as she desired to unite the contemplative 
 and active duties of religion, she entered the great hospital 
 of Genoa ; where she lived in a state of ecstatic piety, even 
 whilst she was daily recalled to earth by the tasks most 
 painful and repugnant to human nature. It was long before 
 Catherine could conquer her natural reluctance to the self- 
 imposed duties she had sought; but she persevered, and 
 ended by winning a complete victory over her feelings. 
 
 Her charity was not confined within the hospital where 
 she lived : she went out to seek the sick poor of the city, 
 and attended on lepers and similarly afflicted persons, whom 
 no one else would touch. To deny herself, and to accom- 
 plish in all things the will of God, was her object in life. 
 She had taken as her motto that petition of our Lord's 
 prayer, " Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," and 
 she remained true to it throughout. She died in 1510, in 
 the sixty-third year of her age, in that hospital where she 
 had spent the greatest portion of her life ; and which she 
 
""EEESA OF AVILA. 115 
 
 preferred to the marble palaces of Genoa. She wrote and 
 left a few treatises, so mystical that they have caused her 
 doctrine to be censured. But, whatever the theological 
 opinions of Catherine may have been, her life was as beauti- 
 ful and pure in spirit as she was in aspect. An ancient por- 
 trait represents her wearing the veil of a nun, and half bend- 
 ing in an attitude of prayer : there is great beauty in the 
 clear Italian profile as well as in the rapt glance of adoration. 
 
 Not less humble, though far more celebrated, is St. Teresa 
 of Avila. Her name is imperfectly known in this country ; 
 but on the Continent it has been held high in popular vene- 
 ration for nearly three centuries. 
 
 Bossuet bowed before the authority of her writings ; 
 Fleury quoted them with the decrees of the Council of 
 Trent ; and men of modern France have devoted their 
 leisure to the- translation of those mystical productions, of 
 which the original manuscripts were preciously kept locked 
 in the royal palace of the Escurial, whilst a haughty Spanish 
 monarch carried the key on his person. Convents of the 
 austere order, which she reformed, rise in every Catholic 
 land ; stately churches have been erected under the invoca- 
 tion of her gentle name ; humble engravings and high works 
 of art have alike perpetuated the image of a handsome dark- 
 eyed Spaniard, clad in the brown robe of the Carmelite nun, 
 and bearing with modest mien the symbolic pen ; which, 
 save in this illustrious instance, the artist gives to none but 
 the fathers and doctors of the Church. 
 
 To attain this extraordinary distinction, which she never 
 sought — for, she was humble to a fault — -Teresa of Avila had 
 nothing, save'the power of her genius, and of a love in which 
 the passion of the southerir. blended with the tender purity 
 of the woman. 
 
 St. Teresa was born on the 28th of March, 1515, in 
 Avila, an episcopal town of Old Castile. Her father, Don 
 Alfonso Sanchez, of Cepeda, was a gentleman of good family, 
 a devout Christian, and a man of unsullied honor. His second 
 wife, Beatrice Ahumada, mother of the saint, was eminent 
 for her virtues and great beauty. They reared their children 
 with much care, and brought them up as became their rank 
 and strict piety. When Teresa was about six or seven years 
 of age, she gave all the money she had to the poor, and de • 
 
116 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 lighted much in reading the lives of the saints with her little 
 brother Kodriguez. The legends of the martyrs — of their 
 brief torments and eternity of bliss — fired her imagination. 
 " Forever ! to see God forever !" the children exclaimed to 
 one another, awed and amazed. At length a strange project 
 occurred to them : they took a little supply of provisions, 
 and stealthily leaving their father's home, set out for the 
 land of the Moors ; where they hoped to be speedily put to 
 death for the faith. They were quickly missed, and over- 
 taken on the bridge of the Adaja by their uncle ; who asked 
 where they were going, and why they had thrown their 
 mother into so much alarm. They confessed their design : 
 but Rodriguez threw the whole blame on his sister Teresa, 
 who was then seven years old. Being thus disappointed of 
 martyrdom, they turned hermits, and built themselves in the 
 garden frail retreats, which the first stormy gust shattered 
 and overthrew. 
 
 The mother of Teresa lived in great retirement, for she 
 was almost always ill, and died in the prime of her years 
 and beauty. Her only pleasure in this languishing condition, 
 was to read those voluminous romances of love and knight- 
 errantry, which, at a later period, perished beneath the keen 
 and fatal mirth of Cervantes. She neglected none of her 
 household duties ; but when every task was done, she loved 
 to sit and while away, with the lays of poets and the tra- 
 ditionary tales of ancient troubadours, a solitude rendered 
 more wearisome by disease. The austere Don Alfonso, of 
 Cepeda, greatly disapproved of this ;■ and he felt still more 
 displeased, when he saw that his children shared the passion 
 of their mother. Teresa exceeded the rest in her ardor, and 
 read by stealth the romances her father held idle and per- 
 nicious. She who had wept over the lives of the saints, and 
 been fired with emulation by the legends of the martyrs, now 
 placed her whole delight in Amadis de Gaul, and sat up at 
 night to read in the! mirror of chivalry the deeds of the 
 twelve peers of mighty Charlemagne. 
 
 The greatest portion of her time was devoted to the read- 
 ing of romances, old or new. Her chief pleasure was to 
 procure some work which she had not yet read, and which 
 she immediately perused with extreme avidity. All these 
 tales of gallant knights, fair ladies, stirring deeds, and mar- 
 
TEBESA OF AVILA. 117 
 
 vellous adventures, so charmed her ardent imagination, that 
 she at length resolved to compose one herself. What the 
 romance was like, and how far it shared in that genius which 
 her later works display, posterity will never know : the tale 
 remained unfinished, and was committed to the flames in a fit 
 of penitent sorrow. But before this revulsion of feeling took 
 place, vanity and the love of the world had entered the heart 
 of Teresa. She began to perceive that she was beautiful ; 
 to adorn her hair ; to take great care of her hands ; to dress 
 with elegance ; and to use rich perfumes and the choicest 
 scents. The death of her mother, whom she lost when she 
 was in her twelfth year, gave her more liberty. Her father, 
 like a true Spaniard, allowed no men, save his own nephews, 
 to enter his house and see his daughters. 
 
 These young men were somewhat older than Teresa, and 
 were very fond of their handsome cousin. They spoke to 
 her freely of their flirtations, of the failure and success of 
 their adventures ; and she heard them with that eagerness 
 with which, in every age, youth has listened to the narrative 
 of tales of love. The society of a female relative, of frivo- 
 lous mind and imprudent conduct, proved still more injurious 
 to Teresa; but though her piety suffered, her pride and 
 sense of womanly honor protected her more than her father's 
 vigilance. Bitter as she is in her self-accusations concerning 
 this part of her life, she acknowledges that so great was her 
 dread of shame, that nothing earthly could have led her 
 into sin. 
 
 Don Alfonso of Cepeda felt greatly dissatisfied with the 
 acquaintances his favorite daughter had formed ; but not 
 knowing how to forbid his house to his nearest relatives, he 
 resolved to place Teresa for some time in a convent of Avila. 
 
 Here the heart of Teresa underwent a great change. She 
 would have devoted herself to God, but that she felt terrified 
 at the idea of a perpetual engagement. She remained in a 
 state of indecision for some years, suffering much from 
 troubles of the spirit and the flesh ; for she had inherited 
 her mother's beauty and ill health. The epistles of St. 
 Jerome to Eustochium strengthened her resolve ; but she did 
 not yet dare to declare it openly. Her reason is characteris- 
 tic : " I was so much attached to every thing that concerns 
 honor, that nothing, I thought, could make me relinquish 
 
118 WOMEN OF CHKISTIANITV. 
 
 resolve I had once announced." At length Teresa broke 
 this last barrier between herself and liberty, and told her 
 father that her vocation led her to the cloister. He opposed 
 the project, for he loved her with infinite tenderness. Teresa 
 perceiving that he would never give his consent, left his 
 house one morning, and repaired to the Carmelite convent 
 which stood without the walls of Avila. She has herself 
 recorded, in forcible language, the bitterness of this self- 
 imposed sacrifice : — " I think I may say, that had I been on 
 the point of giving up the ghost, I could not have suffered 
 more than I did on leaving my father's house. It seemed to 
 me as if all my bones were being riven and taken asunder, 
 because my love for God was not strong enough to over- 
 come entirely that which I felt for my father and my kin- 
 dred." None suspected the internal conflict which rose to 
 its height when she took the habit ; all admired her joy and 
 serenity, whilst she endured the greatest agony of spirit ; 
 but the excess of the sacrifice wrought its own cure, and 
 once it was accomplished her sorrow vanished, and was 
 changed into perfect gladness. 
 
 Teresa was then in her twentieth year. She had em- 
 braced her new mode of life with all the fervor of her nature. 
 There were moments of enthusiasm when the world she had 
 forsaken seemed to lie at her feet, and she knew not how to 
 repress the outpourings of her joy. This great ardor grad- 
 ually cooled. A mysterious illness consumed the years of 
 her youth, rendered her a cripple' for some time, reduced 
 her to the verge of death, and threw her into a four days' 
 lethargy ; during which her grave was dug, and but for her 
 father's vigilant love, would have received her. She showed 
 great patience and resignation ; but she declares that her 
 heart was lukewarm, that prayer wearied her inexpressibly, 
 and that she now placed her whole delight in innocent but 
 worldly conversations held at the grating of the convent : for 
 those things were tolerated in the order, once most austere, 
 but at that time greatly relaxed from its original spirit. 
 Eighteen years were thus spent in alternations of disease, 
 infidelity, and fits of devotion. 
 
 Teresa ever looked back to this period of her life with 
 remorse ; yet so pure was her conduct, so fervent in the eyes 
 of the world her piety, that she was already revered as a 
 
TEKESA OF AVILA. 119 
 
 saint. She hated untruth, or the least dissimulation, with 
 the warmth of an honest spirit ; and so tender was her 
 charity, that she would never suffer a word of detraction to 
 be uttered in her presence : wherever she was, people knew 
 their fair name to be safe. Her greatest fault — a gentle 
 fault — was excess of human love : she yielded and required 
 too much. She says herself, with perfect simplicity, " So 
 soon as I knew that a person whom I esteemed and loved 
 had an affection for me,' my thoughts were with that person 
 every "hour in the day. I kept remembering those good 
 qualities which I had noticed, and placed all my joy in mu- 
 tual converse." 
 
 This last tie with earth had to be broken. Creatures no 
 longer replaced the Creator in the heart of the saint. She 
 raised her soul to God, and devoted herself to the reforma- 
 tion of her order : a mighty task, which filled with toil and 
 trouble the remaining years of her life. 
 
 She lived to see established and flourishing sixteen con- 
 vents of nuns and fourteen of friars, all obeying her reformed 
 rule, and most of them founded by her ; spite of the innu- 
 merable obstacles which the slander of the envious, the luke- 
 warmness of her order, and the little sympathy of civil and 
 ecclesiastical authorities constantly raised against her. With 
 few protectors, no money of her own, and ill health to con- 
 tend with, Teresa yet travelled over Spain, and founded 
 religious houses in Medina, Toledo, Salamanca, Valladolid, 
 Segovia, Granada, and Seville, besides many other places of 
 note. The difficulties were great ; but her ardent faith never 
 forsook her. In one of her earlier undertakings, she had, as 
 she tells us herself, neither house nor money to begin with. 
 A convent had to be founded, and there was none to do it 
 save "a poor Carmelite nun, amply provided with letters 
 patent and good wishes, but without means to fulfil them, 
 and without aid, save that of God, to look to." But with 
 the faith and ardor of the Carmelite nun, this was more than 
 enough. _ She attempted and succeeded. When Teresa 
 founded the Carmelite convent of Toledo, she had only four 
 ducats to begin with. Some one objected to the smallness 
 of the sum ; the saint cheerfully replied, " Teresa and this 
 money are indeed nothing ; but God, Teresa, and four ducats 
 can accomplish the thing." A house, after some difficulty, 
 
120 
 
 "WOMEN OF CHEISTIAinTY. 
 
 - was procured, and a friend came to say that Teresa and her 
 nuns could remove their furniture into it as soon as they 
 wished. " Indeed," answered Teresa, " that will soon be 
 done ; for, up to the present, our furniture consists in a 
 Blanket and two straw mattresses:" Straw for the nuns to 
 sleep on, was one of the first necessaries Teresa provided 
 when she opened a monastery. The trouble and fatigue 
 which she underwent in founding these religious houses are 
 thus summed up in the interesting work entitled her Foun- 
 dations ; and in which she relates to her spiritual daughters, 
 in a strain of tender familiarity, the many obstacles she over- 
 came. 
 
 " Ye have seen, my daughters ! part of the labors I 
 have undergone, and which, in my opinion, have been the 
 least. I could not, without wearying you, have recorded 
 them all, and told you how great were the fatigues which 
 we underwent in rain and snow, with great trouble through 
 the losing of our way and my want of health ; for sundry 
 times have I been beset with a violent fever, and many other 
 
 ills, inward and outward When God gave me health, 
 
 I bore corporal labors with joy ; but it was no little trouble 
 to adapt myself to the'various tempers of the people amongst 
 whom we went ; and above all, to part from my daughters 
 and sisters, when I was obliged to leave them in order to go 
 elsewhere. The tenderness with which I love them is so 
 great, that I may truly say these partings were not the least 
 of my crosses ; especially when I remembered that I should 
 see them no more." 
 
 The love of God sustained her ; for, in her pure yet fer- 
 vent heart, that love was the disinterested adoration which 
 is not induced by the hope of reward or the dread of pun- 
 ishment. In a sonnet of almost impassioned tenderness, she 
 protests to Him who died upon the cross, that her love 
 springs neither from hope of heaven nor from terror of hell. 
 Great as it was, this fervor was by no means the only charac- 
 teristic of St. Teresa ; her works display judgment and good 
 sense, with great shrewdness of observation, whenever she is 
 called upon to advise and direct. Her instructions for the 
 government of religious communities prove her to have been 
 — what she was according to all contemporary accounts — a 
 woman of rare tact and prudence ; well skilled in the difficult 
 
TEEESA OF AVILA. 121 
 
 a«t of living in peace with tempers the most" opposed, and 
 knowing: how to win the love of those whom she governed 
 with the absolute power of religious rule. Her virtues were 
 great, but she never fell into singularity ; which was, indeed, 
 quite foreign to her frank temper. Those whom the renown 
 of her sanctity had. awed and kept away, were surprised to 
 find a handsome woman of cheerful and pleasant aspect, both 
 shrewd and sensible. 
 
 She professed great respect for genius and learning ; and 
 advised her nuns to consult the learned in their spiritual 
 troubles, emphatically declaring that the spirit of darkness 
 feared them. The learned, in her opinion, did not need to 
 be deeply devout in order to enlighten the pious in their 
 difficulties. She thought, very justly, that habits of exami- 
 nation and inquiry must lead, even unconsciously, to the 
 knowledge of truth. The practice of submitting to the 
 spiritual guidance of an ignorant director she strongly re- 
 proved, and frankly declared that she had never been able 
 to submit to it. In the same spirit, the first requisite she 
 looked to in the nuns she received under her rule, was not 
 so much fervent piety as good sense. "A sensible nun," 
 she said, " will perceive that which is good, attach herself to 
 it because she knows it to be good ; and, even though her 
 own progress should not be great, she will be very useful to 
 the rest, chiefly by good counsel ; and at least she will trou- 
 ble none : but I cannot see of what use she who wants sense 
 can be, whereas I can very well perceive that she can do 
 much mischief." 
 
 After many ' years of weary toil, she who ardently de- 
 plored the length of life, was at last called to her much 
 desired rest. Teresa was returning from founding a convent 
 at Burgos, to Avila, where she was prioress, when the 
 Duchess of Alva sent for her. Although she was then very 
 ill, she complied with the lady's request, and conversed with 
 her for several hours ; then went to her convent in the town 
 with a strong presentiment of her approaching death. Her 
 illness was brief, and her departure joyful. Her confessor 
 asked if she did not desire to be buried in her own convent 
 at Avila, the first she had founded in the place of her birth. 
 She merely answered : " Have I any thing mine in this 
 world ? or will not they afford me here a little earth ?" She 
 
122 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 calmly expired at nine o'clock in the evening, on the fourth 
 of October, 1582, being then in the sixty-seventh year of her 
 age. She was canonized in 1621. 
 
 The great labors of Teresa of Avila in the reformation of 
 the Carmelite order, entitled her to a high place in Church 
 history ; but it is not to them she owes her widely spread 
 fame : from that fame she shrank, with exaggerated humility. 
 But for the command of her spiritual advisers, Teresa would 
 never have written those works which have won for her the 
 singular distinction of being ranked by two popes — Gregory 
 XV. and Urban VIII. — amongst the doctors of the Church ; 
 an honor bestowed on no other woman. 
 
 It is difficult to speak of works so mystical as those of 
 St. Teresa. Few read them, and still fewer can understand 
 them, so as to value them rightly. Their theme is that 
 intense contemplation which it requires a long course of self- 
 discipline to attain, and the love which a soul weaned from 
 the world may feel for its God. To turn to them with a 
 mind worn and wearied by worldly tasks and cares, is not to 
 do them justice ; they require to be read with something of 
 the absorbed and yet fervent mood in which they were 
 written. Yet even the indifferent and the cold cannot but 
 perceive some of the merits which have rendered St. Teresa 
 celebrated. Apart from her subtle and mystical flights 
 concerning the degrees of prayer — and even leaving aside 
 the visions of heaven and hell and the mysterious revelations 
 of the spiritual world, where she had placed her home: — 
 Teresa wrote much, which, in a literary point of view merely, 
 would repay perusal. Her style, besides great freshness and 
 felicity, has all the breadth and warmth of genius. 
 
 Her whole works are pervaded by a strain of romance and 
 a sentiment of old Castilian honor, betraying the strong im- 
 pressions she received from the chivalrous stories she loved 
 in her youth. The soul, she tells us, is like a bird that longs 
 to wing its ardent flight towards its native heaven ; like a 
 valiant captain, who cannot rest content with unfolding the 
 standard of the cross of Jesus Christ, but who, after signal- 
 izing himself by his courage and fidelity, plants the banner 
 on a high turret, whence, fearless and triumphant, he beholds 
 at his feet others engaged in those perils he longs to brave 
 anew for the glory of his divine Master, 
 
TEEESA OF AVILA. 123 
 
 But the most interesting feature of those works is, that 
 they portray Teresa as none else can portray her. She has 
 written the story of her own life — of her inward struggles, 
 backslidings, visions, and fervent repentance — with a frank- 
 ness and simplicity that render it little inferior to the Con- 
 fessions of St. Augustine. Even in those works in which 
 she speaks least of herself, we see her thoroughly : she be- 
 trays unconsciously a certain greatness and magnanimity, 
 which rank her amongst those souls she herself termed 
 "generous and right royal." 
 
 At a time when the power of spiritual agencies was ad- 
 mitted as an article of faith, and dreaded with servile terror ; 
 when Ignatius of Loyola strove against the spirits of dark- 
 ness in the grotto of Manreza, and Luther hurled his ink- 
 stand at the archfiend himself; the Carmelite nun wrote, 
 with a fervent daring which modern skepticism will scarcely 
 appreciate : " It has happened to me to think, what can I 
 apprehend, and who shall make me fear ? My only desire 
 is to serve God. I seek but to please him : to fulfil his will 
 is my joy, my rest, and my happiness. If the Lord be 
 almighty, if the demons be his slaves, as I know by faith, 
 what evil can those unhappy spirits work unto me, being, as 
 I am, a servant of the sovereign Master ? Why, then, should 
 I fear, even though all hell were let loose against me ? I 
 then took a cross, and not doubting but I could subdue 
 the spirits of darkness, I said : ' Come all, I fear ye not ; 
 and being only an humble servant of the Almighty God, I 
 wish to see what harm ye can do me ?' " ' The faith and 
 love which rendered her thus daring, breathed in all her 
 thoughts, actions, and words. Love, such as few mortals 
 have felt it, dwelt in her heart, and gave her feelings and 
 answers, which, in Catholic countries, have long been tra- 
 ditional. We will conclude with one the most celebrated 
 and the best. Being once questioned concerning the tor- 
 ments of the damned, Teresa thought it sufficient to reply : 
 ,: They do not love." 
 
124 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Decline of the Keligious Spirit — Gcnovefa Malatesta — Paula Malatesta — 
 Cecilia Gonzaga — Lucia of Marny — Women of the House of Gonzaga — 
 Cassandra Fedele — Vicentina Lomelino — Isabella of Castile — Beatrix 
 Galindo — Mary of Escobar — Mary and Catherine of Aragon — Eliza- 
 beth of York — Margaret BeaufortH-Margaret Boper — Anne Askew — ■ 
 Lady Jane Grey— -Lady. Mildred Burleigh — Margaret of Lorraine — 
 Margaret Paleologue — Frances of Amboise — Joan of Valois— Claude- 
 Elizabeth of Austria — Louise of Vaudemont. 
 
 As we pass the limit generally assigned to the middle 
 ages, a great change occurs. That strongly marked indi- 
 viduality which sometimes fell into exaggeration, but which 
 also often led to noble feelings and great deeds, declines, and 
 gives place to a calmer mood and a more uniform spirit. 
 An inquiring skepticism was abroad : learning had progress- 
 ed, but piety had grown more weak. The good themselves 
 had no longer the early ardor of faith, and their historians 
 had lost the.frankness and naivete of the primitive biogra- 
 phers. This is very apparent in the sixteenth century. The 
 pious and the good are not less numerous, but they are more 
 worldly. That age. of queens, who governed men with 
 manly genius and policy, or who charmed them as the per- 
 fect embodiment of female wit, seduction, and grace, — of 
 studious ladies, to whom the pages of Plato were more dear 
 than the joyous tumult of the chase, offers only one really 
 striking religious character — -Teresa of Avila, a nun, and by 
 no means learned. She alone had that ardent and ever ac- 
 tive spirit without which religion is too much a matter of 
 form, and which, reviving in the following age under a more 
 practical and modern aspect, gave to Christianity some of 
 the most noble women it has yet known. 
 
 From the close of the fourteenth century to the opening 
 of the seventeenth, extends a long series of queens, prin- 
 cesses, and noble ladies, who were no doubt very generous 
 and amiable women, but in whom we must not hope to find 
 the charity of Elizabeth of Hungary, or the fervor and elo- 
 quence of Catherine of Sienna. It was not in vain that their 
 lives were spent amidst the tumult of great enterprises, 
 religious changes, and civil wars which marked those stirring 
 
LUCIA OF MAENY CASSANDEA FEDELE. 125 
 
 tunes ; too actively good for their names to be omitted here, 
 they were not so exclusively devoted to piety and good 
 deeds as to justify more than a brief notice to each. 
 
 In Italy, ladies of the houses of Malatesta and Gonzaga 
 united, through several generations, a sincere piety to great 
 learning and accomplishments. In the fourteenth century, 
 Genovefa Malatesta was celebrated for the purity of her life, 
 and the great attractions of her wit and conversation. The 
 most eminent personages of the times held themselves honor- 
 ed by her acquaintance. 
 
 In the following age, Paula Malatesta, wife of Francis cf 
 Gonzaga, first Marquess of Mantua, was held to be the most 
 beautiful woman in all Italy,' where so many women are 
 beautiful. We are told that she was still more eminent 
 for learning and piety than for loveliness. She would never 
 adorn her person, but spent in erecting and repairing 
 churches, in feeding the poor, and portioning young girls, 
 the sums which other ladies bestowed on dress and jewels. 
 She reared her daughter Cecilia in the love of piety and 
 learning, until she became, like her, one of the most charita- 
 ble and accomplished women of her age. Cecilia died in 
 a convent, where she had taken the vows with the sanc- 
 tion of her mother, but in opposition to the wishes of her 
 family. 
 
 Similar virtues distinguished, in the succeeding age, the 
 blessed Lucia of Marny, wife of the Count of Milan. Her 
 alms were most extensive : not only her revenues, but her 
 jewels, plate, and linen, were bestowed on the poor; and 
 in a great dearth, the good countess made bread for them 
 herself. 
 
 In the sixteenth century, Lucretia, Eleonora, and Isabella 
 of Gonzaga, rendered themselves remarkable for many vir- 
 tues, but chiefly for conjugal love. In the same age lived 
 Julia Gonzaga, the widowed Countess of Fondi ; the lenown 
 of whose excellence and singular beauty so enamored Soli- 
 man II., that he sent Barbarossa to carry her off. She es- 
 caped this fate by taking refuge in the mountains, amongst 
 the banditti. 
 
 To Italy, that land which has never yet failed in either tht 
 great or the good, also belonged, in the latter part of the fif 
 teenth century, Cassandra Fedele. This learned Venetian la 
 
126 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 dy was deeply versed in Greek, Latin, philosophy, history, 
 and theology. She pronounced a Latin harangue in the 
 presence of the Doge and Senate of Venice; she taught 
 publicly in the celebrated university of Padua, and maintain- 
 ed against its most learned and eminent men, a thesis oi< 
 theology, and another on philosophy, with great honor to 
 herself. She also excelled in music, and sang exquisitely. 
 Louis XII., king of France, Ferdinand of Aragon, his wife 
 Isabella of Castile, and the Popes Julius II. and Leo X., 
 gave her many tokens of their admiration, which was shared 
 by all Italy. These honors never affected the modest Cas- 
 sandra : after the death of her husband in 1521, she entered 
 the hospital of St. Dominic in Venice, of which she became 
 superior, and where she died at an advanced age. 
 
 Vicentina Lomelino of Genoa was likewise a woman of 
 eminent virtue. She was married and had eleven children ; 
 yet she knew how to unite the performance of every domes- 
 tic duty with unwearied charity. The chief objects of her 
 pity were unhappy women who had fallen into sin, and 
 young girls exposed to temptation ; she provided the former 
 with honest means of earning a livelihood, and to the latter 
 gave marriage portions. Vicentina died in 1605, after 
 founding the order of the Annonciades. 
 
 We cannot pass over the name of Isabella, the celebrated 
 queen of Castile ; but though this good and pious sovereign 
 lacked none of the virtues which become a woman, it is 
 chiefly as a queen that she must be held great and worthy 
 of admiration. To her other virtues she united charity. 
 Her governess, Beatrix Galindo, was both learned and mu- 
 nificent. She founded a hospital in Madrid, which took the 
 name of Latina, that had been bestowed on herself on 
 .account of her perfect knowledge of the Latin tongue. 
 Amongst the contemporary benefactors of humanity we 
 must also include another Spaniard : Mary of Escobar, who 
 introduced wheat into the newly discovered land of Peru. 
 
 Two daughters of Isabella showed themselves worthy of 
 their noble mother : Mary, queen of Portugal, where she 
 became eminent for a charity that was not confined to her 
 own subjects ; and the good and unhappy Catherine of Ar- 
 agon, queen of England, whose virtues wrung a reluctant 
 testimony from Henry VIII. when in the very act of seeking 
 
ANNE ASKEW — LADY JANE GEET. 127 
 
 the divorce which broke her heart, and made him enter on 
 a career of sensuality and crime. 
 
 The predecessor of Catherine, Elizabeth of York, wife of 
 Henry VII., was also a queen of great piety and virtues : 
 she is best described by her early adopted motto : " Humble 
 and reverent." Her mother-in-law, Margaret Beaufort, was 
 learned, pious, and charitable : she kept twelve poor persons 
 in her house, and waited, on them herself in their sickness 
 and death. She was a liberal patroness ef learning, and to 
 her munificence Christ's College and St. John's College, 
 Cambridge, owe their existence. 
 
 In this age, England could also boast of Margaret Roper, 
 the pious and devoted daughter of the illustrious Sir Thomas 
 More. The same tyrannical monarch who sent More to the 
 scaffold as too rigid a Catholic, consigned his Protestant sub- 
 jects to the fires of Smithfield, by means of that statute 
 termed "bloody ;" and which inevitably condemned the pro- 
 fessors of the ancient and of the new creed : every one, in 
 short, who did not adopt the religious tenets of the king. 
 Thus died the pious and unhappy Anne Askew, persecuted 
 by her husband and friends for having embraced the new 
 faith ; and burned alive in the twenty-sixth year of her age, 
 for having denied transubstantiation. The popular story 
 that she was tortured previously to her death, and that the 
 chancellor with his own hands stretched her on the rack, 
 seems unworthy of credit.* 
 
 A few years later, perished Lady Jane G-rey ; by far the 
 most touching and popular victim of her hard-hearted cous- 
 in. Her youth, her innocence, her learning, her piety, her 
 tragic fate, the courage with which she met her death, are 
 scarcely paralleled in history. " She had," says Dr. Fuller, 
 " the innocency of childhood, the beauty of youth, the solid- 
 ity of middle, the gravity of old age, and all at eighteen : 
 the birth of a princess, the learning of a clerk, the life of a 
 saint, yet the death of a malefactor for her parents' offences." 
 
 The learning of Lady Jane Grey was remarkable, but not 
 singular : the sixteenth century was eminently the age of 
 learned women. The three daughters of Sir Thomas More, 
 and the four daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, acquired a 
 selebrity which was not confined to England, but had spread 
 * Sen Jardine's Beading on the use of Toiture. 
 
128 WOMEN OF CHK.'STIASTnr. 
 
 far amongst the learned of foreign lands. To this day, the 
 names of Margaret Roper, Elizabeth Dancy, Cecilia Heron, 
 Anna Bacon, the mother of the celebrated Francis Bacon, 
 Elizabeth Russell, Katherine Killigrew, and Mildred Burleigh, 
 are remembered with honor. 
 
 The charity of Lady Burleigh is worthy of record. She 
 was the eldest daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, who bestow- 
 ed great pains on her education. Mildred was well skilled in 
 Greek and Latinj and especially in the former language, 
 She was of a serious and devout turn of mind, and delighted 
 in reading the works of Basil the Great, of St. Cyril, St. 
 Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nazianzen, and other fathers, in 
 original Greek. In the year 1546, Mildred, who was then 
 twenty, was married to William Cecil, afterwards Lord Bur- 
 leigh, lord high treasurer of England, and privy councillor 
 to Queen Elizabeth. Through every change of favorites, 
 the talents and integrity of Burleigh secured the good- will 
 and esteem of his capricious mistress. His influence over 
 her councils remained great to the last ; and the history of 
 her reign is the history of his life. With this eminent, 
 though not amiable statesman, Mildred lived very happily 
 for forty-three years. Five days after her death Lord Bur- 
 leigh wrote a " Meditation," in which he records the virtues 
 of her whom he had lost. We give it here in his own 
 language : 
 
 " There is no cogitation to be used with an intent to re- 
 cover that which never can be had again ; that is, to have 
 my dear wife to live again in her mortal body, which is sep- 
 arated from the soul, and resteth in the earth, dead, and 
 the soul taken up to heaven, and there to remain, in the 
 fruition of blessedness unspeakable, until the resurrection of 
 all flesh, when,- by the almighty power of God (who made 
 all things of nothing), her body shall be raised up, and join- 
 ed with her soul, in an everlasting, unspeakable joy, such as 
 no tongue can" express, nor heart can conceive. Therefore, 
 my cogitations ought to be occupied in these things follow- 
 ing : 
 
 " I ought to thank Almighty God for his favor in per« 
 mitting her to have lived so many years together with me, 
 and to have given' her grace to have had the true knowledge 
 of her salvation by the death of his son Jesus, opened to her 
 
LADY MILDRED BUELEIGH. 129 
 
 by the knowledge of the Gospel, whereof she was a pro- 
 fessor from her youth. 
 
 " I ought to comfort myself with the remembrance of her 
 many virtues and godly actions, wherein she continued all 
 her life, and especially that she did of late years sundry 
 charitable deeds, whereof she determined to have no outward 
 knowledge whilst she lived, insomuch as when I had some 
 little understanding thereof, and asked her. wherein she had 
 disposed any charitable gifts, according to her often wishing 
 that she were able to do some special act for maintenance 
 of learning and relief of the poor, she would always only 
 show herself rather desirous so to, do, than ever confess any 
 such act, as since her death is manifestly known now to me, 
 and confessed by sundry good men, whose names at d min- 
 istry she secretly used, that she did charge them most 
 strictly, that whilst she lived they should never declare the 
 same to me, nor to any other ; and so now have I seen her 
 earnest writings to that purpose, of her own hand. 
 
 " The particulars of many of these hereafter do follow, 
 which I, with mine own handwriting, recite for my comfort 
 in the memory thereof, with assurance that God hath ac- 
 cepted the same in such favorable sort, as she findeth now 
 the fruits thereof in heaven. 
 
 "About — years since, she caused exhibitions to be 
 secretly given by the hands of the master of St. John's in 
 Cambridge, for the maintenance of two scholars for a per- 
 j„?tuity whereof to continue. 
 
 "She did cause some lands to be purchased in the name 
 of the dean of Westminster, who also, in his own name too, 
 did assure the same to that college, for a perpetual main- 
 tenance of the said two scholars in that college ; all which 
 was done without any signification oi her act, or charge to 
 any manner of her person, but only of the dean, and one 
 William Walter of Wimbleton, whose advice was used for 
 the writing of the purchase and assurance. 
 
 " She also did, with the privity of the deans of Powles 
 and Westminster, and of Mr. Alderly, being, free of the 
 haberdashers in London, give to the , company of the said 
 haberdashers a good sum of money ; whereby is provided, 
 that every two years there is lent to six poor men of certain 
 special occupations, as smiths, carpenters, weavers, and such 
 
 6* 
 
130 WOMEN OF CIIRISTIAUITY. 
 
 like, in Romford in Essex, twenty pounds apiece ; in the 
 whole, one hundred and twenty pounds. And in Cheshunt 
 and Wooltham, to other six like persons, twenty marks 
 apiece ; in the whole, fourscore pounds. Which relief, by 
 way of loan, is to continue. By the same means is provided 
 for twenty poor people in Cheshunt, the first Sunday of 
 every month, a mess of meat, in flesh, bread, 'and money for 
 drink. And likewise is provided four marks yearly, for four 
 sermons, to be preached quarterly, by one of the preachers 
 of St. John's College. And these contributions have been 
 made a long time, whilst she lived, by some of my servants, 
 without giving me knowledge thereof; though, indeed, I 
 had cause to think that she did sometimes bestow such 
 kind of alms, but not that I knew of any order taken for 
 continuance thereof; for she would rather commonly use 
 speeches with me, how she was disposed to give all that she 
 could to some such uses, if she could devise to have the 
 same faithfully performed after her life, whereof she always 
 pretended many doubts. And for what she used the advice 
 of the deans of Powles and Westminster, and would have 
 her actions kept secret, she forced upon them some small 
 pieces of plate, to be used in their chambers as remem- 
 brances of her good-will for their pains. She did also, four 
 times in the year, send to all the prisons in London money 
 to buy bread, cheese, and drink, commonly for four hundred 
 persons, and many times more, without knowledge from 
 whom the same came. 
 
 " She did likewise, sundry times in the year, send shirts 
 and smocks to the poor people, both in London and at 
 Cheshunt. 
 
 "She also gave a sum of money to the master of St. 
 John's College, to procure to have fires in the hall of that 
 college upon all Sundays and holidays betwixt the feast of 
 All Saints and Candlemas, when there were no ordinary 
 fires of the charge of the college. 
 
 " She gave also a sum of money secretly towards a build- 
 ing for a new way at Cambridge to the common school. 
 She also provided a great number of books, whereof she 
 gave some to the University of Cambridge — namely, the. 
 great Bible in Hebrew, and four other tongues ; and to the 
 Collogo of St. John's very many books in Greek, of divinity 
 
MARGARET OP LORRAINE. 131 
 
 and physic, and- of other sciences. The like she did to 
 Christ's Church, and St. John's College in Oxford. The 
 like she did to the College of Westminster. 
 
 " She did also yearly provide wool and flax, and did dis- 
 tribute it to women in Cheshunt parish, willing them to work 
 the same into yarn, and to bring it to her to see their manner 
 of working ; and, for the most part, she gave to them the 
 stuff by way of alms. Some time she caused the same to 
 be wrought into cloth, and gave it to the poor, paying first 
 for the spinning more than it was worth. 
 
 *' Not long afore her death, she caused secretly to be 
 bought a large quantity of wheat and rye, to be disposed 
 amongst the poor in time of dearth, which remained unspent 
 at her death ; but the same confessed by such as provided 
 it secretly, and therefore in conscience to be so distributed 
 according to her mind. 
 
 April 9th, 1589. Written at Collings' Lodge, by 
 me in sorrow, W. B." 
 
 The same virtues and the same generous spirit shone 
 forth in many ladies, sovereign, or simply noble, of other 
 lands. Anne, queen of Hungary, in her own right ; Anne 
 of Austria, queen of Spain ; and another Anne of Austria, 
 queen of Poland, were remarkable for their piety and 
 charity. 
 
 Margaret of Lorraine, duchess of Alencon, governed her 
 little dominions after the death of her husband with great 
 moderation and wisdom. She paid all the debts of the late 
 duke, amounting to a hundred thousand crowns ; she mar- 
 ried her son to the only sister of Francis the First, king of 
 France, and her daughter to the Marquis of Montferrat, one 
 of the most powerful princes in Italy ; she ruled her house- 
 hold with strict economy, yet lived in a style that became a 
 princess; her ladies were celebrated for their virtue, her 
 officers for their integrity and honor. In the same wise 
 spirit did this good princess govern her subjects, who loved 
 and revered her as their mother. To crown her many vir- 
 tues, Margaret was pious and charitable : her alms were 
 great, and always well bestowed. Through her aid and 
 exertions, many unhappy women left the ways of sin, and 
 returned to a pure life. When her children needed her no 
 
132 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 longer, Margaret, who had remained in the world for then 
 sakes, retired to a convent of poor Clares ; where she died, 
 in 1521, in odor of sanctity. 
 
 ' Her granddaughter, Margaret Paleologue, the beautiful 
 Duchess of Mantua, remained a widow in her youth, gov- 
 erned her dominions with vigor and justice, and died revered 
 by all for the great purity and charity which had adorned 
 her life. 
 
 Frances of Amboise, duchess of Brittany, is one of the 
 women whose virtues may be held "worthy of remembrance 
 in the fifteenth century. Her early piety ; her patience un- 
 der the cruel treatment which she endured from a jealous 
 husband ; and, above all, her chanty, have often been com- 
 memorated. Even as a child, she was in the habit of giving 
 away to the' poor her food and her garments, sooner than 
 not give. This irresistible tendency to charity influenced her 
 devotion. On every Christmas morning a poor child was 
 brought to her; she clad him in new garments, and then 
 said, in the joy and simplicity of her heart, " This little one 
 shall be to us this year even as the child Jesus." 
 
 Peter, the husband of Frances, became duke of Brittany 
 in 1450. He had then long' ceased ill-using his wife, and he 
 even gave her a large share in his counsels. . One of the first 
 acts of his parliament was to frame an edict for new taxes : 
 Frances opposed the measure, and said to him in plain lan- 
 guage, " that the intent of those who had given him this 
 piece of advice, was not to fill his coffers, but to feather 
 their nest at the expense of the people ; of which the affec- 
 tion is better to the prince than any other treasure." Her 
 wise counsel prevailed ; the edict was not published, and the 
 people, who soon knew this,' covered their good duchess 
 with blessings. 
 
 Peter" died in his youth, and many afflictions beset his 
 widow. Arthur, who succeeded him, took offence at the 
 privacy in which Frances lived. . He deprived her of her 
 revenues, seized her jewels,' and caused her furniture to be 
 sold ; saying ironically, " that a widow needed not so much 
 wealth, and a nun had no business to have a cabinet so rich 
 in jewels." Frances bore this persecution with great pa- 
 tience ; when her maidens murmured indignantly, she said 
 to them, "how easily you are disturbed! God had lentua 
 
JOAJS OF VALOIS. 133 
 
 these things, he takes them away; shall we then say aught 
 against his goodness ? No, noi my daughters ! his holy will 
 be done, and his name be blessed forever." Death pre- 
 vented the duke from carrying his ill-usage to greater 
 lengths. No sooner did Frances hear of his illness, than she 
 constituted herself his nurse : she was by him when he ex- 
 pired ; she laid him out with her own hands, and buried him 
 at her own expense. 
 
 The successor of Arthur caused the property of Frances 
 to be restored to her, and treated her with marked respect. 
 Other troubles were, however, in store for the young widow. 
 She had promised her late husband never to marry again, 
 and after his death she had tak«n a solemn vow to that 
 effect. Louis XI., king of France, was extremely anxious 
 to marry her to his brother-in-law, the Duke of Savoy, and 
 her relatives pressed her to give her consent to this illustri- 
 ous alliance. Frances refused to do so. An attempt to 
 carry her off by force was made in open day in the streets of 
 Nantes ; but the citizens rose unanimously in her defence, 
 and escorted her to her house, which they guarded, until she 
 assured them that the danger was over, and that they might 
 disperse. After a long persecution, which her firmness ren- 
 dered unavailing, Frances was at length allowed to retire to 
 a Carmelite monastery which she had founded. Her death 
 was worthy of her life : a contagious disease having made 
 its appearance amongst the nuns, Frances, who was then 
 prioress, insisted on being the only one to attend on her 
 spiritual daughters. She died, victim of her charity, towards 
 the close of the year 1485, in the fifty-eighth year of her age. 
 
 In the early part of the following century died Joan of 
 Valois, the pious daughter of Louis XI., and the unhappy 
 wife of Louis XII., who had married her against his own 
 inclination, whilst he was still Duke of Orleans. Joan thus 
 early became a victim of that stern policy to which Frances 
 of Brittany had resolutely refused to submit. She was good 
 and gentle, but plain and deformed. Notwithstanding her 
 devoted attachment, she never succeeded in winning the 
 affections of her husband : he treated her with marked neg- 
 lect : indeed her own father disliked her, and spoke with 
 contempt and aversion of the poor girl, whose personal dis- 
 grace was held a reproach to. the royal blood. 
 
134 WOMEN OF OHKI8TIA2TCTY. 
 
 The conjugal love of Joan is celebrated. When the re- 
 bellion of her husband endangered his life in the following 
 reign, he owed his safety, and finally his freedom, to the 
 impassioned entreaties of Joan. No sooner, however, had 
 the death of his brother-in-law, Charles VIII., called Louis 
 to the throne, than he divorced the woman to whom he was 
 so deeply indebted. The resignation with" which Joan bore 
 this disgrace touched him : he gave her ample revenues, 
 which she spent in deeds of piety and mercy. 
 
 Her successor on the throne, the handsome Anne of Brit- 
 tany, was one of the most charitable of French queens. 
 Her daughter Claude, first wife of Francis the First, died in 
 her youth, deeply regretted. Her confessors unanimously 
 declared that one mortal sin had never stained her pure life ; 
 and the people called her " the good queen ;" a name which 
 all her successors, save the two Medici, might have received 
 with' equal propriety. 
 
 A few pages must be devoted to Elizabeth of Austria, wife 
 of Charles IX., whose name is so fatally connected with one 
 of the darkest pages in the history of his country. The too 
 faithful disciple of a perfidious mother, the monarch who 
 lured his subjects to their destruction — who planned and 
 commanded the massacre of the St. Bartholomew, who fired 
 from the windows of his palace on the fleeing Huguenots ; 
 and who, ever after haunted by spectres of blood, died in 
 the prime of youth — is remembered only for his crimes. 
 The very excess of his remorse proves him to have been 
 worthy of a less guilty destiny. Charles had all the elegant 
 and cultivated tastes of the Valois race ; he prided himself 
 on being the friend of the poet Ronsard, and wrote in his 
 praise fine verses, full of generous and manly eloquence. To 
 have had a name like that of his ancestor Francis the First 
 — not unstained by error, but at least not darkened by crime 
 — Charles needed but a mother like Louisa of Savoy, a woman 
 still in her failings, instead of that wily and cruel Catherine 
 of Medici, the evil genius of her four ill-fated sons. 
 
 History has blended the sins and the fame of Catherine 
 and of Charles : it has arraigned them before its tribunal 
 side by side, and not unjustly; but it has left too much in the 
 shade his pure and pious wife, Elizabeth of Austria, grand- 
 daughter of Charles the Fifth of Spain. To those who 
 
ELIZABETH OE ATJSTKIA, WIFE OP CHAELES IX. 1 35 
 
 have read in contemporary memoirs the little that is known 
 of her, she will ever seem to stand by her husband, like 
 heavenly mercy pleading for earthly guilt. 
 
 In the year 1570, Elizabeth, then sixteen years old, was 
 granted in marriage to King Charles IX., who had not long 
 passed his twentieth year. " My daughter," said her father, 
 the emperor Maximilian II., as they parted, "you are going 
 to be queen of the fairest, most powerful, and greatest of 
 kingdoms, for which I hold you happy ; but happier far it 
 would be to find it as secure and flourishing as it was of 
 yore. But you will find it strangely troubled and divided ; 
 for if the king, your husband, holds great part of it, the 
 lords and princes of the religion (the Huguenots) have all 
 the rest." Elizabeth was met at Mezieres by the king and 
 all the royal family, and crowned at Paris in the following 
 year. 
 
 The young queen was not beautiful ; but her figure, though 
 she was not above the mjddle size, was perfect. Her face 
 was fair, mild, and somewhat pale. Her Spanish blood be- 
 trayed itself in the silent gravity of her bearing, still more 
 than by the Spanish language, which she preferred and 
 mostly used. She spoke little ; and not even by an over- 
 hasty word did she once offend any of those around her. 
 "She was very devout," says Brantome, "but not at all 
 bigoted." Spite of his infidelities, which she bore with ex- 
 emplary patience, Charles loved his wife at heart, and re- 
 spected even more than he loved her : he called her " My 
 Saint," but unfortunately gave her no influence. There was 
 room for no other woman's power in a mind ruled by the 
 imperious Catherine. 
 
 The contrast of their tempers contributed to render their 
 marriage happy : Charles was warm and hasty, Elizabeth 
 was calm and temperate ; but a still better reason was, that, 
 though so quiet outwardly, the young queen loved her hus- 
 band with a passion full of tenderness. The ignorance of 
 state affairs, in, which she was purposely kept, by no means 
 grieved her. Like Elizabeth of Hungary, her patroness, she 
 had taken as her share of royalty the relief of. the poor, and 
 the visiting of prisons and hospitals : she dressed more sim- 
 ply than any court lady, and all the money she spared was 
 spent in charity. Her charity, like every thing in her, was 
 
136 WOMEN OF CHEISTTAJNITT. 
 
 simple and free from ostentation ; whilst her women thought 
 her fast asleep, the queen was kneeling in her bed, and 
 praying or reading books of devotion, often for hours. She 
 was greatly disconcerted on being once detected by an in- 
 quisitive attendant, and thought to conceal her pious exer- 
 cises more carefully for the future ; but the light of the 
 little lamp which she kept by her, betrayed her, by casting 
 her shadow on the closed curtains. 
 
 On the fatal night of the St. Bartholomew, Elizabeth pray- 
 ed as usual, and slept in peaceful ignorance. When she 
 awoke in the morning, she was told of what had happened. 
 " Alas !" she suddenly exclaimed, " does the king my hus- 
 band know of it ?" 
 
 " Yes, madam," was the answer, " for it is he has com- 
 manded it." 
 
 "Oh, my God!" cried Elizabeth, "what is this? And 
 what counsellors are they who could give him such advice ? 
 My God, I beseech thee to forgive him ; for if thou hast not 
 mercy on him, I greatly fear this sin will not be forgiven 
 him." With this she asked for her prayer-book, and, with 
 eyes full of tears, knelt and prayed for, her guilty .husband. 
 The king, who, without the poor excuse of fanaticism, had 
 stained his reign with so great a crime, survived the dark 
 deed but two years. The grief of Elizabeth, as she witnessed 
 his slow decay and harrowing remorse, was silent and deep. 
 She would sit in his room— not by his bed, but a little apart, ". 
 where she 'might see him unobserved — and there, without 
 speaking, as her habit was, she would gaze on him so fixedly, 
 " that she seemed," says Brantome, " to be brooding over 
 him in her heart." Stealthy tears sometimes trickled down 
 her cheek ; she then looked aside or feigned to want her 
 handkerchief, thinking . that none of those present would 
 guess the truth ; but by this attempt at concealment, she 
 only excited in the hearts of the beholders greater pity for a 
 love and sorrow so deep that they shrank' from 'every eye. 
 When she left the sick-room, it was to pray and weep alone. 
 
 Charles died on the 31st of May, 15'74. On his death- 
 bed he tenderly commended Elizabeth to his brother-in-law, 
 Henry of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV. They had but one 
 child, a daughter ; who died a few years later, and was ex- 
 sluded from the succession to the crown by the Salic law. . 
 
. ELIZABETH OF AUSTRIA, WIFE OF CHAELES IX. 137 
 
 One of the ladies of Elizabeth thought fit to condole with 
 her on this subject : " At least, madam," she said, " if God 
 had given you a son instead of a daughter, you would now 
 be queen-mother of the king, and be so much the more pow- 
 erful and great." " Alas !" answered the gentle Elizabeth, 
 " do not hold me any such discourse. Has not France mis- 
 fortunes enough already, without my presenting her with 
 another to complete her ruin ? If I had a son, how many 
 divisions, troubles, and seditions, would have arisen for the 
 possession of the regency" during his infancy and minority! 
 There would have been more wars than ever ; for every one 
 would have tried to rob and despoil the poor child ; as 
 would have been done with the late king, my husband, but 
 for his mother and faithful servants. And for having con- 
 ceived and brought him forth, should not I, miserable woman, 
 have been the cause of all this, and have been cursed a thou- 
 sand times by the people, whose voice is the voice of God ? 
 Well content, therefore, am I with the child God has given 
 me." 
 
 Elizabeth after a while returned to Vienna, where her 
 brother Rodolph II. then reigned. She built the monastery 
 of St. Clare, in which she resided without taking the vows. 
 The remaining years of her life were devoted to pious exer- 
 cises, deeds of charity, and literary pursuits. According to 
 the articles of her marriage, she possessed the revenues of 
 the dukedoms of Berry and Bourbonnais, and of the coun- 
 ties of Forez and March. She confided the administration 
 of this wide property to persons of known integrity and vir- 
 tue ; and expressly desired that no judicial offices should be 
 sold, but that they should be bestowed on worthy individuals. 
 By far the greater portion of her French revenue was spent 
 in the provinces from which it came. For some time, half 
 of it went to her sister-in-law Margaret of Valois, the im- 
 provident wife of Henry IV. Elizabeth divided in three 
 parts what remained of her income : one part was for the 
 poor ; with another she portioned young . girls ; the third 
 was for her own personal expenses. She died on the 22d of 
 January, 1592, deeply regretted by her fellow-citizens, and 
 no less so hj her former subjects, who had preserved a lively 
 remembrance of her many virtues. To the last she tenderly 
 cherished the memory of Charles IX., and would never hear 
 
138 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY-. 
 
 of a second marriage. Her relative Philip II. of Spain vainly 
 endeavored to change her resolve. On learning her death, 
 the Empress of Austria exclaimed : " The best amongst us 
 is gone." 
 
 Some years before her death, the place Elizabeth had once 
 held in France had been filled by a woman of charity as great, 
 although her piety was not quite so enlightened : the beau- 
 tiful Louise of Lorraine Vaudemont. Like her predecessor, 
 she was remarkable for her modesty in the midst of a disso- 
 lute court, for great charity to the poor, and for the ardent 
 love she bore to an unfaithful husband. She died in 1601, 
 after filling her life with good deeds. 
 
PERIOD THE THIRD. 
 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The Women of the Seventeenth Century. — Madame de Chantal. 
 
 The religious women of the seventeenth century bear the 
 mark of their age — earnestness. In England, Germany, and 
 France, we may trace in them, whether Protestant or Catho- 
 lic, the same high and austere character. They are not 
 always liberal or tolerant ; but they are, at least, ever ear- 
 nest. Though we might wish for a spirit less unbending, 
 we may seek in vain for a belief more firm, for a charity 
 more fervent and yet so essentially practical. Too much 
 of puritanic severity may be laid to their charge, but none 
 can say that they were not deep in their feelings and in 
 their faith. 
 
 The share of France alone in this gallery of serious female 
 portraits is sufficiently extensive and remarkable to have 
 suggested to one of the most celebrated of modern French 
 writers, Victor Cousin, the project of writing their history. 
 The plan has been laid aside, or, at least, confined to a few 
 striking sketches ; but it shows how much the truth and 
 earnestness of these women could impress a philosophic 
 mind, in many respects opposed to the opinions which guided 
 their lives. 
 
 The earliest, and, perhaps, the most eminent of these 
 women, is Madame de Chantal. She was the friend of two 
 great saints, a saint herself, and the ancestress of a woman 
 to whom witty and charming letters have given more fame 
 than Madame de Chantal earned by a long life of piety and 
 charitable deeds. 
 
 At the time of the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the 
 wars of the League, there lived in the ancient town of Dijon 
 
140 "WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 a president of the parliament of Burgundy, named Benigne 
 Fremiot. His nobility was only that "noblesse de robe," on 
 which the courtly aristocracy affected to look down ; but he 
 stood high in the province, where his worth and virtue were 
 acknowledged by men of all parties. His opinions were 
 strong without fanaticism, and ever tempered by a sense of 
 justice most becoming in a magistrate. He was a faithful 
 adherent of Henry IV., the Protestant king ; an enemy of 
 the League, and yet a staunch Catholic. Though he took 
 no share in the persecutions directed against the Huguenots, 
 he detested their religious opinions, and ruled his own in a 
 spirit of devout obedience to the Church. 
 
 This gentleman was married to a lady of good family, who 
 had already given him one daughter, when a second was 
 born to him on the twenty-third of January of the year 1572. 
 This was the festival of St. John the Almoner, so called on 
 account of his great charity to the poor ; and after him the 
 child was named Jane. . Madame Fremiot bore her husband 
 a son, afterwards Archbishop of Bourges ; she then died, 
 when Jane was only eighteen months old. President Be- 
 nigne Fremiot proved a kind and attentive father. To pre- 
 serve his children from the doctrines of Luther or Calvin, he 
 instructed them carefully in the points contested between 
 Catholics and Protestants. Little Jane relished such teach- 
 ing exceedingly; for she 'was a precocious child, deeply 
 impressed with a sense of religion, and ardent and impetuous 
 in her fsfith. 
 
 She was about five years of age when her father and a 
 Protestant gentleman engaged, in her presence, in a discus- 
 sion concerning transubstantiation. Jane broke from her 
 nurse to argue with the Huguenot, who kindly dropped 
 some sweetmeats in her apron in order to pacify her ; but 
 she threw them into the fire, passionately exclaiming, " Even 
 thus shall all heretics burn in the fire of hell, because they 
 do not believe what our Lord has said !" 
 
 This intemperate zeal might have degenerated into bigoted 
 intolerance, but for the indulgence her father inculcated, and 
 which her own goodness of heart led her to feel. An inci- 
 dent of her youth proves, however, that she could never 
 grow reconciled to the new doctrines. Her eldest sister was 
 married, and Jane went to spend some time with her. A 
 
MADAME DE CHANTAL. 141 
 
 Huguenot gentleman of rank and wealth fell in love with 
 Mademoiselle Fremiot, paid his addresses to her, and passed 
 himself off as a Catholic. She discovered the cheat, and 
 rejected him indignantly. Her sister and brother-in-law 
 vainly sought to shake her resolve ; Jane emphatically de- 
 clared, " I would sooner choose a perpetual prison than the 
 dwelling of a Huguenot, and rather endure a thousand 
 deaths, one after the other, than bind myself by marriage to 
 an enemy of the Church." 
 
 She might have added, that the man who could thus 
 attempt to deceive her, had become unworthy of her respect 
 and confidence. She endured with great firmness and con- 
 stancy the persecution her relatives inflicted on her, in con- 
 sequence of this refusal ; until her father fortunately recalled 
 her to his house. Jane wished to enter a cloister ; but to 
 this Monsieur Fremiot would not consent ; " Christian vir- 
 gins," he said, " should remain in the world, and edify it 
 with their virtues." Jane dutifully yielded, and left the 
 choice of a husband to the president, who married her, in 
 her twentieth year, to the Baron de Chantal, a distinguished 
 officer, high in the favor of Henry IV., rich and noble, and 
 no more than twenty-seven years of age. 
 
 A few days after the ceremony had been solemnized, the 
 baron took his bride to his seat at Bourbilly. As a proof of 
 his confidence, he insisted on giving up to her the manage- 
 ment of all his property. She shrank from so heavy a 
 responsibility, which would not, she ' conceived,' leave her 
 sufficient time for her devotions ; but M. de Chantal very 
 sensibly objected, that piety was not incompatible with the 
 daily tasks of life : he quoted the case of his own mother, a 
 lady of many virtues, reared in a court, and who had yet 
 found it possible to become the most notable woman in the 
 province. Madame de Chantal promised to comply with 
 her husband's wishes ; and by her prudence, economy, and 
 good management, justified the trust ho had placed in her 
 household virtues. 
 
 She rose with dawn, and had finished her devotions, and 
 ordered her household affairs, by the time her husband was 
 up. She gave little time to dress, and only wore plain 
 oamelot. Prayer, work, the lives of the saints or French 
 history, her husband, her family, and the poor, absorbed all 
 
142 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the thoughts of the pious lady. Her great anxiety was to 
 keep her little household pure and religious. On her arrival 
 at Bourbilly she had found a few profane books — most 
 probably romances — with which M. de Chantal amused his 
 leisure : she remorselessly consigned them to the flames ; 
 and such works never again entered the old mansion whilst 
 she was its mistress. There was a chapel in the chateau ; 
 yet every Sunday Madame de Chantal resorted to the parish 
 church, in order to share in the devotions of her husband's 
 vassals. They needed not this proof of friendly sympathy 
 to love and respect their lady : in all their troubles and dis- 
 tresses they appealed to her. M. de Chantal, though kind- 
 hearted, was passionate and proud. The temper of his wife 
 was- still warmer, especially where her religious feelings or 
 affections were concerned ; but she had long exercised the 
 virtue of self-control, and with all who approached her, she 
 was the gentlest of human beings. She made it her task to 
 soothe her husband's anger when it had been roused by 
 vassal or servant : he allowed himself to be pacified, but 
 not without some reluctance. " If I am too quick," he said, 
 "you are too charitable." It often happened that, in a fit 
 of choler, the baron would consign some offending vassal to 
 the prison of Bourbilly ; and thus practically remind the 
 little realm over which he ruled, of the power vested in him 
 by feudal law. The dungeons of Bourbilly were damp and 
 unwholesome : the kind-hearted baroness secretly delivered 
 the captive, made him sleep in one of the baron's excellent 
 beds, and early in the morning placed him once more under 
 bolt and bar ; then about the time of her husband's rising, 
 she" would enter his room, greet him cheerfully, and having 
 put him into a good temper, gently coax him out of the 
 freedom of the unlucky prisoner. 
 
 Her goodness to the vassals who lived on the domain of 
 Bourbilly was not confined to these acts of kindness : she 
 relieved their wants with boundless charity — for charity was, 
 and ever remained, her favorite virtue. She often said : " I 
 can with more confidence ask of the Lord to grant me my 
 necessities, when for love of him I have bestowed alms on 
 the poor." A famine desolated the country around her : 
 she opened her stores to the indigent, and daily gave bread 
 and soup to all those who asked. They came in great mini- 
 
MADAME DE CHANTAL. 143 
 
 bers — often from a distance. Madame de Chantal presided 
 over the distribution herself ; and to render it more orderly, 
 made those who entered by a front gate leave by a back 
 door. Many took advantage of this to walk round the 
 chateau, and coming in again, to claim a second portion; 
 Madame de Chantal perceived the cheat, but would neither 
 notice nor resent it. To those who remonstrated with her 
 on the subject, she said that her inward reflections were : 
 " My God, am I not a beggar at the gates of thy mercy ? 
 Should I like to be refused a second or third request ? A 
 thousand times hast thou borne with mine importunity, why 
 then should I not endure that of thy creatures ?" Whilst 
 this hard time lasted, poor families, too proud to beg, were 
 relieved privately by Madame de Chantal. 
 
 Such were the tasks in which she delighted ; and which 
 were her only pleasures when, as often happened, her hus- 
 band was away at court, or with the army. It was only to 
 please him that she dressed or saw company ; in his absence 
 she lived retired, and wore the most homely garments. If 
 any one chanced to ask her for the reason of this, or remon- 
 strated with her, she warmly replied, " Speak not of this to 
 me : the eyes I must please are a hundred leagues off." 
 She loved her husband tenderly, almost passionately ; for it 
 was not in her nature to love by halves. When he was at 
 Bourbilly, prayer was too often neglected ; and she con- 
 fessed, with penitent sorrow, that he rivalled God in her 
 heart. His affection for her was great : he loved her as an 
 amiable, attractive woman, and respected her as a saint. 
 Her example influenced him so much, that he at length 
 spoke of retiring wholly from court, and fixing his residence 
 at Bourbilly. Whilst cherishing that project, he fell ill. 
 Madame de Chantal attended him devotedly ; his recovery 
 was slow ; and as she sat by his bedside, the baron and his 
 wife discoursed together of religion and death. He wished 
 her to enter into the agreement that, should one happen to 
 survive the other, that one should embrace a religious life. 
 Devout as she was, Madame de Chantal would not hear of 
 this : for she said that it implied a separation, of which she 
 could not endure to think. The baron at length fully re- 
 covered, but he did not seem much more cheerful. He told 
 his wife that, in a recent dream, he had seen himself clad in 
 
144: WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 a crimson garment, which he took as a sign that he should 
 be badly wounded. Madame de Chantal had a free, gener- 
 ous spirit, wholly removed from superstition, even in that 
 superstitious age. She laughed at her husband's fears, and 
 gayly said, " I might as well think that I am going to become 
 a widow, for the other night I dreamed that a long crape 
 veil enveloped me from head to foot." 
 
 A few days after this, the Baron de Chantal went out 
 shooting with one of his friends. He wore a fawn-colored 
 habit : his friend, seeing him moving through the bushes, 
 mistook him for a deer, fired and wounded him mortally. 
 Madame de Chantal,' though recently confined of her last 
 child, was soon on the spot. She found a doctor doing for 
 him all his art could do. " You must cure him !" she ex- 
 claimed in the passion of her woe. She offered to Heaven 
 all she had that was precious — her children and her wealth, 
 for that one life ; but the sacrifice was not accepted : M. de 
 Chantal survived this sad accident nine days. He died like 
 a Christian : his chief anxiety was to console his wife, and 
 the unhappy man who had caused his death. He repeatedly 
 declared that he forgave him freely, and caused this pardon 
 to be recorded in the registers of the parish church, in order 
 to secure him from any annoyance or trouble. In the same 
 noble and generous spirit, Madame de Chantal afterwards 
 became godmother to the child of the man who had made 
 her a widow. 
 
 She was in her twenty-eighth year when this sad event 
 happened. She had already lost two children; but four, 
 one son and three daughters, remained to her. Her grief, 
 though tempered by resignation, was great, and she took a 
 solemn vow never again to marry. She distributed her rich 
 garments amongst the poor, and resolved that henceforth 
 the labor of her hands should be devoted to them and to the 
 Church. Prayers, alms, and her children, divided her life. 
 Her old longing for the cloister returned to her, and but for 
 her children, she afterwards said that she thought she should 
 have gone and buried herself in Holy Land. This confession 
 shows that her ardent religious feelings were much In need 
 of wise control. Her widowhood was a time of great tribu- 
 lation. She was peacefully residing with her father at 
 Dijon, when her father-in-law, M. de Chantal, then seventy- 
 
MADAME DE CIIANTAL. 145 
 
 five years of age, -wrote to her that, if she did not come to 
 live w.th him, he would marry again, and disinherit her 
 children. 
 
 Madame de Chantal complied with this peremptory re- 
 quest, and went with her children to Montelon, the seat of 
 their grandfather, near Autun. She might have lived there 
 happily enough, had not her father-in-law been provided 
 with a shrewish housekeeper ; who had ruled his establish- 
 ment despotically for many years, and now beheld with 
 displeasure the presence of one whose near relationship and 
 rank threatened to interfere with her own authority. Ma- 
 dame de Chantal, who quickly saw that her father-in-law's 
 interests were not always cared for by the woman in whom 
 he trusted implicitly, did indeed attempt to interfere ; but 
 love of peace induced her to relinquish the attempt. The 
 authority of the housekeeper prevailed to that degree, that 
 Madame de Chantal had not the liberty to give away a glass 
 of water without her knowledge and sanction. She bore 
 this tyranny with heroic and silent patience : years elapsed 
 before her father learned indirectly how much she had suf- 
 fered at Montelon. The only place in the whole house 
 which she claimed and owned, was a little room where she 
 kept the medicines and unguents she gave away to the 
 poor; and the only vengeance she exercised against the 
 woman who daily insulted and tormented her, was to rear, 
 instruct, and attend her five children with her own. She 
 washed, combed, and dressed them daily; and in reply to 
 the objection which was once made to her, that it was de- 
 grading to perform these offices for children of a rank so 
 mean, she merely said, " Have not they been redeemed, as 
 well as my own children, by the blood of Jesus Christ?" 
 
 Madame de Chantal had, like the saint whose name had 
 been given her at her birth, the passion of charity. The lux- 
 uries of her rank pained her ; she could not bear to touch 
 dainty food whilst the poor were starving. A confidential 
 attendant served her at dinner, and, whenever some choice 
 bit of fowl or game was placed before her mistress, took 
 away the plate, for a purpose which she alone knew. Madame 
 de Chantal gave away not only the food, from her plate ; she 
 gave away every thing it was hers to bestow, even to a ring 
 from her finger, once that she had no money about her. It 
 
 1 
 
146 WOMEN OF CHKISTIANITT. 
 
 is recorded of her, that she never refused alms asked for the 
 love of God. Had her charity been confined to mere alms- 
 giving, it would have been of little worth ; but it extended 
 much further. On the afternoons of Sundays and holidays, 
 she went forth, a little after dinner, to visit the sick and poor 
 of her parish, undeterred by summer heats or wintry cold. 
 Two of her women generally accompanied her. She cheered 
 them on with gay and pleasant discourse, and often said to 
 them as they went along : " We are going on a pilgrimage 
 to Calvary, or to the Olive Mount, or to the Holy Sepulchre." 
 Her faith had all the imaginative fervor of Tier character; 
 she loved to visit and serve the poor, not merely because of 
 the tenderness and compassion of her heart, but because the 
 words of the Gospel, " I was an hungered, and ye gave me 
 meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave' me drink : I was a stranger, 
 and ye took me in." — " Naked, and ye clothed me. I was 
 sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came unto 
 me," were to her a strict and literal truth. She confessed 
 that the most tedious day was that on which she found no 
 fitting opportunity of exercising charity. Those days were 
 few in her sanctified life: seldom did there pass one of 
 which some hours had not been devoted to the sick poor in 
 their own homes ; she dressed their wounds, cleaned them, 
 made their beds, gave them clothes, which she kept in readi- 
 ness, took home their linen, boiled it, to free it from vermin 
 and other impurities, mended it, and then returned it to 
 them. All the neighboring sick were known to her ; for she 
 had requested that, so soon as a poor person fell ill, she might 
 be informed of it. She visited and assisted them, and was 
 often present at their agony: when they were dead, she 
 washed and laid them out. She esteemed this mournful 
 office so great a privilege, that she claimed it as a sort of re- 
 ward for the care she took of the sick and ailing. Whenever 
 a death occurred in her absence, Madame de Chantal was 
 promptly acquainted with the fact : the villagers would not, 
 through respect, lay out the deceased. " It was a right," 
 they said, " which belonged to Madame." 
 
 Cavillers who thought fit to censure this excessive charity 
 were not wanted : Madame de Chantal was plainly told that 
 her duty was to stay with her aged father-in-law, and not to 
 desert him for the poor. She modestly replied, that she only 
 
MADAME DE CHANTAL. 147 
 
 gave to the poor those hours which her father-in-law did 
 not need from her : " Besides," she added, " has he not 
 many servants to attend on him ? whereas the poor of Jesus 
 Christ will have none, if I forsake them." She spoke the 
 literal truth ; for she was indeed the only hope of those who, 
 but for her, must have perished irretrievably. She had re- 
 quested that the forsaken poor — and in those times there 
 were many such, who were often left to die in a ditch, or by 
 the hedges on the road-side — might be brought to her ; and 
 the peasants on her father-in-law's domain readily obeyed. 
 One amongst the rest, returning from Autun, found, lying at 
 the foot of a hedge, a lad afflicted with leprosy, whom he 
 brought to Madame de Chantal. She received him with 
 great joy, and placed him in the bed which she kept ever 
 ready for such guests. The unfortunate leper was in an 
 awful state. Madame de Chantal cut off his hair, burned it 
 herself, and would allow no one else to touch it; she dressed 
 his sores with her own hands, and attended on him daily. 
 He was half-starved when brought to her, and required to 
 be fed slowly, and. to receive only a little at a time; she 
 visited him several times in the course of the day, to give 
 him his food and attend on him. It sometimes happened 
 that, being detained by her father-in-law, she could not 
 come ; she then sent one of her attendants in her stead. 
 The woman, who had not the ardent charity of her mistress, 
 fulfilled the task with a sense of disgust which "she did not 
 care to conceal : she laid down the food near the leper, and 
 then hastened out of the room. Once, on seeing this, he 
 burst into tears, and said : "When madame comes, she does 
 not stop her nose ; she sits down by me, and speaks to me of 
 my salvation ; but when she cannot come, every one else for- 
 sakes me." He lingered a few months, at the end of which 
 death released him from his misery. For several nights before 
 he died, Madame de Chantal sat up by him, exhorting and 
 consoling him to the last. As he was on the point of expiring, 
 he turned towards her, and, clasping his hands, asked her 
 to grant him her blessing. She embraced him tenderly, and 
 said : " Go, my child, confide in God ; for angels will bear 
 thee, like Lazarus, to the place of thyrest." He died almost 
 in her arms ; she washed and laid him out herself, spite of 
 the remonstrances of a haughty relative, who could not 
 
148 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 comprehend that a lady of her rank should stoop to such 
 offices. 
 
 Not long after this, Madame de Chantal took in an unfor- 
 tunate woman, whose face was eaten away, hy a frightful 
 cancer. She was the wife of one of the villagers, whose hor- 
 ror of her condition made him inhumanly turn her out of his 
 house. Madame de Chantal kept her until her death, and' 
 she lived nearly four years. The details connected with the 
 state and sufferings of this poor creature, display the charity 
 of Madame de Chantal as something almost beyond humani- 
 ty : but we will not sicken the reader by dwelling on them, 
 as some of her zealous biographers have done. The woman 
 was succeeded by an old man, covered with ulcers, and who 
 lived ten months ; indeed the room set apart for such afflict- 
 ed guests was seldom or never empty. 
 
 In the year 1606, Madame de Chantal went to her chateau 
 of Bourbilly for the gathering in of her vintage. Other cares 
 soon absorbed her. She found her vassals afflicted with a 
 fatal dysentery, and she devoted herself to them with the 
 passion she carried into every thing she did. She rose with 
 dawn, visited the nearest houses, returned to mass and break- 
 fast, and then went forth again afternoon and evening. 
 After her last visit, she still found time and energy for busi- 
 ness. It was she who managed the estate and property of her 
 children ; and the task was never neglected. When it was 
 over, she retired to rest ; but she was often called up before 
 morning, to spend the rest of the night by the bedside of the 
 dying. The dysentery lasted seven weeks ; during that time, 
 it is computed that Madame de Chantal laid out from two to 
 five corpses daily ; at length she fell ill, literally from fatigue. 
 Her friend St. Francis of Sales wrote her a letter of amica- 
 ble reproof, warning her not to yield too much to the prompt- 
 ings " of that strong heart of hers, which loved and willed 
 mightily." 
 
 The friendship between the Bishop of Geneva and Madame 
 de Chantal had begun two years before this, in 1604, when 
 she went to Dijon for the purpose of hearing him preach. 
 Francis of Sales was then near forty. The eldest son of a 
 noble family of Savoy, he had, nevertheless, consecrated 
 himself to God in his youth. Poor as was his bishopric, 
 since Geneva had exchanged the yoke of Catholic prelates 
 
MADAME DE CHAHTAX. 149 
 
 for that of Calvin and his successors, he refused to. leave it 
 or his limited flock for a wealthier income and a wider sway. 
 But though he chose to remain huried in Savoy, his fame 
 was great : he was celebrated both for the sanctity of his 
 life and the force of his eloquence. Thousands hung on the 
 words which fell from his lips, and went away with the love 
 of God in their hearts. Holiness and genius were in him 
 aided by many natural advantages, which gave more power 
 to the man and the orator. His voice was harmonious, his 
 address dignified and easy. He was eminently handsome ; 
 sweetness and fire blended in his countenance, and expressed 
 the contrasts of his character ; an ardent temper, and too 
 great a tendency to human love, were the faults against 
 which he struggled, until he finally subdued the earthly part, 
 and kept of both failings whatever they had of divine. 
 
 In his enthusiasm, warmth of heart, and boundless charity, 
 Francis of Sales strongly resembled Madame de Chantal : 
 but in his experience of spiritual things, in wisdom, prudence, 
 and discretion, he surpassed her greatly. Their friendship 
 was sudden, yet lasting. A mystical explanation of this fact 
 is given in their respective biographies ; but nothing super- 
 natural is needed to account for the mutual attraction of 
 characters so congenial. The devout attention with which 
 Madame de Chantal listened to him as he preached, drew 
 the attention of Francis of Sales, and made him inquire of her 
 brother, the Archbishop of Bourges, " the name of that widow 
 who listened so attentively to the word of the Gospel." 
 
 Their friendship was strengthened by sad circumstances, 
 but too frequent in religious biography. Good, pious, and 
 charitable as she was, Madame de Chantal was not happy : 
 her soul was obscured by doubts, scruples, and fears, which 
 often rendered existence a torment. An ignorant and des- 
 potic clergyman, under whose spiritual guidance she had 
 placed herself in the hope of relief, only increased her dis- 
 tress. Francis of Sales delivered her from this thraldom ; 
 his generous spirit was above the narrow doubts and fears 
 which pervert religion from her true aim, the raising of the 
 soul to God. By his indulgence, charity, and perfect knowl- 
 edge of the heart, he dispelled the gloomy despondency of 
 Madame de Chantal ; she rejoiced in her liberty, and revered 
 aer deliverer as an angel. There were, indeed, many re- 
 
150 -tVOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 lapses, many faintings of the heart and dismal fears ; bu* 
 there was also knowledge with which to strive, and courage 
 that taught her to endure. When her spirit was most op- 
 pressed, she could not help saying, " O Lord, take this cup 
 from me ;" but no sooner were the words uttered, than she 
 longed to drain to the very dregs the cup she had rejected. 
 " Be rnerciful. God !" she exclaimed, with returning cour- 
 age, " ana la&s ,101 this cup away until I have quaffed it." 
 It were difficult to express more forcibly the mingled fear 
 and daring of an ardent heart. 
 
 The influence of Francis of Sales over Madame de Chan- 
 tal was great ; and some traits of her life prove that it was 
 much needed. Being persecuted by her family to marry 
 again, she not only refused to do so, but, in a fit of fervor, 
 branded the name of Jesus on her side, over her heart, with 
 a red-hot iron. It was from this exaggeration of devotion, 
 into which she often fell, that Francis of Sales, the most 
 moderate and prudent of men, sought to cure her. He also 
 attempted to eradicate some little inconsistencies which he 
 perceived in her life : for instance, she was in the habit of 
 praying for several hours of the night, during which one of 
 her women sat up waiting for her. " Our devotion," said 
 Francis of Sales, " should never be inconvenient to others." 
 She took the hint, and acted upon it so effectually, that her 
 servants observed, " Madame prays always, yet is never trou- 
 blesome to anybody." This great friendship had lasted 
 nearly six years, when the Bishop of Geneva induced Madame 
 de Chantal to take a step which exposed her to the severe 
 censure of the world ; and which her biographers are evi- 
 dently at some trouble to explain. Francis of Sales had long 
 wished to establish a religious order, mild in rule, but evan- 
 gelic in spirit, to which ladies of feeble health, and unable to 
 bear austerities, might be admitted. He purposed calling it 
 the Order of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary ; and intended 
 its members to visit the sick and the afflicted, as Mary visited 
 her cousin Elizabeth. They were to reside under the same 
 roof, but neither to take the vow of poverty, nor to be clois- 
 tered like nuns of the stricter orders ; practical charity was 
 to be their great aim. This order evidently resembles that 
 which St. Vincent of Paul established, in the course of tha 
 same century, under the name of Sisters of Charity. 
 
MADAME DE CHANTAL. 151 
 
 Madame de Chantal had often expressed to her friend hei 
 passionate desire of entering some religious community, and 
 thus fulfilling the early aspiration of her youth. He ob- 
 jected to her, that she could not desert her young children, 
 and forbade her to think of any thing of the kind whilst they 
 needed her care. But when he thought that she could con- 
 scientiously do so, he suggested that she should become one 
 of the community he meant to found, in his native town of 
 Annecy in Savoy. She embraced the proposal with joy, but 
 soon felt strangely perplexed, not knowing how to break the 
 news to her family. 
 
 Madame de Chantal was then in her thirty-eighth year. 
 She had lost one of her youngest daughters, and married the 
 eldest to M. de Thorens, the nephew of Francis of Sales. 
 Her son was fifteen years old ; and in those times the sons of 
 the nobility were launched into the world, far from the con- 
 trol of pious provincial mothers, at an age still earlier. The 
 licentious Rabutin, relative of Madame de Chantal, the young 
 Marquis de G-rignan, one of her descendants, entered the 
 army at twelve, and commanded regiments at seventeen, 
 within the same century. Her strongest tie was therefore 
 with her father and her father-in-law, both very aged. They 
 gave their consent to her project, but with the deepest re- 
 luctance, and raised numerous objections, which Madame de 
 Chantal overruled. The education of her son, she said, no 
 longer needed her presence : the guardianship of her father 
 would suffice until he entered the world ; her married 
 daughter would, on the contrary, be much benefited by her 
 sojourn at Annecy, as she was still veiy young, and required 
 the advice and direction of a mother. Her youngest daughter 
 she proposed taking with her, and keeping under her own 
 care, until she married her in a manner befitting her rank : in 
 short, she prevailed. 
 
 Only the fervor of religious enthusiasm could enable a 
 woman, whose heart was all charity and tenderness, to go 
 through the parting, which her early biographers have re- 
 lated as taking place, between herself and her kindred at 
 Dijon, where all her family had gathered to bid her a solemn 
 adieu. She knelt at the feet of her father, and, not without 
 tears, besought him to bless her, and take care of her son. 
 For some time both wept in silence ; at length the president 
 
152 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 said, — " Oh, my God ! it belongs not to me to oppose your 
 designs. It -will cost me my life. To you, Lord, I offer 
 this dear child ; receive her, and be you my comfort." He 
 raised and blessed her as he spoke. Madame de Chamal 
 was a kind mother, full of tenderness ; her children loved her 
 passionately, and none loved her better than the young son 
 she was going to leave, in order to become the help and com- 
 forter of strangers. He cast himself at her feet, he twined 
 his arms around her neck, and entreated her not to go ; see- 
 ing, at length, that his prayers would not avail, he laid him- 
 self down on the threshold of the door, and said, — " I cannot 
 detain you ; but if go you must, pass, then, over the body of 
 your child." She stepped over him, then returned weeping. 
 A clergyman, tutor to her son, thought he saw her constancy 
 waver, and reproved her. Her answer, "I am a mother," 
 might have softened a harder heart. 
 
 The parting was over ; the gates of Dijon were passed ; and 
 the consciousness that her intended sacrifice was fulfilled, 
 gave Madame de Chantal something like serenity of mind. 
 Her journey was a progress of charity. She entered Annecy 
 on Palm Sunday, 1610, and was received by Francis of 
 Sales, who came to meet her, with twenty-five persons of 
 distinction. After settling her married daughter, Madame de 
 Thorens, in her abode, she laid the foundation of the new in- 
 stitute on Trinity Sunday. Two ladies took the habit with 
 her, and were soon afterwards joined by ten more. The little 
 community devoted themselves to deeds of charity ; and in 
 these their superior gave them the example of all that the 
 most fervent heart could conceive or accomplish. She took 
 the solemn vow of doing not merely that which was good, 
 but that which was most excellent ; and religiously was the 
 vow fulfilled. The sisters of the Visitation daily went forth 
 to visit and relieve the poor. So intense was the gratification 
 Madame de Chantal found in the practice of charity, that she 
 conceived herself bound to abstain from it occasionally, 
 through a spirit of mortification. For three or four months 
 she daily attended a poor paralytic woman afflicted with dys- 
 entery, and took home her linen to wash. The stench in 
 this unfortunate woman's abode was so great, that Madame 
 de Chantal often said to the nun who accompanied- her : " I 
 think you had better turn your head away ; for my part, I 
 
MADAME DE CHANTAL. 153 
 
 am accustomed to this." A woman of dissolute life, and a 
 recital of whose infirmities has for once been spared to us by 
 the zealous biographers of Madame de Chantal, fell ill at An- 
 necy. The person who was commissioned to inform the 
 superior of the Visitation of such cases, mentioned this ; ad- 
 ding, Ir.jwever, " But it is not very likely that you will go and 
 serve this abandoned creature who has sinned so much." 
 " Our Lord came for sinners, and not for the just," warmly 
 answered Madame de Chantal. She went to see her imme- 
 diately ; and, as we are told, cured both body and soul. A 
 poor strange woman, — perchance a- sinner, too, but one as- 
 suredly whom the merciful Jesus would not have rejected, — • 
 was taken with the pains of labor in the course of her wan- 
 derings ; she sought and found refuge in a stable, where she 
 gave birth to her child. Madame de Chantal walked a con- 
 siderable distance in order to visit her; she knelt down by 
 the poor creature, took the child, baptized it, and cared for 
 its mother until she was able to leave the place and. proceed 
 on- her journey. All the time she was engaged in her pious 
 office, Madame de Chantal confessed that she thought of the 
 infant Jesus in the stable of Bethlehem. Here lay the secret 
 of all she did : the presence of God in her heart. A nun, 
 who beheld with ever-renewing admiration the marvellous 
 charity of her superior towards beings of repulsive and dis- 
 gusting aspect, once asked her how she could do so much fox 
 such miserable outcast creatures : " Because I do not see 
 them, but Jesus Christ in them," was the fervent reply. 
 
 A year after she had founded the Visitation, a great afflic- 
 tion befell Madame de Chantal: her father died at Dijon. 
 Her soul was torn with remorse : she had forsaken him in his 
 old age, when the sacrifice of a year would have made him 
 happy, and would surely not have been accounted as a sin 
 by the merciful God who commanded filial love and reverence, 
 It was long before she recovered this blow. Fortunately for 
 her peace of mind, her absence did not prove injurious to her 
 son : she visited him often, superintended his education, and 
 finally saw him united to the young and amiable Mademoiselle 
 de Coulanges. Her youngest daughter was in like manner 
 happily married to the Count of Tonlonjon. The establish- 
 ment of her children left Madame de Chantal free to devote 
 herself to the extension of the order of the Visitation. It 
 
 7* 
 
154 WOMEN OF CHEISTIANITY. 
 
 spread rapidly, although Francis of Sales was, against his 
 own judgment, induced to make several important changes, 
 which wholly altered its original aim : for instance, the nuns 
 were cloistered, and no longer able to visit the sick and the 
 poor : they relieved them by their alms ; but the most gen- 
 erous attribute of charity, sympathy, could no longer exist. 
 The labors of Madame de Chantal were great, and she had 
 ample opportunities of proving her patience, self-denial, and 
 humility: but charity to the poor, her most beautiful and 
 congenial virtue, no longer had the same scope. 
 
 Her patience under the many afflictions with which it 
 pleased God to visit her, was deep and touching. She was 
 destined to survive almost all her kindred and her friends. 
 She lost her father and father-in-law ; M. de Thorens and his 
 wife, her eldest daughter, within a short space of one another. 
 Her only son, the Baron de Chantal, was killed fighting 
 against the Huguenots, in the isle of Rhe. He left a widow 
 and an only child, then a few months old ; that child after- 
 wards became Madame de Sevigne. The gay, brilliant, and 
 worldly lady was born and bred in that old chateau of 
 Bourbilly, where her pious grandmother had burned ro- 
 mances and relieved the poor. The fatal end of M. de 
 Chantal was followed within a few years by that, no less 
 premature, of his younger sister and her husband. Scarcely 
 had Madame de Chantal received the news, when a messen- 
 ger entered the parlor of the convent, and informed her that 
 the widow of her son had followed him to the grave. She 
 had loved her daughter-in-law very tenderly, and turning 
 pale, she exclaimed : " Why, how many deaths !" but check- 
 ing this expression of regret, she clasped her hands and 
 added : " Should I not rather say, how many pilgrims hast- 
 ening on to their eternal dwelling !" 
 
 Her brother, and the first companions of her religious life, 
 likewise preceded her to that dwelling towards which ever 
 tended the desires of her heart. But perhaps the heaviest 
 loss of all was that of Francis of Sales, her much loved friend. 
 Parted as they were, often for years, by their different tasks, 
 their hearts were never asunder. A strong and pure friend- 
 ship between man and woman ought to need neither apology 
 nor explanation : rare it may be, but none can say that it is 
 impossible. The purity of the tie which united Madame de 
 
MADAME DE CHAN'IAL. , 155 
 
 Chantal and the Bishop of Geneva cannot be doubted ; but 
 it has been said and ■written, for party purposes, that the 
 affection which she felt for her religious director was a feeling 
 more deep and tender than mere friendship. We think that 
 her life and character protest eloquently against such an 
 assumption. The woman who could brand the name of 
 Jesus on her heart, who triumphed over maternal affection, — 
 the strongest and most passionate feeling of her sex, — be- 
 cause she thought herself called away by the voice of God, 
 \vas not a woman whom the love of mortal man could move. 
 
 The sudden and unexpected death of her friend was a 
 severe trial, but she bore it with Christian fortitude. It was 
 her habit, when suddenly afflicted, to offer up her heart to 
 God, saying : " Destroy, cut, burn whatever opposes your 
 holy will." As she held the letter containing the news 
 which she suspected and dreaded, her heart began to beat : 
 she read it kneeling, weeping much, but resigned. St. 
 Francis of Sales died in 1622 ; Madame de Chantal survived 
 him nineteen years. One of her cherished tasks was to col- 
 lect materials for his life. At length she too was called 
 away. Journeying from her convent in Paris to that of 
 Annecy, she was taken ill with inflammation of the lungs, in 
 the convent of Moulins. She died there, in a room whence 
 Madame de Sevigne — whom the nuns of the Visitation called 
 their living relic — dated one of her pleasant letters. In her 
 last moments, Madame de Chantal requested that the death 
 of St. Monica, as related in the Confessions of St. Augustine, 
 might be read to her. After receiving the last sacraments 
 of the Church, she expired peacefully on the 13th of Decem- 
 ber, 1641, being then sixty-nine years of age. In 1751 she 
 was canonized by Pope Benedict XIV. 
 
 The character of Madame de Chantal needs few comments : 
 her life and actions paint her as she was, with her faults and 
 her virtues, Her piety was ardent and enthusiastic to the 
 last. ' Being asked in her old age, and whilst laboring under 
 great bodily infirmities, if the early fervor of her spirit had 
 not cooled, she warmly answered : " I feel it as strong i 5 act 
 towards God as it was twenty-five years ago." This ardor 
 might occasionally lead her into exaggeration, but it was- not 
 superstitious. A nun under her control thought, or pre- 
 tended to think, that she was possessed with evil spirits, 
 
156 WOMEN OF CHKISTIANrTT. 
 
 which only relics could chase away. Madame de Chantai 
 took a piece of wood, wrapped it up in a paper, and used it 
 as a relic, when the fit of supposed possession was at its 
 height. It ceased immediately ; the nun declared that the 
 spirits had fled ; upon which Madame de Chantai calmly 
 informed her of the truth. No more was heard about 
 spirits. 
 
 She was herself too thoroughly practical in her faith to 
 place much value on that elevation of spirit which is the 
 delight, but by no means the aim, of religion. A lady once 
 wrote her a long account of the graces with which she was 
 favored by Heaven. Madame de Chantai wrote back : " You 
 have sent me the leaves of the tree ; send me likewise some 
 of its fruit, that I may judge of it." Humility was one of 
 the virtues which she inculcated on others, and practised 
 herself with exact fidelity. The reputation of saint which 
 she had acquired, the respect paid to her by queens and 
 great ladies, grieved her sincerely. The world she had 
 hoped to forget, and by which she had remained unheeded 
 as wife and widow, sought and revered the nun in her 
 retreat. But, pure and holy as was the life she there led, 
 we confess that, for our part, we prefer the charitable lady 
 of Bourbilly and Montelon to the sister and superior of the 
 Visitation. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 State of France— St. Vincent of Paul— Mademoiselle Legras— Sisters of 
 Charity — Madame de Goussault and the Association — The Found- 
 lings — The General Hospital. 
 
 I^dividifal instances of great Christian virtues, like that of 
 Madame de Chantai, did not prevent the moral state of France 
 from being any thing but pure. The opening of the seven- 
 teenth century found her exhausted by the civil and religious 
 dissensions of the preceding age. The nobles were turbulent 
 and immoral ; the people wretched and ignorant ; the clergy 
 profligate and. despised : things had come to such a pass that 
 ihe name of priest was both a by-word and a reproach. 
 
 Such was the state of the nation when a poor priest, of 
 
MADEMOISELLE LEGBAS. 157 
 
 humble parentage, but filled with the love and zeal of God, 
 first began to devote his long life to the instruction of the 
 poor, the reformation of the priesthood, and to the relief of 
 human misery under every shape, from the innocent and for- 
 saken child to the outcasts of society — galley-slaves. This 
 apostolic man, St. Vincent of Paul, one of the greatest saints 
 of Christianity, was powerfully aided in all his enterprises by 
 women of admirable charity. If they owed much to his spir- 
 itual guidance, he owed no less to their womanly tenderness 
 and enthusiasm. He made himself the advocate of found- 
 lings, and great ladies pledged their family plate to give those 
 forsaken creatures a home. He asked " for servants for the 
 poor," and peasant girls answered the appeal ; and under 
 that humble name became the first " sisters of charity." 
 
 This admirable order began very simply. Vincent never 
 proceeded from foregone conclusions or fixed designs ; he 
 took things as he found them, and made the commonest 
 events the germ of his greatest achievements. Whilst he was 
 at Chatillon, in Bresse, in the year 161 1, a lady requested 
 him to recommend to the charity of his congregation a poor 
 family, lying ill in a farm without the town. He did so, but 
 the effect surpassed his desire : he perceived that the sick 
 family had received too much at once, and would probably 
 fall back into their former state ere long ; when, pity being 
 exhausted, no one would care for them. This inconvenience, 
 which always attends ill-regulated charity, induced him to 
 establish a sisterhood of prudent and charitable ladies, willing 
 to devote a portion of their time and substance to the task of 
 visiting and relieving the poor. He found many such, and 
 drew up a few simple regulations for their use. This sister- 
 hood proved most beneficial, and spread all over France. 
 When Vincent returned to Paris, and found himself engaged 
 in other far more important labors, he felt the want of a zeal- 
 ous and intelligent person to whom he could confide the diffi- 
 cult task of visiting the various places where the sisterhood 
 had been established, and of seeing that the members re- 
 mained faithful to the spirit of their institute. Such a person 
 he found in Mademoiselle Legras, a wealthy widow, who, 
 through the influence of a friend, obtained his counsel as her 
 confessor ; for in that age of directors, when the excess of 
 priestly influence finally justified the Tartuffe of Moliere, Vin- 
 
158 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 cent of Paul showed a most determined aversion to the deli- 
 cate task of directing the conscience of great ladies. The ex- 
 ception which he made in favor of Mademoiselle Legras proved 
 the source of infinite good. 
 
 Though now reduced to the rank of a bourgeoise, Made- 
 moiselle Legras was noble by birth. Her maiden name was 
 Louise de Marillac ; she was born in the year 1591, and mar- 
 ried in her twenty-second year to Antoine Legras, secretary 
 of Mary of Medici. Her husband not being of ancient de- 
 scent, she had.no claim to the title of Madame, and was sim- 
 ply called Mademoiselle. This aristocratic distinction still 
 existed in France in the eighteenth century ; . though it was 
 by no means so rigorously observed as in the preceding age. 
 Mademoiselle Legras became a widow in the year 1625 ; and 
 she resolved to devote herself wholly to the service of God. 
 From her youth she had been of a serious and philosophic 
 turn of mind — so much so, that her father gave her a classi- 
 cal education, as the only one worthy of her gravity and in- 
 tellect. But her soul went beyond the things human learn- 
 ing professes to teach : she longed to enter a religious order ; 
 and would have done so, but that her health proved too deli- 
 cate for the austerities of the cloister. Even in the world she 
 led a life of retirement, charity, and self-denial ; and from the 
 first years of her marriage she belonged to the poor and to 
 the sick of her parish. She visited them in their illnesses — 
 gave them medicines and relief — attended on them — made 
 their beds — consoled or exhorted the sorrow-stricken or the 
 dying — and shrank from no task, not even from the laying 
 out of the dead. In the fervor of her zeal, Mademoiselle Le- 
 gras wished, in placing herself under the spiritual guidance 
 of Vincent, to take a vow of devoting herself henceforth to 
 the poor ; but, with his cautious dislike of any thing resem- 
 bling precipitation, he forbade her to do so for four years ; 
 during which he put her zeal and charity to repeated trials. 
 
 In the year 1627, Vincent proposed to Mademoiselle Le- 
 gras to visit the charitable sisterhoods which he had estab- 
 lished in the country. She eagerly consented, and accompa- 
 nied by several ladies of equal zeal and piety, she undertook 
 every summer a task which her delicate health rendered ex- 
 tremely fatiguing. She went over the dioceses of Soissons, 
 Paris, Beauvais, Meaux, Senlis, Chartres, and Chalons, in 
 
51ADEM0ISELLE LEGEAS. 159 
 
 Champagne. On arriving in a village, she collected the wo- 
 men who composed the charitable sisterhood, and gave them 
 the instructions which they often required. She exhorted 
 them to persevere in an office so holy in the sight of God, in- 
 creased their numbers, taught them by her own example not 
 to shrink from attending the sick in their most desperate dis- 
 eases, and gave them money, linen, and medicines. Her next 
 care was to ascertain the state of education : to collect young 
 girls together and instruct them ; and if the village possessed 
 no schoolmistress, to send for one, and form her to her task 
 by daily examples and judicious precepts. All this Made- 
 moiselle Legras did not, as a task, but with zeal and fervor ; 
 cheerfully submitting to every personal inconvenience, living 
 poorly, and sleeping on the worst beds — not because it was 
 a matter of absolute necessity, but because she could not find 
 it in her heart to preach patience to the poor, whilst sur- 
 rounded by all the luxurious comforts of wealth. The good 
 she thus accomplished was surprising : everywhere her arri- 
 val was hailed as a blessing ; and when she left, whole towns 
 and villages followed her with benedictions and regrets. She 
 spent the winter in Paris, and was then as eager in the prac- 
 tice of good deeds, as if the summer had been devoted to 
 pleasure. Vincent was often obliged to moderate her zeal, 
 and conjure her to spare her health. Her heroic ardor shrank 
 from nothing : she once attended on a sick girl lying ill with 
 the plague, and issued unharmed from the trial. 
 
 Seventeen years had elapsed since the establishment of the 
 first sisterhood in Chatillon, when Vincent perceived with re- 
 gret that these charitable associations were no longer anima- 
 ted by their original spirit. The greatest ladies in France 
 had indeed become members ; some through piety, some be- 
 cause it was the fashion : but they did more harm than good. 
 The husbands of these ladies objected to have their wives ex- 
 posed to the danger of breathing impure air, and of bringing 
 home the contagion of disease ; their own zeal flagged : they 
 hired servants to fill their places ; the sick were neglected, 
 and the sisterhood, in Paris especially, daily declined. Vin- 
 cent thought the mischief lay in the choice of the servants. 
 He reflected that many poor and pious girls, who wished not 
 to many, and yet were too poor to enter convents, might, for 
 the love of God, far more than for the sake of salary, under- 
 
160 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 take to attend on the sick poor, and gladly fill the places left 
 vacant by the caprice and repugnance of wealthier ladies. 
 The plan was tried, but answered indifferently. Those " ser- 
 vants of the poor," as they were called, were often unsuited 
 to their task : above all, they wanted the unity which springs 
 from a common spirit, and gives association its mighty power. 
 Still Vincent was not discouraged. In the year 1633 he found 
 three or four girls whose solid piety promised well. He 
 placed them under the guidance of Mademoiselle Legras, who 
 kept them for some time in her house, and then sent them 
 forth on their arduous labors. Their modesty and zeal, the 
 purity of their life, the fervor of their piety, edified the par- 
 ishes to which they had been sent. Their numbers increased 
 rapidly. Vincent still gave them their original name : the 
 people called them sisters of charity. St. Vincent of Paul 
 had never thought of founding a religious order ; but when 
 he saw that the thing was in some sort done, that the new 
 order had won both the faith and the affections of the people, 
 he sought to establish it on a secure foundation, and favored 
 its increase. Mademoiselle Legras and her disciples took the 
 vows, which sanctified their duties, but could scarcely add to 
 the ardent zeal with which they fulfilled them. 
 
 Thus simply began one of the noblest associations in which 
 human beings have ever united for the glory of God and the 
 service of men. It spread with extraordinary rapidity over 
 all France, and soon extended to foreign countries : Italy, 
 Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, America, and even the In- 
 dies, had their servants of the poor. In the following centu- 
 ry the Sisters of Charity had no less than thirty-four separate 
 establishments in Paris alone. Neither St. Vincent nor Made- 
 moiselle Legras knew the great things they were preparing ; 
 and, however much we may and must admire their charity, 
 we cannot give them the glory of a vast design. Providence 
 worked in them ; they knew it, and that others should know 
 and feel it too, is not more than their deep and unfeigned hu- 
 mility would have wished. 
 
 Vincent and Mademoiselle Legras had at first intended the 
 jisters to visit and attend the parish poor only ; but, with 
 time, they very wisely extended this original design, and gave 
 them a wider sphere of action. The Sisters of Charity suc- 
 cessively undertook the instruction of poor children, the care 
 
SISTEES OF CHAKITY. 161 
 
 of the hospital sick, and the rearing of foundlings. Theii 
 founder even sent them among prisoners and galley-slaves. 
 They remained foreign to no deed of mercy, however hard 
 of accomplishment or repugnant to the delicacy of woman it 
 might be. 
 
 The regulations which St. Vincent drew up for their con- 
 duct breathe the most admirable spirit, and are fraught with 
 prudence and wisdom. The Sisters of Charity take the vows 
 of chastity, obedience, and poverty, after a probation of five 
 years ; but their vows are for one year only, so that they may 
 always possess the merit of liberty. They renew them every 
 year, on the 25th of March ; this being the anniversary of the 
 day when Mademoiselle Legras first took hers. They cannot 
 do so without the permission of their superior, who sometimes 
 inflicts a delay, as the severest punishment in her power. 
 Few sisters have ever sought or wished to re-enter the world ; 
 and, though exposed to all its temptations, no cloistered nuns 
 surpass them in the exact and faithful observance of the rules 
 of their order. 
 
 In the instructions which he addressed to them, their found- 
 er, reminding them of the dangers to which they were expos- 
 ed, begged them to consider reserve and purity as their most 
 essential virtues ; not only because those virtues were excel- 
 lent in themselves, but because the least suspicion on their 
 morals would render their most fervent charity ineffectual, 
 and bring down contempt and dishonor on the religion they 
 served. He thus contrasted, in earnest and vivid language, 
 then - condition with that of other nuns : " Your monasteries 
 are the houses of the sick ; your cell is a hired room ; your 
 cloister, the streets of the city or the wards of the hospitals. 
 Let obedience be your solitude, the fear of God your grating, 
 and a strict and holy modesty your only veil." 
 
 Neither the fasts, vigils, nor other austerities of the cloister 
 were prescribed to the Sisters of Charity. To rise winter and 
 summer at four in the morning, to pray twice a day, live with 
 the greatest frugality, drink wine in illness only, attend on 
 the sick even in their most disgusting and painful illnesses, 
 watch the whole night long by the bed of the dying, think 
 it nothing to be immured within the walls of a hospital, 
 and breathe air tainted by disease ; to shrink not from sick- 
 ness, fatigue, danger, or death : these, and these only, are 
 
162 WOMEN OF CHKISTIAHITT. 
 
 the mortifications which he prescribed to the Sisters oi 
 Charity. 
 
 A devotedness so heroic and so pure filled every one with 
 admiration and respect ; but none held those feelings more 
 deeply than Vincent of Paul himself. He could not mention 
 the name of his spiritual daughters without much emotion ; 
 and he felt so confident of a special protection of God in their 
 favor, that he sent them on perilous errands through Germa- 
 ny and Poland, without seeming to think that they could be 
 molested. A striking testimony of his respect for those admi- 
 rable women, as well as of the spirit by which they were ani- 
 mated, will be found in his address to the congregation of 
 priests over whom he presided. In the year 1658, the queen- 
 regent, Anne of Austria, asked for a few Sisters of Charity to 
 be sent to the wounded soldiers at Calais. The four strong- 
 est of the sisterhood went : two soon died of fatigue. It was 
 to this event that Vincent alluded in one of the spiritual con- 
 ferences which his simple and manly eloquence had rendered 
 so celebrated. " I recommend to your prayers," said he, 
 " the Sisters of Charity whom we sent to Calais to assist the 
 poor wounded soldiers. Four went, and two, the strongest, 
 have sunk beneath the burden. Imagine, gentlemen, what 
 four poor girls can do for five or six hundred sick and wound- 
 ed soldiers ! Is not this affecting ? Do not you consider it 
 an action of great merit before God, that women should thus 
 go with so much courage and resolution among soldiers, to 
 relieve them in their necessities ? That they should go and 
 expose themselves to so much fatigue, and even to disease 
 and death, for the sake of those who exposed themselves to 
 the perils of war for the good of the State ? We thus see how 
 these poor women are filled with zeal for the glory of God, 
 and for the assistance of their fellow-creatures. The queen 
 has done us the honor to write and ask us for more sisters to 
 be sent to Calais, and four are going away to-day for that pur- 
 pose. One of them, about fifty years old, came to see me 
 last Friday at the Hotel Dieu, where I then was. She said 
 that, having learned how two of her sisters had died at Ca- 
 lais, she came to offer herself to go and fill their places, if 1 
 thought fit to allow it. 'Sister,' I replied, 'I shall think 
 about it.' She called here yesterday to learn my answer. 
 See, my brethren, the courage of these women, thus to offer 
 
SISTERS OF CHAEITY. 163 
 
 themselves like victims, ready to yield up their lives for the 
 love of Jesus Christ and the good of their neighbor. Is not 
 this admirable ? Indeed I know not what to say, unless that 
 they will judge me on the great day of the Lord. Yea, they 
 will be our judges, unless we are ready like them to expose 
 our lives for the love of God." 
 
 The first Sisters of Charity belonged to the condition of do- 
 mestic servants ; but when with time many highly born and 
 wealthy ladies asked to enter the order, it was not thought 
 expedient to deprive them of the opportunity of making so 
 noble a sacrifice : one which had the power of exciting the ad- 
 miration of Voltaire himself. " Perhaps," once wrote he who 
 scoffed at eveiy thing, " there is nothing greater on earth than 
 the sacrifice which a delicate sex makes of beauty, youth, and 
 often of high birth , to relieve in hospitals that gathering of 
 human miseries of which the sight is so humiliating to pride 
 and so revolting to our delicacy." " Do you, then, think," 
 exclaims an eloquent Christian, commenting on this passage, 
 " that these asylums are inaccessible to the cares, the weari- 
 ness, and the agitations which beset the human heart ? Do 
 you think that that heart which wearies of pleasures never 
 wearies of sacrifice ? Do you think that when these angels 
 of mercy pass through the gloomy wards, and remember that, 
 instead of the calm and pleasant existence which a word 
 would restore, instead of the family which recalls them, they 
 must dress the wounds of strangers, listen to their last gasps, 
 and lay out unknown dead, not for a week, for a month, but 
 for thirty years — nay, forever: do you think, I say, that 
 their courage has never almost failed them? Would you 
 know what sustained them then ? question them." Question 
 them ! there is no need. There is and can be but one expla- 
 nation of a sacrifice so heroic and so enduring — the pure and 
 holy love of God. 
 
 When the great storm of the first French Revolution shat- 
 tered the cloisters, which had been hallowed by the venera- 
 tion and love of so many generations, and scattered their 
 inmates over the land, none ventured to pass the same sen- 
 tence on the Sisters of Charity : their services, it was found, 
 could not be dispensed with. An infuriate Paris mob did 
 indeed scourge these women, whose purity and holiness 
 Might to have placed them beyond the reach of outrage: 
 
164 WOMEN OF CHEISTIAHITT. 
 
 but this act was only the act of individuals, not that of the 
 nation. 
 
 The same spirit still prevails in France : the insults of the 
 ignorant and the rude are more than counterbalanced by the 
 love and veneration of the greater number. The Sisters of 
 Charity, servants of the poor, are more numerous and more 
 respected than any similar order. These true daughters of 
 St. Vincent of Paul still labor in the spirit of their illustrious 
 father, and wear the now odd-looking costume of the seven- 
 teenth century : a dark-gray petticoat and jacket with loose 
 sleeves, a coarse blue apron, and a large starched cap of spot- 
 less whiteness, but more quaint than becoming, are the attire 
 of women who often descend from the noblest blood in 
 France ; and of whom many cannot quite conceal beneath 
 their uncouth habiliments features of exquisite loveliness, and 
 that innate elegance which bespeaks habits both delicate and 
 refined. 
 
 . In the year which followed the institution of the Sisters of 
 Charity, Madame de Goussault, a young, wealthy, and beau- 
 tiful widow, who was in the habit of visiting the great hos- 
 pital of the Hotel Dieu, ended by being much impressed 
 with the many deficiencies and abuses of this establishment. 
 She represented to Vincent all the good that an association 
 of visiting ladies could effect with regard to the spiritual and 
 temporal welfare of the sick. Several meetings on this sub- 
 ject were held at the house of Madame de Goussault ; the 
 result was an association, of which she was named president, 
 and which consisted of ladies, great according to the world, 
 but far more illustrious by their piety and charity. This 
 humane thought of one woman produced results of para- 
 mount importance : the association thus established became 
 the firmest support of all the philanthropic undertakings of 
 the apostle of the age. The General Hospital of Paris, that 
 of St. Heine, the Foundling Asylum, several establishments 
 for virtuous girls in distress, missionary expeditions, and the 
 redemption of many Christian captives, had their origin in the 
 pious association of a few women. St. Vincent of Paul knew 
 well all he owed to woman, and showed how much he antici- 
 pated from her charity, when he attempted one of his most 
 arduous enterprises — one which will ever be connected with 
 his name in France — the succor of the foundling. 
 
THE FOUNDLINGS. 165 
 
 It is now difficult to believe in the pitiable condition of the 
 foundling children of those days : we may know that such 
 things have been ; but it seems incredible still. Those inno- 
 cent creatures, the offspring of vice, but not the less children 
 of God, were daily found exposed in public places, and at 
 the doors of churches. The commissary of police caused 
 them to be removed, and taken to a widow residing in the 
 Rue St. Landry ; who, with the aid of two servants, undertook 
 to rear them. She was badly paid, and by far the larger 
 number of her little charges pined away and. died of want. 
 Tired of their cries, the servants frequently silenced them 
 with perfidious cordials, that led to a lethargic slumber end- 
 ing in death ; those who survived, were given away to who- 
 soever cared to have them, and not unfrequently sold for a 
 few coins. Some took and bought them from mere pity ; 
 but it was not always so : many, we are told, were purchased 
 to suck the milk of diseased women, thus finding death in the 
 very source of life ; some to be substituted for children of 
 rank who had died inopportunely ; others, unhappy victims 
 of a cruel superstition, were murdered to forward magical 
 operations, or to give their blood to those unnatural baths in 
 which old age sought to renew the freshness and vigor of 
 youth. 
 
 It was this evil, so great, so deeply rooted, and so exten- 
 sive, that St. Vincent of Paul, one of the poorest men of his 
 times, attempted to remedy. In the year 1638, he requested 
 the ladies of the association to visit the house of the widow of 
 St. Landry. They did so, and were horror-struck at what 
 they saw ; unable, however, to adopt all the children, they 
 resolved to take twelve, who were not selected — they had not 
 the courage to choose — but drawn by lots. Mademoiselle 
 Legras, and several of the sisters, undertook to rear them in 
 a house which was hired for that purpose. To these twelve 
 children the ladies gradually added others, according to their 
 means ; the difference between those whom they had taken 
 away and those whom they had left with the widow was too 
 striking not to fill them with pity ; but to take all was not in 
 their power, until the year 1640, when the queen-regent ob- 
 tained from the king a yearly grant of twelve thousand francs. 
 The ladies of the association then undertook to rear all the 
 children at their cost ; the expense exceeded forty thousand 
 
166 WOMEN OF CHRISTLAJXITY. 
 
 francs a year — a large sum for the times — especially as it was 
 given by a limited number of married women, rich, indeed, 
 but not sole mistresses of their wealth. Kind as were these 
 ladies, it is evident that, but for the zeal and energetic charity 
 of Vincent, they never would have done so much. A few 
 extracts from the journal, kept by the Sisters of Charity, who 
 reared the children, will serve to show both the goodness of 
 this excellent man, and the simple and tender feelings of his 
 spiritual daughters. 
 
 " January the twenty-second. — M. Vincent came at eleven 
 in the evening, and brought us two children. One may be 
 about six days old ; the other is older. The poor little things 
 cried. Madame, the superior, has confided them to nurses. 
 
 " January the twenty-sixth. — Poor M. Vincent is perished 
 with cold. He brings us a child : this one is already weaned. 
 My God ! how hard must be the heart that could thus aban- 
 don a poor little creature ! 
 
 " February the sixth. — The air is very keen. M. Vincent 
 has come to visit our community. The holy man is always 
 on foot : the superior wished him to rest ; but he ran imme- 
 diately to his little children. It is a wonder to hear Ins gen- 
 tle words and beautiful consolations; those little creatures 
 love him like their father.l' 
 
 There is an anecdote, that whilst carrying a child to the 
 sisters in the middle of the night, the saint was once stopped 
 by theives ; but when he showed his burden, and uttered- his 
 name — and who then did not know the name of Monsieur 
 Vincent ? — they let him go free, with many a blessing on that 
 charity and holiness which were not unknown even in the 
 haunts of crime. 
 
 Some years had thus elapsed, when the ladies of the asso- 
 ciation, perceiving that the number of the foundlings, and 
 consequently the expense, yearly increased, began to feel 
 alarmed at the heavy burden which rested upon them. The 
 troubled state of the times, reverses of fortune, and the calls 
 of the world, operated upon them so far that they declared 
 the undertaking must be relinquished. Vincent begged of 
 them first to hold a general meeting, and then to decide on 
 what was to be done. The meeting took place. Mademoi- 
 selle Legras, and Madame de Miramion, a young and beauti- 
 ful widow, of eminent piety, whose name will be found fur- 
 
THE FOUNDLINGS. 167 
 
 ther on, were amongst the ladies present. Vincent opened 
 the deliberations. He confessed that the ladies were free : 
 they had contracted no engagement ; and if they wished to 
 abandon the foundlings, they could do so : on the other hand, 
 he represented to them how much good they had done, how 
 many children they had saved from death, and how some of 
 those children were already beginning to earn an honest live- 
 lihood. Warming as he proceeded, and unable to restrain his 
 deep emotion, which betrayed itself by sighs and broken 
 accents, the good man concluded with the following touch of 
 homely eloquence : " And now, ladies," said he, " pity and 
 charity have made you adopt these little creatures as your 
 children. Ye have been their mothers according to grace, 
 since their mothers according to the flesh abandoned them : 
 see now whether ye also will abandon them. Be no longer 
 their mothers — be their judges : their life and death are in 
 your hands. I shall take the votes ; it is time to pronounce 
 then - sentence, and to know if you will have no more mercy 
 for them. They will live if you continue your charitable 
 care ; but, on the contrary, they will surely die if you aban- 
 don them : past experience is there, you cannot doubt the 
 result." 
 
 The ladies did not answer : sobs and tears impeded speech. 
 The appeal made to their womanly feelings, the tender art 
 with which the saint made them the judges of innocent and 
 defenceless creatures, more eloquent in their silence than he 
 could be in his pleading, had hot been lost. They began by 
 giving all the gold and silver in their possession, and ended 
 by protesting that, happen what might, no matter at what 
 cost, they would never abandon the poor children they had 
 adopted. They kept their promise ; some had to redeem it 
 by pledging their plate : one lady alone gave twenty thou- 
 sand francs. The efforts of the association were finally 
 crowned with success ; and two asylums, enriched by the 
 gifts and legacies of liberal and pious persons, were opened 
 in Paris to the foundlings, whose home had once been the 
 house of the widow of St. Landiy. 
 
 Good deeds are prolific. The association of ladies who 
 had shrunk from the Foundling Asylum, now astonished 
 Vincent by proposing a far greater and more expensive 
 undertaking : that of a General Hospital for all the mendi- 
 
16S WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 cant poor of Paris. In the year 1653, they submitted the 
 project" to him, in one of their assemblies. He was startled, 
 and raised some objections ; but one of the ladies promised 
 fifty thousand francs, and another offered a yearly income of 
 three thousand. The king, pleased with the project, agreed 
 to give the grounds and buildings of the Salpetriere. Many 
 munificent persons contributed largely to the funds ; and at 
 the end of three years — during which the charitable ladies 
 had to struggle against the keen ridicule of opinion, and the 
 more serious obstacles raised by authority to thwart then- 
 design — the General Hospital was opened to five thousand 
 beggars, on the 7th of March, 165V. This establishment, 
 which still exists, effected what had baffled the efforts of 
 Henry IV. and his successor : it succeeded in banishing 
 mendicity from Paris. 
 
 Five years after this, Mademoiselle Legras died, in the 
 seventy-first year of her age. She had taken an active share 
 in all the generous enterprises of the association. Of her 
 private life and feelings little is known ; but that little is 
 enough : she was the first Sister of Charity. And a bound- 
 less charity did indeed dwell in the heart of her, who was 
 heard to say of the poor, whose sister and servant she had 
 chosen to be, "They are our brothers, and our masters!" 
 She requested that no epitaph might be engraved on her 
 tombstone — nothing but a small cross, with the words, 
 "Spes mei." " The request was obeyed. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Madame de Miramion. 
 
 Amongst the ladies from whom the pathetic appeal of 
 St. Vincent of Paul drew the promise of continued support 
 to the Foundling Asylum, was Madame de Miramion, whose 
 boundless charity gives her a high rank among the most 
 eminent Christian women of her age. Beautiful and wealthy, 
 severe to herself, but gentle to others, she was eminently a. 
 
. MADAME DE MIEAMION. 169 
 
 woman of faith and good works ; a serene purity of soul 
 marks . her whole existence, from her earliest years to her 
 sanctified death. 
 
 Her maiden name was Marie Bonneau de Rubelle : she 
 was born on the second of November, 1629. She lost. her 
 mother when about nine years of age, and fell ill with grief. 
 Her father confided her to the contrary influences of a pious 
 governess who constantly spoke to her of God, and of a gay 
 aunt who took her to balls and plays. The teaching of the 
 governess proved the most acceptable ; Marie closed her 
 eyes at the play, and kept her thoughts fixed upon death in 
 the midst of the dance. Her delight was to hold communion 
 with God through prayer, and serve him in the persons of 
 the poor and the sick. Her. aunt once gave a great ball, 
 and vainly looked, for her niece to begin the dance. . Servants 
 were sent for her everywhere, fruitlessly; at length they 
 found her in a retired part of the house, by the dying bed 
 of a man-servant who lay expiring in fearful convulsions. 
 Marie was then twelve years of age. This one incident is a 
 key to her whole existence. . Young, rich, handsome, and 
 summoned by all the pomps and alluring vanities of the 
 world, the call fell on her ear unheeded. ■ The promises of 
 the Gospel led her along another path, and summoned her 
 to a holier, destiny. , ■ 
 
 Her father died when she was about fourteen. With a 
 prudence and wisdom above her years, Mademoiselle de 
 Rubelle undertook to superintend the education of her 
 younger brothers, and rendered herself the real head of the 
 family. In May, 1645, not being yet sixteen, she married 
 M. de Miramion, of the family of Beauhamois. The extreme 
 seriousness and rigid piety of his bride annoyed M. de Mira- 
 mion. " I renounced cards, dancing, and the theatre," she 
 records in the brief memoirs of her life, written at the re- 
 quest of her confessor, "which caused a good_ deal of sur- 
 prise. . . . Our only discussions were on the subject of my 
 refusing amusements." But persuasion was amongst the 
 gifts of Madame de Miramion : she soon won over her hus- 
 band ." to live like a Christian," as she expresses it ; adding 
 immediately afterwards, " We never spoke together of any 
 thing save death." Strange and gloomy ideal of a Christian 
 life and marriage. 
 
170 WOMEN OF CHEISTIA^ITY. 
 
 Madame de Miramion had scarcely been six months a wife 
 when she became a widow, on the eve of her sixteenth birth- 
 day. Spite of her Christian stoicism, she confesses that 
 grief brought her to the very verge of death. A few months 
 after the decease of her husband she gave birth to her only 
 child, a daughter. The young widow lived in great retire- 
 ment for two years. She was resolved not to marry again, 
 and said so ; but fortune-hunters were irresistibly attracted 
 by a widow of eighteen, well born, still beautiful, spite of 
 the small-pox, and wealthy. 
 
 Bussy de Kabutin, the bold, satirical, and licentious cousin 
 of Madame de Sevign6, heard of Madame de Miramion, and 
 resolved that the wealthy widow should help to repair his 
 broken fortunes. He saw her twice in church, was pleased 
 with her modest beauty, and resolved to carry her off and 
 force her into a marriage ; to which he concluded that so 
 gentle a woman would easily submit. His personal vanity — 
 and he was perhaps the vainest man of his times — strength- 
 ened him in this conviction. In his memoirs, Bussy declares 
 that he was deceived into the belief that Madame de Mira- 
 mion wished him to carry her off, and makes light of the 
 whole affair. The abduction of heiresses, maids, or widows, 
 was a commom practice of the age. Dubois, valet-de-chambre 
 of Louis XIV., records in his memoirs how Mademoiselle de 
 la Tessoniere was forcibly taken from her mother's carriage 
 by M. de Fontenaille, who performed the exploit on horse- 
 back in company of five or six friends. This careful ravisher 
 had provided himself with a soft pillow on which he placed 
 the lady before him, then galloped off, spite of her screams 
 and entreaties ; but having missed his way, and perceiving 
 that it would not be in his power to keep her, he returned 
 her unharmed to her friends on the following day. 
 
 Madame de Miramion had spent the summer of the year 
 1048 in a countiy house lying within a short distance of Paris. 
 She received several warnings, which she disregarded, 
 having no knowledge of Bussy de Rabutin's passion for her 
 wealth and person : for that his attempt was not dictated 
 by mere interest, seems to be an acknowledged fact. At an 
 early hour on a fine August morning, Madame de Miramion, 
 accompanied by her mother-in-law, two female attendants, 
 and an old squire, left Issy in an open carriage, in prder to 
 
MADAME DE M1EAMI0N. 171 
 
 pay her devotions at the shrine on Mount Valerian. They 
 were within a quarter of a league of the mount, when twenty 
 men on horseback suddenly arrested them, changed the 
 horses, and compelled the carriage to take another route. 
 Madame de Miramion called out for aid ; but the spot was 
 lonely, and none heard her cries ; the carriage went fast, 
 and had soon entered the depths of the forest of Livry. 
 The road, or rather path, along which they went, was so 
 narrow that the horsemen, unable to ride on either side, 
 were compelled to precede and follow the carriage. Ma- 
 dame de Miramion leaped out and ran away, through thorns 
 and briers, which tore her face and hands ; but seeing that 
 her ravishers had perceived her flight and were pursuing 
 her, and fearing they might compel her to- ride on horseback 
 for greater security, she retraced her steps and lightly leap- 
 ed back again into the carriage. It stopped ere long, to set 
 down the elder Madame de Miramion, her attendant, and 
 the old squire ; and her own attendant and a footman, who 
 declared he would not leave his mistress, alone remained 
 with the young widow. Her ravishers offered her food, 
 which she refused. 
 
 They resumed their journey, changing horses from time to 
 time. Whenever they passed through towns and villages, 
 Madame de Miramion renewed her cries for aid, and threw 
 money to all the people she saw. Her escort declared she 
 was a poor mad lady whom they were taking away by order 
 of the court ; her dishevelled hair, disordered coif and ker- 
 chief, and the blood on her face and hands, seemed to con- 
 firm the truth of the story. On the evening of the following 
 day they reached the castle of Launai ; no modern chateau, 
 but a real relic of feudal ages, with walls of massy strength, 
 a dark and narrow court, and old draw-bridges, that were 
 lowered one by one with great clanking of chains, for Madame 
 de Miramion to pass, and quickly raised again as soon as the 
 carriage had been admitted. She peremptorily refused to 
 alight ; when a gentleman, whom his attire showed to be a 
 knight of Malta, approached, and sought to persuade her to 
 enter the house. 
 
 "Is it by your orders that I have been carried away?" 
 asked Madame de Miramion. 
 
 " No, madame," he replied very respectfully, " it is by the 
 
WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 order of Monsieur Bussy de Rabutin, who has assured us 
 that he had obtained your consent." 
 
 " Then he has spoken falsely," she indignantly ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " Madame," returned the knight, " we are here two hun- 
 dred gentlemen, friends of Monsieur de Bussy ; but if he has 
 deceived us, be assured that we shall take your part against 
 him, and set you at liberty." 
 
 The noble mien and respectful bearing of this gentleman 
 produced some effect on Madame de Miramion ; she con- 
 sented, on his word, to alight, "and enter a low, damp room 
 on the ground-floor. A fire was lit for her, and she sat down 
 on the cushions of her own carriage. Two loaded pistols 
 were lying on a table ; she seized them eagerly ; food was 
 brought her — she would not touch it, and vehemently asked 
 for death or freedom. Several persons came to intimidate or 
 lure her into compliance : she heard them with disdair, 
 Bussy de Rabutin himself appeared not : the unexpected 
 resistance of Madame de Miramion enraged and mortified 
 him. " I thought to find a lamb, and I have got a lioness !" 
 he exclaimed, in his anger. After some hesitation, he at 
 length sent the knight of Malta to assure her that he did not 
 mean to detain her against her will, and to beg that she 
 would hear him for a few moments. He did not venture to 
 appear alone before her, but entered the room accompanied 
 by a dozen of friends ; 'and the bold profligate, renowned for 
 his daring and his wit, stood suddenly disconcerted in the 
 presence of a woman of nineteen. On perceiving him, 
 Madame de Miramion rose, and exclaimed : " I vow by the 
 living God, my Creator and yours, that I will never be your 
 wife." The passion with which she uttered this' solemn pro- 
 test, made her fall back almost senseless on the cushions. A 
 doctor who was present felt her pulse ; which was so low, 
 that he thought her dying ; for forty hours she had not tasted 
 food. Alarmed at the possibility of her death, and rendered 
 still further uneasy by. the tidings that six hundred armed 
 men from Sens were coming to besiege the castle,' and deliver 
 Madame de Miramion, M. de Bussy swore to set her at 
 liberty ; but in the mean time he entreated her to take some 
 refreshment. " When the horses are saddled, and I am in 
 my carnage, I shall eat," replied Madame de Miramion. Her 
 
MADAME DE MIEAMI01T. .ITS 
 
 wish was immediately obeyed, and she consented to take two 
 fresh eggs. 
 
 At length she was free ; the carriage left the castle, and 
 set out for Sens. The knight of Malta accompanied Madame 
 de Miramion to within a hundred yards of the town, endeav- 
 oring to excuse M. de Bussy. When he rode away, the 
 coachman and postillion, alarmed at their share in this busi- 
 ness, unharnessed the horses and went off; leaving Madame 
 de Miramion and her two attendants to proceed on foot to 
 Sens. . They found the gates shut, and were told that the 
 whole town was arming, by command of the queen, in order 
 to deliver a lady who hadl been earned off. " Alas ! I am 
 that lady," replied Madame de Miramion. She entered an 
 inn, and being no longer sustained by the spirit of resistance 
 which had till then upheld her, she became so ill that she 
 had to be carried back to Paris on a litter. On the prayer 
 of his patron, the Prince of Conde, she forgave her persecu- 
 tor ; ' but stipulated that he should never appear before her : 
 a condition which he faithfully observed for thirty-six years. 
 When that length of time had elapsed, he solicited her influ- 
 ence in favor of a law-suit of his, then pending. . She con- 
 sented to see and hear him, and promised to serve, as far a* 
 her power extended, the man whose cupidity and passion had 
 brought her to the verge of death. 
 
 When Madame de Miramion recovered, several other at- 
 tempts to carry her off were made. They failed ; but 
 frightened her so much, that she well-nigh resolved to marry 
 again, in order to secure a protector. She contented her- 
 self, however, with retiring into various convents : she thus 
 resided for some time with Mademoiselle Legras and the Sis- 
 ters" of Charity. It was in their house that she privately con- 
 secrated herself to God, and resolved to divide her life be- 
 tween the education of her daughter and the care of the poor. 
 "I am so comfortable, and the poor are so wretched,". she 
 often ' observed. Forsaken children interested her deeply. 
 She hired a house, filled it with twenty poor orphan girls, 
 fed and clothed them, paid mistresses to instruct them, and 
 frequently, left her own home to go and teach them herself; 
 sharing their meals, and sitting amongst them like a mother 
 with her children. Her mornings were devoted to the relief 
 and visiting of the poor in their own homes ; her afternoons 
 
174 
 
 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 to the hospitals. She had a natural repugnance to the sight 
 of those ills and sufferings of humanity which she daily wit- 
 nessed ; yet spite of those feelings, she once compelled her- 
 self to attend, until she finally cured her, a poor girl so sadly 
 afflicted with the scald, that no one else would even so much 
 as touch her. To these habitual tasks, Madame de Miramion 
 added frequent missions in the country, to instruct peasant 
 women, and establish schoolmistresses in the villages. Re- 
 solves written in her own hand, and found amongst her papers 
 after her death, show the spirit which animated her. " To 
 think of putting my temporal affairs in good order ; to write 
 down every thing ; settle with my daughter's guardian ; pay 
 all ; retrench something ; be very economical. To spend as 
 little as I can on myself and my daughter ; to give the rest 
 of my income to the poor ; to give three thousand francs a 
 year from my daughter's property to the poor ; to exhort my 
 brothers to give to them also To receive contradic- 
 tions, contempt, and grief, with joy ; to thank God for these 
 things, and beseech him to continue and increase them ; to 
 je quite satisfied under them, and grasp at humiliation like 
 a treasure. To love a hidden life, known to none save God ; 
 and whatever is done, to do it for him alone." 
 
 She who, in the fervor of her faith, spoke thus of " grasp- 
 ing at humiliation like a treasure," had yet enough human 
 weakness to suffer keenly from the raillery of the light and 
 worldly-minded ; whose life and pleasures she renounced, in 
 order to acquire a practical knowledge of medicine, and even, 
 spite of ridicule, to bleed the sick. 
 
 The office of treasurer to her parish gave her abundant 
 opportunities of doing good, as the civil wars of the Fronde 
 had filled Paris with poor. Thanks to her zeal and excellent 
 management, two thousand indigent persons received soup 
 daily. She often deprived herself of the innocent gratifica- 
 tion of presiding over the distribution. " When I serve the 
 poor," she said, " I have no merit : I am rewarded by the 
 pleasure it gives me." But misery increased so rapidly 
 around her, that her income, though large, no longer sufficed 
 to the wants of her charity. She sold her pearl necklace for 
 twenty-four thousand francs. " God inspired me well," she 
 observed to her confessor; "I got rid of an occasion of 
 vanity, and at the same time found the means of assisting 
 
MADAME DE MIRAMION". 175 
 
 many poor creatures." Her plate was disposed of in the 
 same manner, for the same purpose, in the following year. 
 This ardent charity did not always meet with due gratitude. 
 " How much trouble you take to oblige ungrateful people !" 
 once observed a lady to her. " I have received more from 
 God," replied Madame de Miramion, "than those people 
 have received from me. He therefore gives me a great 
 proof of his mercy, in affording me those opportunities of 
 satisfying his justice." This mortified spirit, the result of will 
 more than inclination, did not render Madame de Miramion 
 quite dead to the vanities of life. She loved elegance,- and 
 once indulged her taste by causing her room to be newly 
 furnished, and hung with black and white velvet. A single 
 remark made by one of her friends, " that this magnificence 
 was scarcely needed in the room of a Christian widow," 
 sufficed to make her renounce this last lingering affection for 
 the luxuries she had relinquished. At the age of twenty, 
 Madame de Miramion had cut her hair short, and given up 
 laces, silk, and colored garments ; wearing only plain woollen 
 stuffs of gray or black hue : we have already seen the use to 
 which she put her jewels. A dangerous illness interrupted 
 those tasks of charity, and induced her to write thus to her 
 daughter : 
 
 " I pray to God to give you his holy benediction. My 
 last words to you are : love God with your whole heart, and 
 serve him faithfully ; love and assist the poor ; walk in the 
 path of the Gospel. Let that be your rule ; keep it inviolate. 
 Renounce the vanities of the world : God is not there. Con- 
 fide in him ; he will care for you. . . . Adieu, my dear, 
 and more than very dear daughter. I leave you God for a 
 father : you are well thus, and to him I abandon you. 
 Choose to die sooner than to offend him. Pray, and cause 
 prayers to be offered up, for me. Farewell once more ! but 
 only for a little while, since we shall meet before God. Your 
 mother and best friend." 
 
 Madame de Miramion recovered, but was afflicted with a 
 painful cancer. She brought up her daughter in the spirit 
 which had dictated this letter: with the tenderness of a 
 mother, and the faith of a Christian. The health of her only 
 child was so delicate, that almost every year some severe 
 illness brought her to the point of death. Madame de 
 
WOMEN OF CIIEISTIAJSTITY. 
 
 Miramion adopted every human remedy, then offered her up 
 to God; saying: "If she is not to liye and die a Christian, 
 take her from me,' Lord." She educated her in her own 
 principles' and habits ; took her with her everywhere ; taught 
 her to give alms, to instruct poor children, and visit hospitals. 
 "The road of the hospitals leads to heaven," she often re- 
 marked. She made her learn dancing, for the sake of the 
 elegance it imparts to the carriage ;" and once took her to a 
 ball, that she might know what sort of a thing it was, and 
 learn to despise it. She urged her not merely to shun evil, 
 but to do good ; to be modest in her dress, moderate in fol- 
 lowing the fashions, neither to adopt extremes nor to censure 
 those who did ; above all, to love the poor. She once 
 brought her two skirts, saying : " Choose one of them ; if 
 you take the least handsome of the two, you will have four 
 pistoles remaining to give to the poor." The austere lessons 
 thus inculcated were not ' distasteful to Mademoiselle de 
 Miramion, because they were never compulsory. From her 
 twelfth year her mother treated her like a sister : never 
 reprimanded her without giving her motives for so doing, 
 and listened impartially to her remonstrances and justifica- 
 tion. " If my reasons are better than yours," she said, "you 
 will yield to them ; but if yours are the best, I shall give in." 
 In this friendly spirit, mother and daughter discussed to- 
 gether the various offers of marriage 'which the latter re- 
 ceived; until both decided in favor of M. de Nemond, an 
 honorable magistrate. An act of Christian charity signalized 
 their marriage : a thousand louis, instead of being spent on 
 jewels, were given to the poor. Madame de Miramion had 
 stipulated that her daughter should be allowed to govern and 
 spend her own property. She presented her with an ac- 
 count-book, and the first article of expense set down was the 
 wide and paramount one of charity. 
 
 Madame de Miramion now thought that her part 'with 
 active life was done. S^he longed for the silence and repose 
 of a cloistered solitude, and spoke of retiring to some provin- 
 cial convent of the austere Carmelite order i All her spiritual 
 advisers, who knew how admirably adapted she was for -the 
 practice of the highest religious duties, opposed the project 
 so strongly, that she relinquished it ; and thus added another 
 act of self-denial to the many sacrifices of her pure life. She 
 
MADAME DE MDJAMIOIC. 177 
 
 resumed and extended all her tasks of charity, contributed 
 largely to foreign missions, and for six months fed at her own 
 expense poor nuns, whose convents had .been ruined by the 
 war. Grieved at the sight of all the abandoned women who 
 then filled Paris with profligacy, Madame de Miramion at- 
 tempted to reform them. With the permission of the magis- 
 trates, she shut up seven or eight of those unhappy creatures 
 in a house hired by her for that purpose, and placed two 
 discreet women over them. Madame de Miramion often 
 visited them herself, 'spoke to them of God, and endeavored 
 to warn them from vice, by promises of liberty, and a more 
 honorable livelihood. Most of these women listened to her 
 arguments, and turned away from evil. The success of this 
 little establishment, which lasted two years, induced Madame 
 de Miramion to attempt on a larger scale, and at public cost, 
 what she had effected from her own private resources. • Three 
 ladies of great liberality and charity, Madame d'Aiguillon, 
 niece of Cardinal Richelieu, Madame de Farinvilliers, and 
 Madame de Traversal, to whom she suggested this project, 
 met to consider it. They admired it extremely, but thought 
 it too difficult of . accomplishment," and declined interfering. 
 As they came to this decision, Madame de Miramion entered 
 the room where they sat. She belonged to those ardent 
 spirits to whom the word " impossible" only imparts new 
 zeal; and she spoke in favor of her design with so much 
 force, conviction, and eloquence, that she carried away the 
 hearts of the three ladies. When, at the conclusion of her 
 brief- address, she declared that she would give for her part, 
 besides her time and labor, ten thousand francs to the new 
 establishment, each of the ladies ' protested that she would 
 give an equal sum. A, contract was "passed ; the house was 
 built ; Madame de Miramion drew up the regulations, and 
 assumed the fatiguing task of governing this establishment : 
 it rapidly improved and extended under her judicious rule, 
 and -was afterwards well known under the name of Saintc 
 Pelagic 
 
 In the year 1662, the price of corn was so high that the 
 General Hospital of Paris, established by the ladies of the 
 association, was on the verge of ruin. Madame de Miramion 
 applied to Madame Martinozzi, the illustrious Princess of 
 Conti. She painted to her the wants of the hospitalin a 
 
178 WOMES OF CHEISTIAKITY. 
 
 strain so pathetic, that the princess presented her with the 
 magnificent gift of a hundred thousand francs. In the course 
 of the same year, this admirable woman, who had not yet 
 reached her twentieth year, sold all her pearls and jewels for 
 the sum of forty, thousand crowns, which she caused to be 
 distributed amongst the starring poor of Berry, Champagne, 
 and Picardy. At the time that she thus exerted herself in 
 favor of the General Hospital, Madame de Miramion was en- 
 gaged in active and daily duties, which might have been sup- 
 posed sufficient to engross her whole attention. For several 
 years she had cherished the project of estaolishing, not a 
 religious order, but a community or association of twelve 
 women, who would undertake to devote themselves to the 
 education of poor children, and the attendance of the sick 
 and the wounded. After the marriage of her daughter, she 
 went, in 1661, to reside in a house of the Faubourg St. An- 
 toine, where five or six pious women shared her zeal and 
 good works. This little community ultimately joined that of 
 St. Genovefa, similar in its spirit and obligations. Madame 
 de Miramion relinquished, with the joy of a lowly heart, the 
 opportunity of spiritual pride and vain-glory which the estab- 
 lishment of a religious order always affords ; but, spite of her 
 humility, the sisters, whom she supported for nine years at 
 her sole expense, were always called by the people, up to 
 the first French Revolution, by the name of " Miramionnes." 
 Under the guidance of this zealous superior, the Mirami- 
 onnes, or daughters of St. Genovefa, fulfilled with admirable 
 charity the duties of their institute. In the year 1673, troops 
 quartered in the town of Melun introduced a contagious dis- 
 ease, so rapid and fatal, that upwards of a hundred persons 
 died daily. All intercourse with the neighboring towns was 
 interdicted ; and the terror in Melun was so great that the 
 sick were thrust out of doors to die in the streets. Priests 
 forsook their flocks, nuns left their convents, and the magis- 
 trates and civil officers of the town were on the point of de- 
 serting the place ; when Madame de Miramjon arrived on- the 
 spot, accompanied by surgeons and several sisters. She be- 
 gan by assembling the magistrates : a step which her well- 
 known virtue far more than her rank authorized. Her ex- 
 hortations and unshrinking courage shamed them" from their 
 t-ara. A house was turned into a hospital ; the sick, no 
 
MADAME DE MIRAMION. 179 
 
 longer left to perish in the streets, were conveyed to it ; and 
 Madame de Miramion and her sisters entered it immediately. 
 The priests and nuns who still remained in the town, ashamed 
 to see a few women usurp the Christian charity they were 
 bound to exert, endeavored by tardy zeal to repair the dis- 
 grace of previous indifference. The contagion lasted two 
 months ; when it was over, Madame de Miramion returned 
 to Paris overpowered with fatigue ; yet, when she learned on 
 her arrival that a similar calamity afflicted the town of Sen- 
 lis, it required the express prohibition of her religious supe- 
 riors to prevent her from going to it immediately, so ardent 
 was the zeal of her charity. 
 
 Indeed, Madame de Miramion may be described as ever 
 on the watch for doing good : this was both the aim and 
 passion of her life. Thus the immodest language of a few 
 idle girls, whom she overheard as she was returning home 
 one evening, suggested to her the excellent project of work- 
 rooms, with mistresses to instruct and superintend girls who 
 were ignorant and idle, but willing to learn and work. The 
 plan was tried, and succeeded admirably ; 3 r oung girls came 
 to those rooms in the morning, worked all day, received their 
 dinner, and were paid for their work at the end of every 
 week. At a period when commercial industry was so im- 
 perfectly developed, there was much in this idea. In the 
 year 1694, corn became extremely dear: the hardship, of 
 course, fell most heavily on the poor. Madame de Miramion 
 used her influence with Madame de Maintenon and the king 
 to induce them to cause a large quantity of rice to be 
 brought to Paris, and either given away or sold very cheap. 
 She herself made for her establishment six thousand distribu- 
 tions of soup three times a week. It not unfrequently hap- 
 pened, that those whom she thus relieved acknowledged her 
 charity by coarse abuse ; which she bore, and exhorted her 
 sisters to bear, with heroic patience. " Courage, sisters !" 
 she said, "the more you receive contradictions from men, 
 the more does your merit before God increase. Let them 
 speak, and do you continue to serve them : your patience will 
 prevail in the end." She spoke truly : many cf those who 
 had insulted her most grossly, repented their ingiatitude, and 
 came to ask her forgiveness. 
 
 In consequence of the scarcity which prevailed, the funds 
 
180 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of the General Hospital became so low, that the adininistra 
 tors resolved to expel all the women of dissolute life it con- 
 tained. The prospect of the vice and misery into which these 
 poor creatures must inevitably fall again," greatly distressed 
 Madame de Miramion. She proved to the administrators 
 that the seven hundred women — there were no less — could 
 be kept for forty thousand francs a year. ■ They granted the 
 fact, but objected that they had not this sum ; she immedi- 
 ately undertook to procure it. Madame de Maintenon gave 
 her twenty-five thousand francs ; she obtained several large 
 sums from various noblemen;, the rest she had to ask for in 
 different quarters — an ungracious task, which subjected her 
 to cold looks and slights, which she felt keenly. " Indeed !'"' 
 she observed to the sister who accompanied her, " one must 
 love God to do this." In less than a week she had obtained 
 upwards of fifty thousand francs, a sum which sufficed to 
 keep the women for two years ; for, time being granted, some 
 found husbands, others work or situations ; and few ulti- 
 mately remained in the hospital. 
 
 The last year of this noble life, filled with good 'deeds, had 
 now come. Madame de Miramion, though ill herself, went 
 to comfort and assist a dying friend, the Princess of Guise. 
 She came home extremely fatigued, on the 18th of March, 
 1696, and fell ill the following morning. She submitted to 
 the prescriptions of her medical attendants with docility, but 
 without faith in their efficacy. ' She suffered acutely ; but 
 nothing could exceed the serenity of her last moments. She 
 gathered around her the little sisterhood over which she had 
 presided for so many years, and gave them her last advice. 
 Scarcely had she concluded, when a sister belonging to a 
 community of Paris, which she loved greatly, entered the 
 room, and said abruptly : " Madame, our community would 
 much like to have your heart when you are dead." Madame 
 de Miramion smiled at the request, and pointing to the sister- 
 hood around her, replied, ''My heart belongs to my daugh- 
 ters." Her weakness increasing, the prayers of the dying 
 svere read to her. ■ Her niece, who was then bending over 
 her, ' heard her saying in a low' tone: "My God, I accept 
 death, and the destruction . of this my body: be it reduced 
 to dust, be it the food of the worm. And thou, my soul, go 
 forth, and unite thyself to thy God !" Two days more she 
 
MADAME DE MIEAMION". 181 
 
 lingered, then died on the 24th of March, 1696, in the sixty- 
 seventh year of her age. No one wept around her death- 
 bed ; but the house was besieged by carriages and anxious 
 crowds. When the tidings of her death reached the street, 
 'he people broke open the doors to see their 'benefactress 
 once more. They found her lying on the bed, where she 
 had expired without effort or convulsion : her eyes had closed 
 of themselves ; her features were serene. She remained thus 
 for two days, exposed to public veneration. 
 
 Madame de Miramion had requested to be buried like a 
 sister of St. Genovefa, and the , wish was obeyed. Six 
 poor men bore her coffin to the parish churchyard ; thirty 
 sisters carrying lighted tapers followed ; then came eighty 
 young girls from the work-rooms she had established, fol- 
 lowed by three hundred children educated by the Mira- 
 mionnes ; and the superior of the General Hospital, accom- 
 panied by those women whom Madame de Miramion had 
 recently saved from misery and vice. Her own relatives 
 closed the funeral train, which was followed by an immense 
 crowd. The church where the last rites ' were performed 
 was bare of drapery, and imperfectly lighted : the simplicity 
 and poverty which she had ever loved in life, accompanied 
 her in death. 
 
 Thus' lived, and passed away from life, a woman whom 
 birth, beauty, and talents of no mean order, would have 
 fitted for a far more brilliant destiny in the eyes of the 
 world, but a far lower one before God. She, too, might 
 have shone in the polite circles of the Sevignes, the Cou- 
 langes, and the Cornuels ; and who would have reproached 
 her for the poor unassisted, for orphan 'children in ignorance, 
 for abandoned women left to vice, for the sick allowed to 
 die in the streets; 'whilst, surrounded, by all the elegant 
 comforts of a luxurious home, she discussed court scandal, 
 or indulged in the seducing charm of refined and intellectual 
 society ? She chose another lot — not without effort : for by 
 nature she was proud, wilful, attached to the refinements of 
 social life, and averse to the sight of poverty and disease. 
 She subdued desire and conquered aversion, until she be- 
 came what is here imperfectly recorded. 
 
 We have chiefly spoken of those good deeds which she 
 planned and executed herself; but no task of charity was 
 
182 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 foreign to her mission. On the express request of the 
 Bishop of Angers, she once undertook to restore peace and 
 order in a religious community ; and where all his pastoral 
 authority had failed, her gentleness and conciliatory spirit 
 succeeded. She took an active share in the establishment 
 of the Foundling Asylum and of the General Hospital. The 
 association, directed by St. Vincent of Paul, had the highest 
 respect for her character and talents ; and no important 
 resolution was ever taken without her approval. So great 
 was the esteem in which she was held, that when the supe- 
 rior of the General Hospital was compelled, by the infirmi- 
 ties of age, to relinquish her post in the year 1687, Madame 
 de Miramion was requested to instruct her successor in all 
 the duties of her office : an arduous task, which she accepted 
 and fulfilled in a manner that displayed her great adminis- 
 trative talents. But her chief characteristic, after all, was 
 her ardent love of the poor : their welfare was ever upper- 
 most in her thoughts ; her property was a trust which she 
 held for them. When her solicitor once informed her, with 
 evident dismay, that she had sustained a heavy loss : " Do 
 not pity me," she replied, "pity the poor." 
 
 The name of Madame de Miramion does not often occur 
 in contemporary works ; but it is ever accompanied with 
 praise. Madame de Sevigne records in one of her letters, 
 that she "honored with her presence" Racine's tragedy of 
 Esther, performed at St. Cyr. This was probably an act 
 of deference to her munificent friend, Madame de Maintenon ; 
 with whom, as well as with the king, she possessed, accord- 
 ing to St. Simon and Dangeau, unlimited influence. "The 
 king," declares the latter, "never refused her any thing." 
 Her influence over the haughty Madame de Montespan had 
 not been less great : it was Madame de Miramion, the pious 
 and the pure, who consoled the royal favorite for the loss 
 of her lover, and finally induced her to leave the court. 
 She was revered even by those who knew her little : and in 
 the world she was little known. On learning her death, 
 Madame de Sevigne wrote off, in her graphic way, "The 
 loss of Madame de Miramion, that mother of the Church, is 
 a public loss." 
 
 The Miiamionnes gave their name to the Quay of St. 
 Bernard, where they resided until the revolution of 1793 
 
MADELEINE DU BOIS. 183 
 
 They daily received and attended the poor, whom they also 
 provided with valuable medicines, originally invented by 
 Madame de Miramion ; and of which the receipts still exist. 
 We have several times alluded to her administrative talents ; 
 the proof of them, as well as the highest praise they can 
 receive, lies in the fact, that the rules which she laid 
 down, and the principles on which she proceeded, are the 
 acknowledged models on which establishments similar to 
 those she guided have since then been conducted in France. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Charity of -the Women of the Seventeenth Century in France — Made- 
 leine du Bois — Noble Ladies visit the Hospitals— Martha d'Oraison — 
 Madame de la Sabliere — Mademoiselle de Mehin — Madame Heliot— 
 Madame de St. Beuve — Madame de Magnelai — Madame de St. Pol— 
 Madame de Neuvillette — Madame de Eanfaing — Madame de Combe— 
 Madame d'Aiguillon — The Princess Palatine — Madame de Longuo- 
 ville — Jeanne Biscot. 
 
 Our limits will not allow lis to mention at length all the 
 French ladies who, in this memorable age, rivalled, the zeal 
 and virtues of those whom we have already specified. There 
 are actions, however, which must be recorded ; and names 
 that cannot be passed over in silence. 
 
 In the year 1631, the price of bread rose, and the poor 
 of Paris suffered much. Madeleine du Bois, prioress of a 
 convent of Carmelite nuns, not only increased the quantity 
 of bread which the monastery was in the habit of giving to 
 the poor, but expressly ordered that no one should be sent 
 away from the gates of the convent unrelieved ; the conse- 
 quence was, that no less than four hundred poor persons 
 vere daily assisted. Amongst the applicants for the bounty 
 if the Carmelite nuns were some English scholars, who, but 
 /or .this timely aid, must have died of hunger. 
 
 Whilst some thus extended their charity beyond the 
 limits of the cloister, others found in hospitals arduous tasks 
 for the present, and a home where they forgot the misfor- 
 tunes or errors of the past. St. Vincent of Paul and th.6 
 
184 "WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Sisters of Charity had raised high in public estimation the 
 practice of visiting hospitals. When Evelyn visited Paris, 
 in 1644, he beheld with surprise "how decently and chris- 
 tianly the' sick people in the Charite were attended, even to 
 delicacy ;" and he records that " he had seen them served 
 by noble persons, men and women." This was no uncom- 
 mon fact : the gay and imperious queen-regent, Anne of 
 Austria, had certain days set apart for that purpose. She 
 always wore a mask, in order to remain unknown. Hex 
 niece and successor, the pious Marie-Therese, was often seen 
 attending on the sick of the hospital of St. Gemiains. Some 
 ladies, as we have already said, made these dismal abodes 
 their home. 
 
 On the 30th of May, 1627, Martha d'Oraison, widow of 
 the Baron dAUemagne, died in the Hotel-Dieu of Paris, in 
 odor of sanctity. Fifteen years before this her husband had 
 perished on the ramparts of Aix, in Provence, in a terrible 
 duel, memorable even in the annals of those sanguinaiy con- 
 flicts : by mutual agreement the combatants were fastened to 
 one another, the left aim of one being firmly tied to the left 
 arm of his foe, whilst the right hands of both wielded the 
 deadly knife — the only weapon which, it seems, could assuage 
 their fierce thirst of vengeance. Both perished in this mor- 
 tal embrace of an unrelenting hatred. 
 
 From that day Martha d'Oraison forsook the world : the 
 widow of the vindictive lord made herself the nurse and ser- 
 vant of his poorest vassals, and -took up her abode in the home 
 of the indigent sick of Paris. As if to atone for the unhal- 
 lowed death of her husband, or to triumph in herself over 
 those passions through which he had perished, she cast away 
 from her the opinion of the world, and devoted herself, in her 
 youth, to a destiny far more austere and cheerless than that 
 of any cloistered nun. 
 
 Towards the close of the same century there died, in an- 
 other hospital of Paris, engaged in the same cares, another 
 and very different woman — Madame de la Sabliere. The 
 constant friend of La Fontaine, the charming bourgeoise who 
 deprived Mademoiselle de Montpensier of the Duke of Lau- 
 zun, the handsome and witty woman whose delightful society 
 often kept the most agreeable noblemen from appearing at 
 court, retired heart-broken to the Incurables, when her lover, 
 
MADEMOISELLE DE MELUN. 185 
 
 La Fare, forsook her, after a long and constant passion. She 
 had placed her happiness in forbidden love ; she now tasted 
 all its bitterness. Too humble to give to God, amongst pure 
 virgins and holy widows, a life which she had sullied with 
 earthly passions, she devoted herself to him through her suf- 
 fering brethren. 
 
 Mademoiselle de Melun is another of these generous wo- 
 men ; with this difference, that neither sin nor sorrow led her 
 to charity. . Her • parents, William of Melun, Prince of Epi- 
 noy, and Ernestine of Aremberg, were still more eminent for 
 piety and charity than for their high rank and ancient birth. 
 Mademoiselle de Melun was their second daughter, and she 
 inherited all their virtues : for twenty-two years that she was 
 canoness at Mons, she was'the friend of the distressed, the in- 
 structor of the ignorant, and the nurse of the sick. She also 
 established a sisterhood of ladies, who met every week to 
 share with her these charitable labors. The princess of Epi- 
 noy retired to Abbeville, in Picardy, after the death of her 
 husband. Mademoiselle de Melun joined her, and was soon 
 engaged in her favorite tasks. On one occasion she attended 
 on five individuals attacked with a contagious disease ; no re- 
 monstrances could deter her from risking her life in the ser- 
 vice of those for whom Jesus Christ had died. 
 
 After overcoming great difficulties, and spending consider- 
 able sums, Mademoiselle de Melun succeeded in establishing 
 the Hospital ,of Bauge. She entered it in order to devote 
 herself entirely to the sick, but took no vows ; she thus re- 
 mained free to dispose of her wealth. The poor came to her 
 from every part, drawn by the renown of her boundless char- 
 ity ; and to assist them she gladly deprived herself of luxu- 
 ries, of comforts,' nay, of the most necessary things : she en- 
 dured cold, hunger, and every inconvenience, for the gratifi- 
 cation of the passion of her life. Her garments, of the coars- 
 est gray cloth, were threadbare, rent, and covered with darns 
 and patches ; to ' please her friends, she would sometimes 
 cause hew clothes to be made for herself, but scarcely had 
 she begun to wear them when she gave them away. r ■ 
 
 For thirty years did. this daughter of an ancient race make 
 the Hospital of Bauge her home. Her daily and self-ap- 
 pointed tasks were to rise between three and four in the morn- 
 ing, to ring the bell that called up the sisters, take lights to 
 
186 WOMEN OF CHBISTIANITr. 
 
 their rooms in the winter, make the fires, sweep the wards, 
 and make the beds of the sick ; on whom she also attended 
 in the course of the day. She felt for this last office a natu- 
 ral repugnance, which she heroically conquered : yet, often 
 overpowered by disgust, and by the foul exhalations around 
 her, she fainted away in the performance of her painful task. 
 She died in the home she had chosen, on the 13 th of Au- 
 gust, of the year 1679. 
 
 Other ladies practised, in the world, virtues as great, and 
 a charity no less heroic. Madame Heliot devoted herself to 
 the sick poor, though in the married state and surrounded by 
 all the pleasures of life. The young and beautiful Madame 
 de St. Beuve remained a widow in early youth, and rendered 
 herself eminent by the constant practice of charity. A girl 
 of abandoned conduct having shown signs of repentance, re- 
 ceived from her a hundred louis, to encourage her in keeping 
 her good resolves. Another time, having nothing else left, 
 for she almost reduced herself to poverty, she presented a 
 poor man with a valuable piece of plate. She was in the 
 habit of saying that her greatest satisfaction was to know, on 
 awaking in the morning, that she would be able to give away 
 something on that day : she accordingly employed several 
 trustworthy persons, in Paris and its vicinity, to discover fit 
 objects of charity for her to assist. 
 
 The Marchioness of Magnelai, of the illustrious house of 
 Gbndi, consecrated herself to God and the poor, on losing 
 both her husband and her son. She deprived herself of 
 every luxury, and would have parted with her carriage had 
 she not needed it ; for she was almost always out on some 
 charitable errand, visiting the poor in their houses, in hospi- 
 tals, or in prisons. In yain her attendants remonstrated with 
 her, and begged that she would not go into places whence 
 she seldom issued with unsullied garments : she only laughed, 
 and told them she liked it. So great and entire was her self- 
 denial, that when her brothers, the Dukes of Retz, who loved 
 her very tenderly, wished to dine with her, she frankly told 
 them, " they must bring both provisions and servants, as she 
 had a large family of her own to keep, and could not afford 
 to entertain company." 
 
 A similar domestic affliction led Madame de St. Pol to 
 equal devotedness ; with this difference, that, not satisfied 
 
MESDAMES DE NEUVILLETTE AND DM JRANFAING. 187 
 
 ■with what she could do at home, she travelled in search of 
 the poor and afflicted. When strangers enter a city, they 
 ask to behold whatever it holds worthy of note ; the charita- 
 ble widow had but one question, " Who is there here I can 
 relieve ?" 
 
 The Baroness of Neuvillette devoted herself especially to 
 prisoners, to galley-slaves, and to the painful task of consol- 
 ing the condemned in their last hours. The poor were not 
 less dear to her : for their sakes she stripped herself of almost 
 all she had. And so perfect and lively was her faith, so 
 thoroughly did she consider in them the Saviour whom 
 she served, that she would never give them cast-off gar- 
 ments or broken victuals : clothes which had never been 
 worn, food which none had touched, or money, were her 
 gifts to the poor — a rare and touching instance of delicate 
 feeling. 
 
 That nobler charity, which does not confine itself to mere 
 physical distress, but knows how to minister to the spiritual 
 wants of sinners, was exercised in the same age by Mary 
 Elizabeth de Ranfaing, foundress of the Institute of our Lady 
 of Eefuge. She was born in 1592, and was married young 
 to a brutal and profligate gentleman named Du Bois. She 
 became a widow in 1616 ; she had three children, and little 
 wealth ; prudence as well as devotion induced her to lead a 
 retired life. Her beauty inspired a neighboring doctor with 
 a passion which he sought to gratify by making her take a 
 philter. His guilty superstition faiied in its object ; but 
 caused him, and a servant by whom he had been abetted, to 
 be burned alive for magic in 1622. 
 
 This event alarmed Madame de Banfaing. She wished to 
 retire to a monastery, partly for protection ; but not being 
 able to do so, she received penitent girls into her house. The 
 Bishop of Toul suggested to her the propriety of extending 
 this meritorious task, by founding a religious order, specially 
 devoted to reclaiming erring women ; and on the 1st of 
 January, 1631, Madame de Ranfaing, her three daughters, 
 and seven of the penitent women, took the veil. The order 
 rapidly spread over Lorraine, Burgundy, and the southern 
 provinces of France. The foundress died in 1649, in odor 
 of sanctity. 
 
 A similar labor was achieved by Mary Magdalen of Combe, 
 
188 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 a Dutch woman ; who, though alone in France, and scarcely 
 able to speak the language, yet found means to open a re- 
 ligious asylum for penitent girls of dissolute lives. We know 
 little of this lady, excepting her good works. 
 
 Her maiden name was de Cyz ; she was born at Leyden, 
 of noble parents, in the year 1656, and married, at the age 
 of nineteen, to Adrian of Combe, a wealthy gentleman of 
 violont temper and confirmed libertinism. They lived very 
 unhappily together, and separated at the end of eighteen 
 months. A year afterwards, Madame de Combe became a 
 widow. She was still young, attractive, and amiable ; but, 
 disgusted with her experience of marriage, she refused every 
 offer, and came to France with her sister and brother-in-law, 
 She fell ill in Paris, and suddenly abjured the Calvinist faith, 
 in which she had been brought up. Renounced by her 
 family, she soon found herself alone in a foreign land ; where 
 she might have died of want, but for the charity of strangers. 
 La Bermondiere, parish priest of St. Sulpice, procured her a 
 small pension. 
 
 Madame de Combe sold her rich garments, assumed a 
 coarse woollen robe, and for some time lived alone ; giving 
 herself up to fasts and austerities more extraordinary than 
 commendable. This excess of zeal found a worthier channel 
 in the establishment above alluded to; which at first con- 
 sisted of only a few girls, but subsequently became a large 
 and celebrated house, known under the gentle name of 'Asy- 
 lum of the Good Shep%erd." Madame de Combe, began her 
 undertaking more rich in faith than in worldly means. A 
 charitable lady, hearing of her design, gave her two hundred 
 francs to hire a house ; in which she did not establish herself 
 without obstacle : several libertine young men threatened to 
 set fire to it; but the lieutenant of police, La Reynie, fortu- 
 nately took Madame de Combe, and the penitent girls she 
 had gathered around her, under his special protection. For 
 two years these poor women, whose number daily increased, 
 were supported, partly by their own limited earnings, partly 
 by charitable donations. In 1688, the king granted them a 
 sum of money and a larger house. They were already 
 severity in number : " And if a hundred weje to come," ex- 
 claimed their devoted friend and superior, strong in that faith 
 which only rises higher with obstacles, " I feel I could not 
 
MADAME DE OOMBt. 189 
 
 refuse them." " Will you always find, at the right moment, 
 the money wherewith to supply so many wants ?" once asked 
 a lady, startled by her daring' trust in Providence. Madame 
 de Combe smiled, and replied, " Ask the sea if it will ever 
 want water ? Do you not know,'? she added, more gravely, 
 " that the mercies of God are inexhaustible ?" 
 
 Houses similar to that of Paris were soon established in 
 Orleans, Angers, Troyes, Toulouse, Amiens, Nantes, and sev- 
 eral other , places. Madame de Combe had one great, and 
 yet simple, rule, which guided her in the difficult task of first 
 winning, and then governing, women long abandoned to vice 
 — the rule of gentleness. " Let not those sinners who are 
 forcibly taken from evil be brought here," she remarked: 
 " the house of the Good Shepherd is only for those who em- 
 brace virtue freely." 
 
 The days of this gentle and amiable being were abridged 
 by a painful illness, which rendered the last two years of her 
 life a slow.agony. She endured pain with admirable patience. 
 " How do you feel ?" once asked one of the sisters, address- 
 ing her. " Very well, daughter," she answered. "Mother," 
 resumed the sister, " how can you say so, being in the state 
 in which you noware ?" " Because, to be as God wishes us 
 to be, is to be well," was the calm reply. In this entire 
 resignation to the Divine will, the pious woman, who had not 
 turned away in the pride of her. purity from her poor erring- 
 sisters, gave up her soul to God on the 16th of June, 1692, 
 in the thirty-sixth year of her age. She was buried, as she 
 had requested, amongst the poor of the parish. Establish- 
 ments similar to that which she founded now exist in almost 
 every land of Europe. 
 
 A faith as frank and daring took Margueritte Bourgeois to 
 Canada, to instruct the Indian women in the truths of the 
 Gospel. She devoted her lifetime to this arduous task. 
 
 Although their charity was not quite so remarkable, we 
 should not be justified in omitting the names of several great 
 and titled ladies who lived in those times. The generositv 
 of the Princess of Conti .has already been mentioned m tne 
 preceding chapter. The liberality of Madame dAiguillon, 
 the favorite niece. of Richelieu, is likewise worthy of record. 
 She had the lofty spirit of her uncle, without his vindictive- 
 ness and pride. She placed herself under the spiritual guid- 
 
190 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ance of St. Vincent of Paul, and devoted her immense wealth 
 to religious and charitable purposes. She endowed hospitals, 
 redeemed Christian captives in Africa, and erected, at her ex- 
 pense, the H6tel Dieu of Quebec. She died in 1675, worthy 
 of the funeral eulogy which Flechier pronounced over her re- 
 mains. Bossuet has likewise commemorated the piety and 
 charity of Anne of Gonzaga, Princess Palatine ; who had 
 been a gay, worldly woman, and had taken a great share in 
 the Fronde. Like her, the beautiful Duchess of Longueville, 
 once celebrated for her romantic adventures, became eminent 
 for the exalted piety of her later years. 
 
 Whilst nobly born ladies devoted themselves in Paris to 
 every task of Christian charity, a young bourgeoise of Artois 
 did not remain behind them in either self-denial or persever- 
 ing goodness. The province of Artois, and its capital Arras, 
 then belonged to the Spanish kings, in right of their descent 
 from the celebrated dukes of Burgundy ; and were accord- 
 ingly the chief seat of the war between France and Spain. 
 Here Conde and Turenne won their great victories, and 
 fought with or against one another ; and here, too, the country 
 laid waste by the sword, pestilence, and famine — with miser- 
 able peasants flocking into the towns for refuge, sick and 
 wounded soldiers left to die on the bare earth, and wandering 
 widows and orphans — attested the eternal miseries of those 
 wars, which make men famous, and win their name a place 
 in history. 
 
 In those times, so disastrous for Artois, the inhabitants ot 
 Arras often beheld in their streets a young and handsome 
 girl, simply attired in a black woollen robe. Ever bent on 
 some errand of mercy, she fearlessly sought out dissolute 
 women in their darkest haunts ; and, to relieve the peasants 
 dying on dunghills in the streets, or the sick soldiers in hos- 
 pitals, she daily braved the terror of pestilence. This cou- 
 rageous maiden, well worthy of being named the Heroine of 
 Charity,* was Jeanne Biscot, the youngest daughter of a 
 wealthy and respected citizen of Arras. Jeanne was, as we 
 have said, handsome ; tall, graceful, with regular features, a 
 transparent complexion, and an expression both fervent and 
 serene. Being, moreover, of a rich and honorable family, 
 
 k Her biography has been published nnder this title. 
 
JEAKNE BISCOT. 191 
 
 she possessed all the advantages which attach the soul to the 
 world ; but her soul ever remained firmly fixed on Him to 
 whose service she had consecrated herself so exclusively, that, 
 in her fourteenth year, she took the vow of never marrying. 
 From early youth unto the grave, Jeanne carried one fervent 
 maxim in her heart — a maxim which was still more deeply 
 impressed in her actions: " All for God." 
 
 This great love once outstripped the bounds of reason. In 
 the village of Merville, the dreary devotion of some gloomy 
 recluse of a past age had established a sort of living tomb 
 close by the church. Here human beings had immured 
 themselves of old ; and here, too, Jeanne seriously contem- 
 plated retiring, in order to forget the world, and live entirely 
 to God. This is the one weak point of her life : the one 
 moment when judgment swerved ; when the devotion of 
 imagination prevailed over that of the heart. We have re- 
 corded it, because it is well to know the weaknesses and de- 
 lusions which beset the good, even in their most earnest aspi- 
 rations towards that ideal aim of all great souls, the perfect- 
 ing of humanity. Humility saved Jeanne from this act of 
 folly. She would not act without consulting two persons, 
 in whose wisdom and piety she had great faith : a Capuchin 
 monk and a Jesuit. Both remonstrated so forcibly with her, 
 and condemned this project in terms so strong, that Jeanne 
 gave it up ; and, in compliance with their advice, resolved to 
 devote herself to the active duties of Christian charity. She 
 could do so freely: her parents, pious and charitable people, 
 in the general sense of the words, respected the more ardent 
 piety and less restricted charity of their youngest daughter ; 
 and her own time and their wealth were both at her dis- 
 posal. 
 
 After the death of his wife, the father of Jeanne yielded 
 to her the sole administration of his business and property, 
 in the year 1636 ; and, though he knew her intention of re- 
 maining single, he gave her a dowry equal to that of her 
 married sister. Her time was thus more restricted, but her 
 means to do good increased, and were used to their fullest 
 extent. Opportunity did not fail her. In that same year 
 the chances of war caused a large number of poor German 
 women to be thrown on the charity of Arras ; and their po- 
 sition was the more distressing that they knew not a word of 
 
192 WOMEN OF CHEISTIANrTY. 
 
 French. Jeanne could not understand their language ; but 
 she needed not this to pity and relieve their misery. She 
 hired a house, placed them in it, procured them every assist- 
 ance, and rested not until, at the end of five months, she had 
 put them in a way to earn their bread. In this good work, 
 as in most of her other undertakings, she was chief, but not 
 alone ; several pious and charitable ladies of Arras gave 
 freely their time and money to forward her generous de- 
 sign : not the less praise is due to her with whom it origi- 
 nated. 
 
 One good deed interfered not with another. Whilst she 
 provided for the fate of the poor German women, Jeanne, 
 filled with concern at the large number of orphans the war 
 had made, and especially at the peculiar dangers to which 
 the girls were exposed, resolved to open to them a place of 
 refuge. A house belonging to her father was devoted to 
 that purpose, and received seven young girls. The home 
 duties of Jeanne did not allow her to tend and instruct them 
 herself, but she placed a respectable woman at the head of 
 this little establishment, which filled so rapidly that the aid 
 and superintendence of a second person soon became neces- 
 sary. The house which she had thus opened to deserted 
 orphans, reoeived from Jeanne the pious and tender name of * 
 Holy Family. 
 
 The war had driven within the walls of Arras a great num- 
 ber of peasants, young and pld. Some were half dead with 
 want ; others were badly wounded, or had their limbs frozen 
 with the cold ; many were afflicted with skin diseases, and 
 lay in the streets on heaps of dung, listless and unheeded. 
 Jeanne placed as many of the younger ones as she could in a 
 house, attended them and dressed their wounds herself, and 
 kept them until they were well ; then, having clothed and 
 partly instructed them, she placed them in apprenticeship, 
 and received in their stead the older peasants, who needed 
 longer and more attentive care : those for whom she could 
 find no room were taken home to her father's housb.. In the 
 mean while she did not forget her younger proteges. They 
 required to be fed, and their masters had to be paid: her 
 active zeal saw to all their wants. Many kind persons of the 
 town agreed to give them food, if they would come and look 
 for it when their work ivas over. Jeanne undertook to pro 
 
JEANNE BISCOT. 193 
 
 vide them with places to sleep in, and to get their linen 
 washed and kept in repair. 
 
 In the year 1640, Jeanne Biscot displayed a charity not 
 less touching, and still more heroic. Louis XIII. wished 
 to wrest the province of Artois from Spain, who resolved to 
 defend it vigorously. An army of German soldiers encamped 
 beneath the walls of Arras ; and dysentery broke out amongst 
 them, which, with want, made many victims. Every morn- 
 ing, those who had perished in the night were found at the 
 gates, or beneath the walls of the town, lying as they had 
 died, without religious consolation or human aid. 
 
 It was not in the heart of Jeanne to see such things un- 
 moved ; and she imparted her zeal to her married sister, and 
 several other ladies. They divided the town and its vicinity 
 into districts, and every evening, when household tasks were 
 over, each went forth to visit and relieve the sick soldiers be- 
 longing to the quarter she had undertaken to attend. These 
 ladies stooped to every office : they took large pans of broth 
 to the sick, lint and unguents to the wounded, and bundles bf 
 straw to those whose bed was the bare earth. Their labors 
 were carried on until a late hour of the night ; when they 
 had done, they met at the house of Jeanne Biscot, and there 
 concerted the tasks of the morrow. And all this was done 
 cheerfully, without excess of zeal or vain-glory, after every 
 other duty had been performed, and at an hour when few 
 were likely to heed or praise them. 
 
 Disease made rapid progress, and Arras became a vast 
 hospital : but neither Jeanne nor her brave companions 
 showed signs of drawing back. They hired twe houses, 
 which they furnished, and where they placed the sick sol- 
 diers ; but, to the task of attending on them, was now added 
 that of collecting funds, to enable them to carry on these 
 two establishments. The times were hard, and the hearts of 
 men were not open to the calls of charity ; but few gave, and 
 that little was given reluctantly. The sick were badly 
 lodged, and the sight of their sufferings grieved Jeanne to the 
 heart. Accompanied by her friends, she went to the muni- 
 cipal authorities of Arras, and requested them to give her a 
 large building formerly destined to receive poor travellers, 
 but no longer used for this purpose. The request was 
 granted, after many difficulties • but no sooner was it known 
 
194 WOMEN OF CHEISTIA.NITT. 
 
 to the neighboring inhabitants that a hospital was going tc 
 exist in their vicinity, than they raised a great outcry, and 
 loaded Jeanne and her friends with abuse. Jeanne bore this 
 very patiently ; but she was not to be moved from her pur- 
 pose : in a few hours the place was ready, and the sick sol- 
 diers were removed to their new home. For nine months 
 the heroic women continued their arduous labors ; they at- 
 tended on the sick, laid out the dead, and bore them to the 
 grave ; fearing not fatigue, danger, or the mockery of the 
 selfish and worldly, in the performance of their self-imposed 
 duties. Further trials awaited them : the plague broke forth 
 in their hospital. The magistrates of Arras immediately or- 
 dered all the sick to be removed to a marshy place beyond 
 the town, where miserable sheds had been prepared for their 
 reception. Here they lay forsaken by all, save those whose 
 fervent zeal no danger could cool. 
 
 Labors so great did not seem sufficiently constant to the 
 ardent soul of Jeanne. She had lost her father, and since 
 hiS death had resided in the orphan asylum she had estab- 
 lished. After entertaining and relinquishing a project of 
 joining the missionaries in Canada, she decided on remaining 
 at home, and devoting herself to the children she had adopt- 
 ed. Her unceasing charity had considerably restricted her 
 means ; yet she resolved to consolidate what was as yet only 
 temporary, and to perpetuate a passing good, by founding a 
 religious community. After numerous difficulties she suc- 
 ceeded. Civil and ecclesiastical authority sanctioned her pro- 
 ject, and she procured a house which had formerly belonged 
 to a sisterhood of St. Agnes, dispersed byHJie troubles of the 
 times. It opened on the 1th of December, 1645. Five 
 ladies of Arras were the companions of Jeanne Biscot, and a 
 few afflicted orphan girls, whom she had found in the streets, 
 her guests. The sisters of St. Agnes, for thus they were 
 called, took the vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty; 
 Jeanne was their superior, and laid down the simple regula- 
 tions of their institution, During the space of forty-five years, 
 the sisters receiyed and educated six hundred and. eighty-six 
 orphan girls, besides a great number of out-door pupils, for 
 whose daily instruction they received no remuneration ; they 
 gave them' a plain education, taught them to make lace, and 
 kept them until they were old enough to earn their bread 
 
JEANNE BISCOT. 195 
 
 This establishment was supported by voluntary contributions, 
 and by such trifling sums as the orphans could earn. 
 
 When Jeanne perceived the establishment of Arras to be 
 in a prosperous condition, she resolved to open a similar one 
 at Douay. Her sisters and adopted children, fearing lest 
 they should lose her, earnestly begged of her to relinquish 
 this design; but after a severe illness, in 1660, which she 
 attributed to divine displeasure, and considered the just pun- 
 ishment of her lukewarmness, Jeanne could no longer be de- 
 terred from her project. She was then in her fifty-ninth 
 year, still weak from recent illness, and exhausted by the 
 fatigues of a life filled with good works ; she had little or no 
 money, and but few protectors : nothing, however, dismayed 
 or deterred her. Several journeys to Douay being necessary, 
 she took them on foot, in the depth of winter, when snow 
 and rain had rendered the roads almost impassable. On her 
 arrival at Douay, she first settled every thing relative to the 
 business which had brought her ; and it was sometimes one 
 in the afternoon before she broke her fast. A younger sister 
 who accompanied her often observed, in a' tone of remon- 
 strance, " How tired you are, mother !" " All for God, my 
 poor child ; all for God," cheerfully replied Jeanne. The 
 obstacles against which Jeanne had to contend at Douay, 
 though not so great as those which had beset her in Arras, 
 were sufficient to try her patience and her faith. There 
 already existed in the former place a sisterhood of St. Agnes, 
 devoted to the education of youth; and with a jealousy of 
 which conventual history offers but too many instances, they 
 decried Jeanne and her attempt. They were joined by a 
 schoolmistress, who was at the head of an establishment for 
 female orphans, and whose office had been offered to Jeanne 
 by the mayor of Douay. Jeanne Biscot soothed the ruffled 
 temper of the sisters of St. Agnes, by assuring them, with 
 equal simplicity and truth, that she could not interfere with 
 their establishment, since she was as exclusively devoted to 
 the children of the poor as they were to those of the rich. 
 To the schoolmistress she said nothing, but she refused to 
 supplant her : an instance of generosity which changed an 
 enemy into a friend. After some other difficulties, she suc- 
 ceeded in opening a house at Douay. Her severest trial was 
 to leave the sisters and children of the house of Arras, whc 
 
196 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 wept bitterly as they saw her depart. She promised to 
 come back to them some day ; but events interfered and pre- 
 vented her return : her time was brief, and she saw them no 
 more. 
 
 Jeanne was loved, not merely because she was good, but 
 because she knew how to love. If some poor orphan, cover- 
 ed with rags and vermin, was brought to her, she kissed and 
 welcomed her, with as much tenderness as a mother vhose 
 child was lost, and who rejoices because it is found. She al- 
 ways urged on the sisters the duty of respecting the children 
 confided to their care. " With what inward and outward re- 
 spect must we not attend on those children," she often said, 
 " when we consider the image of Jesus behind those disfigured 
 faces and torn garments !" Her gentleness towards her adopt- 
 ed children was extreme : she would never allow them to be 
 treated with severity ; she attended them in their illnesses, 
 and mourned for then- death, with so much of a mother's hu- 
 man love, as to excite the surprise of those around her. But 
 love was indeed the atmosphere in which she breathed and 
 lived : her countenance lit up when she spoke of it to her sis- 
 ters, often with so much warmth and emotion as to be unable 
 to proceed. Her faith was that of a child in its persistent 
 simplicity. When she was seeking to establish the house at 
 Douay, a Capuchin monk represented to her the difficulties 
 raised by the magistrates, and declared that the project must 
 be abandoned. " Reverend father," quietly replied Jeanne, 
 " we will let them get over this, and pray of God to accom- 
 plish his holy will." She answered in the same spirit to all 
 those who gave her similar advice — " God will take his own 
 time : the business is his." Her trust was firm and bound- 
 less. 
 
 She would never receive among her orphans the childre;> 
 of parents in easy circumstances : no offers or entreaties coul 
 induce her to do what she averred would take the blessing of 
 God from the house. In the same disinterested and evan- 
 gelic spirit, she refused the portion which a rich young girl 
 wanted to bring with her on entering the sisterhood. Jeanne 
 declared that she, dreaded wealtlrmuch more than poverty 
 for her institution. A modest simplicity marked every thing 
 in the house she governed : the chapel was almost without 
 ornament. " It will be more agreeable to God," she said ; 
 
JEANNE BISCOT. 197 
 
 " if we nourish and preserve his living temples — human crea- 
 tures — than if we spend to adorn this, his material temple." 
 She was extremely sparing in those expenses that only related 
 to herself, but would never allow the sisters or the children 
 to want for any thing. " When all our money is gone," she 
 cheerfully remarked, " we shall pledge or sell what we have : 
 ay, even to our chalice ; and then I shall bless God." She 
 kept no accounts of receipt or expense ; and a wooden bowl 
 held all the money of the house : there she placed whatever 
 she received, and thence she took forth whatever she needed. 
 Providence seemed to justify her trust : whilst she lived, that 
 bowl was never found empty. The care of two establish- 
 ments could not absorb the zeal and charity of Jeanne Bis- 
 cot : she reclaimed dissolute women from vice, and relieved 
 the sufferings of the poor. In the year 1654, after the siege 
 of Arras by Conde, she once more gave an example of that 
 heroic charity which she had displayed in 1636 and 1640. 
 Again, but assisted this time by her sisters, she attended the 
 sick soldiers, and laid out and buried the dead. The fervor 
 of the sisters of St. Agnes equalled that of their mother, 
 Jeanne, who led them to toil and danger with her favorite 
 and noble watchword, well worthy of a true servant of Christ 
 —"All for God." 
 
 Exhausted by so many labors, little suited to her naturally 
 delicate health, Jeanne became infirm before her time, and 
 fell into a languishing state. On her death-bed she recom- 
 mended three things to her sisters : " To fulfil her intentions ; 
 never to abandon charity towards the poor ; and to live in 
 peace and unity." She then gave them her blessing, and 
 bade them farewell. They asked where she would like to be 
 buried. "No matter where; in the parish," she calmly an- 
 swered. The superior of the house of Arras being present, 
 ventured to observe : " Mother, we should like to have you at 
 Arras with, us." " Where you' like," replied Jeanne : these 
 were her last words. Her spirit passed away so gently that 
 her death was scarcely perceived. She died, on the 27th of 
 June, 1664, in the sixty-third year of her age. The useful 
 establishment which she founded still exists in her native city, 
 under the name of the House of St. Agnes. Of all the char- 
 itable women of France in that age, Jeanne Biscot is one of 
 the least known, though surely not one of the least eminent. 
 
198 WOMEN OF CHEISTIANITT. 
 
 We have passed over in silence, though not without regret, 
 the names of Marie- Angelique Arnauld, Catherine her sister, 
 Angelique her niece ; of Jacqueline, worthy sister of the illus- 
 trious Pascal, and other ladies of the Port-Royal. There is 
 something truly impressive in the austere and energetic char- 
 acter of these gifted women ; but to speak of them properly, 
 it would be necessary to enter into the narrative of a tedious 
 and now well-nigh forgotten controversy. We have not un- 
 dertaken a history of opinions, but one of actions ; and we 
 could not mention the Port-Royal ladies without also men- 
 tioning the other women who, before that time or since, have 
 taken an active share in religious quarrels : which Heaven 
 forbid ! 
 
 One of the fathers said of the early Christians, "They 
 knew not how to dispute, but they knew how to die." In 
 the same spirit we may say of the women whose names are 
 recorded in these pages — " They are not mentioned here for 
 their learning in theology or their skill in discussion. They 
 practised the Gospel in the simplicity of their hearts. They 
 might have been found weak in controversy, but none can 
 say that they knew not how to live." 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Magdalen of Pazzi— Helena Cornaro — Elizabeth of Bohemia — The 
 Empress Eleanor. 
 
 The ascetic and yet practical spirit of the religious portion 
 of the seventeenth century was not less characteristically dis- 
 played in other Christian lands. St. Magdalen of Pazzi, a 
 native of Florence, and a relative of the Medici, .was, in the 
 fervor of her devotion, another St. Teresa, whose order she 
 embraced. Her life was spent in the obscurity of a Carmelite 
 cloister; but her last words deserve to be recorded: "I 
 leave this world," she said, " without ever having been able 
 to understand how it is possible that a creature should con- 
 sent to offend God, and to commit a single sin against its 
 Creator." 
 
HELENA. pOKNAEO — ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA. 199 
 
 The self-imposed sacrifice of Helena Cornaro is likewise 
 worthy of mention. This learned lady, daughter of a pro- 
 curator of St. Mark, was born in Venice, in the year 1646. 
 She died in 1684, at the age of thirty-eight, and was held to 
 be a prodigy of learning and virtue. Besides her own lan- 
 guage, she knew Spanish, French, Latin, Greek, ancient and 
 modern, Hebrew, and the Arabic languages. She sang and 
 played exquisitely, and could speak with judgment and elo- 
 quence on philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, music, and 
 theology. But this singular amount of learning could not 
 impair her natural modesty. She was devout, and in princi- 
 ple shunned distinctions nattering to her vanity. She conse- 
 crated herself to God in her youth ; when her parents wished 
 her to marry, she told them of her vow. They obtained a 
 dispensation from the pope, and showed it to her ; she fainted 
 on seeing it, but refused to avail herself of her liberty. In- 
 deed, all her parents could obtain from her was, that she 
 should remain in their house, where she led the life of a re- 
 cluse. To gratify their parental, pride, she relunctantly con- 
 sented to leave her retirement and appear in the university of 
 Padua, where she received the degrees. In the acts of the 
 university occurs the following entry: "We, sitting in the 
 tribunal of the university of Padua, acknowledge that the 
 noble maiden Helena-Lucretia-Cornaro is so well versed in 
 sciences and belles-lettres as to deserve a place amongst the 
 doctors of this university ; and for this do we receive her 
 mistress of liberal arts, and acknowledge her as such, in the 
 name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Done at 
 Padua, on the 25th of June of the year lCYs, in the cathe- 
 dral church of the same city, because the halls of the college 
 could not hold the vast concourse of persons present." It is 
 said that, but for the opposition of the archbishop of Padua, 
 the dignity of doctor of divinity would likewise have been 
 conferred on Helena Cornaro. 
 
 This illustrious Venetian is a striking but not solitary in- 
 stance of a noble and gifted mind early consecrated to God. 
 Elizabeth of England, queen of Bohemia, celebrated for her 
 romantic adventures and misfortunes, had three daughters — 
 Sophia, ancestress of the royal family of England ; Louisa, 
 eminent for her skill in painting, and who became abbess of 
 the Catholic convent of Maubuisson in France ; and Eliza- 
 
200 WOMEN OF CHmSTIAUITT. 
 
 beth, who was likewise abbess, but of the German and 
 Protestant community of Herworden. Elizabeth was grave 
 and learned. Her grandmother Juliana, by whom she had 
 been brought up, had given her some of her own seriousness 
 and asceticism. The misfortunes of her family, the death of 
 her father, and of her elder brother, Henry Frederick, sad- 
 dened her youth. She rejoiced when the alliances proposed 
 for her failed, and did not conceal that a solitary life was the 
 object of her ambition. She distinguished herself as abbess 
 of Herworden, by the rare virtue of tolerance on religious 
 opinions. She was the friend and disciple of Descartes ; who 
 dedicated one of his works to her, and declared that of all his 
 readers she understood him best. William Penn visited her, 
 and was favorably impressed by her religious feelings. Piety, 
 good deeds, and science, filled her life ; which closed in 1680, 
 in the sixty-first year of her age. 
 
 Three years before this, a princess, by no means so learned 
 as Elizabeth, but more ardent, though not more sincere, in 
 her piety, had become empress of Germany. It was on the 
 13th of December of the year 1677, that the Emperor 
 Leopold I. of Austria solemnly espoused, as his second wife, 
 Eleanor, daughter of the Duke of Neubourg. Leopold was 
 then near forty, his bride was scarcely twenty-two. Eleanor 
 had no claim to beauty ; but she was a fine girl, with a cheer- 
 ful, animated face, a generous heart, an ardent and passionate 
 temper, unbroken health, and nerves of iron. She could 
 carry weights from which men shrank ; and walked at a pace 
 that left delicate court ladies far behind. Her spirit was 
 prompt and energetic ; it ever rose equal to her sorrows and 
 calamities, and these were great. No shock could affect her 
 courage : a thunderbolt once fell on the table at which she 
 sat, and she remained undaunted and unmoved. 
 
 In person and temper Leopold nowise resembled the high- 
 spirited girl he had taken to wife : he was a mild, pusillani- 
 mous little man, of insignificant aspect. He had. indeed 
 inherited the grave mien and projecting nether lip which the 
 daughter of Charles the "Bold brought into the house of 
 Austria ; but he lacked the fiery and magnificent spirit of his 
 Burgundian ancestors. A flowing peruke, black garments, 
 with a scarlet plume to his hat, and scarlet stockings, were 
 his invariable attire ; but neither costume, nor all the formal- 
 
THE EMPRESS ELEAMJK. 201 
 
 ity of Spanish etiquette, to which he rigidly adhered, could 
 give him the dignity of imperial rank. His subjects loved 
 and admired him very little ; and history has not much to 
 say of him : save that he was good-natured and conscien- 
 tious, but without either talent or courage ; that in foreign 
 policy he was baffled by Louis XIV. ; that at home he knew 
 not how to stand and fall with his people ; that he fled to 
 Linz in dismay when Vienna was besieged by the Turks, and 
 left his capital to be delivered by John Sobieski, the brave 
 king of Poland. In two points only — charity to the poo; - 
 and piety to God — did Leopold resemble his bride: but 
 there was a passion and enthusiasm in her religion, which 
 never discomposed the devotion of the apathetic emperor. 
 Eleanor had been reared in a convent of barefooted Carmelite 
 nuns, who followed the austere rule reformed by St. Teresa ; 
 and the ardent faith of the patroness of the place seemed to 
 have come down to the young princess. Her governess, and 
 the other women appointed to watch over her, missed her 
 one day ; for some time they looked for her in vain ; at 
 length they found her kneeling, and all in tears, at the foot 
 of a crucifix. They asked to know the cause of her weeping, 
 and the child replied : " I weep because I see my Saviour 
 naked and bleeding, whilst I behold myself magnificently 
 clad, and nursed in luxury and delight." 
 
 The education which Eleanor received in the convent was 
 strictly classical ; and she learned to mingle something of the 
 stoical severity of heathen times with Christian tenderness : 
 she was harsh to herself, gentle to others. When she re- 
 turned to her father's palace, and could obtain the permission 
 of her mother, the duchess — a cold, hard woman, who ever 
 treated her with formal severity — she spent all her leisure 
 and money in visiting and relieving the sick and the poor : 
 the most wretched were those whom she loved best. " We 
 are all Christians," she would say: "all redeemed by the 
 blood of Jesus Christ ; and if we live well, shall not the same 
 heaven receive us ?" She loved to mingle on earth with 
 those whom she hoped to meet in the presence of God. 
 Closely veiled, and followed by a solitary servant, she would 
 steal out and visit some church of the city, merely to be 
 able to kneel, unknown and unheeded, with the crowd of 
 worshippers. Of all the formal amusements of her father's 
 
202 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 court, but one, the chase, had the power to charm Eleanor : 
 she delighted, not without lingering scruples, in riding fear- 
 less and foremost in a gallant train of hunters and noble 
 ladies ; but plays and every thing of the sort she held in 
 utter horror. The stately pageantry of rank allured her not : 
 and the news that her sovereign had chosen her to share his 
 throne filled her with dismay. She had set her heart on becom- 
 ing a barefooted Carmelite : the brown gown of St. Teresa's 
 nuns was more precious in her sight than the robes of an 
 empress. With a touch of worldly feeling, which by no 
 means takes away from her sincerity, she also reflected that 
 the wife of Leopold could no longer follow the chase on 
 horseback, but must ride in a state-carriage. Unable to 
 think of any other expedient by which to break off the 
 marriage, she resolutely exposed herself to the ardent heat of 
 a summer noonday sun ; hoping to acquire such a complexion 
 as might unfit her for an imperial bride. The experiment 
 failed : Eleanor neither got a brain fever, nor injured the 
 bloom of her cheek; she submitted to her destiny, and be- 
 came empress of Austria. 
 
 The marriage, thus reluctantly entered upon, proved 
 singularly happy. Eleanor placed her whole study in ren- 
 dering herself agreeable to her husband ; in obeying him 
 even in things most repugnant to her, and in sacrificing her 
 own inclination to his. He esteemed and loved her greatly : 
 it was to her that he intrusted the task of translating the 
 cipher dispatches of his foreign ambassadors ; and she de- 
 voted whole nights to this labor. " God," he would often 
 say, "gave me this holy wife to 'console me through the 
 unhappy years of my reign." If Eleanor could have im- 
 parted to her husband some of her own courageous spirit, 
 it would have been well for him :• but she had made it her 
 rule and duty to obey, not to. advise. 
 
 They had been married six years, when Vienna under- 
 went her memorable siege. Alarmed at the news of the 
 approach of the Turks, Leopold fled with his wife and 
 children : they left Vienna in the evening, by stealth ; and 
 took their way to Linz, protected by the Danube. Such 
 was the haste and terror of their flight, that they were com- 
 pelled to spend the first night in a peasant's hut. Eleanor, 
 though far advanced in pregnancy, maintained an undaunted 
 
THE EMPKESS ELEANOR. 203 
 
 and cheerful bearing. Her husband left her at Linz ; and 
 on the day of his departure $he gave birth to a daughter ; 
 whom, with the stoic self-denial of her character, she would 
 neither see nor embrace until he returned, several week? 
 later, with the tidings that the empire was saved. 
 
 On the 12th of June, 1688, an army of two hundred 
 thousand Turks, headed by the ambitious and warlike grand 
 vizier, Kara Must&pha, had crossed the bridge of Esseck. 
 Pillaging villages, and leading away women and children 
 into captivity on their way, they had advanced unresisted, 
 until ttey reached the walls of deserted Vienna. For well- 
 nigh two months, the besieged citizens withstood the assaults, 
 springing of mines, and cannonading of their fierce enemy. 
 As they began to despair of succor, and thought them- 
 selves abandoned to their fate, the Christian army, led by 
 John Sobieski, appeared on the brow of the Kalen hill. On 
 the 12th of September the battle was fought : it was brief, 
 but decisive. Two hundred thousand Turks were routed by 
 forty thousand Christians. The timely aid of the brave 
 Polish king had saved the city. 
 
 Before a hundred years had elapsed from the triumphant 
 day when Turkish hordes fled in dismay, leaving beneath the 
 walls of Vienna their camp, gardens, tents, arms, standards, 
 baths, rare animals, and countless luxuries — when the de- 
 livered citizens hailed Sobieski with tears and acclamations ; 
 when Te Deums were sung in the old cathedral of St. 
 Stephen, and every eye turned on John III. of Poland, as 
 the priest read at the altar, " There was a man sent from 
 God whose name was John" — a grand-daughter of Leo- 
 pold and Eleanor helped to subdue and divide the brave 
 nation, the bulwark of Christendom, whose king had saved 
 the throne of her ancestors, and the very walls of the city 
 where she reigned. 
 
 The love of Eleanor for her husband originally sprang 
 from duty, but time gave it the depth and tenderness of 
 heartfelt passion. Its force was well proved during the 
 tedious illness which closed the life of Leopold in 1705. 
 She remained in his room to the last, a devoted and un- 
 wearied nurse : jealous in her affection, she would let no 
 hand save her own touch or serve him. Fatigue brought 
 on erysipelas and sc'^.tica, but she would never once undress 
 
204 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 in order to take a more refreshing rest than the two hours' 
 slumber she allowed herself at night. She knew her sorrow 
 to be useless to him whom she loved, and she stoically sup- 
 pressed every sign of grief : when his last agony began, she 
 upheld his dying head. He expired on the kind heart 
 where, in trouble or disease, he had ever found consolation 
 and repose. When all was over, Eleanor rose, kissed the 
 cold hands of her husband, retired to the next room, and, 
 for the first time in her life, gave way to a passionate sorrow 
 that would not be controlled. 
 
 This grief was long and touching. What though he — 
 loss of whom inspired it — was weak and commonplace : 
 love is not always to be judged by the object loved. Its 
 beauty and holiness lie in the hearts that feel it ; and the 
 widowed empress had loved her husband with the mingled 
 tenderness and passion of her nature. She wore mourning 
 for him the whole of her lifetime, and never heard his 
 name mentioned but her eyes filled with tears. For two 
 years she daily prayed two hours for the repose of his 
 soul. The entreaties of her doctor and confessor induced 
 her to relinquish this practice ; but she did so on condi- 
 tion that, as the hour which had seen Leopold expire re- 
 turned, one of her attendants should come and whisper in 
 her ear, " This is the time when your husband died." It 
 was not that she feared forgetting one whose memory was 
 ever in her thoughts ; but, with the fond superstition of the 
 heart, she could not endure to spend in mirth, or at least in 
 momentary oblivion, the moment that had divided them on 
 earth. 
 
 Though good and charitable during her husband's life- 
 time, it was chiefly after his death that Eleanor became that 
 without which her name would not be mentioned here — 
 the mother of the poor. If ever woman deserved that 
 title, it was the widowed Empress of Austria. Several 
 hours a day were devoted to prayer ; the rest of her time 
 belonged to the poor. In purses hanging from her girdle, 
 she carried about with her various articles of work for 
 them, and in one or another of which she was perpetually 
 engaged. She worked alone in her room, in the presence 
 of company, out walking, in going to church or in coming 
 back : not a moment was lost ; her hands at length became 
 
THE EMPRESS ELEAHOK. 20S 
 
 coarse and hard, like those of a common work-woman, with 
 this constant toil. The meanest and poorest had free ac- 
 cess to her person ; and they found her patient of hearing, 
 and liberal in her gifts. But there is no good without its 
 attendant evil. Every time Eleanor left the palace she 
 was surrounded by a host of importunate mendicants, who 
 allowed her not one moment's peace ; they pressed around 
 her, pulled her garments, and almost snatched the alms 
 out of her hands ; but the good empress remained calm 
 and gentle in the midst of her unruly children. Some- 
 times, indeed, she left the palace by stealth, without hei 
 usual suite ; ■ and, conscious of her weakness, without money : 
 but she was soon recognized and beset ; and then, unable 
 to resist the pleadings of her kind heart, she would borrow 
 money to give away to the miserable objects around her 
 Impostors often mingled with the real poor : she knew it, 
 yet could not find it in her heart to punish all for the sins 
 ' of a few. " Alas !" she said to those who remonstrated 
 with her, " I cannot know the real poor from the false ; but 
 God can, and He lets His sun shine alike on the wicked and 
 on the just." 
 
 Eleanor by no means confined her charity to this public 
 and indiscriminate almsgiving. Almost the whole of her 
 ample revenues went privately to the poor of every rank, 
 sect, or nation. She kept a secret list of those whom decent 
 pride would not allow to beg ; and not until after her death 
 did they know the kind hand which had paid their debts, 
 sent gifts often amounting to several thousand florins, or pro- 
 cured the government office that had suddenly placed them 
 beyond want. This was not all : girls, young and poor, were 
 portioned and saved from ruin ; the sick in the hospitals, the 
 guilty in the prisons, received her bounty. Her alms ex- 
 tended to Constantinople, and penetrated .into the depths of 
 Palestine and Syria, where they reached poor Christians, 
 captives in the land of their redemption. 
 
 To effect all this there was but one way — self-denial. The 
 luxuries, and many of the comforts of life, were strictly re- 
 linquished by Eleanor ; her apartment was simple — almost 
 bare ; her garments were of the coarsest cloth ; she pieced 
 and mended them with her own hands, and never discarded 
 them until thoroughly worn out. On state days she wore a 
 
206 WOMEN OF CHRISTTAMTY. 
 
 few jewels of great value, which she had kept merely to 
 serve as tokens of her rank. When her conduct was cen- 
 sured, as it often was, Eleanor calmly replied, " This is 
 strange. If I were richly clad, if I spent large sums on 
 pleasures, luxuries, and things of price, no one would have a 
 word to say against it. Why then should I be reproached 
 with my charities, the fruits of my savings, often of the work 
 . of mine own hands ? They are my delight, my pleasure, my 
 jewels." In urgent cases, when her own resources were 
 exhausted, the empress applied to her son Joseph I. ; and 
 when able to do so, he granted her large sums, saying, that 
 such expenses impoverished not the imperial treasury : but 
 this was the exception, not the rule. Her own revenues 
 were the only certain source whence flowed her extensive 
 charities. Her steward, through whose hands the greater 
 portion of the money passed for twenty years, could not help 
 frequently expressing his wonder that any income should re- 
 sist expenses seemingly boundless ; yet, when the empress 
 died, contrary to his expectation and that of the whole court, 
 she left not one debt behind her. 
 
 Eleanor was naturally generous : to give was to her a 
 pleasure. But she was not naturally gentle; her temper 
 was impatient and passionate ; yet she subdued it down to 
 a mild patience that seemed without limit. Her usual court 
 was a set of unfortunate and needy applicants, who solicited 
 her aid or interference ; and not one of whom was dismissed 
 unheard : she read their endless petitions and memorials, 
 pouring in upon her day after day, and submitted them to 
 her son whenever they seemed worthy of his attention. The 
 ministers grumbled, and often thwarted her requests : her 
 majesty's demands, they said, were without end : she want- 
 ed to please everybody, and her imprudent charity was suf- 
 ficient to exhaust the treasury. They went so far as to hint 
 that she lessened the dignity of her rank by thus exposing 
 herself to the chance of a refusal. " I know my duty," she 
 answered ; " do yours. God, who sees my heart, will at 
 least accept my will to do well." 
 
 The empress was often deceived and imposed upon ; but 
 she was at least kind without weakness: if she could not 
 grant a request, she said so at once. Some peasants from 
 Bohemia came to Vienna to complain of an officer, whom 
 
• THE EMPRESS ELEANOR. 207 
 
 they accused of harshness. Eleanor ascertained that then* 
 complaint was not justified. She was going to sit down to 
 dinner, hut would not eat until she had sent them word that 
 she could give them no aid ; but to soften the disappoint- 
 ment, she paid their expenses home. When the cause was 
 just, nothing could exceed her zeal. Oppressed widows and 
 orphans applied to her as to their natural advocate : she 
 gave them advice, protection, and carried them triumphantly 
 through every difficulty. But at length it came to pass that 
 the burden grew too heavy : Eleanor no longer found it pos- 
 sible to read and answer the innumerable petitions which her 
 well-known goodness caused to be addressed to her. Two 
 officers of the household accepted the task, and were soon 
 heartily sorry for having done so : their houses, they said, 
 were like hospitals ; petitioners filled their staircases day and 
 night. They could scarcely eat or sleep in peace ; and yet 
 they satisfied no one : noise, murmuring, and often insult, 
 were the rewards they reaped. They therefore besought 
 her majesty not to be displeased if they relinquished so un- 
 pleasant an office. Eleanor endeavored to dissuade them 
 from doing so : she spoke eloquently of the merit they might 
 acquire in the sight of God by perseverance ; but seeing that 
 they remained unconvinced, she bowed her head, and meekly 
 said : " Be it so. If the daytime is insufficient to the labor, 
 I will gladly devote to it part of the night : it will only be a 
 little sleep lost." On hearing her speak so, both officers, 
 touched to the heart, withdrew their refusal ; and, though 
 with deep reluctance, resumed their wearisome duty. 
 
 Eleanor was a kind mistress, and in her household she 
 was loved and respected, from her maids of honor, whom 
 she treated as her own daughters, down to the meanest ser- 
 vants : they found her punctual and liberal ; her economy 
 was never at their expense ; far from it : when she knew the 
 salary of some to be insufficient to the wants of a large 
 family, she added to it privately ; in order to spare their 
 pride, and to create no feelings of envy in their companions. 
 When they were ill she visited them, cheered th,em with 
 pleasant discourse, and served, them with her own hands. 
 To tend the sick, especially the poor, was one of the most 
 heartfelt pleasures of the good empress : she visited the 
 hospitals of Vienna with her daughters and ladies. Aftei 
 
208 WOMEN OF CHRISTL&mTY. 
 
 the exertion of a few hours, they were ohliged to sit down 
 and rest ; but she went about as light and active as ever, 
 carrying burdens of thirty or forty pounds' weight. All the 
 hospitals on her way to Neustadt, Baden, and Eisenstadt, 
 were equally familiar to her. She visited the poorest cot- 
 tages, and, apart from the gifts she left behind her, rendered 
 her visits pleasant to the inmates by her never-failing cheer- 
 fulness and. kindness of heart. 
 
 It was thus, filling her life with good deeds, that Eleanor 
 progressed towards the grave. She had a consciousness of 
 her approaching end ; being asked to pray that her son 
 might have an heir, she replied : " I have a long journey to 
 prepare for." In the year preceding her death, a young 
 girl of modest and engaging aspect asked to be admitted 
 into her household. The empress looked at her attentively : 
 " Verily," she said, " this young girl pleases me much ; but, 
 my child," she added, after a pause, " I cannot comply with 
 your wish. I will not deceive you by granting that which 
 you should relinquish at my death ; it will happen shortly." 
 The empress then seemed in perfect health. The ladies who 
 heard her speak thus began to weep. She chid them gently : 
 " What !" she said, " you weep ! Should you not rather re- 
 joice with me, since after so many storms I touch the port." 
 She gave other intimations of the same feeling to some nuns 
 whom she loved : on leaving their convent for Vienna, she 
 bade them a last farewell, kissed them every one, and told 
 them they should see her no more, as Leopold was calling 
 her to heaven. " My sixty-fifth birth-day will be my last," 
 she said on another occasion. 
 
 Eleanor spoke but too truly. She was born on the sixth 
 of January, of the year 1655, and on the first day of the 
 year 1720 she was found lying in her room wholly uncon- 
 scious. She never recovered the use of speech, and died 
 January 19 th, after silently blessing her family. The news 
 of her illness filled the churches of Vienna with supplicants, 
 praying, as they said, for their mother. Her funeral was ex- 
 tremely plain : she had expressly directed in her will that her 
 body should neither be stripped nor embalmed. It was, ac- 
 cording to an ancient custom, robed in white garments and 
 exposed for three days to public veneration ; then, in obedi- 
 ence to her wish, placed in a coffin of wood, with this epitaph 
 
THE EMPRESS ELEANOK. 209 
 
 of her own framing : " Here lies Eleanor Magdalen Teresa, a 
 poor sinner." 
 
 We have little more to say of this good woman : for good 
 she was, spite of some faults of judgment. We have not 
 shocked the reader with her penance, hair shirts, and iron 
 chains — austerities in which, spite of her religious advisers; 
 she indulged to excess. She said that her passions were 
 strong and fierce, and needed to be so used. Her temper 
 was certainly violent, but she kept it under exact control : 
 even when the eye kindled, and the cheek flushed, the lips 
 uttered no ungentle word. There was a tone of exaggeration 
 in her whole character ; but it was sincere, and led to much 
 that was noble. Her soul was magnanimous : she hated flat- 
 terers and flattery, and freely forgave injuries. On the death 
 of her son Joseph, she became regent for a while. Here was 
 an opportunity of punishing those who had ventured, even in 
 her presence, to call her humility meanness, and to say " that 
 her piety consisted in showing herself in the streets and 
 churches of Vienna." Eleanor disdained to take advantage 
 of her power, and said quietly to her ladies : " I care not for 
 those little things." She did well to be indifferent to the 
 opinion of her contemporaries, for it was not always favorable 
 to her ; as we can learn, from the little touch of ridicule with 
 which she is mentioned by gay Lady Mary Wortley Montagu : 
 " I had an audience next day of the empress mother, a prin- 
 cess of great virtue and goodness, but who piques herself too 
 much on a violent devotion. She is perpetually performing 
 extraordinary acts of penance, without ever having done any 
 thing to deserve them." Of her boundless charity Lady 
 Montagu does not speak; and probably did not know. The 
 humility of Eleanor led her to conceal her best actions, and 
 often, too, her best feelings. After her death, the following 
 written prayer was found amongst her papers : " The only 
 boon I ask of thee, oh my God ! is to use me wholly for the 
 service of the poor of Jesus Christ. Let thy love towards 
 us, miserable mortals, be the rule of our charity." 
 
 She was faithful to this self-imposed teaching : ber mercy, 
 like that of her divine model, was infinite. She once caught 
 a thief in the act of stealing a silver lamp from a church, 
 where she had gone early one morning to clean the sacred 
 vases — a task dear to her pious heart. On seeing her, he let 
 
210 WOMEN OF CHKISTIAOTTY. 
 
 the lamp fall, and the oil was spilled on the pavement 
 " Poor wretch," she died, " escape quickly." The oil be- 
 trayed what had happened, but the empress would never 
 give the least indication concerning the sacrilegious thief. 
 We have already said enough of her tenderness to the poor. 
 Her early inclination had been towards the cloister: when 
 she became a widow, the temptation of a calm and happy 
 retreat amongst the daughters of her beloved St. Teresa was 
 great. She sacrificed it to the good she knew she might do 
 in the world : a mother forsakes not her children ; and she 
 remained with hers, watchful and tender to the last. In her 
 apartment there was found an unfinished garment destined 
 for some poor person. Death had interrupted the task, and 
 compelled her to leave behind this eloquent though involun- 
 tary memorial of her own goodness. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The "Women of England during the Seventeenth Century — Lady Alice 
 Luey — Lady Falkland — Lady Vere — Lady Langham — Lady Armyne 
 — The Countess of Pembroke. 
 
 Frequently, whilst collecting materials for this work, have 
 I had cause to regret that the lives of the good have been so 
 briefly and imperfectly written, whilst of the profligate or 
 notorious more than enough was known. This remark ap- 
 plies especially to the women of England during the seven- 
 teenth century. 
 
 Mrs. Hutchinson and Lady Fanshawe wrote their own me- 
 moirs ; Lady Rachel Russel is known by her letters ; and 
 Evelyn has recorded the virtues of his attached friend, Mrs. 
 Godolphin : but these are exceptions. Whilst we learn more 
 than is needful of the mistresses and favorites of a licentious 
 king, funeral sermons are almost the only authorities that 
 give us an imperfect knowledge of purer characters. 
 
 There are three lives extant of Madame de Chantal ; the 
 Abbe de Ohoisy has left a good biography of his cousin, 
 Madame de Miramion ; and even humble Jeanne Biscot has 
 
LADY ALICE LUCY. 211 
 
 found her historian. Their English contemporaries have been 
 less fortunate : their memory has been dismissed with vague 
 and commonplace eulogy, and, beyond the fact that they 
 were good, we know little or nothing of many save the 
 names which they bore. 
 
 These imperfect records afford us, however, glimpses of 
 >many gentle and charming natures, for which we might 
 vainly seek elsewhere. Every one has heard of Charlecote 
 Hall, celebrated for once belonging to that Sir Thomas Lucy, 
 who punished young Shakspeare for deer-stealing. Many 
 have made the old Elizabethan mansion the goal of a poetical 
 pilgrimage : amongst the rest Geoffrey Crayon, who has lin- 
 gered with evident partiality in his description of a spot still 
 haunted by the name of Shakspeare. The gateway flanked 
 with towers, the courtyard and its flower-beds, the portal 
 with carved armorial bearings, the ancient park, the Avon 
 winding through, with " large herds of deer feeding or re- 
 posing upon its borders, and swans sailing majestically upon 
 its bosom," were held objects of interest, and worthy of 
 record. 
 
 The old mansion has faithfully preserved the memory of 
 the poet and of his persecutor ; but it has found nothing to 
 tell concerning one of its former mistresses, a good and char- 
 itable lady, Alice Lucy, who dwelt within its walls some two 
 hundred years ago. " A great number," writes her quaint 
 old biographer, "she relieved at her gates, and gave her 
 charge to her porter, that when there came any that were 
 very aged, or that complained of great losses in those dismal 
 times of civil wars, especially if they seemed honest, that he 
 should come and certify her of it, that she might enlarge her 
 charity to such ; which if he had neglected at any time to do, 
 and she had known of it, probably she would have been as 
 much displeased with him as once she was with another of 
 her servants for neglecling a command which she had given 
 him, in reference to the refreshment of some poor. 
 
 " In those times of scarcity, every week she sent many 
 leaves of bread to many neighbor towns ; she caused her own 
 c^rn to be sold in the markets, as it were, by retail, in such 
 small quantities as might not exceed the poor's abilities to 
 purchase. She allowed certain meals in her house to certain 
 poor neighbors, whose empty bellies were discernible in theh 
 
212 WOMEN OF CHEISTIANITT. 
 
 pale faces ; and when hereby they had recovered their for- 
 mer complexion, and received, as it were, a new life by her 
 means, she with joy professed that the sight of such an alter- 
 ation in them did her as much good as any thing which she 
 herself had eaten. 
 
 " She continually employed many poor old men and wo- 
 men in such works as were fit and suitable to their skill and 
 strength. When the physician came at any time to her 
 house, she used to make inquiry whether any were sick in 
 the town, that if any were, they might partake of the same 
 benefit with herself; but at all times, when any wanted 
 health, she presently had intelligence of it, and most cheer- 
 fully communicated whatsoever she conceived conducible to 
 their recovery, having not only great store of cordials and re- 
 storatives always by her, but great skill and judgment in the 
 application of them." 
 
 Thus far, and no more, are we told : the good deeds of the 
 charitable lady of Charlecote Hall have won her no place 
 among the celebrated of her sex. With the humility of true 
 virtue, she strictly forbade any eulogy to be inscribed on the 
 stately monument which she had erected to the memory of 
 her husband, by whose side she was laid, in the year 1648. 
 Her age is not mentioned ; but she had been thirty years a 
 wife7 and some years a widow. She died after a fortnight's 
 illness: her health had always been bad; but she was of 
 those whom a generous spirit leads onwards, who need not 
 health or strength to fulfil the active duties of life. 
 
 The charity extended by Lady Alice Lucy to the poor suf- 
 ferers of those long civil wars which distracted England, was 
 freely exercised by another generous woman of those times — 
 the widow of Falkland. The interest which attaches to this 
 excellent lady is still further heightened by that which lin- 
 gers around the name of her husband. 
 
 The gloom of civil war was already spreading over the 
 land : king and Parliament were at issue, Royalist and Puri- 
 tan, each prepared for the approaching contest, when Lucius 
 Cary, Viscount Falkland, took his seat in that celebrated as- 
 sembly which met on the third of November, of the year 
 1640 ; and which, under the name of the Long Parliament; 
 was destined to act so important a part in English history. 
 
 Viscount Falkland was then in his thirtieth year. His con- 
 
LADY FALKLAND. 213 
 
 temporaries have united in representing him as one of the 
 most amiable and accomplished, men of the age in which he 
 lived. Loyalty induced him to side with the king ; but he 
 shared neither the errors nor the hopes of the court party. 
 Though he fought bravely in the royal ranks, the woes of his 
 country were not forgotten in the excitement of war. After 
 sitting among his friends in long dejected silence, he would 
 often exclaim, with deep sighs, " Peace, peace !" and passion- 
 ately declare, " that the very agony of the war, and the view 
 if the calamities and desolation of the kingdom did and must 
 endure, took his sleep from him, and would sliortly break his 
 heart." He was not to die thus : on the morning of the bat- 
 tle of Newbury he had a strong presentiment of his death ; it 
 was fulfilled : he fell among the first, and thus accomplished 
 his brief and pure career. A gentleman, a poet, a scholar, 
 above all, a man of high principle and chivalrous honor, ho 
 needed but what fate gave him — a premature and gloiioiHi 
 death — to possess all the attributes of a hero of romance. 
 
 Viscount Falkland perished in his thirty-fourth year ; he 
 left several children and a young widow— the Lady Lettice 
 Morison, whom he had not married for either rank or wealth, 
 but for the singular virtues which he perceived in her. They 
 were devotedly attached to one another, and in the bitterness 
 of her grief for the loss of her husband, which was followed 
 by that of a beloved son, Viscountess Falkland warned young 
 wives and mothers not to place too much of their affection in 
 earthly beings. " Oh ! I have had my portion of these very 
 comforts with the first — no one woman more," she sadly ex- 
 claimed ; " but there is no lasting, no true pleasure in them."' 
 Such language from one who had been a loved and happy 
 wife, and who was still a happy mother, sounds harsh ; but 
 they who know the exquisite sorrow of losing objects too 
 much loved, have a right to speak thus : warnings like these 
 come from the heart that has overflowed, rarely from the in- 
 different and the cold ; who offer not to others the advice 
 which they themselves have never needed. 
 
 The whole life of this amiable woman shows how far re- 
 moved she was from indifference or religious severity. From 
 her youth, she united the piety that worships to the charity 
 that loves to bestow. She often importuned her parents for 
 money to put in the purse she had worked for her own alms : 
 
214 WOMEN OF CHEISTIAinTT. 
 
 she was eager to have it full, and still more eager to empty it 
 quickly. Her will to do good kept pace with her means : 
 whilst her husband drew to his seat at Great Tew, near Ox- 
 ford, the learned and literary men of the neighboring univer- 
 sity, the viscountess fed and clothed the poor under his roof 
 and at his gates. 
 
 " For the poor at home, and for strangers at the door," 
 writes her friend, the Reverend John Duncan, in a letter ad- 
 dressed to her mother, " she was very charitable, in feeding 
 the hungry and refreshing the faint and weak, and for cloth- 
 ing the naked : in some extremities you should see this lady 
 herself go up and down the house, and beg garments from 
 her servants' backs (whom she requited soon after with new), 
 
 that the poor might not go naked or cold from her door 
 
 When it was objected that many idle and wicked people 
 were, by this course of charity, relieved at her house, her an- 
 swer was, ' I know not their hearts, and in their outward car- 
 riage and speech they all appear to me good and virtuous ; 
 and I had rather relieve five unworthy vagrants, than that one 
 member of Christ should go empty away.' And for harbor- 
 ing strangers, the many inconveniences ordinarily ensuing 
 upon it could not deter her from it : sometimes for some 
 weeks together they were entertained by her. And since 
 her death I hear of plentiful relief, here at London and at 
 Oxford, sent privately to prisons and needy persons, with a 
 strict charge that it should not be known from whence it 
 came." 
 
 Her charity extended beyond this : many of her poorer 
 neighbors, too old or too young to labor, were wholly sup- 
 ported by her. She erected a school, where poor children 
 were taught to read and work. She was anxious that no 
 man, woman, or child near her should want employment; 
 and, regarding more the benefit of others than her own pri- 
 vate interest, she held that to be the best management of her 
 estate which provided most labor for the poor. Infectious 
 diseases were then one of the scourges of England ; she pro- 
 vided herself with antidotes, cordials, and various medicines, 
 which she distributed gratuitously on her estate. Though 
 well versed, like most ladies of her age, in leechcraft, Lady 
 Falkland was cautious in exercising her skill. As soon as 
 she learned that any of her poor neighbors were sick, slv m-a- 
 
LADY FALKLAND. 215 
 
 vided them with nurses and physicians, and visited them day 
 after day. She loved to sit in their homely cottages, to be- 
 come as one of them, and read to them from those volumes 
 whose pious lore had so often soothed her own bodily suffer- 
 ings and heart sorrows. "This honorable lady," observes 
 the writer already quoted, " hath been observed sitting in a 
 cottage waiting the sick woman's leisure, till the slumbers and 
 fits were over, that she might read again to her, and finish 
 the work she had begun. And of late, when she could not 
 do this good office in her own person (she growing sickly and 
 weak), yet she would do it still by proxy ; for some of her 
 friends or servants were deputed by her to go to the sick, 
 with her books too daily, and now and then most of her fami- 
 ly — -who were fit for such an employment — were sent abroad 
 on this errand." Life and health were already failing ; but 
 not so her earnest desire to do good. Hitherto she had be- 
 stowed only the superfluity of her revenue, and now this su- 
 perfluity was all which she kept for herself ; the rest she gave 
 away. Extreme simplicity marked her attire after the death 
 of her husband, and her household expenses were moderate : 
 she preferred feeding the poor, and educating their children, 
 to the idle satisfaction of being attended by pages and gen- 
 tlewomen. Her mind, decisive and practical, led her to cher- 
 ish projects of general utility ; she intended establishing in 
 her parish, schools and manufactures. A still more cherished 
 and congenial plan, was that of founding places of education 
 for young gentlewomen, and of retirement for widows, in sev- 
 eral parts of the kingdom ; hoping that religion and learning- 
 might thus flourish more in her own sex. The troubled state 
 of the times, and the brevity of her life, prevented these plans 
 from being carried into effect. Grief, great in' spite of all her 
 resignation, and a religious melancholy, which her life of ac- 
 tive piety could not always allay, clouded her latter days. 
 Wearied of this world, and of all that bound her to it, she 
 contemplated retiring to a small house and garden close by 
 her mansion, and thought there to spend her time with a book, 
 a wheel, and a maid or two. Death early relieved her from 
 a life which had become painfully wearisome : she survived 
 her husband a few years, and died in the thirty-fifth year of 
 her age. The melancholy of Lady Falkland was mos,t prob- 
 ably a disease ; her natural temper appears to have been both 
 
216 WOMEN OF CHEISTIAOTTY. 
 
 finn and ardent : she was bom passionate, and the meekness 
 which charmed all who approached her had cost her many a 
 severe struggle. Not satisfied "with requesting her servants 
 to forgive her the sharp words which occasionally escaped 
 her, she often asked for the same forgiveness when she had 
 manifested no anger outwardly. She explained this to them 
 with Christian simplicity : " Somewhat I felt within myself 
 too like anger against you, though I suppressed it as soon as 
 T could." Her love of peace was great ; she valued it the 
 more highly that she had found it so difficult to acquire. She 
 suffered herself to be defrauded sooner than she would allow 
 an unwilling debtor to be prosecuted : " Peace," she said, 
 " is equivalent to the sum detained." She not only valued it 
 for herself, but strenuously endeavored to establish it among 
 others. A contention arose amongst her neighbors concern- 
 ing the choice of a parish officer ; she restored quietness by 
 hiring one at her own expense. But this prudent gentleness 
 never interfered with matters of principle : she firmly refused 
 to contribute to the support of the Parliament forces ; and 
 allowed her property to be seized, until the king himself 
 granted an indulgence to the oppressed members of his party. 
 Another anecdote illustrative of her delicacy and conscien- 
 tiousness has been preserved. In her absence from home the 
 sutlers of the army came to her house, and took away pro- 
 visions, paying the highest price. On returning, Lady Falk- 
 land found that they had given her servant too much ; she 
 anxiously caused them to be searched for throughout the 
 whole army, and did not rest satisfied until the overplus 
 amount was restored to them. 
 
 A last trait, far more worthy of her and of her noble dis- 
 position, will suffice. Learning once that the royal army had 
 made many prisoners who were in a state of great need, she 
 consulted with a friend what means she should adopt to re- 
 lieve them. " Do you not fear," was the answer, " that such 
 an act will, in the minds of many, raise doubts concerning 
 your loyalty to his majesty ?" With the mingled pride and 
 humility of her character, the widow of Falkland unhesita- 
 tingly replied : " No man will suspect my loyalty because I 
 relieve these prisoners, who would not also suspect my Chris- 
 tianity if he should see me relieve a needy Turk or Jew. 
 However, I had rather be misunderstood — if this my secret 
 
LADY MARY VERE. 217 
 
 alms, should be known — than that any of mine enemies — the 
 worst of them — should perish for want of my aid." 
 
 In those trying times also lived the Lady Mary Vere, under 
 whose care the Parliament placed the younger children of 
 Charles I. She was twice married : to Mr. Hobby, by whom 
 she had two sons ; and to Sir Horace Vere, whom she sur- 
 vived. She was of the family of the Tracies, in Gloucester- 
 shire, where she was born, in 1581. She died in 1671, at 
 the age of ninety. A firm faith in God was the groundwork 
 of this lady's character. She lost her two sons ; one at four- 
 teen, the other at twenty-three ; and she survived her second 
 husband thirty-six years. Many trials saddened her long 
 life ; but her trust was never shaken : she chose and kept as 
 her motto, which was found written by her in the front of 
 most of the books in her closet, " God will provide." God 
 did provide, and carried her safely through those stormy times. 
 
 Unhappiness in married life was not amongst the troubles 
 of Lady Vere : her second husband, the gallant Sir Horace 
 Vere, was worthy of her. In the year 1628 we find Arch- 
 bishop Usher writing to the Lady Mary : " The thing that I 
 have most admired in your noble lord, is, that such lowliness 
 of mind, and such a high pitch of a brave spirit, should be 
 yoked together, and lodged in one breast. And, on the other 
 side, when I reflect upon you, methinks I understand that 
 saying of the apostle better than I did, ' that as the man is 
 the image and glory of God, so the woman is the glory of 
 the man.' And, to your comfort, let me add this, that if I 
 have any insight in things of this nature, or have .any judg- 
 ment to discern of spirits, I have clearly beheld engraven in 
 your soul, the image and superscription of my God." 
 
 " Her charity," writes W. Gurnall, "was as fruit dropping 
 all the year long." The poor, the hungry, the sick, the 
 wounded, received money, food, medicines, or salves, ac- 
 cording to their wants. Her servants had orders to acquaint 
 her with cases of distress ; and if they failed in this duty, 
 the anger of Lady Vere was great. " It fell out," writes 
 her biographer, " that an honest, poor neighbor died before 
 she knew of his sickness ; for which, being troubled, she 
 asked her servant that attended her whether he had wanted 
 in his sickness ; adding, " I tell you I had rather part with 
 my gqwn from my back, than that the poor should want !'' 
 
 10 
 
218 WOMEN OF CHKISTIAOTTY. 
 
 But there was no ostentation in this goodness : Lady 
 Vere always thought that she had done nothing. "She 
 did not give her charity, as some throw their money into a 
 basin at a collection, so as that it might ring again ; but it 
 fell like oil into a vessel, without any noise." Even as her 
 virtues, was her long life : silent, peaceful, and crowned with 
 Christian humility. 
 
 To the same period belong the names — and, alas ! little,, 
 more than the names— of Susannah, countess of Suffolk ; 
 Lady Reynell; Elizabeth, countess of Bridgewater; Lady 
 Elizabeth Brooke, charitable and learned in divinity; and 
 Lady Elizabeth Langham, a daughter of the house of Hast- 
 ings : on which its women were to confer no small religious 
 distinction, in the following age. Lady Langham was 
 daughter of the sixth Earl of Huntingdon. Her marriage 
 with Sir James Langham was somewhat unequal ; but if he 
 alluded to this circumstance, she interrupted him, to declare 
 herself satisfied with the state of life into which it had 
 brought her. She was naturally humble and modest ; and, 
 even in her youth, she showed herself reserved and silent. 
 A lady once said of her, " that she believed this lady had 
 the least account to give, for words, of any that ever she 
 knew." Her piety partook of he* character: it was more 
 to be divined than seen ; but, like all centred feelings, it was 
 full and ardent. A little before her marriage she fell ill, 
 and was overheard exclaiming, in an impassioned tone, " Oh ! 
 that I could do the whole will of God !" 
 
 Her marriage with Sir James Langham afforded her the 
 opportunity of displaying her amiable qualities. Her hus- 
 band had several children by a first wife ; and not only did 
 she treat them so tenderly that they might have been 
 thought her own, but she paid marked respect to the mem- 
 ory of her predecessor ; " praising, and seeking to imitate 
 the good she had heard of her." 
 
 Her authority was always tempered with gentleness : she 
 was once heard telling a child, " that if she did not do such 
 a thing she would not love her ;" but, thinking the sentence 
 too severe, she retracted it, saying, "Alas! God deals not 
 so with us, notwithstanding our continual disobedience." 
 This amiable woman died of the small-pox in 1664. Seeing 
 the grief of her husband, she said to him, "We came not 
 
LADY HOBAKT LADY ARMYNE. 219 
 
 into the world together, nor can we expect to go out of it 
 together ; yet it is a great satisfaction to me that I am going 
 thither, whither, after a* while, you shall follow me." Her 
 secret and extensive charity was revealed by the crowds of 
 sorrowing poor who followed her to the grave. The same 
 modest reserve did not allow her to display all that she 
 owed to an excellent education : Latin, French, and Italian, 
 ranked amongst her acquirements. 
 
 In these times, also, lived the good Lady Frances Hobart, 
 eldest daughter of the Earl of Bridgewater, and wife of Sir 
 John Hobart, of Norfolk, who called her " my dear saint." 
 We will not speak of her domestic virtues, though they 
 were great ; or, if we mention her economy, let it be to 
 record that, after her husband's death, she could not be per- 
 suaded to wear a silk gown, preferring to spend the money 
 in charity. When her liberality exceeded her means, as was 
 often the case, she said, " that it was but wearing a gown 
 two or three months longer." The fourth part "of her in- 
 come was spent in good works. She lodged and relieved 
 strangers, and her coach was oftener seen waiting for her at 
 the doors of the poor than at those of the great. Her phy- 
 sician, the food from her table, the money from her purse, 
 were not her own, but belonged to whomsoever needed 
 them. She died in 1664, in the sixty-first year of her age. 
 Humble to the last, she desired that the friend who was to 
 preach her funeral sermon should abstain from all praise of 
 "a vile sinful creature." 
 
 We cannot pass in silence the liberal zeal of the pious and 
 learned Lady Armyne, who died, past eighty, in 1675. She 
 gave devout books to those whose necessities she relieved, 
 and spent large sums annually for the conversion of Indians 
 in New England. By the Act of Uniformity, passed in 
 1660, under Charles II., non-conforming ministers were 
 ejected from their livings ; and many who had large families 
 were utterly ruined. Lady Armyne shared their opinions 
 and came to their aid. " Some few days after," writes 
 Samuel Clarke, " she came to Mr. Edm. Calamy, and brought 
 him £500 (at which time I also was with him), to be dis- 
 tributed among the most indigent and necessitous." By her 
 will, Lady Armyne left £40 per annum to be distributed 
 m charity for four-score and nineteen years. 
 
220 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Peculiar as she was in many respects, we should not feel 
 justified in not mentioning the eccentric but benevolent 
 Countess of Pembroke. She is justdy celebrated for one of 
 the most spirited and laconic letters woman ever wrote. Sir 
 Joseph Williamson, secretary to Charles II., having presumed 
 to name a candidate to her for the borough of Appleby, 
 the dowager countess answered in the following style : 
 
 " I have been bullied by a usurper, I have been neglected 
 by a court, but I will not be dictated to by a subject ; your 
 man shan't stand. 
 
 "Anne Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery." 
 
 We give this well-known letter, because it has become 
 identified with the name of Anne Clifford : but it only dis- 
 plays one side, and that not the most amiable, of her char- 
 acter. The Countess of Pembrokewas something besides a 
 proud, independent lady, not to be insulted with impunity : 
 she was one of the most handsome and accomplished women 
 of her age ; benevolent, liberal, dauntless in her faith, great 
 in charity. 
 
 Anne Clifford was born in Skipton Castle,-in 1590, and 
 was the daughter and sole heir of the adventurous Earl of 
 Cumberland, by his wife Margaret. Her parents lived un- 
 happily together ; although it has been said of her mother, 
 that " she was a woman fit. to pleasure the communion of 
 saints." Their daughter could not boast of much conjugal 
 felicity. She was, however, twice married : in 1609, to 
 Eichard, earl of Dorset, who died in 1624 ; and, six years 
 after his death, to the degenerate nephew of Sir Philip Syd- 
 ney, the Earl of Pembroke, , a vicious and ignorant man, 
 who rendered his wife extremely unhappy. He died in 
 1649, leaving the Countess of Pembroke free, and mistress 
 of an immense fortune. 
 
 The noble use which Anne Clifford made of her wealth 
 entitles her memory to honor, and will give her name a 
 place wherever the charity of woman is recorded. One of 
 her first acts was to repair the ruined castles and strong- 1 
 holds of her family. Her friends advised her not to do so, 
 as Cromwell might cause them to be destroyed again. She 
 answered, " Let him destroy my castles if he will ; he shall 
 find that as often as he levels I will rebuild them, while he 
 
AKNE CLIFFORD, COUNTESS OF PffiMBKOKE. 221 
 
 leaves me a shilling in my purse." Besides her six castles, 
 the Countess of Pembroke rebuilt seven churches which had 
 fallen to ruin in the wars. Prudence and economy enabled 
 her to be liberal : she spent little on herself, and lived more 
 plainly and was more simply attired than her own servants. 
 Bishop Rainbow, speaking of her virtues- as a mistress, illus- 
 trates her self-denial in the following quaint style : " Yet 
 here I may be bold to tell you something to wonder at ; 
 that she much neglected and treated very harshly one ser- 
 vant, a very ancient one, who served her from her cradle — 
 from her birth — very feithfully, according to her mind ; 
 which ill-usage, therefore, her menial servants, as well as 
 her friends and children, much repined at. And who this 
 servant was, I have named before : it was her body ■ who, 
 as I said, was a servant most obsequious to her mind, and 
 served her fourscore years." 
 
 The active countess never tarried long in one place, but 
 idsited her different castles in turns. Wherever she went, 
 she practised a liberal and judicious charity, that endeared 
 her to her tenants and servants. Her bounty was not 
 confined to them : during the civil wars, she allowed £40 
 a year to distressed clergymen who had been obliged to 
 leave England ; and when she learned that ready money 
 would be more useful to them than an annuity, she sent 
 them the munificent sum of a thousand pounds. Although 
 she had been persecuted by the puritan party, as a zealous 
 member of the Church of England, the Countess of Pem- 
 broke did not afterwards exclude dissenters from a share in 
 her charity. 
 
 On the 23d of April, 1G51, she laid the first stone of a 
 hospital for twelve poor women, called " sisters" and their 
 " mother ;" she often went to dine with them, and invited 
 them to her table. When her married daughters came to 
 visit her, she admonished them to pay first a visit to these 
 poor women, and take " the blessing of the poor, the alms- 
 women's blessing by the way." Another of her charitable 
 actions was to repair and restore an almshouse at Bearmky, 
 which had been built and endowed by her good mother, the 
 Countess of Cumberland — " that blessed saint," as Anne 
 Clifford ever called her. 
 
 Filial piety and charity are touchingly blended in the 
 
£22 WOMEN CO? CHEISTIAHITT. 
 
 monument known as the " Countess's Pillar," which standi 
 on the side of the road between Penrith and Appleby. It 
 supports a sun-dial for the use of travellers, and bears the 
 following inscription : > 
 
 " This pillar was erected in 1656, by Anne, countess dowa- 
 ger of Pembroke, &c, for a memorial of her last parting, in 
 this place, with her good and pious mother, Margaret, coun- 
 tess dowager of Cumberland, on the second of April, 1616; 
 in memory whereof she hath left an annuity of four pounds 
 to be distributed to the poor of the parish of Brougham, 
 every second day of April forever, upon the stone table 
 placed hard by. Laus Deo." 
 
 This simple record of filial love and human sorrow, is thus 
 mentioned by Rogers, in lines which, though well known, 
 may yet be quoted here : 
 
 " Hast thou, through Eden's wild-wood vales, pursued 
 
 Each mountain scene, magnificently rude, 
 
 Nor with attention's lifted eye, revered 
 
 That modest stone by pious Pembroke reaflsd, 
 
 Which still records, beyond the pencil's power, 
 
 The silent sorrows of a partiug hour ?" 
 
 Mrs. Hemans, in her " Records of Woman," has not 
 failed to introduce a subject so congenial to her womanly 
 genius. 
 
 Anne Clifford died in 1675, at the age of eighty-five. 
 She was buried at Appleby, beneath the splendid monu 
 ment which she had herself erected. A long epitaph re 
 cords the ancient origin of " the Baronesse of Clifford, 
 Westmoreland, and Vesey ; High Sheriffesse of the county 
 of Westmoreland, and of the Honor of Skipton Castle." 
 The titles which she acquired by marriage, and the illus- 
 trious alliances of her two daughters, have not been omitted ; 
 but the little stone pillar standing modestly by the beaten 
 path, with its sun-dial for the traveller, its table for the poor, 
 and its inscription for the thoughtful to read slowly ere they 
 pass by, is more noble than the stately monument with all 
 its titles ; and will live longer in the memory of men, hal- 
 lowed as it is by the love of two human beings, by Chris- 
 tian charity, and by the lays of poets. 
 
223 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Mary, Countess of Warwick — Mrs. Godolphin. 
 
 It is recorded of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork, that 
 he went from Eigland to Ireland with the munificent sum 
 of £27 3s. in \ is "pocket, and died master of more than 
 twelve thousand acres of Irish land : it had been originally 
 procured by tin cheap process of confiscation ; and being 
 both uncertain of tenure and difficult of keeping, was readily 
 sold by the English owners to English adventurers who 
 chose to buy. 
 
 The Earl of Cork left fifteen children, prosperous like 
 himself ; amongst the rest the celebrated philosopher and 
 man of science, Eobert Boyle. His daughters married 
 English noblemen of high rank and great wealth : Mary, 
 the seventh, born in 1624, became Countess of Warwick at 
 an early age. She was witty and amiable ; she loved the 
 world and its pleasures, without excess; but enough to 
 make her dread entering a family so rigid as that of her 
 husband. Her new relations succeeded, however, in ren- 
 dering religion more attractive to her than she had antici- 
 pated ; and afflictions, the nature of which we are not told, 
 contributed to chasten her heart. She learned to love the 
 retirement in which she henceforth spent her life, and to 
 abstain without regret from the idle and worldly diversions 
 of which the loss had once seemed so severe. 
 
 Prayer and daily meditation were her chief delights: 
 prayer she emphatically called " heart's-ease." Such she 
 had ever found it; and the serenity it gave to her mind 
 revealed itself in her charming countenance, alike expressive 
 cf gentleness and benevolence. Few persons were so well 
 fitted as the Countess of Warwick for accomplishing the 
 excellent purpose which she entertained ; and which is thus 
 expressed by her biographer and friend, Dr. Anthony Walker : 
 " She avowedly designed to represent religion as amiable and 
 taking, and free from vulgar prejudice, as possibly she might ; 
 not so as might affright and scare men from it, but that it 
 might allure them, and insinuate itself into their love and 
 
224 WOMEN OF CnEISTIANITY. 
 
 liking : to this end she was affable, familiar, pleasant, and oi 
 a free and agreeable conversation : not sour, reserved, morose, 
 sad, dejected, melancholy, which presents religion most dis- 
 advantageously. She was naturally of the sweetest temper 
 in the world." 
 
 Honor, as it is understood by men in its old chivalrous 
 meaning — a virtue women are not sufficiently taught to 
 esteem in themselves — characterized this amiable lady. Her 
 word, once passed, was inviolable; untruth she abhorred; 
 and, with mingled pride and humility, gave this testimony of 
 herself to her husband : " You know I dare not, I will not 
 lie." A falsehood was, in her eyes, the most unpardonable 
 fault a servant can commit : " Tell me the truth," she often 
 observed, "and I can forgive you anything." ■ A striking 
 proof of the regard she had for truth, and of the value she 
 set on her name for veracity, is afforded by an anecdote 
 which we owe to Dr. Anthony Walker : to whom, indeed, 
 we are indebted for almost all that is known of this excellent 
 woman. A month before her death, being then in perfect 
 health, she decided on altering her will. For the legacies in 
 money which she had before awarded to persons of high rank, 
 she resolved to substitute valuable gifts ; which she also de- 
 termined to select so as to render them most acceptable ; but 
 this she thought to put later in a codicil. The only name 
 which she inserted in her new will was that of her sister-in- 
 law, the Countess of Scarsdale ; to whom she had formerly 
 bequeathed a sum of money, instead of which she now left 
 her a set of silver sconces which adorned her own chamber. 
 Dr. Walker asked to know the reason of this exception ; the 
 countess gave him the following reply : " Because she is the 
 only person living to whom I ever intimated being in my 
 will ; and I would not die and have it found otherwise, and 
 so be under the suspicion of having told a lie, or dying with 
 a lie in my mouth." Although we are simply told that the 
 Countess of Warwick was an excellent wife, mother, and 
 mistress, it is easy to believe so, from what we know of her 
 character. The high esteem of the earl for her was expressed 
 by his often declaring, " That he had rather have her with 
 five thousand pounds than any woman living with twenty." 
 When they lost their only son, he forgot his own poignant 
 grief in the anticipation of here. " It would Mil his wife, 
 
MAET, COUNTESS OF WARWICK. 225 
 
 which was," he said, " more to him than a hundred sons." 
 The countess was too practical a Christian not to bear the 
 shock with more resignation than her husbarM expected 
 She survived him as well as her son, and was supported 
 through both trials by the calm fortitude of religion. As a 
 testimony of his affection and respect, the Earl of Warwick 
 left her sole executrix, and bequeathed to her his estate for 
 her lifetime. When she had faithfully acquitted herself of 
 her trust, and came into possession of this large property, the 
 countess made true what a great personage was reputed to 
 have said concerning this matter : " The Earl of Warwick has 
 given all his estate to pious uses." Indeed, with her usual 
 frankness, the good countess had declared to a friend, " I 
 would not accept or be encumbered with the greatest estate 
 in England' if it should be offered me, clogged with this con- 
 dition, not to do good to others with it." Of her charity, her 
 most eminent virtue, we have not yet spoken : let it be 
 expressed in those words which were found written with her 
 own hand, amongst her favorite maxims, original . and select : 
 " It is a great honor to be almoner to the King of Heaven." 
 How highly she valued that honor, her whole life showed 
 most faithfully. In her husband's lifetime, having then a 
 separate allowance, she inquired of her friend, Dr. Walker, 
 how much it would be proper for her to give to the poor ; 
 he made an evasive reply : " But she," to quote his own 
 words, "persisting to urge a more particular answer as to 
 herself, what would be fit and becoming for her to do, I, not 
 being ignorant of her circumstances (I must bear my own 
 shame in acknowledging the straitness of my own heart), 
 told her, I supposed a seventh part. But before I could 
 suggest the reason, she preventingly replied, she would never 
 give less than the third part ; and she kept her resolution to 
 the full, and with advantage, laying aside constantly the 
 third part for charitable uses, and would sometimes borrow 
 of that which remained to add to it, but never default from 
 that to serve her own occasions, though sometimes pressing 
 enough." 
 
 That she was often charitable beyond her power, and 
 
 spent her revenues in advance to assist the poor, was well 
 
 known; and she was designated as "the lady that would 
 
 borrow money to give away." She visited the indigent in 
 
 10* 
 
226 WOMEN OF CHEISTIAUITT. 
 
 their distress and sickness, provided them with medicine, and 
 sent them physicians. The most miserable were in great 
 numbers relieved at her gates ; not only with fragments and 
 broken meat, but with provisions especially provided for the 
 poor. The kind countess, anxious that no sense of discomfort 
 should accompany the receipt of her bounty, caused a con- 
 venient house to be built for them close by her London resi- 
 dence — a similar one already existed at Leez — to shelter 
 them from rain and heat whilst they received their dole. 
 Her thoughtful charity did not forsake them whenever she 
 chanced to go to town with her family : twice a week beet 
 and bread were provided for the poor of four parishes adja- 
 cent to her countiy seat ; and, by her will, she caused this 
 allowance to be continued for three months after her decease. 
 Her liberality was not confined to these acts of kindness : 
 with mingled secrecy and delicacy she assisted the distressed 
 of every condition. Poor foreigners, fled on account of their 
 religion ; young scholars, the expenses of whose education at 
 the universities she wholly or partly paid ; children, whom 
 she not only sent to school, but provided with books and 
 clothing : and this not merely in her own neighborhood, but 
 as far as Wales. Ministers, both conformists and non-con- 
 formists, whose necessities she relieved, had far more occasion 
 to bless her goodness, than the poor fed at her gates. She 
 was often deceived, but would never allow herself to be dis- 
 couraged : she declared that she would rather assist ten 
 undeserving objects, than allow one that really needed aid to 
 depart unrelieved. In the practice of these Christian virtues 
 she spent her life ; yet she failed in none of the duties of her 
 high rank. Even after the death of her husband she lived up 
 to her station, because she knew that he would have wished 
 her to do so ; at the same time she showed herself more care- 
 ful of the estate which she was to transmit to another, than 
 if it had been her own absolutely. Her courtesy and hospi- 
 tality increased its value by raising the rent of houses near 
 hers ; and she was acknowledged to be an excellent landlady 
 and mistress. The only two faults laid to her charge were 
 worthy of her — excess of charity, and absence of anger. We 
 shall not seek to justify her from such sins. 
 
 We have told the little that is known of her life and 
 character ; her death alone remains. In the month of March 
 
MRS. GODOLPHIN. 227 
 
 of the year 1678, she was taken with a slight indisposition, 
 which seemed to afford no ground for serious apprehension. 
 tf On Friday, the 12th of April," says her biographer, "she 
 rose with good strength, and after sitting up some time, 
 being laid upon her bed, discoursing cheerfully and piously, 
 one of the last sentences she spake was this, turning back 
 the curtain with her hand — ' Well, ladies, if I were one hour 
 in heaven, I would not be again with you, as well as I love 
 you.' " 
 
 After the departure of a lady who had called to pay her a 
 visit, she rose, was seated on a chair, and requested that one 
 of the two clergymen, who then happened $o be staying in 
 the house, should come and pray with her. He readily com- 
 plied : whilst all the persons present knelt, the countess re- 
 mained sitting, on account of her weakness, and holding an 
 orange in her hand to refresh herself with its reviving scent. 
 Almost in the beginning of the prayer the countess was heard 
 to sigh deeply : the circumstance was not heeded, until a 
 lady kneeling by her chair looked up and saw her pale and 
 inanimate, with her hand hanging down. She started up in 
 alarm ; aid was quickly applied, but in vain : her pulse had 
 already ceased to beat. She had died, as she had often 
 wished to die — in the very act of prayer. 
 
 In the course of the same year, died the amiable and much 
 loved friend of Evelyn — Mrs. Godolphin. The readers of 
 this accomplished man's delightful Diary have long been 
 familiar with the few 'though interesting passages in which 
 she is mentioned, and to which her life — written by him, 
 and published a few years ago — has given still further in- 
 terest. 
 
 Evelyn relates, in his pleasant way, how he long remained 
 indifferent to the attractions and virtues of Mrs. Margaret 
 Blagge ; who, being then unmarried, was maid of honor to 
 the Duchess of York, and after her death to the queen. His 
 wife, and some friends who knew her well, strove to persuade 
 him that, though she had lived at court from her twelfth 
 year, she was a very charming and virtuous person ; he did 
 not deny the fact, " but to believe there were many saints in 
 that country, he was not much inclined :" an incredulity am* 
 ply justified by the memoirs which remain of those licentious 
 limes. It was not until Evelyn was in some sort compelled 
 
228 WOMEN OF CHEISTTANITY. 
 
 to renew acquaintance with Mrs. Blagge at Whitehall, thai 
 he discovered his mistake ; and then beheld with admiration 
 " that so young, so elegant, so charming a wit and beauty, 
 should preserve so much virtue in a place where it neither 
 naturally grew, nor was much cultivated." 
 
 Acquaintance, for having been so long neglected, only 
 ripened the more rapidly into friendship. The singular and 
 unaffected piety of the young maid of honor touched the 
 good Evelyn to the heart : " What a new thing is this," he 
 said to himself ; " I think Paula and Eustochium are come 
 from Bethlehem to Whitehall." It was not long after this, 
 that, in a conversation, which Evelyn has very agreeably re- 
 lated, Mrs. Blagge, whom he had found somewhat pensive, 
 indirectly solicited his friendship, with a mixture of frankness 
 and finesse, that proved she had not lived at court in vain. 
 Half in jest and half in earnest, she even drew up, signed and 
 dated, a compact " of inviolable friendship," not the less sin- 
 cere for being a little sentimental ; and earnestly entreated 
 Evelyn, whose years warranted the request, to consider her 
 henceforth as his child. He agreed, with some emotion, to 
 do so ; and until her premature death, six years later, faith- 
 fully kept his promise of paternal affection. The first dawn 
 of their friendship appears by this entry in his Diary : " 31st 
 July (1672), I entertained the maids of honor (among whom 
 there was one I infinitely esteemed for her many and extra- 
 ordinary virtues) at a comedy this afternoon." Mrs. Blagge 
 is here indicated, though not mentioned ; in later entries she 
 is termed " my dear friend, Mrs. Blagge." 
 
 When their friendship began, Margaret Blagge was near 
 twenty. The loyalty and worth of her father — who lived to 
 see the restoration of the king, for whose father he had 
 bravely fought — procured for his orphan daughters the 
 doubtful advantage of becoming maids of honor in a most 
 profligate court. Margaret Blagge entered the household of 
 Anne Hyde, duchess of York, at twelve years of age ; and 
 in that difficult post, as well as in that of maid of honor to 
 Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II., she behaved with 
 a modesty and propriety, rare then and at any time. Her 
 diary contains some curious entries, concerning the rule of life 
 she found it necessary to observe : " When I go into the 
 withdrawing room," she writes, "let me consider what my 
 
MES. GODOLPHHST. 229 
 
 calling is : to entertain the ladies, not to talk foolishly to 
 men : more especially the king." She seems, indeed, to have 
 been much on her guard against the last-named personage ; 
 for further on she observes, " Be sure never to talk to the 
 king." 
 
 Never did more discreet and pious maid of honor adorn a 
 profligate court. Modest in her bearing ; devout to austerity 
 in prayer, fasting, and vigil ; yet free from ostentation ; de- 
 tached from the world and its pleasures ; cheerful, obliging, 
 prudent, and wise ; she united to the innocence and gentle 
 ardor of youth, virtues which are seldom possessed before 
 maturity of years brings judgment. The proof that her re- 
 ligion was not mere lip-worship, but sprang from her heart, 
 may be found in her extensive charities : " than which I know 
 no greater mark of a consummate Christian," writes Evelyn. 
 She gave much of her time and industry to " working for 
 poor people, cutting out and making waistcoats and other 
 necessary coverings, which she constantly distributed amongst 
 them, like another Dorcas." She diligently sought out and 
 visited the poor in " hospitals, humble cells, and cottages." 
 Her friend records that he often accompanied her on such 
 errands of mercy to obscure places of the town, or to lonely 
 dwellings in the outskirts. He dwells with admiration on 
 the patience and charity with which she administered to the 
 sick, condescending to the meanest offices ; and how, sitting 
 by them for whole afternoons, she instructed them with that 
 insinuating grace which charmed all who knew her. A poor 
 and good widow assisted her in her charities, and especially 
 in the difficult task of finding out worthy objects : it was 
 through her that Mrs. Blagge distributed weekly pensions, 
 looked after orphan children, put them to school, and paid 
 the debts of poor prisoners. Her income, which was not 
 large, was spent thus ; and when Evelyn accused her of pro- 
 fusion, she only smiled. He confesses, that though he knew 
 of twenty-three indigent persons whom Mrs. Blagge " clad at 
 one time," this was only a very inconsiderable portion of her 
 charity ; which she strove to keep secret, by walking out 
 alone and on foot, in the midst of winter, when the weather 
 was such that a servant would not have been sent out, in or- 
 der to minister privately to poor creatures for whom she alone 
 cared. 
 
230 WOMEN OF CHBISTTA2UTY. 
 
 To these tasks did Margaret Blagge devote herself in the 
 bloom of youth and beauty, and surrounded by pleasures 
 which have had power to charm the senses and the heart of 
 the wisest. The contrast between the mode of life to which 
 her post called her, and that to which inclination led her, is 
 affectingly described, by Evelyn. " Often have I known her 
 privately slip away, and. break from the gay and public com- 
 pany, the greatest entertainments, and greatest persons too of 
 the court, to make a step to some miserable, poor, sick crea- 
 •ture, whilst those she quitted have wondered why she went 
 from the conversation ; and more they would, had they seen 
 how the scene was changed from a kingly palace to some 
 mean cottage, from the company of princes to poor neces- 
 sitous wretches, when by-and-by she would return as cheer- 
 ful, and in good-humor, as if she had been about some 
 worldly concern, and excuse her absence in the most inno- 
 cent manner imaginable. Never must I forget the innocent 
 pleasure she took in doing charities. 'Twas one day that I 
 was with her, when seeing a poor creature on the streets, 
 ' How,' says she to me, ' how will I make that miserable 
 wretch rejoice !' upon which she sent him ten times more 
 than I am confident he ever could expect. This she spake, 
 not as boasting, but so as one might perceive her very soul 
 lifted up in secret joy, to consider how the miserable man 
 would be made happy with the surprise." 
 
 In order to assist the poor more freely, Mrs. Blagge re- 
 stricted her own expenses. Few things pained her more 
 than money ill-spent ; she could not always refuse to play at 
 cards, but the money which she won was devoted to charity, 
 and that which she lost bitterly regretted : as is testified by 
 the following entry in her diary : 
 
 " June the 2d. 
 
 " I will never play this half-year, but at threepenny ombre, 
 and then with one at halves. I will not ; I do not vow, but 
 I will not do it. What ! loose money at cards, yet not give 
 the poor ! 'Tis robbing God, misspending time, and misem- 
 ploying my talents — three great sins. Three pounds would 
 have kept three people from starving a month : well, I will 
 not play." 
 
MES. GODOLPHIN. 231 
 
 Although she filled every duty of her place with propriety 
 and grace, Mrs. Blagge could not be said to be suited to it ; 
 or rather, it was not suited to her. She wearied of tasks 
 that brought no satisfaction in their accomplishment : of the 
 monotonous round of pleasures that gave her no amusement, 
 and to which she secretly objected. She at length obtained 
 the permission of retiring from court ; and her joy to leave it 
 was such, that, on entering her apartment, she knelt and 
 gave thanks to God, for thus mercifully calling her away 
 from the land of her exile and bondage. Her eyes sparkled, 
 her cheeks were flushed ; and, as she entered the carriage 
 that bore her away, she could scarcely contain her joy. 
 
 On thus leaving court, Mrs. Blagge went to reside with 
 her friend Lady Berkeley, from whose house she afterwards 
 contemplated retiring to a remote country home, where she 
 intended leading the meditative and lonely life of the widows 
 and virgins of the primitive Church ; a design from which 
 the arguments of Evelyn contributed to divert her : we say 
 contributed, because there was, at that very time, a feeling 
 in her heart which pleaded more powerfully than all his ar- 
 guments against a life of ascetic solitude. 
 
 Margaret Blagge was still very young when her beauty 
 began to attract attention at court. Amongst her admirers 
 was a silent and serious gentleman, of ancient family, but no 
 great wealth : Sidney Godolphin, the future minister and 
 earl. He proved the favored suitor.- Absence, sickness, and 
 time, had no power over an attachment to which the limited 
 means of the lovers raised serious obstacles for upwards of 
 nine vears. When she left court, Mrs. Blagge began to con- 
 sider whether, the difficulties to her union with Mr. Godol- 
 phin being such, it would not be better, in every respect, to 
 relinquish the alliance : she protested that she did not intend 
 to love him less, but she confessed that she thought a life of 
 6olitude would give her greater and better opportunities of 
 serving God. Had she been a Catholic, Mrs. Blagge would 
 assuredly have entered a convent : her whole feelings, her 
 whole soul, tended towards a calm retreat, where she might 
 worship God, free from the snares which will beset the pu- 
 rest fife. She termed the nunneries which she saw in France, 
 " holy institutions ;" " if they are abused," she continued, 
 writing to Evelyn, " 'tis not their fault : what is not per- 
 
232 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 « 
 
 verted ?" She exalted the excellence t>f the single state, its 
 purity, its detachment from undue cares and affections ; and 
 at the very time that she spoke so, her heart was torn and 
 divided. She now found it hard to leave him whom she 
 loved, for pious exercises and holy duties ; what then would 
 it be to leave him forever ? The greatness of the sacrifice 
 alternately allured and deterred her. 
 
 " The Lord help me, dear friend," she wrote to Evelyn, 
 "I know not what to determine: sometimes I think one 
 thing, sometimes another ; one day I fancy no life so pure as 
 the unmarried, another day I think it less exemplary, and 
 that the married life has more opportunity of exercising char- 
 ity ; and then again, that 'tis full of solicitude and worldli- 
 ness, so as what I shall do I know not." The strength of the 
 conflict reveals itself better in the impassioned language of 
 another letter : " Much afflicted, and in great agony, was 
 your poor friend this day, to think of the love of the holy 
 Jesus, and yet be so little able to make him any return. For 
 with what fervor have I protested against all affections to the 
 things of this world : resigned them all, without exception ; 
 when, the first moment I am tried, I shrink away, and am 
 passionately fond of the creature, and forgetful of the Crea- 
 tor. This, when I considered, I fell on my knees, and, with 
 many tears, begged of God to assist me with his grace, and 
 banish from me all concern but that of heavenly things, and 
 wholly to possess my heart himself, and either relieve me in 
 this conflict, now so long sustained, or continue to me strength 
 to resist it, still fearing, if the combat cease not in time, I 
 should repine for being put upon so hard a duty. But then 
 again, when I call to mind the grace of self-denial, the honors 
 of suffering for my Saviour, the reward proposed for those 
 that conquer, the delights I shall conceive in seeing and en- 
 joying him, the happiness of the life above, I that am thus 
 feeble, thus fearful, call (out of exercise of his grace) yea, for 
 tribulation, for persecution, for contradictions, and for every 
 thing agreeable to the spirit, and displeasing to the flesh." 
 
 Hard, however, are these sacrifices of human to divine love. 
 In the very midst of her triumph, Margaret Blagge sorrow- 
 fully exclaims, " Happy, ah ! happy are you, my friend, that 
 are past that mighty love to the creature." The event proved 
 that she had over-estimated her own strength; for on the 
 
MRS. GODOLPHIST. 233 
 
 16th of May, of the year 1675, she was privately married, in 
 the Temple Church, to Sidney Godolphin. 
 
 Somewhat unkindly, it must be confessed, Evelyn was not 
 so much as made acquainted with this circumstance : she who 
 had called him her father, and entreated him to consider her 
 his child ; who had confided to him the most secret thoughts 
 and desires of her heart ; who had requested his advice on 
 that very step which she now took, did not request him to 
 sanction it with his presence. The secretive temper of her 
 bridegroom overruled her own wishes : her regret and peni- 
 tence for having, for the first time, prevaricated with her old 
 friend, were so great, that Evelyn, though hurt at heart, 
 thought himself bound to check their expression. 
 
 Upwards of a year elapsed before Mr. and Mrs. Godolphin 
 could declare their marriage. At length they did so ; and a 
 passage from one of the letters which Mrs. Godolphin ad- 
 dressed to her friend, shows, in a very pleasing light, her 
 mode of life, and the happiness she found in this new state. 
 " Lord, when I this day considered my happiness, in having 
 so perfect health of body, cheerfulness of mind, no disturb- 
 ance from without, nor grief within, my time my own, my 
 house quiet and pretty, all manner of conveniences for serv- 
 ing God, in public and private, how happy in my friends, 
 husband, relations, servants, credit, and none to wait or at- 
 tend on, but my dear and beloved God, from whom I receive 
 all this, what a melting joy ran through me at the thoughts 
 of all these mercies, and how did I think myself obliged to go 
 to the foot of my Redeemer, and acknowledge my own un- 
 worthiness of his favor ; but then what words was I to make 
 use of? — truly, at first, of none at all; but a devout silence 
 did speak for me. But after that I poured out my prayers, 
 and was in amazement that there should be such a sin as 
 ingratitude in the world, and that any should neglect this 
 great duty. But why do I say all this to you, my friend ? 
 Truly that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
 speaketh, and I am still so full of it, that I cannot forbear 
 expressing my thoughts to you." 
 
 We think we may venture to say, that if no more were 
 known of Mrs. Godolphin's life and character than this frag- 
 ment of a letter, written nearlytwo centuries ago, we should 
 still be able to pronounce her a good and generous woman. 
 
234 WOMEN OF CHEISTIAHTTT. 
 
 The blessings of life are not always bestowed on the good ; 
 but only the good know how to be happy, for to them alone 
 are the excellence and purity of God's gifts fully revealed. 
 
 But one blessing — a child — had been denied to Mrs. Go- 
 dolphin : it was granted at the cost of her life. The event is 
 thus narrated in Evelyn's Diary, 3d September (1678) : " I 
 went to London to dine with Mrs. Godolphin, and found her 
 in labor : she was brought to bed of a son, who was baptized 
 in the chamber by the name of Francis." 
 
 "8th. Whilst I was at church, came a letter from Mr. 
 Godolphin, that my dear friend his lady was exceedingly ill, 
 and desiring my prayers and assistance. My wife and I took 
 boat immediately and went to Whitehall, where, to my inex- 
 pressible sorrow, I found she had been attacked with the 
 new fever then reigning this excessive hot autumn, and 
 which was so violent that it was not thought she could last 
 many hours." Remedies were applied, but only seemed to 
 aggravate the disease ; on the morning of the following day, 
 Mrs. Godolphin, exhausted by her sufferings, and also 
 perhaps by the violence of the remedies, gently expired, 
 with her hand in that of her old friend. She was scarcely 
 twenty-six, and' had been married three years. Her hus- 
 band, struck with unspeakable affliction, fell down as dead. 
 His sorrow was long and enduring : he never married again. 
 
 On Evelyn, who had loved her as his own child, devolved 
 the sad duty of superintending her funeral ; for she had re- 
 quested to be buried in Cornwall with her husband's friends, 
 and in the spot where she knew that he was to be laid one 
 day. Her wishes were fulfilled : speaking of his part in this 
 matter, Evelyn writes : " Having closed the eyes, and drop- 
 ped a tear on the cheek of my dear departed friend, lovely 
 even in death, I caused her corpse to be embalmed and 
 wrapped in lead, a plate of brass soldered thereon, with an in- 
 scription, and other circumstances due to her worth, with as 
 much diligence and care as my grieved heart would permit 
 me ; I then retired home for two days, which were spent in 
 solitude and sad reflection." 
 
 They " had prayed, visited the sick and miserable, re- 
 ceived, read, discoursed, and communicated in all holy offices 
 together ;" and there is, in such friendships, a love that not 
 even death can sever. In memorial of the virtues of her 
 
LADY MAINAJKD. 235 
 
 whom lie had known and loved, Evelyn wrote her life. 
 Alliances between the two families perpetuated the memory 
 of their affection ; uniting in the holy ties of blood and kin- 
 dred, those whose aricestors and relatives had freely contract- 
 ed the noUless sacred bond of inviolable friendship. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 ]>-dy Mainard — Margaret Baxter — Elizabeth Burnet — Lady Neville- 
 Elizabeth Bury — Catherine Bovey — LettioePigot — MaryAstell — Ladj 
 Bachel Kussel. 
 
 The friendship of Thomas Kenn, bishop of Bath and 
 Wells, for the good Lady Mainard, has left us the only record 
 we possess of that lady's life and character. She was, he 
 tells us, a royalist by birth and opinion ; and* in the civil 
 wars she relieved liberally the suffering members of her 
 party ; but after the Restoration, she lived like a recluse at 
 the profligate courts of Charles II. and his successor. The 
 bishop, who knew her well, and for many years, did not 
 think that she had ever fallen into one mortal sin ; and he 
 praises the fervor of her devotion, the pui'ity of her life, and, 
 above all, her disinterestedness and liberal charity. She de- 
 sired not riches for herself, or, what is more rare, for her 
 children ; she shunned them as " dangerous things, which did 
 only clog and press down our souls to this earth." Her 
 means were moderate, but her charity was great. Besides 
 the extensive relief which she privately afforded to the 
 needy, she had made herself " the common physician of her 
 sick neighbors, and would often,, with her own hands, dress 
 their most loathsome sores, and sometimes keep them in her 
 family ; and would give them both diet and lodging, till 
 they were cured, and then clothe them and send them home, 
 to give God thanks for their recovery ; and if they died, her 
 charity accompanied them sometimes to the very grave, and 
 she took care even of their burial." 
 
 Like another Paula, this Christian mother would not allow 
 over-anxiety for her children to interfere with the relief she 
 afforded to the poor : she thought that alms and the poor's 
 
236 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 prayers would bring in a greater blessing to them than thou 
 sands a year. " Look abroad now in the world," exclaims 
 Bishop Kenn, " and see how rarely you shall meet with a 
 charity like that of this gracious woman, who, next to her 
 own flesh and blood, was tender of the poor, and thought an 
 alms as much due to them as portions to her children." To 
 crown her virtues, she was a most indulgent mistress, and 
 treated her servants like one who was always mindful " that 
 she herself had a Master in heaven." This amiable, though 
 little known woman, died in the year 1682. 
 
 Contemporary writers have extolled the piety and virtues 
 of ladies now scarcely remembered. Anne Killigrew, the 
 poetess, praised by Dryden, died in the flower of her age ; 
 worthy, it is said, of the laudatory epitaph inscribed on her 
 tombstone. The learning and piety of Anne Baynard drew 
 no less admiration ; the names of Lady Grace Gethin, Lady 
 Halket, Lady Masham, and of Susannah Hopton, eminent for 
 her charity, are still remembered in religious biography. 
 
 Among these memorials of the good and pious women of 
 the seventeenth century, there is one to which the generous 
 character of the heroine, the name of the writer, and the grave 
 and solemn tone of the composition, give peculiar interest: 
 we allude to the life of Margaret Baxter, written by her hus- 
 band, the celebrated- non-conformist divine. 
 
 Richard Baxter has delineated the character of the woman 
 whom he loved — and who shared his sufferings, his prison, 
 and his labors — with much delicacy, power, and eloquence. 
 The affection of an earnest soul that can feel passion, but that 
 never sinks into weakness, appears in every page. Few have 
 read without some emotion the sad and humble deprecation in 
 the opening : " Reader, while I give thee but the truth, forgive 
 the effects of age, weakness, and grief. As the man is, such 
 will be his thoughts and works." And who, after perusing 
 this life of a wile written by her husband, sees no beauty is 
 the proud confession with which it closes : " Perhaps love and 
 grief may make me speak more than many will think fit. But 
 though some passion blind the judgment, some doth but ex- 
 cite it to duty ; and God made it to that end ; and I will not 
 be judged by any that never felt the like." He might have 
 added, that not only those who had never loved, but those 
 who had not had such a woman to tove, were unfit to judge 
 him. It may sometimes happen that unworthy objects in- 
 
MA KG ABET BAXTER. 237 
 
 spire devoted passions ; but can such feelings evei - equal, in 
 force and intensity, the love which a noble being awakens in 
 a generous heart ? 
 
 The life, character, and writings of Kichard Baxter are well 
 known : his strength of principle, his moderation, his earnest- 
 ness and fervor, have secured the admiration and respect of 
 posterity. He belonged to those whom sufferings have no 
 power to embitter, and whom their own wrongs cannot ren- 
 der partisans : a rare class at any time, and certainly very 
 rare in the political and religious excitement of the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 "In France and in England that century was characterized 
 by a struggle between the principles of worldliness and devo- 
 tion, which is indeed of every age, but which was then strong- 
 er than it has been since, and more relentless in England than 
 elsewhere. The memoirs, plays, and various writings of the 
 times, paint two worlds, between which yawns an impassable 
 abyss. For where shall we find a link between the false glit- 
 ter, the impious wit, the extravagance, the gross profligacy of 
 the court, and the gloom, the rigidity, the enthusiasm of the 
 morose Puritans in their austere homes ? Divided by a deep 
 hatred, as much as by the difference of their tempers and in- 
 clinations, they were pitiless in their mutual reprobation : their 
 censure was scorn, and scorn is cruel. Their life was a per- 
 petual warfare : the worldly called their enemy hypocrisy — 
 the devout named him Satan. 
 
 Yet, in the midst of all this utrife, so little favorable to char- 
 ity, did. virtue and gentle piety assert their rights in many 
 good and amiable beings ; and of these Margaret Baxter, 
 though fervent and enthusiastic, was assuredly one. In her 
 were blended qualities the most opposed — ardor and gentle- 
 ness, timidity and courage. Her character, though frank and 
 firm, was like her theological belief, full of nice and subtle 
 distinctions ; above which it often rose. The portrait traced 
 by her husband looks true ; and though in some points con- 
 tradictory, it may not be less real for this. The two princi- 
 ples which divided the age — worldliness and devotion — also 
 divided her life. 
 
 When Richard Baxter, " son of a mean freeholder," and 
 Margaret Charlton, daughter of Francis Charlton, justice of 
 the peace, first met in Kidderminster, there seemed little 
 chance of their future union. Difference of rank, age, and 
 
238 "WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 temper divided them. Baxter was nearly fifty, and had long 
 given up all thoughts of marriage ; and Margaret Charlton 
 then little past twenty, was " glittering herself in costly ap- 
 parel, and delighting in her romances :" for, as we are inform- 
 ed .before this, " in her vain youth, pride and romances, and 
 company suitable thereto, did take her up ; and an impru- 
 dent, rigid governess, that her mother had set over her in her 
 absence, had done her hurt by poisoning her with ill thoughts 
 of strictness in religion." When the young and gay Marga- 
 ret came to Kidderminster to see her mother, " she had," we 
 are told, " great aversion to the poverty and strictness" of 
 Richard Baxter's flock. She continued in this mood until a 
 strange and sudden change came over her : the doctrine ot 
 conversion, as preached by Baxter, was received in her heart 
 as the seal on wax. For a long time, being naturally of a se- 
 cretive temper, she would not confess the alteration. The 
 house in which she then resided was large, and the middle 
 part had been ruined in the civil wars ; she chose a closet at 
 the further end, where she retired whenever her soul was 
 troubled, and prayed aloud. Without her knowledge, some 
 listened to these secret outpourings of her heart, and declared 
 that never from any person had they heard such devout pray- 
 ers. Thus, and to the great joy of her relatives, was discov- 
 ered the change from worldliness and religious indifference to 
 faith and its fervent aspirations, which Margaret continued to 
 conceal from those most near to her. She might have many 
 motives for doing so. Richard Baxter has not exactly said 
 that his eloquence had wrought the change ; but it is certain 
 that it was so ; and, though he has not confessed it, it is not 
 doubtful that human feelings, in which he had a part, accom- 
 panied the agitation inseparable from so great an alteration in 
 the heart of Margaret Charlton. She herself wrote about 
 this time, analyzing her feelings, as was her habit : " How 
 hard it is to keep our hearts in going too far, even in honest 
 affections, towards the creature, while we are so backward to 
 love God, who should have all the heart, and soul, and might ! 
 Too strong love to any, though it be good in the kind, may 
 yet be sinful and hurtful in the degree. 1. It will turn too 
 many of your thoughts from Gad, and they will be too often 
 running after the beloved creature. 2. And by this exercise 
 of thoughts and affections on the creature, it may divert and 
 cool your love of God, which will not be kept up unless om 
 
MARGAKET BAXTER. 239 
 
 thoughts be kept more to him ; yea, though it be for his sake 
 that you love them. 3. It will increase your suffering, by in- 
 teresting you in all the dangers and troubles of those whom 
 you overlove." 
 
 But when did reason wholly prevail over the feelings that 
 sway the heart and become its very life ? This dreary tri- 
 umph was not reserved to Margaret Charlton : it was, in- 
 deed, most difficult to contend against her passion. When 
 she sank into a decline, from which her recovery was not ex- 
 pected, the prayers and fasts of one ah-eady too dear, were 
 offered up in her behalf. She recovered in a manner esteem- 
 ed miraculous ; but remained oppressed with a strange sad- 
 ness, that was partly the result of temperament. 
 
 Whatever suspicions might have been entertained of the 
 truth, the announcement of her marriage with Baxter created 
 some surprise, which was, indeed, warranted by her youth, 
 wealth, and superior rank. He gives on this subject the fol- 
 lowing imperfect explanation : " The unsuitableness of our 
 age, and my former known purpose against marriage, and 
 against the conveniency of ministers' marriage, who have no 
 sort of necessity, made our marriage the matter of much pub- 
 lic talk and wonder. And the true opening of her case and 
 mine, and the many strange occurrences which brought it to 
 pass, would take away the wonder of her friends and mine 
 that knew us, and the notice of it would much conduce to 
 the understanding of some other passages of our lives. Yet 
 wise friends by whom I am advised, think it better to omit 
 such personal particularities, at least at this time. Both in 
 her case . and mine there was much extraordinary, which it 
 doth not much concern the world to be acquainted with. 
 From the first thoughts of it, many changes and stoppages 
 intervened, and long delays, till I was silenced and ejected 
 with many hundreds more ; and so, being separated from 
 my old pastoral charge, which was enough to take up all 
 my time and labor, some of my dissuading reasons were then 
 over. And at last, on September the 10th, 1662, we were 
 married in Bennet Fink Church, by Mr. Samuel Clark, having 
 before been contracted by Mr. Simeon Ash, both in the pres- 
 ence of Mr. Ashunt and Mrs. Ash." 
 
 Margaret Baxter was then twenty-three, her husband was 
 forty-seven ; but difference of age, which had not prevented 
 love, could prove no bar to married happiness. Baxter ac- 
 
240 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 knowledges with much simplicity, that "when they were 
 married, her sadness and melancholy vanished." They never 
 returned, in spite of all the toil and care to which this union 
 led. Though one of the most moderate of nonconformists, 
 Baxter was bitterly persecuted : sudden and frequent re- 
 movals, heavy losses, and finally prison, entered into his lot. 
 His wife bore every thing with courage and love ; and where- 
 ever they went, endeared herself to all, by her amiable tem- 
 per and abundant charity. Too firm and ardent in her faith 
 to shrink from persecution, she labored to extend her hus- 
 band's ministry, and shared his prison as she had shared his 
 home: when he was carried to the common jail, she cheer- 
 fully accompanied him, and brought her best bed with her. 
 
 The record which Richard Baxter has left of his wife's 
 efforts in what she esteemed the cause of truth, shows her to 
 have possessed a mind of singular energy and resources, as 
 well as a zealous and indefatigable temper. She spent much 
 to establish places of nonconformist worship, and had the 
 ignorant children of St. James's taught at her expense. She 
 ended by exhausting her means ; and on this subject her 
 husband observes : " I take it yet for a greater part of her 
 charity, that when her own estate proved much too short to 
 maintain her in the exercise of such good works as she was 
 devoted to, she at length refused not to accept with thanks 
 the liberality of others, and to live partly on charity, that she 
 might exercise charity to them that could not so easily get it 
 from others as we could do." For one of her naturally proud 
 temper, this was, indeed, no slight concession made to charity. 
 Baxter confesses that " her expectations of liberality to the 
 poor from others were too high, and her displeasure too great 
 towards them that denied : whereupon, when she saw a wor- 
 thy person in debt, or prison, or great want, she would prom- 
 ise to gather them such a sum ; and sometimes she was put to 
 pay most of it herself. But a fortnight or month before she 
 died, she promised to get twenty pounds towards the relief of 
 one of known name'and worth, and could get but eight pounds, 
 and somewhat over of it, and paid all the rest herself." 
 
 " Her judgment was, that we ought to give, more or less, 
 to every one that asketh, if we have it ; and that neighbor- 
 hood, and notice and asking, next to known indigence and 
 great worth, are the marks by which to know to whom God 
 would have us give. I thought that, besides these, we must 
 
MARGARET BAXTER. 'Ail 
 
 exercise prudence in discerning the degrees of need and worth. 
 But she practised as she thought, and especially to those im- 
 prisoned for debt, and blamed me if I denied any one." 
 
 " Alas ! I know many poor widows, and others, who think 
 they have now lost a mother, and are left desolate, whom 
 I could wish some that are able would help, instead of the 
 help they have lost." 
 
 So sincere, indeed, was the charity of Margaret Baxter, 
 that, besides the presents she accepted, she borrowed to ex- 
 tend her alms ; and at her death, there still remained some 
 of these debts of mercy unpaid. She had always been deli- 
 cate ; and a brief illness carried her off in June, 1681, in the 
 forty-second year of her age. 
 
 The grief of her husband was deep. They had been mar- 
 ried nineteen years, and had spent that time in untroubled 
 union, peace, and love. The aid which, in all his worldly 
 afflictions, and often too in spiritual difficulties, he had de- 
 rived from her, is gratefully and touchingly acknowledged by 
 Richard Baxter. Although he speaks of her " weak and too 
 passionate nature," he has drawn in her a woman of no ordi- 
 nary character and acquirements. Quick, sensitive, gentle, — 
 too ardent, perhaps, in the good at which she herself aimed 
 or expected from others, too intense in her affections and de- 
 sires, — she was yet of a lofty and generous nature. Though 
 she was far from acting hastily, and was all for prudence and 
 deliberation, calmness was the virtue, or rather the state of 
 mind she most needed. She felt it herself, for she had a 
 morbid apprehension of madness, to which some members of 
 her family had been subject. Her own understanding was 
 unusually firm and clear; but, as her husband confesses, 
 " like the treble strings of a lute, strained up to the highest 
 — sweet, but in continual danger." Her fears were partly 
 realized, for she died in a state of delirium ; yet even then 
 her thoughts were all fixed on God. 
 
 The natural reluctance of Baxter to record charities in the 
 merit of which he shared, has prevented him from giving a 
 detailed account of the good deeds with which his wife filled 
 her life ; yet she was undoubtedly one of the most charitable 
 women of England during this age : remarkable not only for" 
 the amount she gave, but also for the spirt in which it was 
 given, 
 
 11 
 
242 WOMEN OF CHKISTIAISnTY. 
 
 Charity is also to be found in the opposite ranks. The 
 wife of Richard Baxter was not, indeed^ equalled by the wife 
 of Gilbert Burnet; but the virtues of the latter, though 
 mild and modest, are worthy of record. The meddling and 
 officious Bishop of Salisbury is celebrated for his conjugal 
 good fortune : the animosity of his opponents, the sarcasms 
 of Swift or Dryden, could not reach him there. He married 
 three times, and well, in every sense of the word. His first 
 wife was Lady Margaret Kennedy, daughter of the Earl of 
 Cassilis. He was a widower when he retired to Holland on 
 the accession of James II. His matrimonial good fortune 
 still attended him ; he contracted a second marriage with 
 Mrs. Mary Scott, a lady of Scottish descent, wealthy and 
 highly connected. She died of the small-pox, in time to 
 make room for her successor, Mrs. Berkeley, a widow lady 
 of great piety and virtue, literary, rich, and, if we may trust 
 her portraits, sufficiently handsome. 
 
 This last marriage took place about the year 1699. Mrs. 
 Berkeley was then thirty-eight, and had been nearly seven 
 years a widow. She was scarcely seventeen when Dr. Fell, 
 bishop of Oxford, procured her marriage with his ward, Rob- 
 ert Berkeley of Spetchley, in Worcestershire. So great an 
 opinion had the prelate of her worth, that he declared the 
 greatest obligation his ward had ever received from him was 
 his marriage with Miss Elizabeth Blake. 
 
 The young bride entered her new family under circumstan- 
 ces very delicate at all times, but still more so in an age more 
 remarkable for strong religious feeling than for tolerance. 
 Her husband was, like herself, a Protestant ; but his mother, 
 " a woman of good life," was a zealous Catholic. This latter 
 circumstance, joined to the influence which she possessed 
 over her son ; the fear young Mrs. Berkeley had of seeing 
 her husband change his creed, her wish to keep him faithful 
 to it, her reluctance to engage in religious discussions, and her 
 earnest desire to remain at peace where peace was an espe- 
 cial duty, rendered her position one of great difficulty. Young 
 as she was, she behaved with a prudence and discretion that 
 won the good opinion of those whose religious opinions were 
 most opposed to herown. 
 
 Mrs. Berkeley did not feel, however, very secure of her 
 husband's constancy ; for on the accession of James II., she 
 induced him to visit Holland, in order to keep out of the reach 
 
ELIZABETH, WIFE OF BISHOP BTJKNET. 243 
 
 of temptation. They travelled over the seventeen provinces, 
 and were especially well received in those that professed the 
 Catholic faith, and where Mr. Berkeley had relatives. Of his 
 wife, it was said in private letters : " If she were of the Cath- 
 olic Church, her piety and virtue are great enough to entitle 
 her to the character of a saint." 
 
 They settled at the Hague, where they remained until the 
 Revolution called the Prince of Orange to the throne. They 
 then returned to England, residing at Spetchley. Dr. Stil- 
 lingfleet, bishop of Worcester, was so much charmed with 
 Mrs. Berkeley, that he often said of her : " he knew not a 
 more considerable woman in England than she was." His 
 successor, Dr. William Lloyd, and Dr. Talbot, bishop of Dur- 
 ham, likewise held her in great esteem. In 1693 Mr. Berke- 
 ley died ; his widow remained mistress of an ample fortune, 
 which she devoted almost entirely to deeds of charity. She 
 likewise put into execution the benevolent intentions of her 
 late husband, who had left a considerable sum to erect a 
 hospital at Worcester, and continued the poor-schools which 
 she had established during his lifetime. 
 
 When nearly seven years had elapsed, Mrs. Berkeley mar- 
 ried the Bishop of Salisbury. His object was to secure a 
 companion for himself, and a mother for his children. He 
 certainly had no views on her property, since he wished it to 
 remain wholly at her disposal, both during her lifetime and 
 after her death ; and he even desired that she would continue 
 to devote it entirely to charitable uses. Mrs. Burnet refused 
 to do. so : she allowed a moderate sum for her board ; the 
 rest was for the poor. Her personal expenses seldom went 
 beyond the one-fifth of her income, and were oftener within 
 it ; when they exceeded these moderate limits, she felt as un- 
 comfortable as others after having been too generous or prod- 
 igal. " The being rich in good works," writes one of her 
 biographers, " was visibly the greatest design of her whole 
 life, and that which she most of all delighted in." 
 
 Upwards of a hundred children were taught at her expense, 
 in and about Worcester and Salisbury. Notwithstanding her 
 little leisure, she found time to engage in the composition of 
 a religious work, entitled "A Method of Devotion," once 
 highly popular. Though Mrs. Bumet could not exactly be 
 termed learned, she was certainly intellectual, as well as good. 
 Her conversation is described as very cheerful and attraptive j 
 
244 -WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 for, like most persons whose piety is practical, and not con- 
 fined to points of doctrine, she was not gloomy or morose ; 
 but, by the aspect which she gave it, recommended religion 
 to the world. , 
 
 The beauty of her character, which was especially visible 
 in private life, secured to Mrs. Burnet the affection of her hus- 
 band and of his children : she treated them as her own, and 
 they loved and respected her as their mother. It was a due 
 sense of her worth, and not conjugal weakness, that induced 
 Burnet to leave, by his will, more power to his wife over his 
 children than natural mothers are often allowed. Mrs. Bur- 
 net did not live to enjoy this proof of esteem ; for, though 
 eighteen years younger than her husband, she was the first 
 to die. Fasting, watching, and other religious austerities, had 
 weakened her constitution, which was naturally delicate. She 
 began to decline in llOl, and died of a pleuritic fever in the 
 early part of the following year. She was buried at Spetch- 
 ley, beside her first husband, according to a promise which 
 she had formerly made to him ; and not, as she said in her 
 will, " out of any want of respect or kindness to her present 
 husband, who had, by his great kindness and confidence, de- 
 served from her all the gratitude and acknowledgments of 
 love and respect she could testify." 
 
 Like Elizabeth Burnet, several women of the seventeenth 
 century had their lives prolonged into the eighteenth ; yet 
 may be considered as belonging, by their birth and their vir- 
 tues, to the age they outlived. In 11 15 died the good Lady 
 Katherine Neville, at Auburgh, in Lincolnshire. She was 
 not only mean in her dress, in order-to be able to give more, 
 but she spent considerable sums yearly in physic for the sick. 
 Three times a week she relieved the parish poor, and daily 
 assisted the strangers who applied at the door. 
 
 Elizabeth Bury is celebrated no less for learning than for 
 piety and charity. She was lively and witty in conversation, 
 and could study the most abstruse, as well as the lightest of 
 sciences : Anatomy, in which she made great progress, and 
 divinity, were her favorite pursuits. The whole of her life 
 seems to have been devoted to learning and good deeds : she 
 gave much to the French refugees, to the poor, and to char- 
 ity schools. She greatly approved the setting apart, to pious 
 and charitable uses, a certain portion of every one's income or 
 fortune ; " for then," she quaintly said, " they will not grudge 
 
MKS. LETTICE PIGOTT.- 245 
 
 to give out of a bag that is no longer their own." This ami 
 able woman was twice married ; her second husband, Mr. 
 Bury, was a dissenting minister. After a long illness, and in 
 the seventy-seventh year of her age, she died, with a smile 
 on her lips. 
 
 If Catherine Bovey did not possess her learning, she more 
 than rivalled her charity. Young, beautiful, and wealthy, a 
 childless widow of twenty-two, she refused to marry again, 
 in order to devote her riches to works of piety, to divers kinds 
 of charity, to hospitality, and to the encouragement of learn- 
 ing. The charms of her person were celebrated by more 
 than one writer of the times ; and Sir Richard Steele, in dedi- 
 cating to her the Ladies' Library, records the charity which 
 sought out " the fatherless and the widow, the neglected 
 man of merit, the wretch on the sick-bed ; in a word, the 
 distressed under all forms." She died at Flaxley, her seat in 
 Gloucestershire. A long epitaph records her virtues in the 
 spot where they were best known, and where all could testify 
 to its truth. 
 
 We cannot pass in silence the charity of Mrs. Lettice 
 Pigott, of Doddershall, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. 
 The poor daily besieged her gates, and never departed 
 unrelieved. For- thirty years she gave every week, to six 
 indigent poor of her parish, as much good bread and beer 
 as would suffice for several persons ; and to this she yearly 
 added a present of linen cloth and money. Her charity 
 lowered the poor-rates of her parish : to which it was not, 
 however, confined. 
 
 The means of alms so extensive were not granted to 
 Mary Astell ; who deserves, however, to be remembered for 
 the zeal with which, as a writer, she defended her religious 
 opinions, and advocated the rights of her sex. Like Lady 
 Falkland, she wished for colleges and retreats for women. 
 A great lady, convinced by her arguments, was ready to give 
 ten thousand pounds towards this scheme ; but Bishop 
 Burnet interfered, with his usual officiousness, and by pro- 
 testing against this imitation of Catholic nunneries, " utterly 
 frustrated that noble design." 
 
 Although Lady Rachel Russell is more celebrated for her 
 conjugal love, her misfortunes, her noble and amiable tem- 
 per, and her fulfilment of every domestic duty, than for that 
 exclusive devotion to religion and charity, which we have 
 
240 WOMEN' OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 attempted to commemorate in the preceding pages, we 
 cannot close this account of Christian women in England, 
 :during the seventeenth century, without at least including 
 her name. It tells its own touching and well-known story : 
 it recalls her as her contemporaries beheld her, sitting by 
 her husband, and taking notes during his trial ; consoling 
 him in his prison, and wearing a calm, almost cheerful mien, 
 at the very time her heart was breaking with love and grief. 
 When was a great sorrow so deeply felt, yet so simply 
 borne, as during the last silent parting witnessed by Burnet ; 
 and which, when she had, left him, made Lord William 
 Russell exclaim, " The bitterness of death is past !" 
 
 Affecting as is her story, Lady Rachel Russell owes less 
 to its touching incidents than to her letters. Their simple 
 and unconscious pathos has not yet grown old ; but their 
 greatest charm is, that they show her as she was : simple, 
 good, and earnest, a grace and ornament to the age in which 
 she lived. 
 
 Of that age we do not wish to say too much — to repre- 
 sent it as better than it was ; yet a great age it will assuredly 
 be thought in history : the goodness of the good, the bad- 
 ness of the evil, were both remarkable. But the contrast 
 is lost here, for we have given only one side of the picture. 
 We have told of ladies who made themselves the servants 
 of their vassals ; but to show how deep was their humility, 
 we should have painted, in all their insolence, those who 
 daily triumphed over the poor. We have related the de- 
 votedness of the first Sisters of Charity, but not the bitter 
 and contemptuous neglect of previous years. To portray 
 the character of Mrs. Godolphin in all its holy purity, 
 should we not have delineated the court of Charles II. in 
 all its profligacy ? The age which produced Lady Rachel 
 Russell, also gave birth to that Countess of Shrewsbury, 
 who, disguised as a page, is said to have held the bridle of 
 Buckingham whilst he fought with her hapless husband. 
 
 We do not say that these extremes of evil produced the 
 corresponding extremes of good. But who shall say that 
 those who had already chosen virtue as their part, found her 
 not the more lovely for beholding sin in its odiousness ; that 
 their purity, their charity, their faith, were not silent, though 
 most eloquent protests, against things permitted by man, 
 but condemned by God ? 
 
FOURTH PERIOD. 
 EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES, 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe — Lady Elizabeth Hastings— Hannah More- 
 Countess of Huntingdon. 
 
 Whatever may have been the merits of the eighteenth 
 century, it cannot be accused of too ardent a zeal for the glory 
 of God, or of excess of charity for the poor. It was essentially 
 an intellectual, reasoning age ; more philosophic, more enlight- 
 ened than the seventeenth century, but cold, sceptical, and too 
 often heartless. The exceptions we shall offer by no means 
 disprove this general rule. There were then, as there always 
 will be, good and pious women ; but they were comparatively 
 few. We might, no doubt, have increased the list by includ- 
 ing many whose names will not be found here ; but their good 
 works, if they did any, have not been recorded by their biogra- 
 phers, who seem to think that attachment to a certain set of 
 doctrines was sufficient for both God and man. In the 
 instances we mean to give, we hope to show that earnestness 
 of belief by no means need exclude the most liberal charity. 
 
 The tyrannic measures which Charles II. was induced to 
 adopt against the nonconformists, consigned to the jail of 
 Ilchester, in Somersetshire, Walter .Singer, a gentleman of 
 good family, and a dissenting minister, but neither a native 
 nor an inhabitant of the place where he was imprisoned. Mrs. 
 Elizabeth Portness, a pious lady of Ilchester, visited those per- 
 sons who suffered for conscience sake ; an acquaintance thus 
 began, which ended in marriage when Mr. Singer was released. 
 They had three daughters, two of whom died young. After 
 the death of his wife, Mr. Singer removed from Ilchester tc 
 Frome, in the same county ; where he had an estate. 
 
 Mr. Singer was firm in his own principles, but tolerant to 
 
248 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY/. 
 
 those of others. He was on terms of friendship with Lord 
 Weymouth, and was frequently visited by Bishop Kenn. He 
 brought up his children. in his own spirit of charity, and the 
 whole life of his daughter Elizabeth revealed the pure and 
 gentle influence of such teaching. She was the eldest of his 
 three children, and the only one who lived to an advanced age : 
 of her two sisters, she lost one in childhood; the other, who 
 had a passion for study, and especially for medicine, in which 
 she made considerable proficiency, reached her twentieth year, 
 and died. 
 
 Elizabeth was born in 16Y4. She early displayed a great 
 fondness for books, and a taste for poetry and painting, remark- 
 able in one of her years. She was scarcely twelve when she 
 began to write verses ; at a still earlier age, she made attempts 
 in drawing, and squeezed out the juices of herbs to serve her 
 instead of colore. Mr. Singer procured her a master; and 
 though she never attained any extraordinary proficiency in this 
 delightful art, it was to lie* a source of constant pleasure during 
 the whole of her long life. 
 
 Poetry was, however, the favorite amusement of Elizabeth 
 Singer ; for she does not appear to have ever considered it in 
 any other light. She wrote verses with great facility, but 
 seldom corrected her compositions ; to which she attached 
 little value. Poetry was to her an elegant and harmonious 
 expression of thought and feeling ; but she did not seek, and 
 she certainly did not reach, that ideal beauty which is at once 
 the delight and despair of art. Her temper was, however, 
 essentially artistic, warm, and overflowing with life. Her con- 
 versation is represented as extremely captivating ; she made 
 many friends, and kept them all. 
 
 At the time when her poetic efforts were confined to the 
 circle of home, some verses which she wrote drew the attention 
 of the Weymouth family. She was not then twenty ;. but 
 this incident was the origin of a long and pleasant friendship. 
 The honorable Mr. Thynne, son of Lord Weymouth, under- 
 took to teach her the Italian language, in which she made 
 rapid progress. In 1696, being then twenty-two, she pub- 
 lished, at the request of her friends, various poems, to which 
 she prefixed the poetical name of Philomela. A paraphrase 
 of the thirty-eighth chapter of Job, written at the suggestion 
 of Bishop Kenn, procured her some reputation. 
 
MES. ELIZABETH EOWE. 249 
 
 Literary successes changed nothing in her calm and domestic 
 life : the friendship of the polite and the great, found and left 
 her in her quiet home. The happiness which she thus enjoyed 
 was deep, though peaceful. She loved her father with all the 
 tenderness and reverence due to his virtues ; an extract from 
 a letter shows her feelings : " I have ease and plenty to the 
 extent of my wishes, and can form desires of nothing, but what 
 my father's indulgence would procure ; and I ask nothing of 
 Heaven but the good old man's life. The perfect sanctity of 
 his life, and the benevolence of his temper, make him a refuge 
 to all in distress, to the widow and fatherless ; the people load 
 him with blessings and prayers when he goes abroad, which 
 he never does but to reconcile his neighbors, or to right the 
 injured and oppressed ; the rest of his hours are entirely 
 devoted to his private devotions, and to books, which are his 
 perpetual entertainment." This excellent man, to whose 
 example his daughter was no doubt deeply indebted, died in 
 1719, in sentiments of great piety. A friend, who witnessed 
 his last hours, observed that he settled his affairs, and took 
 leave of the world, with as much freedom and composure as 
 if he had been setting out on a journey. His great care was 
 to see that the widows and orphans with whose concerns he 
 had been intrusted might not be injured after his death. His 
 cheerfulness and sweetness of temper never forsook him ; but 
 he sometimes felt his pulse, complained that it was still so 
 regular, and smiled with a Christian's triumph at every sign 
 and symptom of approaching death. 
 
 His only surviving daughter was already a widow when this 
 event took place. Her charming countenance, agreeable con- 
 versation, and gentle temper, had early secured her a sufficient 
 number of admirers ; amongst the rest, Prior, the poet, who 
 answered one of her pastorals in a very tender strain, and 
 wished, it is said, to marry her : but she would not go beyond 
 friendship with him. The young and learned Thomas Kowe 
 was the preferred suitor. They were married in 1710 ; Eliza- 
 beth Singer being then thirty-six, her husband but twenty- 
 three. Time, which had not taken from her the simplicity 
 and purity of youth, had left her its freshness and comely 
 aspect: without being a perfect beauty, she was extremely 
 attractive. She had hair of a fine auburn hue ; eyes of a deep 
 grey, inclining to blue, and full of fire ; her complexion was 
 11* 
 
250 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 exquisitely pure ; her voice soft and harmonious. The passion 
 which her husband felt for her was both ardent and sincere ; 
 her gentleness, her compliance with his wishes, the many vir~ 
 tues which he daily witnessed in her life, endeared her to him ; 
 and marriage only increased his affection. They had been 
 united about five years, when a fatal consumption, partly 
 brought on by intense study, carried him off, in the twenty- 
 eighth year of his age. He died, as he had wished to die, in 
 the arms of his wife. She had attended on him during his 
 illness with devoted affection ; and though she survived him 
 many years, she could not, a short time before her own death, 
 hear his name mentioned without shedding fresh tears at the 
 loss it recalled. 
 
 It was only to please her husband that Mrs. Rowe had ever 
 lived, even for a time, in Londoo. After his death she 
 indulged her passion for solitude by residing almost entirely at 
 Frome ; where, like her father, she devoted her days to piety, 
 good deeds, and books. She gave little time to dress, none to 
 play or pleasure : her leisure was devoted to literary works of 
 a moral character, and to labors of charity. She was constantly 
 engaged in making garments for the poor ; she did so not 
 only for the natives of the lower Palatinate, when the war drove 
 them from their country, but also for whosoever around her 
 aeeded such aid. She visited the sick, and instructed poor 
 children; or caused them to be instructed at her expense. 
 She never went out without being provided with coins of differ- 
 ent value, to give away to objects of charity. The first sum 
 of money which she received from a publisher was bestowed 
 on a family in distress, and she once sold a piece 6f plate for a 
 similar purpose. 
 
 She carried her indifference in money matters to an excess ; 
 there was no life she hated so much as the sordid and ungene- 
 rous love of gold, and none of which she was less guilty. She 
 let her estates beneath their real value, and would not even 
 allow unwilling tenants to be threatened with the seizure of 
 their goods. But another trait of her character seems to us 
 to paint her in a still more amiable light. Mrs. Rowe did not 
 confine her charity to the miserable : she thought that "it was 
 one of the greatest benefits that could be done to mankind, to 
 free them from the cares and anxieties that attend a narrow 
 fortune ;" and she accordingly made large presents to persons 
 
MKS. ELIZABETH EOWE. 251 
 
 who were not in the extremity of want. There are few, we 
 believe, who are unable to feel the pleasure which attends the 
 relief of great misery ; but only the most delicate minds, and 
 the most generous hearts, can experience the peculiar gratifica- 
 tion which Mrs. Rowe found in relieving, not mere physical 
 distress, but also those many painful cares which are the tor- 
 ment of poverty, as distinguished from want. 
 
 The solitude in which Mrs. Rowe lived did not separate her 
 from many valued friends. Her name occurs frequently in 
 the pleasant letters addressed by the Countess of Hartford to 
 Dr. Isaac Watts ; and when this eminent man edited her 
 " Devout Exercises of the Heart," it was to the Countess that 
 he dedicated them. All the poetical ardor which characterized 
 Mrs. Rowe's turn of mind appears in this work ; once widely 
 popular, and still read by those who are not tempted to smile 
 at the mysticism of a pure and pious heart. Tenderness and 
 enthusiasm are essential to the religion of woman : that of 
 man is more properly belief; hers is love. We will make no 
 extracts from the Devout Exercises, but we will transcribe from 
 Mrs. Rowe's secret effusions a page which needs no comment. 
 
 " I consecrate half of my yearly income to charitable uses ; 
 and though by this, according to human appearances, I have 
 reduced myself to some necessity, I cast all my care on that 
 gracious God to whom I am devoted, and to whose truth I 
 subscribe with my hand. I attest his faithfulness, and bring 
 in my testimony to the veracity of his word ; I set to my seal 
 that God is true ; and O, by the God of truth, I swear, to 
 
 perform this, and beyond this All that I have, beyond 
 
 the bare convenience and necessity of life, shall surely be the 
 Lord's ; and grant me sufficiency, that I may abound in 
 every good work ! O let me be the messenger of consolation 
 to the poor ! Here I am, Lord ; send me. Let me have the 
 honor to administer to the necessities of my brethren. I am, 
 indeed, unworthy to wipe the feet of the least of the servants 
 of my Lord, much more unworthy of this glorious commission ; 
 and yet, O send me, for thy goodness is free. Send whom 
 thou wilt on embassies to kings and rulers of the earth, but 
 let me be a servant to the servants of my Lord. Let me 
 administer to the afflicted members of my exalted and glori- 
 ous Redeemer. Let this be my lot, and I give the glories o f 
 the world to the wind." 
 
252 WOMEN OF CHKISTIAHITY. 
 
 This solemn vow, which, as Mrs. Rpwe herself expressed it, 
 in another part of her manuscripts, " was not made in an hour 
 of fear and distress, but in the joy and gratitude of her soul," 
 was religiously fulfilled, even when it exposed her to much 
 personal inconvenience. To the end of her life, the poor 
 shared with her in those blessings which she held from the 
 bounty of God. 
 
 In 1736, her health began to fail. She prepared herself for 
 death in that cheerful spirit with which she had lived. There 
 seemed, however, no immediate cause for fear. After spending 
 an evening in friendly conversation, she went up to her room ; 
 where, shortly afterwards, her servant found her in the ago- 
 nies of death. She was, according to her request, quietly 
 buried by the side of her father, in their place of worship at 
 Frome. Like him, she was lamented by all those who had known 
 her, and by none more than the poor. Amongst her papers 
 were found several letters addressed to valued friends. They 
 express, in ardent and confident language, the belief that, like 
 the spirit, the affections are immortal. To the end, the 
 religion of Elizabeth Eowe remained a religion of love. To 
 love God and his creatures had been her dehght on earth, and 
 she hoped to do both in heaven. As she fervently expresses 
 it, " That benignity, that divine charity, which just warms 
 the soul in these cold regions, will shine with new lustre, 
 and burn with an eternal ardor in the happy seats of peace 
 and love." 
 
 A few years later, died another amiable woman, the spirit 
 of whose life and sentiments greatly resemble those of Elizabeth 
 Eowe. Those to whom the English literature of the last 
 century is still familiar and pleasant, will probably remember 
 the charming portrait of a lady, drawn by Congreve, under the 
 name of Aspasia, in one of the most popular works of that 
 time — The Tatler. This " Divine Aspasia " is thus described 
 in the number for the 15th of July, 1709. 
 
 " But those ancients would be as much astonished to see in 
 the same- age, so illustrious a pattern to all who love things 
 praiseworthy as the divine Aspasia. Methinks I see her now 
 walking in her garden, like our first parent, with unaffected 
 charms, before beauty had spectators, and bearing celestial 
 conscious virtue in her aspect. Her countenance is the lively 
 
LADY ELIZABETH HASTINGS. 253 
 
 picture of her mind, which is the seat of honor, truth, com- 
 passion, knowledge, and innocence. 
 
 There dwells the scorn of vice and pity too. 
 
 " In the midst of the most ample fortune, and veneration 
 of all that behold and know her, without the least affectation, 
 she consults retirement, the contemplation of her own being, 
 and that Supreme Power which bestowed it. Without the 
 learning of schools, or knowledge of a long course of argu- 
 ments, she goes on in a steady course of virtue, and adds to 
 the severity of the last age all the freedom and ease of the 
 present. The language and mien of a court she is possesseo 
 of in the highest degree ; but the simplicity and humble 
 thoughts of a cottage are her more welcome entertainment. 
 Aspasia is a female philosopher, who does not only live up to 
 the resignation of the most retired lives of the ancient sages, 
 but also the schemes and plans which they thought beautiful 
 though inimitable. This lady is the most exact economist, 
 without appearing busy ; the most strictly virtuous, without 
 tasting the praise of it ; and shuns applause with as much 
 industry as others do reproach. This character is so particular, 
 that it will be very easily fixed on her only by all that know 
 her, but I dare say she will herself be the last to find it out." 
 
 This portrait, which might well be fancied ideal, was never- 
 theless taken from a living likeness — the Lady Elizabeth 
 Hastings, daughter of Theophilus, seventh Earl of Hunting- 
 don, and then in the twenty-eighth year of her age. She is 
 universally represented as one of the most charming and 
 accomplished women of her times. To her had nature been 
 prodigal of her gifts ; she had made her amiable, intellectual, 
 and handsome. For the latter fact we have no better warrant 
 than the impression she produced on- those who beheld her : 
 the portraits of Lady Hastings do not give us that mingled 
 sweetness and dignity which was the charm of her counte- 
 nance ; but her biographer avers that none of these likenesses 
 resembled the original. Sir Godfrey Kneller himself was 
 baffled in his attempt to portray her features ; and, vain as he 
 was, confessed his failure. Through her mother, Lady Hast- 
 ings was descended from Sir John Lewis of Ledstone, in 
 Yorkshire, and inherited the greater bulk of his property. 
 The death of her brother added to her wealth, and many 
 
254 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 gentlemen of the first rank became suitors for the hand of that 
 fair Aspasia ; whom, in another number of the Tatler, Steele 
 described as " the first of the beauteous order of love, whose 
 unaffected freedom and conscious innocence give her the 
 attendance of the graces in all her actions." Lady Hastings 
 refused these offers of marriage. Her precise motives for 
 preferring a single life were not known ; but it was supposed 
 that she considered it more in accordance with that religious 
 perfection towards which she aimed ; and also, that finding 
 herself mistress of a large estate, she did not wish to lose the 
 power of doing good by resigning it into other hands than her 
 own. . 
 
 Beneath a gentle exterior, Lady Hastings concealed all the 
 religious severity of the preceding age. She was once in- 
 duced to read a romance with a young lady less austere than 
 herself, and the remembrance of what she considered a crying 
 error, disturbed her to the end of her life. Her temper 
 naturally led her to delight "in seclusion and prayer ; she 
 shunned the gaieties of her rank ; and, even when her means 
 were still limited, the money at her disposal was almost all 
 devoted to the poor. Her life of active charity did not begin, 
 however, until after the death of her brother, the Earl of 
 Huntingdon. Henceforward she resided almost constantly at 
 Ledstone House. Though her income did not exceed L.3000, 
 with this she performed wonders, and became the hope and 
 stay of all the poor around her seat. Her grounds were kept 
 in exquisite order ; yet the persons employed were chiefly 
 weak and aged individuals, fit for no other task ; but who 
 received a salary as high as if they had been strong and able- 
 bodied. The rule of Lady Hastings was to give the first place 
 to justice, the second to charity, and the third to generosity. 
 She first attended to her household, to the welfare and com- 
 fort of her servants ; and in those debts of justice, the very 
 cattle, (which are declared to be a property of mercy,) were 
 not forgotten. The poor had her next care : she assisted them 
 in their own homes, or received them into her house : often in 
 great numbers. Meal, physic, raiment, and money, freely 
 distributed ; yearly allowances and large sums bestowed ; 
 debts paid ; poor scholars assisted ; charity schools maintained ; 
 religious societies aided ; churches erected and adorned, at- 
 tested her unwearied liberality. A spirit of prudence and 
 
LADY ELIZABETH HASTINGS. 255 
 
 economy, which, never rendered her parsimonious, guided all 
 her actions ; but her great secret must have been self-denial 
 She was frugal to herself that she might be generous to others. 
 She was tender of the honor of her family, and liberal to her 
 poorer relatives. One received L.500 a-year from her ; she 
 pi-esented another with L.300 in money. Her generosity was 
 not limited to those whose blood she shared. To a young 
 lady, who had very much impaired her fortune by engaging 
 in the South Sea scheme, she once gave three -hundred 
 guineas, (all the money then in her possession,) with a large 
 promise of more. Her learned and pious friend, Mary Astell, 
 she often assisted, and once presented her with fourscore 
 guineas — a circumstance which escaped the knowledge of her 
 biographer, so studious was she in concealing the good which 
 she did. 
 
 The life of Lady Hastings, though thus devoted to good 
 deeds, was neither cheerless nor unsociable. She mingled 
 with that world where her personal accomplishments, and, 
 above all, her great talents for conversation, always enabled 
 her to shine ; for though her own tastes led her to seek 
 privacy, she would not give any ground of accusation or com- 
 plaint against her by over austerity : she had, indeed, the rare 
 talent of conciliating the love and esteem of all. The poor 
 blessed her. Robert Nelson, no flatterer of rank, applied to 
 her the following text : " Many daughters have done virtuously, 
 but thou excellest them all ;" and Steele and Congreve both 
 wrote in her praise. 
 
 A painful close was reserved to a life so noble and so pure. 
 In early life, Lady Elizabeth Hastings had received a con- 
 tusion upon her right breast ; a small inward tumor was the 
 result ; it gave her little pain, and was scarcely heeded by 
 her ; she thought the less about it that, for many years, it 
 never increased. About twenty months before her death, 
 Lady Hastings found this tumor growing so painful, that she 
 applied for advice to the Rev. Dr. Johnson, eminent for his 
 skill in surgery. He declared there was an absolute necessity 
 for amputation of the affected part. Hitherto Lady Hastings 
 had only been good — now she became heroic. Friends 
 thought it needful to give her encouragement and advice 
 under this trying dispensation : to preach resignation and sub- 
 mission to the will of God. With more emotion than she 
 
256 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 usually displayed, Lady Hastings observed, " I would not wish 
 to be out of my present situation for all the world ; nor would 
 I exchange it for any other at any price." 
 
 In the eagerness with which she accepted pain, she showed 
 herself a true and faithful daughter of the crucified Saviour. 
 Her cheerfulness was not once disturbed by the prospect of 
 suffering : she waited the day appointed for the operation 
 with serene composure. Strong persons held her hands while 
 it was performed : but a child might have held her, she was 
 so calm, Not one expression of pain escaped her : one of the 
 persons present averred that she sighed deeply when the 
 operation was over ; another eye-witness of this painful scene 
 denied that she had betrayed even this slight token of suffer- 
 ing or relief. 
 
 Lady Hastings slowly recovered : her life seemed to be 
 saved ; when a sudden relapse, to which no surgeon's skill 
 could now devise a remedy, brought her once more within 
 prospect of death. Her resignation did not forsake her : 
 although her sufferings were so exquisite that she could not 
 even turn in bed, she sedulously concealed them, in order not 
 to afflict her faithful servants. Her cheerfulness and com- 
 posure of mind seemed beyond the reach of physical pain : 
 she saw her friends, comforted and counselled those who still 
 came to her as to their best adviser, and dictated a great num- 
 ber of letters to the many persons of distinction and piety 
 with whom she held a correspondence. To the last her soul 
 thirsted after deeds of mercy. " Where," would she often 
 say to those about her, " where is there a poor member of 
 Christ whom I can comfort and refresh ?" She made large 
 presents to those who solicited her aid : to one gentleman 
 whom she had never seen, of whom she scarcely knew any 
 thing, but who had been recommended to her by a friend, she 
 sent forty guineas, in order to release him from prison. 
 
 The devising of her will was her chief task. Being filled 
 with charitable bequests, it gave her infinite trouble ; for she 
 had to word it so prudently, and yet so clearly, as to run no 
 risk of being misunderstood : this labor is said to have 
 abridged her life. Resigned as she was to the will of God, 
 she yet longed to live until her charities became established 
 by law. Dr. Johnson's skill prolonged her life a week be- 
 yond the legal term : no earthly cares clouded her last 
 
HANNAH MOKE. 257 
 
 moments. Surrounded by her whole household, she received 
 the last offices of the Church of England. The lamp that 
 was burning low kindled with the last flame : a change came 
 over her countenance, and her eyes lit up as she exclaimed, 
 in broken tones : " Bless me, Lord ! what is it that I see ? 
 Oh ! the greatness of the glory that is revealed in me — that 
 is before me !" A while after she gently fell asleep, and all 
 was over. 
 
 She was born on the 19th of April 1682, and died on the 
 22d of December 1739, in her fifty-seventh year. No oppor- 
 tunity of judging of her intellectual attainments now remains ; 
 for though much of her time was spent in writing, she de- 
 stroyed what she-wrote : her memory owes all to her virtues, 
 nothing to literary fame. She deserved to have it said of her, 
 that " her private and public acts of charity were never ex- 
 ceeded by those of any woman in the kingdom." 
 
 A few years after the death of Mrs. Rowe and Lady Eliza- 
 beth Hastings, was born a woman whose long life was like 
 theirs to be devoted to tasks of beneficence and piety ; who as 
 an author was to attain considerable repute, and to possess an 
 influence more great and extended than any previous female 
 writer in England. 
 
 We allude to Hannah More, last but one of the five daugh- 
 ters of Mr. More, master of a foundation school in the parish 
 of Stapleton, Gloucestershire ; where she was born in 1'745. 
 She early displayed a precocious facility for learning, strong 
 religious feeling,- and a tendency towards moral teaching, and 
 the inculcation of her own opinions ; which remained her 
 characteristics through life. One of her favorite amusements 
 was to correspond with an imaginary sinner : her letters were 
 full of advice, exhortation, and warning; his answers over- 
 flowed with repentance and promises of reformation. "When 
 Mary, the eldest of Mr. More's five daughters, had reached 
 her twenty-first year, she opened a boarding-school in Bristol ; 
 she was assisted by her two sisters, Elizabeth and Sarah, 
 whom she had helped to instruct ; and she took the younger 
 ones, Hannah and Martha, under her care. A degree of affec- 
 tion, rare even amongst kindred, united the five sisters. They 
 never married, and were seldom separated for any length of 
 •time ; they all reached a great age, and, with one exception, 
 the order in which they had entered life, was also that of 
 
258 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 their departure. Mary, the eldest, was the first to go ; Han 
 nah, the youngest but one, the last 
 
 Hannah was about twelve when the school was opened. 
 She was then, and remained during her long life, subject tc 
 severe attacks of illness ; which tended to develope still fur- 
 ther the grave and reflective turn of her mind. She studied 
 much, and learned languages with ease ; translations from 
 Latin, Spanish, and Italian authors were amongst her first 
 poetical attempts. " The Search after Happiness," a pastoral 
 drama, was her first production of any importance ; it is cha- 
 racteristic, that it had. in view a moral purpose — to substitute 
 an innocent production for works of injurious tendency, which, 
 in the rage for private dramatic performances, were then 
 placed in the hands of youth. 
 
 Hannah More was about seventeen when she became 
 acquainted with a gentleman of property named Turner, the 
 uncle of two pupils in the establishment of her sister. She 
 received from him proposals of marriage, which she first 
 accepted and then declined. The whole affair was fraught 
 with much pain to her, and made her determine never again 
 to contract such an engagement: nothing in after-life could 
 induce her to break this resolve. Whilst her sisters prospered 
 in their school, Hannah continued engaged in those literary 
 pursuits which brought her into so much notice, when she 
 • came to London in 1113. She was received with flattering 
 distinction, and soon numbered amongst her friends Dr. John- 
 son, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Boscawen, 
 David Garrick and his wife ; with others then eminent in the 
 world of literature, art, and fashion, but now of less note. 
 The letters which she wrote home at this period of her life 
 are both agreeable and interesting. If we were now sketching, 
 not the quiet history of a few pure and pious women, but the 
 witty and varied social world which reverenced the senten- 
 tious wisdom of Johnson, and frequented the blue-stocking 
 club of Mrs. Montagu in Portman Square, the letters of Mrs. 
 Hannah More would indeed afford us many curious and 
 pleasant pictures of gaieties grown obsolete, of wit and charms 
 once extolled, now known by hearsay and tradition, and give 
 ns an interesting insight into the characteristics of English 
 society during the eighteenth century. 
 
 But it will be our task to collect from these letters know- 
 
HANNAH MOKE. ' 259 
 
 ledge of a very different nature ; we shall find in them other 
 records besides those of polite society and its intellectual 
 pleasures : they tell in simple language the story of a few 
 women who undertook to civilize, by religion, districts where 
 vice, brutal ignorance, and crime, had replaced the fabled 
 pastoral innocence of poets. These generous women, sisters 
 according to the blood, and still more according to the 
 spirit, penetrated into spots where their very lives were not 
 held safe ; and braved every petty persecution to accomplish 
 their noble object : time, money, and health were devoted to 
 the task, and never regretted. 
 
 For twenty years Mrs. Hannah More continued to visit 
 London, and mingle with its fashionable and literary society ; 
 and it was during this period that she wrote her two trage- 
 dies and her sacred dramas. But gradually she withdrew 
 from those fascinating circles ; the death of her attached 
 friend, Garricb, spared her the pain of giving up her yearly 
 visits to one to whom she owed much, and whom she both 
 loved and esteemed. 
 
 It was towards the year 1783 that Mrs. Hannah More pur- 
 chased, near Bristol, a small estate called Cowslip Green, on 
 which she built a little cottage. About the same time that 
 she fixed her residence in this quiet place, her sisters retired 
 to Bath, in easy circumstances : they had honorably con- 
 ducted, for upwards of thirty years, an excellent establishment, 
 esteemed one of the best and most prosperous in the west of 
 England. They now fixed their home at Bath, where they 
 had a house ; between which and Cowslip Green they hence- 
 forth divided they time. 
 
 Hannah More had retired from the world in order to lead 
 a more perfect life in the eyes of God ; and, whilst she 
 restricted the sphere of her pleasures, to extend that of her 
 duties. She soon exerted herself with zeal and enthusiasm in 
 a cause dear and sacred to every generous heart. This was 
 the time when the energy and eloquence of Wilberforce were 
 devoted to the abolition of the slave-trade. It is recorded 
 that, when he was but fourteen years of age, he addressed a 
 letter to the editor of the York paper, " in condemnation of 
 the odious traffic in human flesh." His manhood adhered to 
 the principles of his youth. It lies not within our province to 
 do more than allude to the long and persevering struggle 
 
260 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 which Wilberforce waged against this great iniquity : a strug- 
 gle crowned with a success so glorious, and in which he was 
 assisted by the most earnest and gifted of his contemporaries. 
 To aid this noble cause, Hannah More wrote her poem of 
 " Slavery." Thus began between them, in mutual sympathy 
 for a long-oppressed race, a friendship that proved both warm 
 and lasting. 
 
 The philanthropic exertions of Hannah More in favor of 
 the blacks, did not prevent her from devoting a portion of her 
 time to other literary pursuits. She wrote her " Thoughts on 
 the Manners of the Great," and her " Estimate of the Religion 
 of the Fashionable World ;" both of which were very successful. 
 Her chief relaxation from the more serious thoughts and 
 tasks which occupied her, was to embellish and cultivate with 
 her own hands the pleasant garden of Cowslip Green. This 
 innocent indulgence was, however, the source of some self- 
 reproach : to one who esteemed duty the end of every hour 
 of life, it could scarcely be otherwise. A new sphere of use- 
 fulness opened before her, and removed these conscientious 
 scruples. 
 
 At some distance from Cowslip Green, and in the immedi- 
 ate vicinity of the Mendip Hills, lies the village of Cheddar, a 
 decayed market town of Somersetshire. It was then in a 
 ~ state of barbarous ignorance ; which caused Mrs. Hannah 
 More to observe, that " while we were sending missionaries to 
 propagate the Gospel in India, our own villages were in pagan 
 darkness." In more than pagan darkness would have been 
 as correct an expression : there is something noble in the free 
 life of the savage ; though he may be criminal and barbarous, 
 he cannot, whilst he breathes the pure air of liberty, be quite 
 degraded. But what condition is that of the peasant who, to 
 physical misery unknown in the savage state, unites the vices 
 of civilisation with few or none of its virtues ! By law, indeed, 
 the spiritual distress of Cheddar and its vicinity was provided 
 for : the vicar of Cheddar resided at Oxford, and received 
 fifty pounds a-year for duties which he never fulfilled ; the 
 resident rector of Axbridge " was intoxicated about six times 
 a-week, and very frequently prevented from preaching by two 
 black eyes, honestly acquired by fighting." 
 
 Mrs. Hannah More, and her sister Martha, who was then 
 staying with her, resolved to go amongst those heathens of 
 
HAN NAH MORE. 261 
 
 Christianity, and see what good they could do in a place 
 where they knew not a single individual ; where the literary 
 fame 1 of one sister was unheard of, and where the station of 
 both was not likely to possess much influence with the few 
 wealthy and ignorant farmers whose will was the law of the 
 place. It possessed no gentry, and of the two thousand 
 inhabitants by far the greater number were miserably poor. 
 A clergyman rode over from Wells once every Sunday,- to 
 preach to a congregation of eight persons ; and in the whole 
 village there was but one Bible, and that was used to prop a 
 flower-pot. Hannah More and her sister began by taking a 
 lodging in a small public-house ; then, after having examined 
 the state of things, they resolved to open a school. In a 
 letter written by .Mrs. Hannah More to a friend, we find the 
 following account of this first attempt. " I was told we 
 should meet with great opposition, if I did not try to propi- 
 tiate the chief despot of the village, who is very rich and very 
 brutal; so I ventured to the den of this monster, in a country 
 as savage as himself. He begged I would not think of 
 bringing any religion into the country ; it made the poor 
 lazy and useless. In vain I represented to him that they 
 would be more industrious, as they were better princijsled, and 
 that I had no selfish views in what I was doing. He gave 
 me to understand that he knew the world too well to believe 
 either the one or the other. I was almost discouraged from 
 more visits, but I found that friends must be secured at 
 all events ; for if these rich savages set their faces against us, 
 I saw that nothing but hostilities would ensue ; so I made 
 eleven more of these agreeable visits, and as I improved in 
 
 the art of canvassing, had better success. Miss W 
 
 would have been shocked had she seen the petty tyrants 
 whose insolence I stroked and tamed, the ugly children I 
 praised, the pointers and spaniels I caressed, the cider I com- 
 mended, and the wine I swallowed. After these irresistible 
 flatteries, I enquired of each if he could recommend me a 
 house, and said that I had a little plan which I hoped would 
 secure their orchards from being robbed, their rabbits from 
 being shot, their game from being stolen, and which might 
 lower the poor-rates. If effect be the best proof of eloquence, 
 then mine was a good speech, for I gained in time the hearty 
 concurrence of the whole people, and their promise to discou- 
 
262 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 rage or fav"or the poor as they were attentive or negligent in 
 sending their children." 
 
 A house in which to establish a school was procured, not 
 without some difficulty. The poor, for whose benefit this was 
 intended, were almost as difficult to conciliate as the rich ; 
 but patience and perseverance ultimately overcame their pre- 
 judices. The school was opened by Hannah More and her 
 sister one Sunday morning ; children attended it, and 
 received their first lessons in the presence of their parents. 
 On the Sundays they were taught reading, and received reli- 
 gious instruction ; on week-days the girls learned to knit and 
 sew. The two ladies soon had three hundred children, whom 
 they placed under the charge of a discreet matron. 
 
 Encouraged by success, they resolved to extend the benefits 
 they had conferred on Cheddar to other places, where it was 
 fully as much needed. Funds were required, and were libe- 
 rally supplied by their friends. Thus supported, they set 
 about establishing schools in the neighboring districts ; but 
 everywhere the farmers opposed them ; and when this obsta- 
 cle was overcome, another no less serious existed in the diffi- 
 culty of finding proper teachers. Mrs. Hannah More and her 
 sister had, in the end, to teach the teachers, — a laborious and 
 fatiguing task. 
 
 Near the summit of Mendip there existed two mining vil- 
 lages, noted for the depravity and ignorance of their inhabit- 
 ants. The ladies were warned that constables would not 
 venture to execute their office in this wild region, and that by 
 seeking to penetrate amongst these barbarians, they were only 
 perilling their own lives, with little chance of doing good. 
 They persisted ; but their reception was not encouraging : the 
 people thought they wanted to make money by selling their 
 children as slaves, and that if they were unfortunately allowed 
 to teach them for seven years, they would indubitably acquire 
 the right of sending them over the seas. Spite of this unpro- 
 pitious beginning, they succeeded in securing pupils ; their 
 number ultimately exceeded twelve hundred, and parents 
 gladly availed themselves of the instruction they had at first 
 dreaded for their children. 
 
 Hannah More has not recorded all the difficulties, and, to a 
 certain degree, the dangers, which beset her in her efforts at 
 civilizing rude and degraded peasants ; but the little she lias 
 
HANNAH MORE. 263 
 
 said is significant. In a letter to her friend Wilberforce, from 
 whom she derived both aid and counsel, she thus describes 
 the opening of a school, in a spot more abandoned and de- 
 praved than any she had yet visited : " It was an affecting 
 sight ; several of the grown-up youths had been tried at the 
 last assizes — three were the children of a person- lately con- 
 demned to be hanged — many were thieves ! — all ignorant, 
 profane, and vicious beyond relief. Of this banditti we have 
 enlisted one hundred and seventy : and when the clergyman, 
 a hard man, who is also a magistrate, saw these creatures 
 kneeling round us, whom he had seldom seen but to commit 
 or punish in some way, he burst into tears." 
 
 The bodily -wants of these unhappy people were not forgot- 
 ten by the benevolent sisters : their purse was ever open in 
 seasons of famine or sickness, and the schoolmistresses whom 
 they appointed were the ministers of physical as well as of 
 spiritual charity. Generally speaking, the schools succeeded, 
 and were attended with the most beneficial results. In one 
 parish so violent a persecution was raised by the clergyman, 
 (who had, however, been the first to invite Mrs. Hannah 
 More,) that she was compelled to relinquish her task. Ee- 
 peated attacks of ill health, and the infirmities of age, natu- 
 rally restricted her labours ; but she had the satisfaction of 
 knowing that what she could not always do herself, was done 
 by able assistants : many of whom had been educated in those 
 schools where they now taught in their turn. 
 
 In 1802 Mrs. Hannah More removed from Cowslip Green to 
 Barley Wood, where she had erected a mansion large enough, 
 for herself and her sisters, who gave up their house at Bath 
 to reside exclusively with her. Here Hannah More, though 
 suffering from ill health, wrote " Ccelebs in Search of a Wife ;" 
 " Practical Piety," dedicated to Mrs. Fry ; " Christian Morals ;'' 
 " Moral Sketches," &c. She had the sorrow to lose her four 
 sisters one by one : Mary, the eldest, died in 1813, at the ad- 
 vanced age of eighty; Elizabeth departed in 1816; Sarah, 
 who had helped her sister in some of her popular writings, 
 followed her in less than a year ; Martha, the last and the 
 most beloved, the sharer of her labors in the schools, lingered 
 until 1819, when she died in great sufferings. Of the five 
 sisters, but one, a lonely woman of seventy-four, now remained. 
 She bore, without repining, her splitary lot. If literary fame 
 
264 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and popularity could console under such painful sorrows, Han- 
 nah More need not have felt grief. Her name was known 
 wherever her native language was spoken : the religious and 
 moral aim of her writings had spread, them to an extent which 
 is not always granted to genius. Numerous editions of her 
 works, and translations of them in almost every language, 
 showed the value in which they, and the lessons they taught, 
 were held. But her motives for resignation were higher than 
 those which human fame holds out. She survived her sister 
 fourteen years, during which she suffered much from repeated 
 attacks of illness. Her last years were saddened by the ingra- 
 titude of her servants, who took advantage of her condition to 
 rob and defraud her. She was compelled to leave Barley 
 Wood, endeared by so many recollections, for Clifton, where 
 she died five years afterwards, in 1833, having then reached 
 the advanced age of eighty-eight. 
 
 It is difficult to estimate the influence which, as a popular 
 writer, Hannah More has exercised in this country : it was 
 political, moral, and religious. She met, in many essential 
 points, the spirit of the times in which she lived; she was 
 zealous, earnest, and succeeded. Her temper was more libe- 
 ral and generous than her principles : she deplored the Catho- 
 lic Emancipation, and yet, at the time of the Revolution, she 
 had published a book expressly for the- benefit of the emigrant 
 priests, and the profits of which amounted to two hundred and 
 forty pounds. In the same spirit, she who had braved so 
 much inconvenience to serve the poor — who had sacrificed 
 time, health, and money to instruct their children— seriously 
 •apprehended danger and evil if their education should go be- 
 yond the Scriptures : as if the bountiful Creator, who has 
 given the same noble faculties to all his children, had not by 
 this proclaimed the free use of those faculties as their inaliena- 
 ble birthright. 
 
 But these and similar mistakes of opinion, too frequent 
 amongst religious persons, and by no means peculiar to Han- 
 nah More, need not detract from the praise due to her deeds 
 of mercy. To judge individuals, not by their opinions, but by 
 their actions, may be a commonplace rule enough ; but it is 
 the rule of charity, and fit to apply to the dead as well as to 
 the living. 
 
 To that eighteenth century, beyond which the life of Hannah 
 
LADY HUNTINGDON' — KOSA GOVONA. 265 
 
 More was prolonged for so many years, also belonged Selina, 
 Countess of Huntingdon, sister-in-law of Lady Elizabeth Has- 
 tings ; so celebrated for the fervor of her religious opinions, 
 and the zeal with which she labored to extend them. Her 
 private charities are said to have been great ;_ but she is best 
 known as the foundress of a sect which still exists. The dis- 
 ciple of Whitefield and Wesley had inherited all their zeal 
 and enthusiasm : sacrificing the prejudices of birth and rank, 
 she devoted herself, heart and soul, to Methodism. As we do 
 not, however, profess to relate the history of opinions, or of 
 those exertions which are connected with them, we cannot 
 enter into any detail of Lady Huntingdon's labors. She was 
 in earnest, and exerted- herself assiduously to establish the 
 points of belief which she thought essential to salvation. She 
 founded and supported a college at Trevecea, in Wales, for the 
 education of ministers. At her death, in 1791, there existed 
 sixty-four chapels which she had founded, and in which were 
 preached the tenets she professed. 
 
 From her and those who, like her, thought chiefly of the 
 doctrinal points of the Christian faith, we must turn to those 
 women who felt in their hearts that Christ came on earth not 
 merely to save and atone, but also to do good, and teach us 
 the spirit in which goad should be done. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Rosa Govona — Maria Agnesi — Duchess of Ventadoui- — Catherine 
 Cahouet — Anne Auverger — Madame de Quatremere. 
 
 On the northern side of the Ligurian Apennines, in the 
 basin formed by the Upper Tanaro, extends the district of 
 Mondovi, a province of the Sardinian states. Surrounded by 
 a fertile tract of land, rich in corn, vines, mulberry trees, and 
 cattle, rises the chief town, Mondovi. It is built partly on the 
 bank of the Ellero, partly on a hill which rises above the 
 river. It can boast of a strong castle, several churches and 
 convents, a seminary, a college, various manufactories, and 
 some fifteen thousand inhabitants. 
 
 12 
 
266 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 In this quiet place there lived, in the course of the last 
 ■ century, a young orphan girl, of the name of Rosa Govona. 
 ,She excelled in needle- work, her only means of support; she 
 never cared for pleasure, and thought not of marriage : grave, 
 mild, and silent, she lived alone, in the dignity of labor and 
 the honor of womanhood. 
 
 Towards the year 1746, Eosa, being then in her thirtieth 
 year, happened to meet a young girl, an orphan like herself, 
 who was destitute, and without the means of earning a liveli- 
 hood. The sight grieved her compassionate heart, and 
 shocked her feminine delicacy. She took home the young 
 stranger, and addressing her in language of scriptural siin 
 plicity, " Here," said she, pointing to her humble dwelling, 
 " here shalt thou abide with me : thou shalt sleep in my bed ; 
 thou shalt drink from my cup, and thou shalt live by the 
 labor of thine own hands." This last clause, comprising inde- 
 pendence and self-respect, was one of the most cherished 
 points in the creed of Eosa. Pleased with the docility and 
 industry of her young guest, she conceived the project of a 
 female association, based on the principles of labor and mutual 
 aid. Ere long, the girl of Mondovi was surrounded by a 
 society of young and unprotected single women, who dwelt 
 beneath the same roof, and labored diligently for their live- 
 lihood. 
 
 This association, being something quite novel in Mondovi, 
 was naturally attacked : the wise derided and censured it ; 
 grave imputations were cast on the morals of Eosa and her 
 companions, and libertine young men followed and insisted 
 them whenever they left their home. Their prudent silence, 
 and, above all, their blameless life, at length prevailed over 
 calumny ; and they were allowed to live and labor in peace : 
 nay, more, the authorities of Mondovi, seized with a sudden 
 fit of official zeal, repaired their long neglect of an institution 
 reflecting so much honor on the community with which it had 
 originated, by offering Eosa, whose abode had now grown too 
 narrow, a house in the plain of Carcassona. This she readily 
 accepted, and was soon surrounded by seventy young girls. 
 She obtained another and larger house in the plain of Brao ; 
 but, extending her views with her means, Eosa no longer con- 
 fined the labors of her friends to the common tasks of needle- 
 work : the house of Brao became a real factory for the inanu- 
 
EOSA GOVONA. 267 
 
 facture of woollen stuffs. Nine years had now elapsed since 
 -Rosa first took home the orphan girl.' She might well have 
 rested satisfied with what she had done ; but, consulting only 
 her zeal and anxious wish of spreading the good effects of her 
 system, she set off for Turin in the year 1755. 
 
 Rosa Govona entered the capital of Piedmont with no other 
 protection than her own strong faith, and no higher recom- 
 mendation than the two or three young girls who accompanied 
 her. She simply explained her project, and asked for an 
 asylum. The fathers of the oratory of St. Philip gave her a 
 few rooms " for the love of God," and the military depot sent 
 her tables and straw mattresses. Rosa and her companions 
 were quite satisfied, and establishing themselves in their new 
 abode, they cheerfully set to work. 
 
 The fact became known, and attracted attention. On the 
 suggestion of his financial minister, count of Gregory, Charles 
 Emmanuel III. assigned to Rosa and her companions large 
 buildings, belonging to a religious brotherhood recently sup- 
 pressed. The house was soon filled with forsaken orphan 
 girls. The king read and approved the judicious rules laid 
 down by Rosa, and ordered the factories of the establishment 
 to be organized and registered, by the magistrates appointed 
 to superintend commercial matters. From that time the 
 Rosinas, as they were called in honor of their foundress, 
 enjoyed the special patronage of the Sardinian government. 
 
 Rosa Govona felt deeply grateful for the favor her plans 
 had received from the king. Knowing that the most effectual 
 method of showing her gratitude would be to continue as she 
 had begun, and to contribute to the commercial and moral 
 prosperity of his dominions, she established in Turin two 
 factories ; one of cloth for the army, and another of the best 
 silks and ribands. Thanks to her, three hundred women 
 without dowry, without any resource save their own labor, 
 earned an honest and comfortable livelihood, and provided in 
 youth for the wants of their old age. Houses depending on 
 that of Turin were established at Novarra, Fossano, Savigliano, 
 Saluzzo, Chieri, and St. Damian of Asti. Over the entrance 
 of every house which she founded, Rosa caused to be engraved 
 the words she had addressed to her first guest : " Tu mangerai 
 col lavoro delle tue mani," — Thou shalt live by the labor of 
 thine own hands. 
 
268 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Rosa devoted twenty-one years to the task of going over 
 the provinces of Piedmont, and founding asylums for the 
 unprotected and industrious poor of her sex ; until, exhausted 
 by her labors, she died at Turin. Her remains were deposited 
 in the chapel of the establishment there : on the simple monu- 
 ment which covers them may still be read the following 
 epitaph : " Here lies Rosa Govona of Mondovi. From her 
 youth she consecrated herself to God. For his glory she 
 founded in her native place, and in other towns, retreats 
 opened to forsaken young girls, so that they might serve 
 God. She gave them excellent regulations, which attach 
 them to piety and labor: During an administration of thirty 
 years, she gave constant proofs of admirable charity and of 
 unshaken firmness. She entered on eternal life on the 28th 
 day of February, of the year 1776, the sixtieth of her age. 
 Grateful daughters have raised this monument to their mother 
 and benefactress." 
 
 With this simple, yet touching record of a useful and digni- 
 fied life, closes all we are told of Rosa Govona. We know 
 more what she did than what she was. She appeal's to us 
 through her good works : thoughtful, silent, and ever doing : 
 a serious and beneficent apparition. In aspect she was grave, 
 earnest, and resolute. A plain cap, a white kerchief, a cross 
 on her bosom, and a brown robe, constituted the attire of the 
 foundress of the Rosinas. One of her biographers calls her 
 Sister Rosa ; but it does not appear that she took any vows, 
 or sought to impose any on her community. The Rosinas 
 are bound by no tie ; they can leave their abode, an"d marry 
 if they wish ; but they rarely do so. There will always be a 
 certain number of women whom circumstances or private 
 inclination will cause to remain unmarried. Rosa Govona 
 was one of these ; and for them she labored. She wished to 
 save them from vice, idleness, and poverty : to preserve to 
 them unsullied the noblest inheritance of human beings : 
 dignity and self-respect. 
 
 According to an interesting account published in Paris a 
 few years ago, the Rosinas are still in a prosperous and happy 
 state. They are admitted from thirteen to twenty ; they 
 must be wholly destitute, healthy, active, and both able and 
 willing to work, They are patronized by government, but 
 labor is their only income: all work assiduously, save the 
 
KOSA GOVONA. 269 
 
 old ; who are supported by their younger companions. The 
 Turin establishment is the chief and central one ; the other 
 houses still exist; with the exception of that which Rosa 
 Govona founded at Novarra-. It was closed when this town 
 belonged to the kingdom of Italy ; and has not since been 
 re-opened. To preserve the spirit of the modest and retired 
 life which Rosa wished her daughters to lead, no commercial 
 matters are transacted save at the establishment in Turin, 
 which governs the other houses. The labors of the Rosinas 
 are varied and complete : whatever they manufacture, they 
 do with their own hands from beginning to end. They buy 
 the cocoons in spring, and perform every one of the delicate 
 operations which silk undergoes, before it is finally woven into 
 gros-de-naples, levantines, and ribands. Their silks are of the 
 best quality, but plain, in order to avoid the expense and 
 inconvenience of changing their looms with every caprice of 
 fashion. They also fabricate linen ; but only a limited number 
 of Rosinas can undergo the fatigue of weaving. In order not 
 to interfere with the silk establishment of Turin, the manufac- 
 ture of woollen stuffs is now carried on at Chieri. Govern- 
 ment buys all the cloth of the army from the Rosinas ; they 
 even manufacture all the accessory ornaments, and make up 
 the uniforms, which are cut out for them by tailors. Gold 
 lace, and the rich vestments of priests, are likewise produced 
 by these industrious women, who excel in every female art, 
 and are renowned for their skill in embroidery. The produce 
 of their varied labors is gathered at Turin in a large magazine, 
 and sold there by trustworthy persons. The house of the 
 Rosinas is patronized not only by government, but also by 
 many of the inhabitants and tradespeople of Turin ; for there 
 is a general preference in favor of goods excellent in quality, 
 fair in price, and manufactured by the hands of these pure and 
 innocent women. Their profits are moderate, but sufficient. 
 The house in Turin alone spends eighty thousand francs 
 a-year ; and it holds three hundred women ; of whom fifty, 
 who are either old or infirm, and consequently unable to 
 work, are supported by the rest. 
 
 " I visited this remarkable establishment," writes an eye- 
 witness, " thanks to the kindness of the worthy ecclesiastic who 
 administers and directs it. He accompanied me through those 
 wide halls containing so many women animated by the holy 
 
270 WOMEN OF CHEISTTANITr. 
 
 ardor of labor. Separated from man, they nevertheless share 
 with him the fatigue to which he was condemned on the day 
 when God sent him forth on earth. They went through their 
 tasks with mild gravity and admirable composure, yet dis- 
 playing the zeal which a mother might feel in working with 
 her daughters for the good of the common family. Six mis- 
 tresses and one director (a woman) preside over them, and are 
 frequently visited by the queen, who grants a special protection 
 to these industrious women." 
 
 One woman, poor, obscure, and unlearned, but strong in her 
 faith, and, above all, in her love for her orphan sisters, did 
 this. 
 
 The learned Maria Gaetana Agnesi is not unworthy of 
 appearing after the noble Piedmontese girl. They were con- 
 temporaries ; and, much as they differed in other respects, 
 their lives were marked by the same earnest and generous 
 spirit. 
 
 Like Helena Cornaro in the preceding age, Maria Agnesi 
 united profound learning to Christian virtues. She was born 
 at Milan in 1718, of rich and noble parents. Her love of 
 study was early developed ; she asked to share her brother's 
 Latin lessons, and made such rapid progress, that at nine years 
 of age she composed a Latin discourse in favor of women, 
 which was published. At eleven she began Greek, which she 
 ultimately read fluently, and even spoke with ease ; she like- 
 wise studied Hebrew, and almost eveiy modern language. At 
 thirteen she translated into Italian, French, German, and 
 Greek, the Latin supplements added by Freinshemius to the 
 history of Quintus Curtius ; and in the following year she 
 translated from Italian into Greek " The Spiritual Combat," an 
 ascetic work of Father Lorenzo Scupoli. 
 
 The father of Maria Agnesi encouraged her in her studies, 
 and directed them towards mathematics, which he thought 
 best suited to the serious bent of her mind. At fourteen she 
 studied the Elements of Euclid and natural philosophy. She 
 commented on the work of L'Hospital on conic sections ; and 
 in 17 3 8, when she had reached her twentieth year, she pub- 
 lished one hundred and ninety- one theses, which she had 
 maintained in the preceding year, in the presence of the most 
 distinguished persons of Milan. After ten years of close study, 
 she produced her " Analytical Institutions.'' This work had 
 
MAKIA GAETANA AGNESI. 271 
 
 great success. If it was not exactly the means of introducing 
 Algebra into Italy, it had, at least, the merit of drawing more 
 attention to that branch of science. In the name of 'the French 
 Academy, Fontenelle proclaimed it the best work which had 
 yet been written on the subject ; and Bossut, who translated it 
 into French, gave a similar judgment. Colson of Cambridge 
 showed his opinion of its value by translating it into English. 
 
 Maria Agaesi had dedicated this eminent work to Maria 
 Theresa, who thanked and congratulated her, and sent her a 
 valuable ring and a casket adorned with precious stones. She 
 met with still more gratifying tokens of esteem in her native 
 land : she was received as a member of the Institute of Bo- 
 logna ; Pope Benedict XIV. named her honorary reader to 
 the university of the same city, and gave her the mathematical 
 chair. In Milan, Maria Agnesi was treated with marked 
 respect. The house of her father was the resort of the most 
 learned and distinguished individuals of the whole city : whom 
 she knew how to receive with mingled dignity and grace. 
 She was tall, and of an elegant figure ; her hair and eyes were 
 extremely dark, although her complexion was exquisitely fair. 
 Her portraits represent a face beautiful indeed, but, like that 
 of an ancient muse, grave and serene in its very beauty. Such 
 was Maria Agnesi — handsome, honored, celebrated — when 
 she declared to her father that her vocation called her to the 
 cloister : she had lost her mother when she was about eighteen, 
 and since then her religious feelings had gradually increased. 
 Her father entreated her not to leave him ; he had married 
 twice since the death of his first wife, but of his twenty-three 
 children Maria was the most beloved : she was the pride of his 
 old age, and the guide and instructress of his large family. 
 His grief at the prospect of losing her was such, that Maria, 
 who loved him tenderly, agreed to remain ; but on condition 
 that she might dispense from mingling with society, and be 
 allowed to live in perfect retirement from the world. Agnesi 
 readily consented. His death in 1752, which had been pre- 
 ceded by that of several of his sons, was one of the greatest 
 sorrows Maria had to endure. She persisted, however, in her 
 solitary life, and refused every offer of marriage. 
 
 Like Pascal, she gave up science : the severe studies which 
 had so long charmed her were relinquished for the Fathers of 
 the Church, i So deep became her knowledge in theology, that 
 
272 WOMEN OF CHKISTIAOTTY. 
 
 Pozzobonelli, archbishop of Milan,. having to pronounce on tb.4 
 orthodoxy of a work which was said to contain some doubtful 
 points of doctrine, referred the matter to the judgment of 
 Maria Agnesi. She acquitted herself of this delicate task with 
 great sagacity and moderation, and saved the author from the 
 persecution with which he was threatened. 
 
 The piety of this gifted woman was not confined to theo- 
 logical knowledge. It had that test of true faith, charity. 
 She visited the sick of her parish, and of the great hospital of 
 Milan ; she even devoted several retired apartments of her 
 house to infirm women, whom she took under her own care. 
 Her whole income was consecrated to this charitable task ; but 
 not deeming this sufficient, she sold her most valuable posses- 
 sions, amongst the rest the ring and casket sent to her by 
 Maria Theresa, and by means of the sum thus raised, she doubled 
 the number of beds in her domestic hospital. Her own house 
 soon became too small ; she took a larger one, filled it with 
 sick, and attended on them with a devoted zeal which the 
 most loathsome and afflicting diseases could not weary or repel. 
 
 In the year 1771, Prince Trivulzi founded in Milan a large 
 hospital for aged and infirm individuals of either sex. Pozzo- 
 bonelli, who was still archbishop of the city, requested Agnesi 
 to undertake the laborious office of governing the female depart- 
 ment in the new establishment. She accepted, made the hos- 
 pital her home, and reduced her expenses in order to be able 
 to assist its inmates from her private resources. For fifteen 
 years Maria Agnesi devoted herself to this heroic task ; during 
 which her health, sustained by the energy of her will, did not 
 suffer from her incessant and self-imposed labor. She died on 
 the ninth of. January of the year 1799, in the eighty-first year 
 of her age. 
 
 We think we may say without exaggeration, that Rosa 
 Govona and Maria Agnesi were amongst the most noble 
 Christian women of their age ; not merely because they did 
 much good, but because they did it in a noble spirit: giving 
 up all, and forgetful of self. 
 
 This spirit, which had been so remarkable in France during 
 the seventeenth century, seems absent from the eighteenth. 
 We hear of good deeds ; but, with a few exceptions, we do 
 nol find whole lives devoted to good, like those of Mesdames 
 de Chantal, Miramion, Louise Legras, Jeanne Biscot, and others 
 
DUCHESS OF VT'NTADOTJE CATHERINE CAHOTJET. 2? 3 
 
 whom we were compelled to mention more briefly. We can- 
 not make this more apparent than by recording all that we 
 nave been able to collect on this subject. 
 
 The Duchess of Ventadour, governess of the young Louis 
 XV., displayed great generosity during a period nearly ap- 
 proaching to famine ; then no uncommon occurrence amongst 
 the oppressed peasantry of France. She spent her whole 
 revenue in charity, and borrowed eighty thousand francs, to 
 give more away. When her alarmed steward remonstrated, 
 she meekly replied : " Let us give always, and even borrow, 
 while it is necessary to save the poor from death. We shall 
 never want ; neither I nor my family : in ~mj station there is 
 no great hardship in trusting to Providence." 
 
 Much as we admire the generosity of the duchess, we give 
 more honor to the devotedness of humble Catherine Cahouet. 
 In 1691, she established at Orleans a charity school; her two 
 sisters shared her labors. The clergyman of their j:>arish, 
 anxious to forward this good work, presented Mademoiselles 
 Cahouet with a larger house. Two of his sisters joined them, 
 and no fewer than two hundred poor children were instructed 
 by the five ladies. — They gave books to most, and fed and 
 clothed many at their own expense. For sixty years Catherine 
 Cahouet was at the head of this establishment, and labored as 
 assiduously in her ninety-second year as in her youth. From 
 Advent until Easter she addressed the children on religious 
 subjects for two hours every day. She possessed in a rare 
 degree the art of teaching, and instructed schoolmistresses who 
 were sent to her for that purpose by country clergymen. Her 
 long and useful life closed in 1751. 
 
 Two years after the death of Catherine Cahouet, Anne- 
 Marie-Gilbert Auverger was born at Chateaugiron, a little 
 town of Brittany ; where she died in her seventeenth year. 
 Within this narrow circle, and these few years, she gathered 
 virtues and good deeds sufficient to adorn a long life. At the 
 age of fifteen, she requested her parents to place her as boarder 
 with the Sisters of Mercy, who attended on the sick of Vitre. 
 They consented, although Anne did not conceal from them 
 that it was her intention eventually to share the life of these 
 devoted women. Shs remained there a year, seizing every 
 opportunity of entering the wards of the sick, and of serving 
 her apprenticeship, by early inuring herself to the sight of dis- 
 12* 
 
274: WOMEN Off CmJISTIANIlTT. 
 
 ease, under its most painful aspects. "When she returned te 
 her home, she earnestly asked to wear plain brown gowns, as 
 most suitable to her taste, and to her future mode of life. 
 Some persons found fault with this, as well as with her caps ; 
 which were not becoming, they said, for one so young ; Anne 
 smiled, and answered gaily : " I wish to save up all my charms 
 for heaven ; the fashions here do not please me : I hope to be 
 better adorned there than you are now." Another class of 
 censors, shocked at her habitual cheerfulness, told her " she 
 was very merry for a girl so devout." " Religion is not sad," 
 she gently answered ; " one cannot but feel happy under the 
 yoke of so good a master as God." 
 
 The young gW served that Master in every action of her 
 life. After her morning devotions, she daily distributed bread 
 and work to a great number of poor. The afternoon was 
 spent in visiting the sick : no weather ever kept her within ; 
 no distance detained her; she visited the most remote cot- 
 tages ; the most loathsome stables, where unhappy peasants, 
 less cared for than cattle, died of cold and disease. In the 
 evening Mademoiselle Auverger instructed four children. 
 
 The fame of her charity gave her means to effect all this 
 good ; for liberal persons intrusted ier with their alms : they 
 bestowed the money, the young girl gave her active zeal and 
 every moment of her time. In the year 1169—10, Brittany 
 suffered much from dearth, severity of weather, and conta- 
 gious diseases. The Marquess of Chateaugiron, a wealthy and 
 philanthropic nobleman, made Mademoiselle Auverger his 
 almoner ; she was then little more than sixteen, and personally 
 unknown to him ; but common report had long proclaimed the 
 young girl the most active and faithful friend of the poor, and 
 the marquess knew that his alms could not pass through hands 
 more pure. The zeal of Anne Auverger was not confined to 
 physical distress : she pitied those who sinned even more than 
 those who suffered ; and her pity was most deep for those of 
 her own sex who had erred. The pure have always been the 
 most zealous in their charity to the degraded. 
 
 It required, however, some courage to act as Mademoiselle 
 iuverger acted. She visited several unfortunate girls in their 
 abode ; and, though her affecting remonstrances did not always 
 prove effectual, she was never once insulted. To arrest evil in 
 its source, — poverty and idleness,— she gathered together some 
 
ANNE ATXVEEGEE — MADAME QTJATBEMEBE. 275 
 
 poor orphan girls, and placed them in a house ; where she 
 kept them, gave them work, and superintended their conduct. 
 One evening, Mademoiselle Auverger was horrified to learn 
 that one of these young girls had been seduced into a house 
 of the worst character. She took no time to reflect or hesitate, 
 but rose, and, followed by a servant, proceeded at once to the 
 house. She entered boldly, upbraided the owners of the shame- 
 less abode, and led away her protegee, whom she soon after 
 placed at service in the country. 
 
 This incident became known, and her conduct was cen- 
 sured : some friends informed Mademoiselle Auverger that the 
 ■world did not approve her conduct. She mildly answered, 
 " We must let the world speak : it censures everything which 
 seems to censure its maxims.'' 
 
 Mademoiselle Auverger had not long passed her seventeenth 
 year, when a contagious fever broke out at Chateaugiron. 
 She attended the sick with her usual zeal and fearlessness ; 
 but she said to some friends, that God would soon remove her. 
 The prediction was fulfilled : a violent fever carried her 
 away, after an illness of five days. She met her fate with fer- 
 vent joy. A holy death crowned her brief life, and a few 
 words sum up her eulogy : she had scarcely emerged from the 
 years of childhood when she died ; yet she left, and deserved 
 to leave, the name, touching in one so young, of " mother of 
 the poor." 
 
 The promise held forth by the youth of Anne Auverger 
 was fulfilled in the life of Anne Bourjet, wife of a respected 
 and well known merchant, Nicholas Quatremere. She was 
 born at Paris in 1732, whilst the shameless libertinism of the 
 late regency still disgraced the capital of France ; and she 
 died there in 1790, on the eve of the revolution by which that 
 profligacy was so fearfully avenged. She filled the interval of 
 her life by the practice of woman's most excellent household 
 virtues, as well as by deeds of the most heroic charity. 
 
 Mademoiselle Bourjet belonged to a rich commercial family, 
 and received a good education. She was intelligent, quick in 
 her perceptions, and gentle in her temper; but her ardent 
 piety was apt to lead her into extremes : she had already 
 injured her health by too much fasting. When she was mar- 
 ried to M. Quatremere, at the age of eighteen, she found 
 means to reconcile the duties of her new position with those of 
 
276 WOMEN OF CHBIST1AMTY. 
 
 her religious exercises, and of her almost boundless charity. 
 She had ten children, and her health was delicate ; yet every 
 day she went forth on errands of mercy, no matter what thfl 
 weather might be. She visited the most wretched abodes of 
 Paris, groping up dark and noisome staircases, or climbing up 
 ladders that led to remote garrets, in order to find the poor in 
 all their misery. She relieved the wants of all, good or evil, 
 and extended her bounty to Jew, Protestant, and Catholic 
 alike ; no more distinguishing them in her charity, than they 
 are distinguished by the great Father of all. 
 
 A woman who devoted herself in youth to such a life, had 
 little to do with the world and its pleasures : the duties of 
 home and the service of the poor filled her days, and satisfied 
 her desires. Tenderly loved by her rich husband, who indulged 
 her in her charity, she still found herself poor ; and, in order 
 to be able to give more, imposed upon herself restrictions, 
 which, to her, were no privations. She sold her costly laces, 
 and the greater part of her jewels, dressed with extreme sim- 
 plicity, had only four or five gowns at a time ; and, whilst she 
 limited herself to the most scanty supply of body linen, yearly 
 gave away three or four hundred shirts and chemises to the 
 prisons and hospitals : which she had once been in the habit 
 of visiting constantly, but had ceased to frequent, for the sake 
 of her children. 
 
 In the year 1767, Madame Quatremere became one of the 
 "Ladies of Charity" of her parish. Two years afterwards 
 they named her treasurer of the poor : an arduous, but to her 
 congenial, task ; in which she displayed so much activity and 
 talent that she was re-elected every three years, until the close 
 of her life. No matter how indisposed she might feel — and 
 her health, as has already been said, was delicate — she never 
 missed being present at the weekly meetings. Her charity 
 was so extensive and well known, that it spared her some 
 trouble : she no longer needed to seek out the poor : they 
 came to her. She received them in her drawing-room, where 
 she sat the greater part of the day, weak and ailing, but ever 
 ready to give aid and consolation. The poor were to her 
 guests and friends : she would never allow them to be turned 
 away from her doors. She gave up to them her arm-chair 
 and the seat of honor, made them sit at her board, and shared 
 with them those gifts which her devout spirit always ascribed 
 
MADAME QTJATREMfiEE. 277 
 
 to the great bestower of all earthly blessings, God. The hall 
 and staircase of her dwelling, we are told, were never empty ; 
 and foundlings were often left there, as to the keeping of an 
 earthly providence. Visiters flocked to her from every part of 
 Paris, and from distant provinces, where the fame of her good 
 deeds had penetrated. 
 
 The benevolence of Madame Quatremere was especially dis- 
 played after the Hotel Dieu had been burned down, in 1772, 
 and during the severe winter of 1787. Moral sorrows and 
 destitution had an equal claim on her aid and sympathy. 
 She took into her own house under her own care, poor aban- 
 doned girls, redeemed them from vice, fed and clothed them, 
 and either found them situations, or paid their entrance into 
 the asylum of " the Good Shepherd," founded by Madame de 
 Combe, or in "the Penitent Daughters of the Saviour," 
 another institution of the same kind. 
 
 It was not exclusively with her owd resources, however 
 extensive, that Madame Quatremere could effect so much : 
 charitable persons sent her, from every part of France, large 
 sums, to be applied as she thought proper. Every time Marie 
 Antoinette became a mother, she gave Madame Quatremere 
 six hundred francs for purposes of charity. She also possessed 
 much influence with ministers, church dignitaries, great ladies 
 powerful' at court, and even over the celebrated Lenoir, lieu- 
 tenant of police. The prisons were open to her; as the only 
 use she made of her power was to do good, and liberate poor 
 debtors : often, however, by paying their debts herself. 
 
 The arduous labours of a charity so continuous exhausted 
 this heroic woman. She died of an illness brought on by 
 fatigue, on the 16th of March, 1790. An immense crowd 
 followed her to the grave ; and the general remark was, that 
 the ceremony resembled more the translation of the relics of a 
 venerated saint, than a common funeral. According to one 
 of her last requests, the poor received on that day four hundred 
 loaves of bread ; she also left three thousand francs to the poor 
 of the parish. The Ladies of Charity commemorated her death 
 by a solemn service, at which persons of every rank were pre- 
 sent. On leaving the church, the old Marechal of Mouchy 
 said, " I have come here to pray for her intercession, and not to 
 pray for the repose of her soul : " meaning that he considered 
 her a saint in heaven. Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette 
 
278 WOMEN OF CHKISTTAJSTITY. 
 
 expressed their regret for the death of this charitable lady ; and 
 the old Duke of Penthievre, one of the most virtuous and 
 benevolent men of his age, wrote to M. Quatremere, to condole 
 with him on the loss he had experienced. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Madame Necker — Madame de Fougeret — Madame de Pastoret — 
 Jeanne de Corbion — Sister Martha. 
 
 That personal sort of charity which delights in giving, is 
 that which women practise best, because it is essentially the 
 charity of feeling. But they are also capable of taking a 
 higher and more philanthropic aim ; and the nearer we 
 approach our own times, the more does this become apparent. 
 To our seeming, this utilitarian spirit enhances the merit of 
 charity, and raises it above mere impulse. We have already 
 recorded several remarkable instances of it in the past ; we 
 shall also see it faithfully exemplified in the lives of Madame 
 Necker, Madame de Fougeret, and other generous women. 
 
 The wife of the minister on whose sagacity the destinies of 
 France were long supposed to depend, and the mother of the 
 illustrious Madame de Stael, had a twofold life and character. 
 She lived in the world ; she gave dinners to philosophers, she 
 had friendships with the great : but she ever remained the same 
 pure and austere daughter of the Protestant minister of Lau- 
 sanne, whom Necker had married in the days of his obscurity. 
 Her friend, Lally de Tollendal, compared her to the fountain 
 Arethusa, whose clear waters preserved their purity in the midst 
 of the sea. 
 
 The whole amount of the good and charitable actions whict 
 adorned her life has not been revealed to us. Madame Necker 
 was a Christian, and most unassuming in her virtues ; but 
 though much may be hidden, much is also known. When 
 Necker became director-general of. the finances in 1776, his 
 wife, who had always possessed great influence over him, 
 resolved to use that influence for the noblest and most disin- 
 terested purposes. She attempted to do away with the lottery • 
 
MADAME NECKEK. 279 
 
 and though she failed, her representations induced her husband 
 to impose as many restrictions on it as the nature of his power 
 allowed. She succeeded better when she interfered in the 
 direction of prisons and hospitals. During the five years of 
 her husband's administration, she devoted herself to the ame- 
 lioration of these places of suffering and punishment ; restrain- 
 ing abuses, and introducing important reforms. On retiring 
 from office in 1781, Necker thought himself warranted in 
 closing his Compte Rendu with the following testimony to the 
 virtues of his wife : " Whilst retracing a portion of the chari- 
 table tasks prescribed by your majesty, let me be permitted, 
 sire, to allude, without naming her, to a person gifted with 
 singular virtues, and who has materially assisted me in accom- 
 plishing the designs of your majesty. Although her name 
 was never uttered to you, in all the vanities of high office, it is 
 right, sire, that you should be aware that it is known and fre- 
 quently invoked in the most obscure asylums of suffering 
 humanity. It is no doubt most fortunate for a minister of 
 finances to find, in the companion of his life, the assistance 
 he needs for so many details of beneficence and charity, which 
 might otherwise prove too much for his strength and attention. 
 Carried away by the tumult of general affairs, — often obliged 
 to sacrifice the feelings of the private man to the duties of the 
 citizen, — he may well esteem himself happy, when the com- 
 plaints of poverty and misery can be confided to an enlightened 
 person, who shares the sense of his duties." 
 
 In this touching homage we find no mention made of a 
 benevolent and munificent act in which the king had desired 
 to bear a part with Madame Necker — the foundation of the 
 hospital which still bears her name in Paris. A Benedictine 
 convent, situated in the Rue de Sevres, having been suppressed 
 in 1779, Madame Necker rented the vacant buildings ; which 
 she converted into an hospital capable of holding one hundred 
 and twenty persons. Louis XVI. contributed to its support ; 
 and in 1782, it held sixty-eight men and sixty women. Ma- 
 dame Necker directed the establishment herself, until the great 
 revolution compelled her and her husband to retire to Coppet. 
 She died there, in 1794, of a painful and lingering disease, 
 which never once impaired her cheerfulness. In her last 
 moments she thanked God "for having placed in her heart an 
 
280 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 unmoved faith, and given her as her earthly support the mat 
 she respected most." 
 
 The task of Madame de Fougeret lay in another direction, 
 but was not less useful. This lady was the daughter of a 
 celebrated jurisconsult, and of a woman remarkable for her 
 talents and virtues. She was early married to M. de Fougeret, 
 receiver-general of the finances, and won both esteem and love 
 in the circle in which she moved. She was one of the few 
 women of that age who, to become agreeable, did not forfeit 
 every claim to respect. Her countenance was pleasing and 
 expressive, her discourse elegant, her judgment clear and sound, 
 her temper amiable, her conscience serene, her life innocent and 
 useful. 
 
 Her father, M. Dontremont, had long administered the 
 hospitals of Paris. She often beard him lament the insufficient 
 accommodation of the Foundling Hospital, established by St. 
 Vincent of Paul ; as in consequence of this want of room, a 
 heavy mortality prevailed amongst the foundlings. The Sis- 
 ters of Charity, whom Madame de Fougeret frequently visited, 
 uttered the same complaints : four rows of cradles extended 
 along the great hall ; and all the care of the sisters and nurses 
 could not prevent deaths, far above the average, from taking 
 place amongst this great number of children. The reason of 
 this was, the administration could not afford to put out a 
 sufficient number at nurse. Madame de Fougeret accordingly 
 proposed, in 1784, to take a certain number of the children, 
 and confide them to aged unemployed women ; who would 
 rear them, on goat's or cow's milk, at a cheaper rate than 
 regular nurses. The suggestion was adopted : a large car, 
 constructed under the direction of Madame de Fougeret, and 
 in which twenty cradles were slung, so as to allow no jolting, 
 conveyed eighty children to her husband's estate, where they 
 were distributed amongst the cottagers. The experiment failed ; 
 three-fourths of the children died : a mortality not so heavy as 
 that which prevailed in the Foundling Hospital, but which 
 nevertheless greatly" afflicted Madame de Fougeret, and con- 
 vinced her that another and more efficacious remedy must be 
 adopted. 
 
 St. Vincent of Paul had established the Foundling Hospital 
 for illegitimate children ; but the times were hard, and it was 
 
MADAME DE FOUGERET. 281 
 
 a well-known fact, that many infants born in wedlock were 
 sent and admitted : there was indeed no power to exclude 
 them. Madame de Fougeret was struck with this circum- 
 stance ; and she thought that the best remedy for the existing 
 evil would be to enable poor mothers to rear their children at 
 home. Too modest to seek for publicity, she solicited the aid 
 of the Duchess of Cosse, superior of the hospital ; and, with 
 that lady's consent, she issued in her name a simple and affect- 
 ing circular. Titled and wealthy ladies promptly answered 
 the appeal ; and regulations were drawn up concerning the 
 quarters of Paris to be visited, and the amount of relief to be 
 given. A Greek name was proposed for the new institution, 
 but Madame de Fougeret resisted the suggestion ; and it 
 received the simple, though appropriate, designation of " Ma- 
 ternal Charity." The society began its labors in 1788 ; Louis 
 XVI. headed the list of subscribers, and Marie Antoinette 
 accepted the title of Protectress : she received several times 
 the ladies who administered the society, and testified her 
 approbation and esteem, to her who directed its labors under 
 the modest title of secretary. The first seal of the society 
 represented Moses saved by the daughter of Pharaoh, and con- 
 fided to his own mother ; and it bore the name of the queen : 
 but that ill-fated name was soon effaced by the Revolution, 
 which interrupted the good work in the very midst of its 
 prosperity. 
 
 The ladies who had governed and supported the society were 
 now dispersed in foreign lands, or had perished on the scaffold. 
 Madame de Fougeret remained ; but she had to struggle against 
 the indecent innovations which the revolutionary committees 
 wished to introduce, by voting rewards to the unmarried wo- 
 men who had given citizens to the state. Her arrest closed 
 the debate ; yet so judicious and regular had always been her 
 proceedings, that, though want of funds interrupted the pro- 
 gress of the Maternal Charity, every one of its engagements 
 was fulfilled : for it had very properly been made a rule, that 
 the full amount of money needed for the support of a child 
 should be ready before the claims of the infant were admitted. 
 The husband of Madame de Fougeret was arrested with her, 
 and he died by the guillotine : they had enjoyed together 
 thirty years of uninterrupted happiness and perfect union. 
 Her life was spared ; but not her property. She had children ' 
 
282 WOMEN OF CHEISTIAHTTT. 
 
 for whose sake she braved the danger -which, then attended 
 imprudent claims; and her eloquent and energetic remon 
 strances succeeded in preserving the wreck of M. de Fouge- 
 ret's former wealth. She retired to the country with her four 
 daughters, their husbands, and children : she was now the 
 head of this large family, and ruled it with prudence and 
 tenderness. 
 
 Madame de Fougeret had thus spent a few peaceful years, 
 when tidings reached her in her retreat, that Napoleon, with 
 that enlightened sagacity which characterized his administra- 
 tion, had adopted the Maternal Charity, and declared it an 
 imperial establishment by a decree of the senate. To give it 
 more lustre, he placed it under the protection of his wife, 
 Marie Louise. No subscriptions under five hundred francs 
 were received ; all the ladies of the imperial court were ex- 
 pected to subscribe ; and government gave a yearly allowance 
 of five hundred thousand francs. The Maternal Charity was 
 no longer confined to Paris alone : Societies, on the model of 
 the central one, were established in eveiy large town ; and the 
 judicious rules which Madame de Fougeret had first laid down 
 now extended over all France. It must not be inferred from 
 this that Napoleon had founded the society anew : Mesdames 
 de Pastoret and de Grivel had for some years given it a second 
 birth. Only a limited number of the members could afford 
 to pay the high subscription of five hundred francs ; but as 
 policy far more than charity was the chief motive of the 
 ladies of the imperial court, it was agreed that whilst they gave 
 the money, the original members would give their zeal, time, 
 and experience. 
 
 No one seemed to think of Madame de Fougeret ; without 
 whom such a society as the Maternal Charity would never 
 have existed. She felt the neglect, and wrote to a friend : 
 " Only one of my daughters has made a fortune ; but she has 
 been received at court, and has forgotten her mother." She 
 could not afford to subscribe to the society, and no one sug- 
 gested that its foundress should be received as an honorary 
 member. The ladies by whom it had been re-established, 
 after the revolutionary storm had abated, were nevertheless on 
 friendly terms with her ; and they honored her memory with 
 a tribute of praise, rendered public by the press, when she 
 died at the close of 1813. 
 
MADAME DE PASTOBET. 283 
 
 When the Bourbons were restored to the throne after the 
 fall of Napoleon, they found the Maternal Charity in a pros- 
 perous condition, and showed every inclination to protect a 
 society which had enjoyed the/avor of Louis XVI. and of his 
 ill-fated wife : the Duchess of Angoulfime accepted the title of 
 protectress, and undertook the duties of president. The 
 society survived the fall of the elder branch, and continued to 
 flourish under the reign of Louis Philippe; and when the 
 report from which the preceding account is extracted was pub- 
 lished, it preserved to their families no less than seven hundred 
 children a-year. 
 
 In the course of these remarks, the name of Madame de 
 Pastoret has been mentioned — it must not be dismissed with- 
 out further notice. This lady, who died a few years ago, left 
 the name of having been one of the most handsome, witty, 
 and actively charitable women of France. Married on the 
 memorable day of the taking of the Bastile, she lived for 
 years in constant apprehension of the scaffold. Her husband 
 was compelled to flee ; she remained behind with her child, and 
 was thrown into prison, where, for a year, death daily seemed 
 to await her. Twice her husband returned, but Vas again 
 forced to leave France ; and when calmer days were restored, 
 and the long-divided couple met again, their fortune was well- 
 nigh gone. M. de Pastoret was a practical philosopher, and 
 one of the most benevolent of men. His wife shared his in- 
 difference to wealth, his love of the poor, and practised the 
 enlightened charity which guided all his actions. If they 
 could not give much, they understood at least the difficult art 
 of giving well. 'Besides the Maternal Charity which she 
 mainly contributed to re-establish, Madame de Pastoret opened 
 the first of the Salles d'Asile, now universally adopted in 
 France. She chanced one day in 1801 to visit a poor woman 
 whom she was in the habit of relieving. The woman was out, 
 but her child, whilst alone, had crept out of its cradle, and 
 fallen on the floor ; where it lay, seriously injured, and covered 
 with blood. Madame de Pastoret was much affected at the 
 sight ; and she conceived the project of opening a place where 
 poor women could leave their children whilst they were out at 
 work. She supported the expense of the first establishment ; 
 where, under the superintendence of a nun, fifteen children were 
 daily received : the number ultimately increased to thirty. 
 
284: WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 The biographer of Madame de Pastoret complains that, at 
 the peace of Amiens, Eichard Lovell Edgeworth and his 
 daughter came to France, saw Madame de Pastoret, who 
 showed them her salle d'asile, and took away the idea to 
 England ; or rather, (for there would be no cause of complaint 
 in this,) that, in consequence of their having borrowed and 
 extended the plan, the merit of originality was ultimately 
 denied to her in her own country. But the idea could and 
 did occur to persons having no mutual intercourse: long 
 before Madame de Pastoret thought of the salles d'asile, they 
 had been established, by the benevolent Pastor Oberlin, in the 
 village of the Ban de la Roche. 
 
 To the same period, and rather to the eighteenth century 
 than to this, belong the devoted lives of two generous women 
 — Mademoiselle de Corbion, and an humble lay sister, still 
 remembered in France as Sister Martha. Jeanne de Corbion 
 was born in the little town of St. Brieuc, in 1V77. Her 
 earliest thoughts seem to have been thoughts of charity : she 
 once hid a poor child in the house of her parents, and kept 
 him there privately; and she often took off her shoes and her 
 garments to give them to the half-naked children whom she 
 met in her walks. As she grew older, and was allowed more 
 -liberty, her great delight was to carry the indigent and the 
 sick any little delicacy placed before her at table. This passion 
 of charity increased with her years : dress and dancing, to both 
 of which she was much addicted, were relinquished, that more 
 time might remain for God and the poor. She rose early ; 
 spent two hours in the neighboring church, absorbed in adora- 
 tion ; then visited the poor, assisted them "in their wants, or 
 waited on them in their sickness : she made their beds, she 
 swept their rooms, she read to them. In the afternoon, another 
 hour spent in the church again preceded those visits of 
 mercy ; in the evening, she collected in her room all the 
 children, rich or poor, whom she could find, and prayed with 
 them. Days begun with God closed worthily in communion 
 with the purity and innocence of childhood. 
 
 Of all her self-imposed duties, only one — visiting the 
 prisoners — was somewhat painful : the licentiousness and 
 profanity of their discourse disturbed a mind so pure and 
 serene. Yet the ardent desire of effecting some good sustained 
 her. She endeavored to give the women some religious 
 
JEANNE DE CORBON ANNE BIGET. H85 
 
 instruction ; and, when she could do so, she made herself tha 
 bearer of messages, and the medium of their intercourse with 
 the outward world. Her task was far less painful when, with 
 her friends the Sisters of Charity, she devoted herself to the 
 prisoners of war who chanced to pass through St. Brieuc : she 
 dressed their wounds, and daily brought them linen, bread, 
 meat, wine, and soup. How she procured the means is not 
 known ; but it is certain that, within a short space of time, no 
 less than four thousand poor foreigners were thus relieved : 
 the behavior, not always courteous, of the officers and soldiers 
 to whose custody the prisoners^ were committed, could not 
 deter her. Humility was her favorite virtue ; perhaps be- 
 cause her temper, naturally high and somewhat warm, ren- 
 dered it difficult to practise ; and she ended by laying a 
 tax for the poor on all those who persisted in calling her 
 Mademoiselle de Corbion, instead of giving her the plain name 
 of Jeanne. 
 
 She was naturally delicate, and there is every reason to 
 believe that she exhausted her youth and strength in labors 
 beyond her powers of endurance. In her last illness, which 
 was languishing and slow, she clung to the feelings which had 
 been the food of her life : she was nearly dying, when, remem- 
 bering that a prisoner was goiDg to be tried, she requested 
 that some bread and wine might be taken to him in the 
 court; and that, if he were condemned to the pillory, the 
 same sustenance might be repeated. She died at the close of 
 the year 1812 ; and, strange and sad to record, this pure and 
 pious creature expired in the same terrors of judgment which 
 might beset an abandoned sinner : terrors which not even the 
 exhortations and assurances of the priest who attended her in 
 her last moments could dispel. 
 
 The generous charity which Mademoiselle de Corbion dis- 
 played in every relation of fife, but especially towards 
 prisoners, French or foreign, was surpassed by another woman, 
 of health more robust, though not of a spirit more devoted. 
 Some years before the first French revolution broke out, a 
 peasant girl, named Anne Biget, entered a convent of the 
 order of the Visitation, in her native province of Franche 
 Comte. It is recorded of her, that once meeting, in her 
 childhood, some poor prisoners on the bridge of Besanqon, 
 she gave them the cakes she was taking to her sister : this 
 
286 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 simple act of the child, foreshadowed truly what was to be the 
 life-long task of the woman. 
 
 Being only a lay sister, Anne Biget, now. called Sister 
 Martha, was not obliged, like the other nuns, to keep within 
 the convent walls ; and- she often visited the prisons of Besan- 
 con. The Revolution, which opened the gates of every 
 convent in France, soon gave her entire liberty of action. 
 Sister Martha was now reduced to the scanty pension of three 
 hundred and thirty-three francs, allowed by government to 
 the nuns, as a compensation for the home of which they had 
 been forcibly deprived : but she also possessed, in Besancon, 
 a small house, where she henceforth took up her abode. The 
 Terror filled the prisons of Besancon with innocent victims of 
 either sex and every age ; Sister Martha, and another nun not 
 less devoted or courageous, visited these unhappy captives, 
 and ministered to their necessities according to their means. 
 
 This was not all : to the house of Sister Martha daily 
 resorted aged men and women, children, and sick people. 
 She gave them alms, food, and consolation ; she begged for 
 them from house to house ; and so true and deep was the 
 respect she inspired, that she seldom asked in vain. Her 
 robust health and native energy enabled her to do more : she 
 took long expeditions of mercy, and was known to the sick 
 peasants of many distant villages ; she visited them, prepared 
 their mediciues, and prayed by their bed of sickness or death. 
 The hour or the weather could not detain her : she braved 
 alike the burning summer heats or the keen winter winds. 
 This life of toil was also one of daily sacrifice and self-denial : 
 no cheerful fire ever blazed on the lonely hearth of the lay 
 sister ; she called this simple luxury a robbery of her poor ; 
 and for twelve years, milk and the coarsest bread was the 
 only food she ever tasted. 
 
 She adorned her life with heroic actions as well as with 
 good deeds. In the spring of 1805, a hamlet near Besancon 
 took fire, and was half burned down. Sister Martha was 
 promptly on the spot, displaying her usual zeal, courage, and 
 good sense. One of the cottages had taken fire so speedily, 
 that its inmates, a woman and her two children, had not 
 found time to escape ; no one attempted to rescue them ; 
 Sister Martha implored and threatened uselessly. After 
 vainly offering all she possessed to him who should at least 
 
A2TNE BIGET. 287 
 
 make an effort, the devoted woman entered the burning 
 cottage, and, though not without sustaining severe injuries, 
 saved the three inmates. 
 
 Two years after this, as she was gathering medicinal plants 
 on the banks of the Doubs, Sister Martha heard and saw a 
 child falling into the river. She rushed in, seized the boy, 
 and, after a severe and dangerous struggle with the stream, 
 which was already bearing him away, she succeeded in reach- 
 ing the shore. 
 
 In 1809, six hundred Spanish prisoners of war were brought 
 to Besancon : they were in a deplorable state ; wounded, sick, 
 and almost naked. The ingenious charity of Sister Martha 
 provided for their necessities : we are not told how ; but He 
 who fed the hungry multitude gave her means. This noble 
 woman was then sixty-one ; but neither age nor fatigue 
 deterred her : she became the guardian angel of the prisoners ; 
 to whose captivity was added the grief of exile in an unfriendly 
 land. In their wants and troubles they looked to her : she 
 was their deputy, their advocate, the bearer of all their 
 requests or remonstrances to the French military commander 
 of the place. This officer, who esteemed her greatly, said to 
 her one day, " You will be very much grieved, Sister Martha, 
 for your good friends, the Spaniards, are going to leave Besan- 
 con." " Yes," simply replied the nun, " but the English 
 prisoners are coming." Surely this is the true spirit of Christ, 
 which forgets the difference of race or creed to remember but 
 the one great and universal brotherhood in God ! The here- 
 ditary enemies of her land and faith, the English heretics, 
 were as welcome to Sister Martha as the Catholic Spaniards. 
 The chances of war enabled her to bestow her impartial 
 charity on prisoners of every race ; and travellers have found 
 her name and memory venerated in many a distant land, by 
 those whose captivity she had soothed, and who gratefully 
 acknowledged that, to her care and tenderness, they owed life, 
 and, through life, ultimate liberty and return to their own 
 home. 
 
 The devastating warfare which France had carried to every 
 foreign soil, was brought back to her own bosom by allied 
 Europe. New tasks now awaited Sister Martha. She had 
 been seen in the prison, and by the sick-bed of the poor ; she 
 bad braved fire and flood in the heroism of her charity ; now 
 
288 WOMEN OP CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 she haunted dreary battle-fields, covered with the dying and 
 , the dead. Frenchmen or foreign foe alike received her care. 
 More than once she ventured within reach of the guns, to 
 tend the wounded as they fell. When the combat had 
 ceased, she went about the country begging for old linen, and 
 enlisting all the women in the task of making lint; with 
 which she promptly returned to the temporary hospitals, 
 established wherever the fighting had been most fatal. It 
 was whilst thus engaged that Sister Martha met the Duke of 
 Eeggio, in the year 1814. "I have long known you by 
 name," said he to the nun, " for whenever my soldiers 
 chanced to be wounded, they immediately exclaimed, ' where 
 is our good Sister Martha V " So much was she loved and 
 respected in the army, that a young deserter was, at her 
 request, reprieved on his way to the place of execution. This 
 was a rare instance of condescension and leniency, at a period 
 when the severity of military law was justified by the well- 
 nigh desperate position of invaded France. 
 
 The peace of 1814 freed Sister Martha from a portion, at 
 least, of her self-imposed duties : all the military prisoners of 
 Besancon were set at liberty. Their first spontaneous thought 
 was to give their good nun a ffete ; which took place within 
 those very walls where her presence had so often been to 
 them the harbinger of hope and peace. Distinctions more 
 flattering, but not perhaps so grateful to her kind heart, were 
 subsequently awarded to Sister Martha. Already in 1801, 
 the Agricultural Society of Besancon had presented her with 
 a silver medal, bearing the inscription': "A Homage to 
 Virtue." In 1815, the French minister of war sent her a 
 cross ; the Emperor of Russia forwarded to her a gold medal ; 
 the King of Prussia paid her the same compliment : but with 
 the medal he sent a hundred pieces of g"old, to be distributed 
 by her in acts of charity ; and, in -a letter written by one of 
 his ministers, he warmly thanked her for all the care she had 
 taken of his wounded and captive subjects. The Emperor of 
 Austria bestowed on her the medal of civil merit ; she also 
 received a decoration from the King of Spain. 
 
 In 1816, Sister Martha took a journey to Paris, in order to 
 make a collection for her poor, as her own resources were 
 well-nigh exhausted. She was received with distinction at 
 court, and in the most fashionable circles; and bore her 
 
MA1CT LECSINSKA, QUEEN OF FEANCE. 289 
 
 honors with great simplicity and composure. She soon 
 returned to her province, where she spent all the money she 
 had brought back with her, by assisting no less than two 
 thousand poor persons daily during the famine of 1817. 
 
 Of" her further labors we find no record : the last years of 
 her exemplary life were spent in obscurity. She died in 1824, 
 m the seventy-sixth year of her age. At the time of her 
 visits to Paris, a popular portrait of Sister Martha was 
 engraved from a painting by her nephew, an artist of promise, 
 who died young. In that portrait she wears the close cap 
 and plain attire of the peasant women of her province ; but 
 foreign orders and medals glitter amongst the folds of her 
 kerchief, and appear there side by side with the humble cross 
 of the nun. There is goodness and intelligence in the strongly 
 marked features, which bear the trace and wrinkles of years ; 
 there is also will, decision, arid energy. Even as she seemed 
 she was : prompt to decide and act, and independent in the 
 good she did. Her spirit was that of the scriptural woman 
 whose name she early assumed : of Martha, who could not, 
 like Mary, sit quietly at the feet of the Lord ; but in whom 
 the word, though it led not to holy contemplation, produced 
 the fruitful seed of a life filled with good deeds, and sanctified 
 by daily obedience to the commands of the Divine Master. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Mary Leesinska, Queen of France. 
 
 The snares, the temptations which beset sovereign rank, 
 only render more lovely and more pure virtues always attrac- 
 tive. We shall, therefore, give at some length the lives of 
 three women who reigned in the last century, and one .of 
 whom also belongs to our own times. One married the de- 
 scendant of an ancient line of kings, and the master of the 
 fairest realm of Europe ; another was united to a subtle and 
 daring monarch, whom, as general and as ruler, his contem- 
 poraries styled the Great ; the third was wife of a sovereign 
 whose vast empire extended over three parts of the world, 
 13 
 
290 WOMEN OF CHRISTIAOTTT. 
 
 and who, amongst his subjects, numbered men of almost every 
 race. Their names will be found in other works, because they 
 were the consorts of sovereigns so great or powerful ; they are 
 here in their own right, because they were meek, good, and 
 lowly. 
 
 A court intrigue raised the daughter of Stanislas Lecsinski, 
 the exiled king of Poland, to the throne of France in the year 
 1725. 
 
 Louis XV. was then fifteen, and had been betrothed to a 
 little Spanish princess several years younger than himself. In 
 the event of his dying childless, the crown would have fallen 
 to his heir, the Duke of Orleans, the personal enemy of the 
 Duke of Bourbon, then prime minister. To ward off this dan- 
 ger, the Duke of Bourbon resolved to marry the young mo- 
 narch to his own sister, Mademoiselle de Vermandois ; a beau- 
 tiful and accomplished princess of the royal blood of France, 
 then residing in the old and celebrated abbey of Fontevrault. 
 He commissioned his mistress, the clever, unprincipled Ma- 
 dame de Prie, to visit his sister in her retreat, and ascertain 
 how far she could answer their purpose, and was likely to 
 enter into their views. Madame de Prie took an assumed 
 name, and framed a pretence to see the princess. She was 
 charmed with her person and her manners, until she unluckily 
 asked to know the opinion entertained in the convent of a cer- 
 tain Marchioness of Prie. " Oh ! madam," candidly replied 
 Mademoiselle de Vermandois, " that wicked creature is thought 
 very little of here. How unfortunate it is that my brother 
 should thus keep near him a person who causes him to be 
 universally detested ! why does not some kind friend advise 
 him to send her away ?" 
 
 Madame de Prie subdued her indignation ; but, on leaving 
 the convent, she vowed that the haughty princess should never 
 become queen of France. She kept her word ; for she was 
 then all powerful over her weak lover. Mademoiselle de Ver- 
 mandois remained in the abbey of Fontevrault ; and when the 
 Spanish Infanta was unceremoniously sent back to her pa- 
 rents, the portionless daughter of a fugitive and dethroned 
 king was chosen to filj her place, anji wear the first crown of 
 Europe. 
 
 Mary Lecsinska had then reached her twenty-second year. 
 Her stature was short, her features were plain and pale, and 
 
MAHY LECSINSKA, QUEEN OF FKA2TCE. 291 
 
 there was nothing in the whole of her unpretending person to 
 strjke or attract the eye ; but her manners were simpie and 
 pleasing, and her calm countenance had an expression of min- 
 gled delicacy and finesse. Her judgment was quiet and solid ; 
 she spoke little, but well, and with simple grace. Her mind 
 was subtle and penetrating, without guile ; for she was ail that 
 she seemed to be, and much more besides — a modest, unpre- 
 suming woman, and a saint. Hev fervent piety had been pu- 
 rified and strengthened by misfortunes, which began almost 
 with her life, and were caused by the struggle between her 
 father Stanislas and his rival Augustus for the crown of Po- 
 land. She was still an infant when Stanislas was obliged to 
 flee from the kingdom with his wife and child. In the hurry 
 of escape the future queen of France was forgotten by her 
 nurse in one of the villages through which they passed ; she 
 was soon missed, and, on being sought for, was found lying in 
 the manger of a stable. After years of wandering, the exiles 
 at length found a home in the chateau of Weissemberg, where 
 they settled in 1720. For five years Mary Lecsinska lived 
 there with her parents, in the seclusion and obscurity that 
 suited their fallen fortunes. It was in this abode that her ap- 
 proaching greatness was first intimated to her by the singular 
 prediction which all her biographers have faithfully recorded. 
 She was walking one day in the garden of the chateau, when 
 a low, beseeching voice attracted her attention. She looked 
 up, and through the paling beheld the wan, haggard face of 
 a beggar woman. Filled with pity, Mary gave her the only 
 piece of gold she then possessed. In the transport of her gra- 
 titude, the woman exclaimed : " God will bless you : you will 
 become queen of France !" 
 
 Never did prediction seem less probable. So little did 
 Mary hope for a crown, that she had not been far from ac- 
 cepting the hand of one of her future subjects — the Duke of 
 Estrees. Six months after the prediction of the beggar wo- 
 man, Stanislas entered the apartment of his wife and daugh- 
 ter, and addressing them, said, with much emotion : " Let us 
 kneel and give thanks to God.'' 
 
 " Father !" exclaimed Mary, " are you called back to the 
 throne of Poland ?" 
 
 " No, my child," he replied ; " Heaven is far more favora- 
 ble to us — You are queen of France ! Be seated," he added, 
 
292 WOMEN OF CHBISTIANITT. 
 
 bringing an arm-chair forward, " and let me be the first to 
 congratulate the queen of France on her accession." 
 
 The marriage ceremony was solemnized at Strasbourg on 
 the 14th of August, 1725, the Duke of Orleans personating 
 the King of France ; and a few days later, Mary parted from 
 her parents. The journey of the young queen through her 
 new dominions resembled a triumphant progress ; but she 
 had too much tact to be deceived by flattery, and on the se- 
 cond day we find her writing to her father : " Every one does 
 his best to divinize me : yesterday I was the wonder of the 
 world ; to-day I am a benignant luminary, and to-morrow no 
 doubt I shall be placed above the immortal ones themselves." 
 On the 5th of September, 1725, a second marriage ceremony 
 united Mary Lecsinska and Louis XV. in the chapel of the 
 royal residence of Fontainebleau. 
 
 The king was young and veiy handsome ; too indolent and 
 apathetic, but still blameless in his life. The queen was the 
 first woman whom he loved, and years elapsed before h'e gave 
 her a rival. Whenever insidious noblemen drew his attention 
 to any of the beauties of the court, he checked them with the 
 simple and dignified reply : " Do you think her handsomer 
 than the queen ?" A natural sense of diffidence in a position 
 so novel and difficult, induced Mary to write to her father for 
 advice to guide her. He complied with her request, and con- 
 cluded with the following remarks : " Be such as you have 
 ever been from your earliest years. Attach yourself to the 
 spirit of religion ; unite it to piety, without which it is only a 
 delusion ; unite piety to morality, else you are only supersti- 
 tious ; and do not separate morality from worship, -for other- 
 wise it does not differ from that modern philosophy which 
 only acknowledges virtue and duty to be freed from their 
 yoke." 
 
 Mary Lecsinska was worthy of receiving such counsel. Her 
 piety was deep and unaffected. If she strictly exacted all the 
 respect and observance owing to her as queen of France, it 
 was because she felt deeply impressed with the reverence due 
 to the kingly state ; she was wholly free from personal pride, 
 and ever separated herself from the crown she wore. She 
 liked to recall her once lowly condition, and it was to those 
 same courtiers from whom she expected the strictest etiquette, 
 that she once said, on perceiving the Duchess of Estrees at 
 
MAKY LECSmSKA, QUEEN OP FRANCE. 203 
 
 Versailles ; " Do you know that I might have been in that 
 lady's place, and be now curtseying like her to the queen of 
 France." Courtiers sometimes complained of her formality, 
 but the poor ever found her as easy of access as she was free 
 to give : the same woman, lowly of spirit and generous of 
 heart, who bestowed her last piece of gold on the beggar of 
 Weissemberg. She was passing one day through the apart- 
 ments of Versailles, followed by her usual suite, when a pea- 
 sant woman approached her, and unceremoniously said : " My 
 good queen, I have come from a great distance to see you. 
 Pray let me enjoy that satisfaction a little at my ease." " Very 
 willingly," replied the queen, stopping short ; and she opened 
 the conversation by questioning ' her visitor concerning her 
 name, birthplace, and family. After answering a few ques- 
 tions in her turn, the queen added : " Have you seen me at 
 your ease ? Can I go, and feel that I leave you satisfied ?" 
 The peasant woman assented, and retired overjoyed at so gra- 
 cious a reception. 
 
 The tastes of Mary Lecsinska were naturally simple : no 
 lady of her court gave less time to the toilette. She had been 
 told, that, to please the king, she should follow the universal 
 custom of wearing rouge ; she conquered her secret repug- 
 nance, and complied ; but, through want of habit, she put on 
 her rouge so badly that Louis XV., who had the good taste 
 to detest this meretricious fashion, could not refrain from once 
 telling her, in a jesting way, "that she reminded him of dou- 
 ble-faced Janus, and that he admired the pains she took to 
 disfigure herself." From that time Mary rouged no more, 
 and declared that the custom must have been first introduced 
 " by the old and ugly women, anxious to render their daugh- 
 ters as old and ugly as themselves." 
 
 The indolence of the king, and the manner in which he for- 
 sook the court, often threw on his wife the burden of support- 
 ing its state. The disadvantage of her short and slight figure 
 w'as partly effaced by the ease and dignity of her manners ; 
 and she received the French nobles, foreign ambassadors, and 
 strangers of distinction, with much affability and grace. She 
 dined in public, as was then the custom, and excelled in the 
 difficult art of guiding the conversation ; she strictly discou- 
 raged scandal or slander, under their mildest form. " Have 
 we not, perchance, spoken ill of any one?" was a question 
 
294 WOMEN OF CHBISTIANirr. 
 
 which she often asked with conscientious uneasiness at the 
 close of the discourse. She -deserved the more praise for this 
 reserve, that she had naturally a taste and some talent for 
 raillery : M. de Croy, a lame, gouty, white-headed, but still 
 languishing old beau, celebrated for the conquests of his youth, 
 was once aptly defined by her as " the invalid of Cythera." 
 
 The goodness of heart and delicacy of feeling which pre- 
 vented Mary from indulging in repartee, often suggested to 
 her charming sayings, full of grace and finesse. The cele- 
 brated Marechal de Saxe, to whom France then owed her tri- 
 umphs in war, stood high, spite of his Protestant faith, in the 
 favor of the queen, to whom he paid his court very assidu- 
 ously every time he came to Versailles. As he once took 
 leave of her on the eve of his departure for the army, Mary 
 assured him that she would pray and cause prayers to be 
 offered up for him. " My prayer to Heaven," answered the 
 marechal, " would be to die like Turenne, on the battle-field." 
 "Whatever may be the death of the Marechal de Saxe, he 
 cannot but die covered with glory," graciously replied the 
 queen ; " but how happy I should feel if, at the close of a 
 long and glorious career, he could, like Turenne, sleep in St. 
 Denis !" 
 
 Turenne, it is well known, abjured Calvinism, and the 
 queen thus adroitly hinted to the Marechal de Saxe the 
 propriety of following so great an example, and earning, like 
 Turenne, the privilege of a last resting-place amongst the heroes 
 and monavchs of France. But Maurice de Saxe had neither 
 the policy nor the destiny of Turenne : he died in his bed, 
 and died as he had lived, indifferent to the spirit or practice 
 of religion; though belonging, outwardly at least, to the 
 Lutheran creed. On learning his death, the queen exclaimed, 
 with equal a-propos and grace, " Alas ! what a pity that we 
 cannot sing a De Profundis for a man who has made us sing 
 so many Te Deums." 
 
 It was one of the favorite maxims of Mary LecsinskaJ 
 "That the mercy of kings was to be just, and the justice of 
 queens to be merciful." She accordingly sacrificed a great 
 portion of the day to the wearying task of giving audiences 
 and receiving petitions. When she had leisure, she amused 
 herself with music, painting, and a little printing press, with 
 which she printed short and pious treatises for private distri- 
 
MATIY LECSINSKA^ QUEEN OE FRANCE. 295 
 
 bution. One of the weaknesses of this good princess lay in 
 imagining that she could paint. She once undertook four 
 large Chinese pictures, destined to adorn her private drawing 
 room. The artist who gave her lessons, designed and painted 
 the figures, leaving the draperies to the queen : he held her 
 palette, and handed her the brush with the red, blue, or green 
 color required, repeating constantly : " A little higher up, 
 madame ; a little lower now ; to. the right, if you please ; to 
 the left, madame.'' In her absence he rectified the mistakes 
 his pupil had committed. Yet so confident did the queen 
 feel that those pictures were the result of her own exertions, 
 that she bequeathed them as such to the Marechale de 
 Mouchy, who caused to be engraved over the door of the 
 apartment where she kept this legacy of her royal mistress : 
 "The innocent untruth of the good princess." 
 
 Mary Lecsinska had conceived much affection for the Duke 
 and Duchess of Luynes ; who were both remarkable for piety 
 and virtue : she called them " her honest people," and often 
 spent her evenings in their society. The duchess sometimes 
 took the friendly liberty of censuring the queen, who nevei 
 loved her better than when she did so ; and even wished to 
 find the same frankness in her own personal attendants. One 
 evening as she undressed, previously to retiring for the night, 
 she lamented, in the presence of three of her women, the 
 little progress she made in virtue ; and deplored especially her 
 want of Christian charity. Two of the women warmly con- 
 tradicted her ; but the third declared that the queen was cer- 
 tainly given to injustice and uncharitableness of speech. Mary 
 defended her against her companions, who heard the accusa- 
 tion with indignant surprise, and encouraged her to proceed : 
 " Go on, my good girl," she said, " go on, tell me more ; tell 
 me all." 
 
 " Surely," resumed the woman, turning towards the other 
 attendants, " surely you must confess that her majesty is guilty 
 of injustice and uncharitableness of speech whenever she speaks 
 of herself, as she has spoken this evening." They readily 
 assented ; but the humble queen remained more disconcerted, 
 than pleased at the adroit flattery she thus received. 
 
 Mary Lecsinska was loved in her private circle ; but at court 
 she was only esteemed : notwithstanding the charm of her 
 goodness, courtiers often complained of the queen, and accused 
 
296 WOMEN OF CIHJBTIAHITY. 
 
 her of parsimony. She bore patiently the unjust reproach 
 implied by cold looks and a formal bearing. " It is better," 
 she once remarked, "to listen to those who cry from afar, 
 ' Believe our misery,' than to heed the voices which whisper 
 in our ear, ' Add to our wealth.' The treasures of the state 
 are not our treasures : we are not free to bestow in arbitrary 
 gifts sums exacted in farthings from the poor and the working 
 man. Courtiers may say : ' Give to us, and reckon not what 
 you give ; ' but the people say : ' Keckon what we give you.' " 
 The whole conduct of the queen during the forty-three years 
 of her reign, showed how deeply she was impressed with those 
 maxims. " If there were no little ones," she often said, " we 
 should not be great ; then let our greatness be but for them." 
 The " little ones" gave their kind-hearted queen many proofs 
 of their confidence in her. The fame of her benevolence and 
 charity penetrated the farthest .provinces of France. An aged 
 woman finding herself suddenly destitute, and fearing the 
 approach of winter, which could not but add to her miserable 
 position, resolved to apply to the queen ; she took the road 
 leading to Versailles, and, after a long and fatiguing journey, 
 reached the royal residence. Mary Lecsinska received her 
 with all the familiar kindness we yield to a welcome guest : 
 she gave up to her her own arm-chair, made her take some 
 wine, and sitting down on a low stool by her side, listened 
 patiently to the tedious recital of her troubles, and of the fatigue 
 she had endured during her journey. When the old woman 
 had ceased, she gently consoled her, and promised to provide 
 for her in future. 
 
 There are many ways of doing good : it is well to relieve 
 those who apply to us : it is better still to seek them out. 
 Mary Lecsinska liked to speak of herself as if she were the 
 mother of her subjects ; and the beauty of her charity was, 
 that it had not only the tenderness, but also the unceasing 
 vigilance of maternal love. Whilst the court was at Marly, 
 she happened, early one morning, to be looking out from her 
 window, when she saw a sister of charity passing by ; she ad- 
 dressed her, and learned that she had come some distance in 
 order to solicit aid for the hospital to which she belonged. 
 " Shall I speak for you to the minister ? " asked the queen. 
 Ihe sister of charity joyfully assented, thanked her, walked 
 away a few steps, then, suddenly coming back, exclaimed: 
 
MART LECSINSKA, QUEEN OF FRANCE. 297 
 
 " May I know the name of the kind lady who honors our poor 
 hospftal with her protection ? " 
 
 " Hush ! " mysteriously replied Mary Lecsinska ; " tell it to 
 no one : it is the queen." 
 
 On another occasion she was walking in the gardens of Ver- 
 sailles, when she met a poorly dressed woman holding a can 
 in ' her hand, carrying a baby in her arms, and followed by 
 several children. The queen questioned her, and learned that 
 she was the wife of a poor mason, to whom she was now taking 
 his soup ; that.they had five children, and the man's earnings 
 never exceeded sixpence a-day. The queen wondered, as well 
 she might, how seven persons could live upon this. 
 
 " How do you manage to do it, my good creature 2 " she 
 compassionately asked ; " what is your secret ? " 
 
 " Ah, madame, here is the secret," replied the poor woman, 
 pointing to a key hanging from -her girdle, " I lock up the 
 bread, and try to have always some for my husband. If I 
 minded those children, they would eat in a day what must 
 last a whole week." 
 
 The eyes of the queen filled with tears ; she slipped ten 
 louis into the hand of the poor mother, and gently said : 
 " Pray, give more bread to your children." 
 
 After years of almost unbroken happiness, and during which 
 she gave birth to ten children, — two sons and eight daughters, 
 — Mary Lecsinska had the misfortune of losing the affections of 
 her husband. Admirable as was the spirit of her piety, it 
 often became too narrow and minute in practice; and the 
 austerity and exaggerated scruples of her devotion wearied and 
 estranged Louis XV. The advice of courtiers and the unblush- 
 ing seductions of women — younger, more beautiful, and, above 
 all, more complaisant and entertaining than the pure and pious 
 queen — did the rest. Her sorrow was deep, but unavailing : 
 she never won back the heart of her husband. At first he 
 took some pains to conceal the truth ; but, ere long, he threw 
 off all disguise, and Madame de Maille became his acknow- 
 ledged mistress. Spite of her usual meekness, Mary could not 
 help betraying slight marks of resentment : Madame' de Maille, 
 who belonged to her household, once asked her permission to 
 go to Choisy, where the king then was. " You are the mis- 
 tress," sharply replied the injured queen; and none of the 
 courtiers present lost the double meaning the words conveyed. 
 13* 
 
298 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Madame de Maille was soon replaced by her intriguing 
 sister, Madame de Vintimille, who died suddenly. A second 
 sister, Madame de Chateauroux, undertook the task of consoling 
 the king, whose dishonoring favor she shared with another of 
 her sisters, Madame de Lauraguais. In the year 1744, Louis 
 XV. fell. dangerously ill at Metz; and, rendered penitent by 
 the dread of death, banished his mistress, and publicly im- 
 plored the forgiveness of his wife. But no sooner had he 
 recovered than he recalled his favorite, and once more neglected 
 the queen. The triumph of Madame de Chateauroux was 
 brief; she died so suddenly that her enemies were accused of 
 having poisoned her. The kind-hearted Maiy Lecsinska, who 
 had known and protected her for many years, was painfully 
 affected by her death. She was not free from a superstitious 
 fear of spirits, and on the evening of the royal favorite's decease, 
 she detained one of her attendants by her bedside, because, 
 as she confessed, " she could not help fearing that poor Madame 
 de Chateauroux might come back." 
 
 " Madame," replied the woman, with a good deal of naivete, 
 " if Madame de Chateauroux does come back, depend upon it 
 it is not to your majesty she will pay a visit." The queen 
 laughed, and acknowledged her weakness. 
 
 Madame de Pompadour succeeded to Madame de Chateau- 
 roux ; but she had a longer rule : the king gave her a place in 
 the household of his wife ; who felt the insult deeply. M. de 
 Marigny, brother of the favorite, was superintendent of the 
 royal domain, and he frequently offered to the queen, through 
 his sister, the finest fruits and flowers of Trianon and Choisy. 
 One morning the marchioness entered the apartment of Mary 
 Lecsinska holding a large basket filled with flowers. Irritated 
 by her presence, the queen began admiring, with undisguised 
 irony, the beauty of her rival : she praised her charming com- 
 plexion, fine eyes, and exquisite arms, with that minuteness 
 which is in itself a slight, and at length begged of her to sing ; 
 for the admirable voice of Madams de Pompadour was not the 
 least of those many attractions which had seduced Louis XV. 
 The marchioness, who still held" the basket of flowers, endea- 
 vored to excuse herself; but the queen imprudently ordered 
 her to comply. After a brief pause, the favorite obeyed, and 
 in the presence of all the ladies then assembled round the 
 queen, she sang the triumphant monologue of Armida : " At 
 
MAET LEOSINSKA, QUEEN OF FKANCE. 299 
 
 length, tie owns my power." The queen felt the taunt, and 
 turned pale. Were we writing a panegyric, we might have 
 omitted this anecdote ; we have recorded it to show, that, good 
 and pious as she was, Mary Lecsinska was not always free from 
 the weakness of a woman wounded in her love and pride. 
 
 She sought and found consolations more worthy of her 
 character in the practice of her favorite virtues — charity and 
 self-denial. Whilst the mistress of the king exhausted the 
 resources of the state with lavish extravagance, and lived in 
 scandalous luxury, his wife daily sacrificed her most innocent 
 tastes for the sake of the oppressed poor. She was naturally 
 fond of jewellery and rare porcelain ; the dealers in those, 
 wares, who were allowed to sell and display their goods along 
 the marble staircases, and even in the galleries of Versailles, 
 never failed to attract her attention to their rarest and most 
 costly articles, whenever she passed by their stalls. The queen 
 sometimes paused to look ; but she rigidly obeyed the self- 
 imposed law, of never buying anything without having first 
 allowed twenty-four hours to elapse ; after that space of time,' 
 she seldom yielded to the temptation. " I like it," she once 
 said, speaking of a rich and elegant article of jewellery, " but 
 I cannot judge of it with my eyes of to-day ; I must wait for 
 my eyes of to-morrow." On the following day the queen 
 was informed that the jeweller wished to speak to her ma- 
 jesty. " No, not to my Majesty," replied Mary, " but to my 
 caprice : tell him it is gone." She once refused to buy a dress, 
 saying simply, " It is too dear : I have dresses in plenty, and 
 our poor want linen." Her charity was boundless ; and when 
 she had no more money, she privately sold her jewels. The 
 misery of the poor had seldom been so great as it was under 
 the reign of Louis XV. ; and, when it was most heavy, the 
 queen sold all her jewels, and every article of gold and silver in 
 her possession. She first took, however, the precaution of 
 causing them to be faithfully imitated; -and for a whole year 
 she wore mosaic gold and paste diamonds, until she was at 
 length able to supply their place with genuine ornaments. 
 No one ever suspected this pious fraud, which was revealed 
 many years afterwards by one of the attendants of the queen. 
 To do good seemed the sole study of this excellent woman. 
 She kept in her private apartments a depot of everything 
 human beings could need, from baby-linen to that last garment 
 
300 WOMEN OF CHKIBTTANITY. 
 
 — the shroud : all these articles had been manufactured undet 
 her own eyes, and many of them by her own hands. This 
 dep6t, intended for, and ever open to the needy, included a 
 collection of medicines, to be distributed by a sister of charity 
 to the poor of Versailles. So well was the charitable spirit of 
 the queen known, that whenever an accident occurred in or 
 near the palace, the sufferer, whatever his rank might be, was 
 immediately conveyed to her apartment. 
 
 In order to lose no opportunity of extending her charity, 
 Mary Lecsinska employed several trustworthy persons to dis- 
 pense her alms, and seek out objects worthy of compassion. 
 The person whom she had chosen for this office at Fontaine- 
 bleau was a plain honest girl of the place, whose abrupt man- 
 ners and coarse garments excited the merriment of the cour- 
 tiers. But the queen gaily said to her : " I like you as you 
 are, ma brillante ; remain so, and laugh at those who laugh 
 at your dress : I find that it becomes you charmingly." Bril- 
 lante, as she was henceforth called at court, complied with the 
 judicious advice. She daily visited the poor, and ascertained 
 their wants, which she faithfully reported to the queen ; and 
 generally concluded in the following unceremonious fashion : 
 " You see, madam, you must give me so much for that poor 
 family, so much for this sick person, and so much more for that 
 other one ;. which, being added all together, makes so much." 
 
 The queen was often imposed upon, and she knew it ; but 
 she always relieved those who publicly implored her assistance. 
 " If I refuse alms to a poor person," she once remarked, " will 
 not all think themselves dispensed from giving him anything !" 
 Thanks to this reasoning, Mary Lecsinska, wherever she went, 
 was followed by a host of beggars : her guards were forbidden 
 to prevent them from approaching her person ; the churches 
 and religious or charitable establishments, which the pious 
 princess frequently visited, were besieged by them : this mul- 
 titude was popularly known by the significant name of " The 
 Queen's Eegiment." The only answer which Mary Lecsinska 
 gave to those who remonstrated with her on the subject of 
 her charitable extravagance was both simple and touching : 
 " Everything that beloDgs to the mother belongs also to the 
 children." 
 
 She who understood so well the force and beauty of mater- 
 nal love, was destined to become the victim of that feeling ; 
 
MARY LECSINSKA, QUEEN OF FKANCE. 301 
 
 the deepest which, woman knows. Mary Lecsinska had ten 
 children ; she had the misfortune to lose six. Her eldest 
 daughter, Madame Anne Henriette, died in 1752, at the age 
 of five-and-twenty. Pious and charitable, like her mother, she 
 was already known as " the good princess." But the loss 
 which Mary Lecsinska felt most deeply was that of the dau- 
 phin, her only surviving son ; who died at the close of the 
 year 1765. It is difficult to judge of princes who have never 
 reigned ; but, even making every allowance for exaggeration, 
 the dauphin appears to have been fully worthy of the bitter 
 regrets which hastened the end of his mother. Two months 
 after his pious and resigned death, the queen fell into a declin- 
 ing state, from which she never recovered. Her grief, was 
 increased by the loss of her amiable daughter-in-law ; who, 
 though she was the daughter of Augustus, the triumphant 
 rival of Stanislas, had endeared herself to Mary by her many 
 admirable virtues. This princess, after showing herself a 
 model of the purest and most devoted conjugal love, during 
 the long illness of the dauphin, died of grief occasioned by 
 his loss. Mary Lecsinska lingered for two years ; her meek- 
 ness and resignation never forsook her ; she knew that her 
 end was approaching ; but, good and pious as she was, how 
 could she dread death ? Some time before her decease she 
 visited the Abbey of St. Denis, as was her custom whenever 
 she passed by the spot which was to be her last resting-place. 
 This time she asked to go down into the vault which received 
 the coffins of the kings and queens of France. " And this," 
 said she to the prior who accompanied her, " this is the palace 
 where you will soon place me ! Pray show me the precise 
 spot that is to be mine ?" The monk declined to answer this 
 painful question ; nor could the queen induce him to comply. 
 But she knew at least that in this vault the place would be; 
 and kneeling down on the damp flags, surrounded on every 
 side by the frail remains of so many generations of kings sleep- 
 ing there with their consorts, Mary Lecsinska humbled her 
 soul before the eternal majesty of God. 
 
 During the whole course of her long and painful illness, the 
 patient queen uttered no complaint. On being once asked if 
 she suffered, she replied, "I suffer ; but it is not equal to what 
 was once suffered on Calvary ;" and to be for ever reminded 
 of that divine sacrifice, she caused a crucifix to be placed at 
 
302 WOMEN OF CHEISTIANITT. 
 
 the foot of her couch. Deep as was the sorrow which thus 
 led her to the grave, she forbade herself the luxury of regrets. 
 Once, indeed, she could not help saying to her medical attend- 
 ants : " Give me back my children if you would cure me." 
 
 Whilst she thus mourned for the children God had given 
 and taken away, the sainted woman forgot not those other 
 children of whom Providence had also made her mother ; and 
 only two days before her death she still busied herself in mak- 
 ing and sewing garments for the poor. But even this last task 
 had to be abandoned : she fell into the dull lethargic slumber 
 of approaching death. The only way to rouse her was to 
 speak to her of God. On the 24th of June, 1768, she rallied 
 a little ; and after blessing her four surviving daughters, gave 
 up her pure soul to God, in the sixty-fifth year of her age and 
 the forty-third of her reign. 
 
 Few women have fulfilled so well as Mary Lecsinska the 
 duties of the station to which Providence had called her : she 
 never sought to be more than the wife of the king. When 
 she ventured to advise her husband, it was only to urge him 
 to more firmness with his ministers, and to beg of him to shun 
 war for the sake of his people. Her name appears in none of 
 the political intrigues of those times. The only attempt which 
 she made to interfere in state matters was, when the minister 
 Choiseul and Madame de Pompadour undertook to dissolve 
 the order of the Jesuits. The queen begged of Choiseul to 
 stop the proceedings against them. " Your majesty asks me 
 for a miracle," replied the minister. "Then perform that 
 miracle, and be my saint," promptly answered the queen. 
 But Madame de Pompadour decreed the ruin of the Jesuits, 
 and her influence easily triumphed over that of Mary Lec- 
 sinska. 
 
 The most beautiful feature in the character of this good 
 queen, is her deep sense of the patriarchal character of royalty, 
 and the fidelity with which she carried out this touching and 
 holy feeling. After the death of her father Stanislas, she was 
 pressed, as his only heir, to claim _a pension on the duchy of 
 Lorraine, which he had possessed during the latter years of 
 his life. She refused to do so ; " Because," as she said, " the 
 burden of this pension would probably fall on the poor people 
 of Lorraine." 
 
 Whilst her husband hastened.the ruin of France and mo- 
 
ELIZABETH CHRISTINA, QUEEN OF PRUSSIA. 303 
 
 narchy, squandering in guilty indulgence the resources of the 
 jtate, the pure and pious queen sanctified the crown which 
 she wore. His death was hailed as- a blessing ; the tears and 
 lamentations of a whole nation followed her to the grave. 
 
 She had led the life, and left the name of a saint. Soon 
 after her death, one of her daughters, Madame Louise, retired 
 to a Carmelite convent ; where she took the vows, and died 
 on the eve of the Revolution. Two of the grand-daughters of 
 Mary Lecsinska were eminent for their piety : Mary Clotildis, 
 queen of Piedmont; and Madame Elizabeth, the sainted 
 sister of Louis XVI. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Elizabeth Christina, Queen of Prussia — Mary Fedorovna, Empress of 
 Russia. 
 
 In the same age; two female sovereigns of the north of 
 Europe — Elizabeth Christina, wife of Frederick, styled the 
 Great, and Mary Fedorovna, Empress of Russia — displayed the 
 same self-denial and Christian charity which had distinguished 
 Mary Lecsinska. The destiny of the Queen of Prussia was 
 singular. She was married to one of the most remarkable 
 men of his age ; whom she loved tenderly ; yet she never 
 lived with him as his wife, and was never heard to complain 
 of this treatment. Frederick, on the other hand, married this 
 amiable princess against his will ; and though she was good 
 and pretty, the circumstances of their union were such as to 
 justify his indifference. That he treated her with coldness, 
 surprised no one ; but that, on ascending the throne, he should 
 not divorce her, and yet remain on precisely the same terms 
 with her as before his father's death, was thought singular. 
 Such was his conduct, however, and to this day his motives 
 have remained a matter of doubt. Chivalrous generosity has 
 been ascribed to him by some ; others have beheld in this cir- 
 cumstance another proof of that aversion from women attri- 
 buted to the warlike king : a feeling that rendered the prospect 
 of a second marriage highly distasteful, and which not even 
 the desire of an immediate heir could subdue. 
 
301 WOMEN OF CHEISTIANITr. 
 
 The unhappy youth of Frederick is well known. His brutai 
 and tyrannic father beat, ill-used him, imprisoned him, and 
 would have put him to death if he dared. Frederick wished 
 to marry his cousin Amelia, daughter of George the Second 
 of England ; but, to his great disgust, and to that of the whole 
 royal family of Prussia, his father declared that Elizabeth 
 Christina, daughter of the Duke of Brunswick, should be his 
 bride. Frederick submitted with undisguised reluctance. 
 
 The state of the court of Prussia has been described, with 
 more freedom than delicacy, by the satirical and gossiping 
 princess, Wilhelmina, margravine of Bareith, and sister of 
 Frederick the Great. The intrigues, animosities, and petty 
 passions to which her royal relatives condescended to stoop, 
 are recorded in her pages with a graphic and merciless pen. 
 She visited Berlin in 1733, as the marriage of her brother was 
 going to take place ; and found her mother and sisters highly 
 indignant at the projected alliance, and spitefully venting their 
 anger by abusing their future relative. " She is a perfect 
 fool," said the queen, at supper, in the presence of her son and 
 of the servants : " to whatever you say she answers ' yes,' and 
 ' no,' with a stupid laugh that is enough to make one sick." 
 This gracious account was corroborated by the Princess Char- 
 lotte; who added some delicate observations of her own on 
 the person of her brother's intended wife, and emphatically 
 asserted that she was deformed and padded. The poor prince, 
 not much comforted by these remarks, retired immediately 
 after supper ; the Margravine of Bareith followed him out : 
 she was his favorite sister, and some confidential talk on the 
 subject of his marriage took place. He confessed that it was 
 extremely disagreeable to him ; " but as to the princess,'' he 
 added, " I do not hate her so much as I pretend to do : I 
 affect to be unable to endure her, that my obedience to the 
 king may appear in a stronger light. She is pretty ; her com- 
 plexion is of lilies and roses ; her features are delicate, and her 
 whole face is that of a beautiful person. True, she has no 
 education, and dresses badly ; but I flatter myself when she 
 comes here, that you will have the goodness to form her.'' 
 
 The marriage was solemnized at Salzdahl, by the celebrated 
 Mosheim. The margravine thus describes her first interview 
 with her sister-in-law : — " The whole court of Brunswick 
 arrived on the twenty-fourth of June. The king, accompanied 
 
QUEEN OF PKtJSSlA. 305 
 
 by my brother, the hereditary prince, went on horseback to 
 meet the princess-royal. The queen, my sisters, and myself, 
 received her at the door. I shall describe her as she then 
 appeared, for she is now much altered. 
 
 "She was tall, but her figure was not delicate, and she 
 threw her body forward in an awkward manner. She was of 
 a dazzling fairness, and it was heightened by the most brilliant 
 complexion ; her eyes were of a pale blue, and gave no great 
 indication of talent ; her mouth was small ; her whole features 
 were pretty, without being beautiful, and the general appear- 
 ance of her countenance was so charming and infantine, that 
 one would have supposed it was the head of a child twelve 
 years old ; her hair was light, and curled naturally ; but all 
 these charms were disfigured by her teeth, which were black 
 and irregular ; she was totally without manner, and had no 
 engaging ways ; she had the greatest difficulty in speaking so 
 as to be understood, and her meaning had always to be divined, 
 which was the occasion of no small embarrassment." 
 
 The princess was seventeen ; she was timid, and had an 
 impediment in her speech ; her husband was twenty-one, but 
 abrupt and soured by the misfortunes of his youth ; his recep- 
 tion of her was neither courteous nor encouraging. As she 
 hesitated in her answer to the compliments of the margravine 
 of Bareith, her bridegroom, seized with disgust, called her 
 " fool," and told her to thank his sister. The newly married 
 couple went to reside at Kheimsberg. As he discovered the 
 mild virtues of his bride, Frederick softened a little towards 
 her ; he is even said to have allowed her some influence over 
 him, but, in his latter life, there is nothing to prove, and much 
 to contradict, such an assertion. So cold and constrained was 
 their intercourse, during the seven years that elapsed from the 
 marriage of Frederick to his accession, that, when Frederick- 
 William died in 1740, every one expected the first act of the 
 new sovereign would be to repudiate his wife. After compli- 
 menting the king on his accession, the whole court proceeded 
 to the apartment of the queen. Whilst they congratulated 
 her, and addressed her by that title which few thought she 
 was to retain, the poor princess disguised her secret uneasiness 
 under the calm and courteous bearing natural to her. In the 
 very midst of this trying ordeal, the doors of the room flew 
 open, Frederick entered, and the courtiers fell back on either 
 
306 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITX. 
 
 side, leaving the passage free. Elizabeth thought that this 
 visit could have but one object — the public intimation of hei 
 approaching disgrace. She rose trembling, and was obliged 
 to lean on one of her ladies in order to advance and meet 
 her husband. He took her by the hand, embraced her, and 
 presenting her to the assembled court, simply said, " This is 
 your queen." 
 
 No plainer intimation of his intentions was needed. From 
 that hour, Elizabeth Christina was treated with all the homage 
 and respect due to the queen of Prussia. Her husband 
 behaved towards her with a singular mixture of affection, 
 esteem, and indifference ; which lasted until his death in l^G. 
 In the first year of his reign, he presented her with the palace 
 of Schonhausen, near Berlin ; she spent the summer months 
 there, but resided in the palace of Berlin during the winter. 
 It was she who held the court, and who, on certain days and 
 hours, received ministers, generals, envoys, courtiers, and for- 
 eigners of distinction. A few visits to Charlottenburg varied 
 the monotony of her life. When the king happened to be in 
 the palace at the same time with her (and this never was for 
 more than a few weeks in the year) he sent every morning to 
 inquire after her health, and often accompanied the message 
 with a billet-doux in French prose or verse ; to which the 
 queen answered in the same language, of which she was per- 
 fect mistress. He also occasionally dined with her and his 
 brothers on a Sunday ; but to this their intercourse was 
 limited. It is recorded, that a family meeting, in 1744, 
 brought him to Sehbnhausen, and that this was the only time 
 he ever paid the queen a visit there. "Whenever he left Pots- 
 dam for Berlin, Elizabeth left her country residence for the 
 capital, where she dined with him and the queen-mother ; but 
 he never invited her. to Potsdam or Sans-Souci : and, much as 
 she desired to see his favorite residence, she never asked to go. 
 To such a point did she carry her reserve, and perhaps her 
 pride, that she never expressed her feeling on this subject in 
 the presence of any person by whom her wishes might have 
 been conveyed to Frederick. 
 
 No fondly beloved or indulged wife could, however, have 
 been more faithfully devoted to her husband than Elizabeth 
 was to the king. She admired him beyond any other human 
 being, and wanted every one to share in her enthusiasm 
 
ELIZABETII CHRISTINA, QUEEN OF PRUSSIA. 307 
 
 whatever he said or did, he could not, in her opinion, but be 
 in the right. In the year 1742, he had given her, as grande 
 ffouvernante, the widow of Colonel von Camas ; a lady for 
 whom he felt the highest regard, who was possessed of extra- 
 ordinary mental qualifications, and with whom he corresponded 
 until her death iu 1766. The chief study of this lady, and of 
 her royal mistress, was to rule the court in the manner that 
 might be most agreeable to the king. 
 
 The singular position in which Elizabeth Christina was 
 placed, served to display her patience, prudence, and good 
 sense. She kept within the limits tacitly prescribed by her 
 husband, and never sought to go beyond ; her name was never 
 mentioned in any cabal or intrigue ; she solicited nothing for 
 herself or for others. Her life was devoted to piety, benefi- 
 cence, and study : she had received a good education, and 
 liked reading, especially works of a religious character ; she 
 had a good library, and loved the society of divines and men 
 of letters. Gellert was her favorite author ; she took some 
 pride in being able to say that she was born in the same year 
 with him, and she translated into French his moral lectures, 
 odes, and songs. She also translated into the same language 
 German works of devotion ; of which, when printed, she sent 
 a copy to the king. The value which the patron of Voltaire 
 was likely to set on such productions may be easily divined ; 
 but, not to be behind her in courtesy, Frederick regularly sent 
 her in return a copy of one of his military or historical works : 
 which were perhaps as much to her taste. 
 
 The allowance of Elizabeth was 40,000 dollars a-year ; of 
 which 24,000 were spent in charity ; but so secret was she in 
 her beneficence, that it long remained unsuspected : like Mary 
 Lecsinska, she allowed herself to be accused of meanness and 
 avarice. She was once asked to purchase a magnificent pearl 
 necklace ; she looked at it with evident desire, but after a few 
 moments she said to her women : " Take it away ; I shall be 
 able to relieve more than one poor person with the money it 
 would cost." Her household economy was very strict: a 
 merry Frenchman once said: "There is a grand gala at the 
 queen's to-day, for as I went through the palace, I saw an old 
 lamp lighted on the grand staircase ;" and her guests often 
 complained that, when she gave suppers, the table was covered 
 with plate instead of dishes. 
 
308 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Until the end of his life Frederick showed evident anxiety 
 for the welfare of his wife ; but his personal attentions, such 
 as they were, diminished. He ceased to visit her oftener than 
 once a-year, on her birth-day ; which was also the only day 
 on which, to do her honor, he put by his boots and appeared 
 in stockings ; he kept a pair of black silk for that espe- 
 cial purpose, but as he disdained to wear garters, they hung 
 in wrinkles down his legs. After talking with the queen, and 
 the other persons present, for about half-an-hour, he retired. 
 During the latter half of his reign, Frederick ceased, however, 
 to speak to the queen : he did not complain of her, he 
 accused her of nothing, but he did not address her. When 
 he dined with her after the seven years' war, he bowed on 
 entering her apartment, on sitting down at table opposite to 
 her, and on retiring, but never uttered one word. When Eli- 
 zabeth had an attack of the gout in the year IV 70, Frederick, 
 who was dining in her apartments, entered the drawing-room 
 where she sat, went up to her chair, and politely inquired 
 after her health, to the astonishment of every one present : 
 this was sixteen years before the death of the king, and is 
 believed to have been the last time that he addressed her. 
 He continued, however, to give her proofs of attention and 
 respect : in 1778, he presented her with a complete dinner- 
 service, and two tea-services of the finest porcelain. Learning 
 once that she had been suddenly seized with a dangerous 
 illness, he immediately sent a chasseur from Potsdam to the 
 Doctor Muscellius, with the following note in his own hand : 
 " Sir, I learn with extreme grief that her majesty the queen is 
 ill, and that her illness is liable to become serious, and even 
 dangerous, unless immediate remedies are applied to it. I 
 recommend you, in consequence, to see her without delay, and 
 to unite with yourself the two other physicians of Berlin in 
 whose talents and knowledge you have the most confidence^ 
 in order to administer to her all the assistance your art is 
 master of. Kemember, above all, that it is question here of 
 the person the most necessary to the state, to the poor, and 
 to me." 
 
 One of the last attentions paid by the king to his wife was 
 to dine with her on the new year's day of the year 1785 ; the 
 royal family and many noble guests were present. 
 
 On the 17th of August of the year 1786, Frederick the 
 
MAET FEDOROYETA, EMPRESS OF RUSSIA. 309 
 
 Great closed his long and brilliant career. By his will he 
 desired his successor " to pay the respect due to the widow of 
 his uncle, and ' to a princess of distinguished virtue." He 
 requested him to add ten thousand dollars , to her allowance. 
 " During the whole course of my reign," he added, " she 
 never caused me the least grief, and her virtues deserve 
 esteem, devotedness, and homage." 
 
 Elizabeth Christina survived her husband eleven years. 
 She died on the 13th November, 1191, conscious and 
 resigned, and blessing those who stood around her. 
 
 In an interesting work published som.e years ago by the 
 Societe Montyon et Franklin, we have found an account, fur- 
 nished by the generous admiration of a Polish refugee, of the 
 philanthropic labors which filled the life of Mary Fedorovna, 
 one of the most pious and charitable women who ever wore a 
 crown. Of herself personally the account says little ; her life 
 reads not like a biography, but more as a long list of good 
 deeds and great designs, nobly conceived and perseveringly 
 followed out until their final accomplishment. She often 
 said : " We must work while we can, the time is short ;" and 
 never was a generous maxim more faithfully fulfilled. 
 
 Mary Fedorovna was born Princess of "Wurtemberg in 
 1759. She was married at the age of seventeen to Paul son 
 of the celebrated Catharine II., empress of Eussia. She 
 became empress in 1796, and widow in 1801. She had ten 
 children by her husband, and lived to see two of her sons 
 emperors — Alexander, who succeeded his father, and Nicolas, 
 the present czar. 
 
 On ascending the throne of Eussia, Paul I. confided to his 
 wife the administration of the establishment founded at St. 
 Petersburg in 1781, for the daughters of the nobility. Her 
 first act was to give from her privy purse a yearly sum of 
 15,000 rubles, destined to provide for the poorer young 
 girls when they left the house, and to reward the services of 
 governesses and professors. Her next step was to improve 
 the interior organization, still extremely deficient, and to cre- 
 ate a new system of education, the result of her own thought 
 and observations. She proved so successful in this task, that, 
 in May, 1797, the emperor gave her the administration of the 
 foundling hospitals of St. Petersburg and Moscow, and of othei 
 charitable establishments ; which she found on the verge of 
 
310 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 ruin, and by her prudent and vigorous management, restored 
 to prosperity : the foundling hospitals, especially, were in a 
 deplorable condition. The empress began by bestowing or 
 them — still from her privy purse — an income of 9000 rubles : 
 then gave all her attention to their financial condition, and to 
 the physical welfare of the children. She considerably les- 
 sened the amount of mortality, by adopting the plan so suc- 
 cessfully pursued in France, under the name of maternal 
 charity : not considering the edifice in St. Petersburg suffi- 
 ciently large and salubrious, she induced the emperor to 
 extend it by purchasing the adjoining palace and gardens of 
 a Russian nobleman. Having thus secured the health and 
 well-being of her proteges, Mary Fedorovna next drew up for 
 their particular benefit an excellent plan of education, founded 
 on a great number of private notes, which she had been taking" 
 for some years. Facts will show how far she carried her 
 maternal forethought. 
 
 The foundlings are put out to nurse amongst peasants : in 
 order to cure them of the rustic habits they thus acquired, the 
 empress created a preparatory school, which they enter on 
 leaving their nurses. The same thoughtful spirit prevailed 
 throughout the whole system of education established by 
 Mary. Her plan does not merely provide for the physical, 
 moral, and intellectual welfare of the foundlings ; it also 
 adapts them to the position they are to fill in life on leaving 
 the hospital. Twelve pupils are received in a gardening 
 school, established at Gatschina, where there is also a school 
 for the blind : their number amounted to fifty in 1827. For 
 those who wished to become tillers of the soil, the empress 
 established several agricultural colonies, remarkable for their 
 excellent organization. Nay, more, wishing those forsaken 
 children to derive help and protection, throughout life, from 
 the establishment which had been the home of their youth, 
 she founded, in 1813, a house of aid for those foundlings, 
 either in or out of the hospital, whose bad health or infirmi- 
 ties prevent them from earning a living ; their claim on the 
 family, bestowed upon them by the charity of the state, is 
 broken only by death. 
 
 In 1818, William Allen, the Quaker philanthropist, visited 
 St. Petersburg. He has left in his journal the following inter- 
 esting account of the "Enfants Trouves :" — It does not 
 
MART FEDOROVITA, EMPRESS OF RUSSIA. 311 
 
 depend upon the crown, but has ample funds of its own, and 
 sometimes even a surplus at the end of the year. The 
 buildings contain three thousand inhabitants. All children 
 are received who are presented for admission ; and if the bap- 
 tismal registers are sent with any of them, and a wish is 
 expressed respecting the religion in which a child is to be 
 brought up, it is educated accordingly ; but if not, they are 
 all educated in the Greek Church. This conduct does honor 
 to the tolerant spirit of the directors. From fifteen to twenty 
 infants are received in a day. The apartments, beds, and 
 everything, were clean, and in the nicest order, and perfect 
 tranquillity seemed to reign. The children are instructed in 
 various works of industry, as well as the usual branches of 
 learning, and are kept till they are eighteen years of age. 
 The empress mother has this establishment under her particu- 
 lar care, and visits it constantly without any notice, sometimes 
 early in the morning, sometimes in the evening, and some- 
 times at noon." 
 
 Several large and useful establishments, depending on the 
 foundling hospital, also owe their existence to the empress. 
 In 1797, she founded at her sole expense an institution 
 destined to instruct eighty midwives in their art, and to assist 
 twenty poor women in their lying-in. The philanthropic 
 Demidoff had left a sum of 20,000 rubles to found a school 
 of midwifery at Moscow, but his intention had been frus- 
 trated ; it was Mary Fedorovna who caused it to be carried 
 into effect in 1821 : four years later she added to it a lying-in 
 institution at her sole expense. In the year 1806, she esta- 
 blished at Pavlovsk a small school for twelve deaf and dumb 
 pupils, several of whom came from the foundling hospital. 
 This establishment — the first of the kind in Russia — was con- 
 fided to the direction of a pupil of the celebrated Abb6 Sicard. 
 At a later period the empress doubled the number of pupils 
 received, transferred the institution to St. Petersburg, ren- 
 dered it dependent on the foundling hospital, and admitted 
 twenty children from the institution of Moscow. Notwith- 
 standing all these expenses, the two hospitals were still so 
 wealthy — thanks to the wise administration of their protect- 
 ress — as to enable her to found from the superfluous funds an 
 hospital for the sick, and an asylum for widows. The hospital 
 was opened in 1803 ; it contained two hundred and fifty 
 
312 WOMEN OF CKEUSTlAinTT. 
 
 beds in twenty-six airy rooms ; and a country house, situated 
 between Peterhoff and Oranien, received the convalescent 
 patients. A similar hospital was founded at Moscow ; and 
 each of the two establishments received from the empress a 
 yearly sum of 3000 rubles. To these hospitals she added an 
 as3'lUm for the widows of government officials. 
 
 William Allen describes the hospital in St. Petersburg as 
 " a magnificent building, with a portico, supported by lofty 
 columns in the centre. It is open, day and night, to all appli- 
 cants who bring a passport from the police. There are eight 
 physicians in constant attendance. There is a female superin- 
 tendent who presides over the nurses, and six of the Veuves 
 de la Charite, who are under a vow to serve the Lord in the 
 persons»of the sick, are always there. The vow permits them 
 to retire from the service, if disabled by infirmity, or, in 
 short, when they will. A black board is placed at the head 
 of each bed, on which the patient's name is neatly written in 
 chalk, and the name of the disease in Latin ; the latter, sug- 
 gested by the emperor, is another trait of his delicate and 
 feeling mind. The empress-dowager places large sums of 
 money at the disposal of the senator for the relief .of cases of 
 peculiar distress ; and when a peasUnt, who comes from the 
 country for work in the summer, is obliged to resort to this 
 hospital, and he is cured, he is supplied with fur boots and 
 warm clothing to return home. Everything in the power of 
 art to alleviate the miseries of human nature appeal's to be 
 done here. There is an excellent system of ventilation ; the 
 most perfect neatness and order prevail ; and, in short, it may 
 be considered as a complete model. I have never seen it 
 equalled anywhere. It seems the work of a most benevolent 
 mind, guided by a superior intellect, and working with 
 unbounded means." 
 
 It was in 1814 that Mary Fedorovna instituted " The 
 Widows of Charity." They were chosen from amongst the 
 widows of the two above-mentioned asylums ; and, as Wil- 
 liam Allen stated, they take the vow of attending on the 
 sick, and going wherever the poor and wretched may require 
 their presence. All these establishments owe their existence 
 to Mary Fedorovna, but are dependent on the foundling 
 hospitals. The name of this excellent woman is equally con- 
 nected with numerous other useful institutions. Thus, in 
 
EMPEESS Off RUSSIA. 313 
 
 1198, she founded in Moscow the "Institution of the order of 
 St. Catherine," for sixty of those young girls whose birth does 
 not entitle them to enter the institute of the daughters of the 
 nobility, hut whose fathers hold high offices under govern- 
 ment. Many Russian nobles contributed largely towards this 
 institution. Soon after it had been opened, the emperor 
 founded at Moscow another establishment — "-The Institution 
 of Alexander" — destined to the education of women of the 
 middle class, and likewise intended to serve as a model for the 
 provinces. She also took under her own immediate superin- 
 tendence an educational establishment for women, founded by 
 government at Odessa. 
 
 About ten miles from St. Petersburg, at Alexandroski, she 
 established a large cotton-spinning manufactory, which afforded 
 employment to seven hundred and fifty young people, who 
 were boarded and lodged on the premises. A boarding 
 school, a Sunday school, and a library were attached to this 
 establishment : but the profits not equalling the expenses, there 
 was a deficiency, which the empress had to make up every 
 year. This was the more to be lamented, that the conduct of 
 the individuals for whose benefit this manufactory had been 
 established was in every respect excellent. 
 
 During his sojourn in St Petersburg, William Allen had 
 an interview with the empress. He describes her as " a tall, 
 fine figure." Her manner was both graceful and dignified ; 
 her countenance announced " a very clever woman." Their 
 conversation was almost entirely on philanthropic subjects. 
 Mary Fedorovna asked his advice on several points, and 
 requested him to visit an institution for orphans, called St. 
 Mary's. He did so, and gives in his journal the following- 
 account of what he saw : 
 
 " It is maintained entirely at the expense of the empress- 
 dowager, for those children whose parents are artisans. They 
 look healthy, neat and clean. They are taught reading, 
 writing, the French and German languages, useful kinds of 
 needle-work, embroidery, drawing, and knitting. Great pains 
 are taken to find suitable situations for them, when they are 
 of an age to leave the institution, on which they receive one 
 hundred rubles, and a complete set of clothing. They rise at 
 six o'clock all the year round, and, besides having prayers, read 
 every evening in the scriptures. There is no difficulty in pro- 
 
 14 
 
314 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 curing places for the girls educated there. If some of om 
 English ladies would imitate this illustrious example, how 
 much purer pleasure would they receive than from routs and 
 balls !" 
 
 Schools were a subject of deep and lasting interest to the 
 benevolent empress. In 17Y2, Demidoff had founded at 
 Moscow a commercial school, which, through neglect, had 
 been perverted from its original aim. The empress organized 
 it anew, and transferred it to St. Petersburg in 1800. In this 
 school the sons of merchants are received at ten years of age, 
 and educated free of expense. In the year 1823, the empress, 
 to commemorate the anniversary of the opening of this esta- 
 blishment, presented it with the sum of three thousand rubles ; 
 which she repeated yearly, and secured to the house by her 
 testament. In 1807, the Emperor Alexander placed under 
 the protection of his mother the house of the orphan daughters 
 of the military at St. Petersburg. Mary found it on the verge 
 of ruin, and rapidly restored it to prosperity. In 1820, she 
 founded at St. Petersburg a school for the daughters of 
 soldiers. At a later period, two similar schools, for the 
 daughters of sailors and of soldiers employed in the sea 
 service, were established at Sebastopol and Nikolaief : all three 
 received large yearly grants from the empress. In the year 
 1797, Mary had allotted, from her own resources, a yearly 
 sum of twenty thousand rubles, to be distributed in small 
 pensions to the poor widows of soldiers. In 1802, she esta- 
 blished at Gatschina a house of aid for eighty old peasants of 
 her domains ; and founded at Pavlosk an hospital containing 
 thirty beds ; both establishments were wholly supported at 
 her cost. Tasks, often laborious, accompanied her own 
 charities. Thus, in 1808, she undertook to see the legacy 
 left by M. de" Schemeretof, in order to found an asylum for 
 twenty-four disabled officers, properly applied. After the 
 campaigns of 1807 and 1812, the empress established, at her 
 own cost, a temporary division in the hospital, and to which 
 fifty wounded officers were admitted. In 1 812, she opened an 
 establishment destined to receive the infirm and mutilated 
 soldiers who had distinguished themselves 'in the patriotic 
 defence of their country. In 1816, she undertook to direct 
 the institution founded at Moscow for the sick, by Princo 
 Galitzyne, and introduced many useful regulations. In 1821, 
 
EMPKESS OF EUSSIA. 315 
 
 she superintended the foundation of an establishment foi 
 thirty old officers at Sympheropol. She presented this insti- 
 tution with a thousand rubles a-year, and bequeathed to it 
 landed property to the amount of thirty thousand rubles. 
 On the request of the governor, she undertook, in 1823, to 
 organize and administer an institution destined to aid foreigners, 
 which had been founded at Taganrog by Greek merchants. 
 Besides the eminent services which she rendered to this 
 establishment, the empress granted to it a yearly sum of one 
 thousand rubles. 
 
 With that generous spirit which characterized her so 
 eminently, Mary had founded an asylum, open to the pupils 
 of the various establishments under her protection, in case they 
 should ever fall into want. Another institution of the same 
 kind being found necessary, was endowed by her after the 
 great inundation of 1824. 
 
 In 1828, the present emperor Nicholas requested his mother 
 to undertake the general superintendence of all the charitable 
 institutions of St. Petersburg. Mary accepted this task, and 
 accomplished it with equal zeal and sagacity. She frequently 
 visited the institutions confided to her care, studied their 
 necessities, and entered into the most minute details ; and she 
 distinguished herself, during those visits, by the gentle kind- 
 ness with which she addressed the sick ; the insane interested 
 her deeply ; and they owed to her a separate dwelling, more 
 convenient than that which had hitherto been allotted to 
 them. 
 
 Many useful suggestions on the management of the insane 
 were made by Mrs. Fiy, with whom the empress was in cor- 
 respondence, through Mr. Venning : her letters were, on their 
 receipt, immediately translated, and entered in the journal ot 
 the asylum, by order of the empress. One of the suggestions 
 made by Mrs. Fry, " that all, except the violent lunatics, 
 should dine at the table covered with a cloth, and furnished 
 with plates and spoons," was adopted with so good a result, 
 that, on beholding its effects, the delighted Mary Fedorovna 
 ex-claimed to Mr. Venning : " This is one of the happiest days 
 of my life !" It was because she placed her happiness in such 
 pure pleasures that this good woman deserved to have it said 
 of her, with truth, that " she did acts of love, with love." 
 When the lunatics were ailing, she visited them, and. spoke to 
 
316 WOMEN OF CITEISTIANITT. 
 
 them kindly : she would send an easy-chair to one, nicely 
 dressed meat to another ; and every week, wine, coffee, tea, 
 sugar, and fruit, were sent by her, from the palace for the use 
 of the insane. During the last seven months of her life, she 
 visited the asylum no less than fourteen times. 
 
 An hospital had long been wanted for the sick of Vasili- 
 Ostrof. This quarter of St. Petersburgh contains fifty-two 
 thousand inhabitants ; whom the thawing of the ice excludes, 
 twice a-year, from intercourse with the rest of the city. In 
 1828, Mary Fedorovna purchased a large house on the banks 
 of the Neva, and turned it into an hospital capable of holding 
 a hundred and sixty sick. Persons of every station were to 
 be admitted for a trifling sum, and the poor gratuitously. 
 
 After the sanguinary campaign of Turkey, the empress 
 granted, from her privy purse, a sum of fifteen thousand rubles, 
 to be distributed amongst the soldiers and officers who left 
 the hospitals and returned to their separate homes. The 
 letter she wrote on this subject was dated October the 21st, 
 1828; three days after, she had ceased to live. She closed 
 her life as she had spent it, with an act of generosity and 
 munificence worthy of a woman and a sovereign. On learn- 
 ing her death, a young lunatic burst into tears. 
 
 We have not interrupted this long list of good deeds by the 
 private history of Mary Fedorovna : little of it is known ; and 
 that little is sad. The life spent in such constant devotion to 
 humanity was obscured by some of its heaviest sorrows. 
 
 Young, handsome, and gifted with more than ordinary 
 talents, Mary was sacrificed at seventeen to that unhappy 
 Paul the First, whose only excuse lies in his evident insanity. 
 He was kind to her, and gave her abundant opportunities to 
 exercise her benevolence ; but his cruel and capricious despot- 
 ism filled her existence with gloom. They chiefly resided at 
 Gatsehina ; where Mary superintended the- schools which she 
 had established for her favorite foundlings ; whilst Paul forti- 
 fied their residence with jealous care, until a pleasure abode 
 became converted into a gloomy fortress, with moat and draw- 
 bridges. Precautions like these have seldom saved tyrants ; 
 Mikhailofski, though equally fortified, could not protect Paul 
 against treachery. He was assassinated on the night of the 
 24th of March, 1801 ; and, on the following morning, the 
 Countess of Lieven entered the a2 iai '' ;m ent f the empress. 
 
EMPRESS OF RUSSIA. 317 
 
 and informed her that her husband had died of apoplexy in 
 the night. Mary Fedorovna knew the truth but too soon ; 
 and the consciousness that the murderers of her husband were 
 beyond the reach of retribution added to her grief and horror. 
 She claimed the throne which his death had left vacant ; but 
 was induced to relinquish her right in favor of Alexander, the 
 eldest of her ten children. This brief discussion for power did 
 not affect their mutual harmony. 
 
 One of the first acts of Alexander was to aid, by all the 
 means in his power, the splendid generosity which his mother 
 had already displayed, in the establishment of charitable and 
 useful institutions. The happiness which the empress mother 
 might have enjoyed in such congenial tasks was saddened by 
 the calamities of the empire ; but her greatest sorrow was the 
 death of Alexander in 1825. 
 
 News had come that the emperor was recovering from the 
 dangerous illness with which he had been seized at Taganrog ; 
 Mary Fedorovna and the other members of the imperial 
 family were returning thanks in the chapel of the palace, 
 when the songs of thanksgiving were suddenly interrupted, 
 and a priest, bearing a cross veiled with crape, advanced 
 towards the empress. " Man must bow before the decrees of 
 God," he said. The unhappy mother understood his mean- 
 ing, and fainted away in the arms of her attendants. The 
 death of Alexander was quickly followed by that of his widow, 
 the lovely and amiable Elizabeth ; who had written, in the 
 first burst of her grief, to her mother-in-law, " Our angel is in 
 heaven, and I linger still on earth." A few months united 
 her to him whom she mourned so passionately. 
 
 The grief of Mary did not prevent her from devoting the 
 three remaining years of her life to the tasks which had ever 
 been hers so peculiarly. She distinguished herself to the last 
 by the boundless charity and unwearied zeal which she had 
 ever displayed. We need not speak in her praise : her deeds, we 
 believe, are a sufficient eulogy of her piety and virtue. With 
 regard to her talents, it requires little discrimination to 
 perceive that the woman who could found and direct with 
 success so many different establishments was no ordinary 
 woman. To govern well is a rare gift : Mary Fedorovna pos- 
 sessed it in no mean degree ; and in her, the gift was 
 strengthened by pure charity and love of God. 
 
318 -WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 The Montyon Prizes. 
 
 From the benevolent sovereigns who made their high rank 
 subservient to every good and noble object, we must now pass 
 to a series of women poor and lowly ; but who, according to 
 their means and power, faithfully followed the generous and 
 self-denying teaching of the Gospel. 
 
 A rich and philanthropic Frenchman of the last century, M. 
 de Montyon, left by his will a large capital, of which he 
 directed the interest to be given away, in various sums, to 
 virtuous persons designated by the French Academy. 
 Authentic details concerning the actions of the individuals 
 thus selected — generally without their knowledge — are for- 
 warded to the Academy by the local authorities. The sums 
 given vary from six thousand to five hundred francs, and are 
 called " prizes of virtue." 
 
 As rewards of virtue, or promoters of virtuous deeds, these 
 prizes fail : the good have a higher aim than the gifts or praise 
 of men, and the sums bestowed are not such as will ever 
 tempt the cold-hearted to make a speculation of heroism or 
 charity. But another and very important object is attained : 
 home duties heroically fulfilled, life-long devotion to the 
 miseries of the poor, deeds touching and sublime, which might 
 have passed unknown, save within a limited circle, have thus 
 become revealed to all. By far the greater portion of these 
 benefactors of humanity are women, the most poor and obscure 
 of their sex. Setting aside those whom filial piety, friendship, 
 fidelity, or gratitude have distinguished, we find that the 
 number of those whom the purest and most disinterested 
 charity has alone actuated, is still too great for all to be men- 
 tioned here. We confess, moreover, that of their lives we 
 know little, and scarcely anything of their characters ; save 
 here and there by a few individual touches. We will not, 
 therefore, attempt useless and unreal detail or description, 01 
 
THE MONTYON PRIZES. 319 
 
 seek to destroy that strong family likeness which proclaims 
 them sisters in feeling, and daughters of the same faith : we 
 will speak of them by all that is known of them, save their 
 humble names — their deeds. These deeds are such as may 
 well create wonder and admiration — as may make us ask, 
 what species of human misery the charity of woman has left 
 unrelieved. 
 
 Of Catherine Lafage we are told that she visited hospitals, 
 " in order to learn how the Sisters of Charity tended the sick." 
 Of Marie Anne Allardin, a poor widow, with five children, 
 that she once shared with a beggar her last piece of bread. 
 Of Charlotte Pierre, that after devoting herself to a mistress 
 fallen into poverty, and supporting her until her death, she 
 could be charitable from earnings of two francs a- week ; and 
 that of two garments she gave one away to a still poorer 
 woman. Of Marie Goujon, a widow with twelve children, 
 that she adopted, as " her thirteenth child, sent by God," a 
 helpless old woman, upwards of eighty. Of Jeanne Marechal, 
 midwife, that she devoted herself to the victims of seduction ; 
 opened her house to them, saved them from despair, and 
 procured them honest means of livelihood, when the scorn 
 of the world told them to choose between utter ruin and 
 death. 
 
 "We should not soon come to an end, were we to mention 
 separately all those maidens, wives, and widows, who took the 
 houseless into their own homes — welcomed them as guests ; 
 who adopted orphans, or the still more unfortunate childrer 
 forsaken by their parents ; who consecrated themselves to tht 
 sick and the indigent ; humble women, who had taken no 
 vows, who obeyed no rule, and were not the less tender sisters 
 of charity, and faithful servants of the .poor. 
 
 Revolting infirmities, which hardened all hearts save their 
 own — cancers, ulcers, leprosy, the helplessness of utter imbe- 
 cility, the fury of confirmed madness, never once daunted 01 
 deterred them. When pestilence raged around them, and 
 6trong men turned cowards, their hearts rose to the intrepidity 
 of heroes : they entered plague-stricken houses, and crossed 
 the threshold that none other dared pass ; they watched night 
 and day by the bed of the sick whom all else shunned ; they 
 lmd out and buried the dead which no other hands would 
 v ich. 
 
320 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 To select instances, where all are equally worthy of record 
 and admiration, is impossible : we will take them as they 
 come. A poor nun, banished from her convent by the French 
 Revolution, was without a home ; Mademoiselle Petit-Jean 
 gave her one, and shared with the stranger an income of fifty 
 pounds. The nun lived twenty-six years ; and her last illness 
 was tedious and expensive ; but the friendly charity of the 
 generous lady remained true to the end : she deprived herself 
 of necessaries in order to procure little comforts for the poor 
 sufferer, and made herself the nurse and servant of her guest. 
 
 Mariq-Margueritte Montveran, a greengrocer, near Paris, 
 successively received and kept for life three old women : one 
 lived twenty years, another twelve, and the third, a woman of 
 sour and disagreeable temper, seven years. This admirable 
 charity was rivalled and surpassed by a widow named Marie- 
 Madeleine Girard. She had a little income of seven or eight 
 pounds, and on the strength of this worldly wealth, she took 
 into her house several poor women, of whom she knew no- 
 thing, save that they were unhappy and needed her aid. In 
 winter she went begging from door to door ; in summer, she 
 gathered dry sticks, and gleaned after the reapers : and all 
 this was not for herself, but for the poor. Eveiy Sunday and 
 holiday she made as plentiful a supply of soup as her means 
 would allow ; then gathering around her a dozen or more 
 poor wretches, she sat down with' them, and they all gaily ate 
 together. Some of the instances recorded display a rare and 
 marvellous degree of self-denial. 
 
 Fanny MulJer was, in the year 1830, servant in a hotel of 
 Paris. Amongst the lodgers of the establishment was an 
 Italian officer, in the service of France, who suffered from a 
 bad wound, which it was Fanny's daily task to dress. She 
 thus contracted a sort of intimacy with him ; and after some 
 time she learned that her master had given his lodger warning 
 to leave. The Italian's last resources were exhausted, and he 
 was now reduced to utter misery. Fanny earned about thirty 
 shillings a month : out of this she had saved a pretty round 
 sum, which she resolved to devote to the poor foreigner. 
 Learning that he was able to give lessons in music, she took a 
 small apartment for him, furnished it, and endeavored to find 
 him pupils. 'She partly succeeded. The Italian's youthful 
 son was then in London with his mother, and on hearing of 
 
THE MONTTON PKIZES. 321 
 
 this he came to Paris. Fanny did not complain of the 
 additional burden ; she continued to aid the father, and bore 
 the expense of the son's education. The wounded officer 
 became at length unable to attend any more to his pupils ; 
 the means of Fanny were exhausted ; but, hoping for happier 
 days, she borrowed money from some friends. Things, how- 
 ever, went on from bad to worse : the borrowed sums had to 
 be repaid, and this could not be effected, save by sacrifices 
 which, in the position of Fanny, were immense ; the money 
 was paid back for all that. 
 
 Fanny Muller had been long betrothed to a young man of 
 her native place, — she was born in the north of France, — 
 named Peter Wat. He came to Paris to claim the fulfilment 
 of her promise ; he had saved up about eighty pounds, and 
 thought that with this they might enter on wedded life. 
 Fanny frankly told him the whole story, — how, but for her, 
 the poor exile must have perished of want ; how his son must 
 have remained in ignorance. She merely told him this, and 
 then asked him what she should do now. " As you have 
 done hitherto," was Peter Wat's reply. He gave her his 
 two thousand francs, and returned alone to his village. 
 
 Years elapsed ; the exile died ; but not a sou of the two 
 thousand francs remained : the savings of Peter Wat had 
 been spent on the Italian and his son. For that son, and- to 
 give him an education befitting his original station, Fanny 
 remained in Paris, and labored assiduously. The youth of 
 the betrothed had been passed in vain expectation, and hopes 
 still deferred, when a clergyman, who had known them both 
 for some years, moved with their patient devotedness, for- 
 warded a notice of these facts to the French Academy, in the 
 year 1846. ' The result was a sum of five hundred francs 
 awarded to Fanny Muller, in order to facilitate her marriage 
 with the generous and faithful lover of her youth. 
 
 The intelligent charity of the following case seems to us 
 well worthy of attention. In a hamlet of the Lower Alps, a 
 poor peasant woman gave birth to a deaf and dumb female 
 child. In the same village resided Therese Melanie Hermitte, 
 whose parents, formerly well off, had fallen into straitened, 
 circumstances. She induced her father to take into his house 
 the deaf and dumb child, then eleven years old. Therese 
 knew that the deaf and dumb could be educated, but she 
 
 14* 
 
322 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 knew no more : signs were her only medium of communica- 
 tion with the child she had adopted ; but she was patient, 
 intelligent, and persevering. In two vears the deaf and 
 dumb girl knew how to read and write French. When we 
 consider that Mademoiselle Hermitte did this alone ; that 
 household duties and ill health took much of her time ; it is 
 impossible to admire too much the mingled sagacity and 
 goodness of heart — for both were equally needed — which led 
 to such a result. _ 
 
 Two sisters, Frangoise and Catherine les Douillot, poor 
 spinners in Lorraine, gave a touching instance of Christian 
 charity. A poor forsaken old man, above eighty, who had 
 long been in a state of second childhood, sat down one day at 
 the door of their dwelling. They received him as a guest sent 
 by God, and mindful that by hospitality " some have enter- 
 tained angels unawares." 
 
 The old man was foolish ; he would often leave his home, 
 and wander far away into the country, until he became too 
 wearied to return. The sisters then put by their work, pur- 
 sued the fugitive, and many a time have been seen bringing 
 him back on their shoulders. 
 
 Anne Billard, an old dressmaker of Paris, was so wretchedly 
 poor, that she lived for days together on bread so nauseous, 
 that prisoners would have thrown it away with contempt, and 
 on vegetables that were literally the refuse of the streets. 
 Yet, in this abyss of wretchedness and misery, Anne Billard 
 did more in the way of true charity than many a daughter of 
 luxury and wealth. An old governess, who had known better 
 days, became her guest for four years ; then followed an infirm 
 soldier, who had long passed his seventieth year : and after 
 him a poor Polish refugee, whose name Anne Billard never 
 even asked to know. In this manner had been spent the last 
 thirteen years of her life ; when attention was drawn to her. 
 Her unhesitating charity had made her poor, for she might by 
 her industry have placed herself beyond the reach of want ; 
 but, though infirm and old, Anne bore her lot without repin- 
 ing. She sought not praise, and never spoke of the good she 
 had done. Many persons wondered at the excess of her 
 poverty ;. but to those who questioned her on this subject she 
 merely replied, — " It is the 'will of God." 
 
 The Sisters of Charity and of St. Joseph have long been in 
 
THE MONTYON PEIZES. 323 
 
 the habit of devoting themselves to the duty intimated by the 
 declaration of the Saviour, — " I was in prison, and ye came 
 unto me." In Protestant countries, private women have occa- 
 sionally undertaken the task allotted to religious orders in 
 Catholic lands : England boasts of Mrs. Fry, and of Sarah 
 Martin. In all these cases, aid or consolation to the prisoners 
 has come from without. Jailers, turnkeys, and their wives, are 
 inevitably associated with bolts, chains, harshness, and despo- 
 tism ; those are held to be the best whom the daily aspect of 
 human misery has least hardened. In the year 1833, facts 
 were proclaimed to the French Academy, which proved that 
 charity can inhabit every dwelling ; that a zeal as tender and 
 ardent as that of Elizabeth Fry, or a daughter of Vincent of 
 Paul, may fill the heart of a jailer's wife. 
 
 In 1807, a man, named Guiraud, became jailer of the 
 prison of Florae, in the south of France. He was active and 
 vigilant, without harshness ; he fulfilled every duty of his 
 place, but he allowed his wife, Suzanne Geral, to soften the 
 hard fate of the prisoners, by all the means — limited, it is true 
 — in her power. Madame Guiraud had six children, and the 
 duties of her own home to attend to ; her husband's salary 
 was small, and she had little enough to bestow ; but charity 
 knows how to find time and means for everything. She did foi 
 the prisoner's all that humanity could suggest ; she relieved 
 their wants, and consoled them in their distress. Her duties 
 became two-fold in 1817 ; for, as Florae had no hospital, the 
 sick poor were received into the prison. In 1818, a prisoner 
 of Milhau was transferred to Florae, who brought the typhus 
 fever with him. The contagion spread rapidly; fourteen 
 prisoners lay ill at once ; every one fled in terror from the 
 unhappy outcasts; Suzanne alone deserted them not. Her 
 husband took the fever ; she shared her cares between him, 
 the fourteen prisoners, and her six children : four of whom 
 were still extremely young. It is declared and proved, that 
 for two months Suzanne Guiraud never once went to bed. A 
 few years later a similar calamity, the fatal result of the intro- 
 duction of the sick, befell the prison of Florae ; and this time 
 Madame Guiraud was aided in her heroic task by her own 
 children. 
 
 But her life consists not merely of dangers braved in the 
 cause of humanity. The prisoners are her friends,- —her chil 
 
324: WOMEN OF CHEISTIAJSnfT. 
 
 dren, — for whom she has cared with all the tenderness of a 
 mother : she has given them her own garments, and distri- 
 huted amongst them the food she had prepared for her family. 
 When her own means have failed, she has gone forth in the 
 town, and begged for them from house to house; seldom to 
 be refused. There is but one name in Florae for the jailer's 
 charitable wife : " The Angel of the Prison." 
 
 The highest charity is that which bears traces of a design 
 extending beyond limited or momentary good. The pub- 
 lished accounts of the Montyon prizes afford interesting though 
 brief narratives of permanent benefits effected by women of 
 limited means, but of fervent faith. A peasant girl named 
 Claudine Treille, who was upwards of fifty when this century 
 began, had then devoted herself from early youth to the edu- 
 cation of the poor. She held ignorance to be one of their 
 greatest calamities, and opened a charity school to the children 
 of her village. Many, detained by their work, were unable to 
 attend ; Claudine went forth to find them in the fields, and 
 gathering the young shepherd boys around her, she taught 
 them in the open air, whilst their flocks grazed quietly. 
 
 With the same generous forgetfulness of self, Marie Guery, 
 a weaver of Yvetot in Normandy, educated, for thirty-five 
 years, the children of her poor neighbors, and taught them her 
 trade, free of expense. Mesdemoiselles Lioud, of Annonay in 
 Provence, two sisters of noble family, united their little pro- 
 perty in 1817, in order to found a free school for poor girls : 
 they endowed it with a yearly sum of 3,200 francs. Thanks 
 to their excellent management, and to their plan of making 
 the work of the girls contribute to the support of the younger 
 ones, the establishment was soon in a thriving condition. A 
 young relative joined Mesdemoiselles Lioud, and devoted her 
 life to the same task. The result of their united efforts was, 
 that in the year 1834 no less than a hundred girls had been 
 brought up in this charitable institution. Two other sisters, 
 Mesdemoiselles Gamier, of Croisic in Brittany, were too poor 
 to found a similar establishment ; but, after devoting the little 
 they possessed to relieve the indigent of their native place, 
 they opened a school. Their object was to earn a comfortable 
 living ; but they were too charitable to succeed completely. 
 They taught gratuitously the children of the poor ; adopted 
 two orphans ; and a strange woman, afflicted with an incura- 
 
THE MONTTON PKEZES. 3i 
 
 ble disease, whom they kept nine years, helped to absorb t 
 scanty profits of their little school. 
 
 In the year 1817, two attached friends, Dorothea Schreifc 
 and Opportuna Vaillant, seamstresses, opened in their ov 
 house a little establishment destined to receive twelve po 
 girls, whom they taught and kept gratuitously. As soon 
 one of the twelve knew enough, she was replaced by anothe 
 the good was always doing, but the burden was never less i 
 the two kind women. Regina Francon of St. Etienne, in ti 
 west of France, a working girl, animated with the sat 
 womanly and philanthropic spirit, also received in her dwe 
 ing orphan girls, whom she brought up in the love of lab< 
 In 1829, Regina Francon had gathered around her eigh 
 young girls ; superintended by mistresses, who gave their a 
 gratuitously ; for the establishment was self-supporting. T 
 girls were taught to read, write, and sew, and were kept un 
 fully able to earn their living ; they were then placed in go< 
 situations, and provided with an outfit of clothes, and nion 
 enough to keep them for a month. 
 
 The generous devotedness of Mademoiselle Barrau, daught 
 of an honorable magistrate of Oahors, was no less admirab 
 ' Mademoiselle Barrau had inherited some wealth from h 
 father, which soon became the property of the poor : s 
 received in her house penitent girls, whose errors exclude 
 them from society ; she opened a school for female childre 
 whom she instructed herself; three ladies sharing her labo: 
 Charitable persons gave money ; and in some cases the pup 
 paid a slight sum, which helped to cover the expenses of t 
 institution. Mademoiselle Barrau was not satisfied with thi 
 she relieved and visited prisoners, the sick, and poor worn 
 lying-in. One of her most cherished tasks, — a task exquisite 
 painful, and through which only heroic charity could carry 
 woman of gentle and tender feeling, — was to aid and consc 
 the condemned in their last hours. One of those wretch 
 creatures -evidently heeded little the religious instructions whi 
 Mademoiselle Barrau offered to her on her way to the pla 
 of execution ; and as she was going to ascend the scaffold, s' 
 thus confessed the cause of her inattention : " I could die 
 peace, if I only thought you would take care of my thr 
 daughters." Mademoiselle Barrau did not hesitate to gi 
 tiiis last consolation to the wretched mother : she promised 
 
326 •WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 provide for the orphan children, and religiously kept her word. 
 It is gratifying to be able to add, that the excellent conduct 
 of her three protegees never allowed her to repent the generous 
 itnpulse. 
 
 These facts became known -through the medium of the' 
 French Academy in the year 1830 ; in the same manner, and 
 at the same- time, was revealed the admirable charity of a 
 widow named Margueritte Mayer. She inhabited the town of 
 Befort, in the department of the Upper Rhine. When this 
 town was besieged, during the wars of Napoleon, Madame 
 Mayer fearlessly followed the sorties of the besieged troops. 
 They went forth to carry fire and slaughter into the ranks of 
 the besiegers ; her task was to linger on the field of battle 
 with the wounded, whether friends or foes; to distribute 
 amongst them linen, lint, and refreshment, and to bear them 
 away to places of safety; undeterred by personal danger and 
 the seeming uselessness of her efforts. In everything she dis- 
 played the same heroism. A contagious disease desolated the 
 hospitals of Befort ; Madame Mayer devoted herself night and 
 day to the sick. The famine of 1816 and 1817 followed ; it 
 found her ready to display the same ardent charity: she 
 created and presided over an assembly of ladies, who under- • 
 took to collect and distribute alms whilst the dearth lasted. 
 The presence of soldiers had injured the moral character of 
 Befort : the place was filled with illegitimate children, the 
 offspring of poverty and vice. Madame Mayer devoted her- 
 self to them : by the mere force of kindness she compelled 
 them to gather around her ; she freed them from uncleanness 
 and vermin ; she fed and clothed them ; taught them reading, 
 writing, and the pure precepts of the Gospel ; she paid then- 
 apprenticeship, and found them work: in short, she did all 
 which could be done to change children of vicious habits and 
 character into honest and useful citizens. 
 
 Caroline Berteau of Elboeuf, in Normandy, displayed a 
 charity as ardent and persevering. In 1833 she was fifty-six 
 years of age, and had for twenty-nine years directed, without 
 remuneration, the hospital of Elboeuf. With her this was no 
 nominal task : she attended on the sick, and dressed their 
 sores or wounds, as assiduously as any nurse about the place. 
 In the year 1824 the local authorities of Elboeuf opened an 
 asylum for the aged poor ; Mademoiselle Berteau agreed to 
 
THE MONTTON PRIZES. 327 
 
 direct it gratuitously. These labors, though great, did not 
 absorb her entirely. Mademoiselle Berteau is described as 
 poor and unconnected, yet she succeeded in opening an asylum 
 for orphan girls, to which she gave the name of " Providence :" 
 the grateful inhabitants of Elbceuf called it " Providence Ber- 
 teau." In 1833 this establishment held 150 children, fifty of 
 whom were under eight years of age. The elder children 
 taught the younger ones how to read and write ; some were 
 employed in household tasks ; others were sent out to visit the 
 sick, and emulate the devoted charity of their benefactress : a 
 charity which seems to know no limit. 
 
 In the year 1821 a foreign woman died in the hospital of 
 Elboeuf. She left a boy of seven, whose passionate grief, as 
 his mother's coffin was borne away, broke forth in screams and 
 lamentations. The kindhearted directress adopted him, and 
 replaced the mother he had lost, until he was nineteen years 
 of age. Another poor child afflicted with epilepsy, and with 
 two loathsome diseases besides, whom no one would venture 
 to touch, was likewise adopted by Mademoiselle Berteau. She 
 took him, cured him, and kept him six years. At the time 
 when her name was mentioned in the French Academy, Made- 
 moiselle Berteau had adopted and was supporting five orphan 
 children. 
 
 Her charity rose to heroism when the cholera first appeared 
 in Elbceuf. A hundred and fifty patients were successively 
 admitted into the hospital ; a hundred and nine left it cured ; 
 but three nurses had died of the fatal disease, and none came 
 to replace them. Mademoiselle Berteau did not shrink from 
 the heavy burden cast upon her ; her days and nights were 
 devoted to the sick, and whilst she attended on them, her 
 meals were often left untouched. In the midst of all this woe, 
 a consolation remained : the houses next to the dwelling of 
 her orphans suffered heavily from cholera, hut not one of the 
 children was so much as attacked. This singular good fortune 
 was generally attributed to the cleanliness and excellent order 
 Mademoiselle Berteau had established. 
 
 Towards the year 1820, a young Norman girl of Cancale, 
 named Jeanne Jugan, left her native place, and came to look 
 for a situation in St. Servan ; a quiet little town of Brittany, 
 formerly a suburb of rocky and fortified St. Malo. Jeanne 
 found a place in the house of a lady of great charity. Yeats 
 
328 WOMEN OF CHKISTIANITY. 
 
 elapsed, and the lady died ; her heirs came and claimed her 
 property ; Jeanne took, as her inheritance, the good deeds 
 which the death of the charitable lady had left unfulfilled. 
 From that time her life and her energies were devoted to the 
 poor. A blind and aged woman was suddenly left destitute 
 by the death of her sister ; winter was near ; her case seemed 
 desperate ; Jeanne took her home. A faithful servant, who 
 had kept by her masters in good and ill fortune, — who had 
 spent on them her savings of years, and supported them by 
 her labor when all other means failed, — remained alone and 
 infirm in her old age. The masters, to whom she had sacri- 
 ficed everything, were dead ; she had no home and no friends ; 
 Jeanne took her home. She received so many that her house 
 at length became too small; she took a larger one, and 
 entered it on the 1st of October, 1841. Within a month the 
 house was full ; twelve human beings, men and women, were 
 sheltered beneath its roof. 
 
 The people of St. Servan had cared very little about Jeanne 
 until then ; but now they began to think and talk of the poor 
 servant girl, who, with means so scanty, had done so much 
 good. A larger house was bought and presented to Jeanne 
 Jugan ; but the gift was accompanied with cautious restric- 
 tions and much prudent advice. 
 
 " They gave the house, but more they could not engage to 
 do. All the expenses must, of course, rest upon Jeanne ; they 
 therefore advised her not to be in too great a hurry to fill the 
 house." 
 
 The faith of her reply was such as an apostle might have 
 envied : " Give the house," she said ; " if God fills it, will He 
 forsake it?" 
 
 She entered the house with her twelve guests. She soon 
 had twenty; and in 1845 the number amounted to sixty-five. 
 Three women of the place had come to share her labors ; a 
 doctor gave his attendance and medicine gratuitously ; in short, 
 St. Servan possessed a real hospital through the persevering 
 charity of a poor servant girl. To enter that hospital no 
 petition is needed, no tedious formalities are exacted. Jeanne 
 Jugan looks out for the sick, and waits not for entreaty to open 
 her doors to the poor. 
 
 An old sailor of seventy-two, starving and in rags, lay 
 neglected on a bed of straw, in a damj> cellar: Jeanne im- 
 
TIIE MONTTON PRIZES. 329 
 
 mediately had him brought home. A poor lame child became 
 an orphan ; no one would have her ; Jeanne took her. Two 
 boys had run away from their miserable home in Lower Brit- 
 tany ; they reached St. Servan as a cold wintry night was 
 closing in ; they went from door to door, seeking an asylum, in 
 vain. " Take them to Jeanne," said a voice. Jeanne received 
 and kept them until they could be sent home to their family. 
 A young girl of fourteen was abandoned by her parents, who 
 left the town precipitately: Jeanne became her protectress, 
 and shielded her from ill. 
 
 So well was her charity known, that all the poor, the sick, 
 and the forsaken of the place were brought to her house, as to 
 their own home. A dissolute woman, wearied of supporting 
 her aged mother, who was, moreover, afflicted with a horrible 
 ulcer, brought and laid her down at the door of Jeanne, in 
 significant silence. Nor was she mistaken in her previsions : 
 Jeanne took the mother, forsaken by the unnatural child. 
 
 But how, it may be asked, does Jeanne Jugan do all this ? 
 It is difficult to do : but charity is ingenious, and faith is not 
 to be cast down. Jeanne works hard, and when her work no 
 longer suffices, she goes forth with a large basket : she begs 
 from door to door ; she is eloquent in her pleadings, and the 
 basket is never empty when she returns. 
 
 We will conclude with a name dear and familiar to English 
 readers, — Louisa Scheppler, the servant and adopted daughter 
 of the good pastor Oberlin. There are few, we believe, who 
 do not know how, in the course of the last century, a poor 
 Protestant clergyman of Alsace succeeded in reclaiming a 
 wild district, extending on the heights of the Vosges moun- 
 tains. He found the soil barren, and the inhabitants ignorant 
 and miserable ; he left, at his death, fertile lands, and a popu- 
 lation far advanced in morality, industry, and civilization. In 
 the course of his manifold labors, the good pastor was much 
 assisted by a devoted young girl, named Louisa Scheppler. 
 She was conductress of one of the infant schools which he 
 established for those very young children to whom their parents, 
 engao-ed in daily labors, could not always attend. The health 
 of Louisa not agreeing with this occupation, she became ser- 
 vant in the family of the pastor. On the death of Madame 
 Oberlin, the office of housekeeper devolved on Louisa, who 
 had then been eight years in the family. After faithfully ful- 
 
330 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 filling the duties of her office for nine years, Louisa addressed 
 to her master — whom, like every one in the Ban de la Roclie, 
 she called " papa " — the following touching letter, written on 
 new-year's-day, 1793. 
 
 " Dear and beloved Papa, — Permit me, at the commence- 
 ment of a new year, to request a favor for which I have long 
 been desirous. As I am now in reality independent, that is to 
 say, having no longer my father nor his debts to attend to, I 
 beseech you, my dear papa, not to refuse me the great favor 
 of making me your adopted daughter. Do not, I entreat you, 
 give me any more wages ; for, as you treat me like one of your 
 children in every other respect, I earnestly hope you will do so 
 in this particular also. Little is needful for the support of my 
 person. My shoes, and stockings, and sabots will cost some- 
 thing ; but when I want them I can ask you for them, as a child 
 applies to its father. I entreat you, dear papa, to grant me 
 this favor, and condescend to regard me as your most tenderly 
 attached daughter, "Louisa Scheppler." 
 
 The request was granted : Louisa became the adopted 
 daughter of her master, the sharer of his charitable labors, the 
 stay and consolation of his declining years, saddened by the 
 loss or absence of his own children. After his death, she re- 
 mained with his son-in-law and successor, continuing her 
 laborious exertions in favor of the inhabitants of the Ban de la 
 Roche. In the year 1829, the French Academy bestowed on 
 her a Montyon prize of five thousand francs, and appointed 
 Cuvier, the eminent naturalist, and one of the most lofty geni- 
 uses of this age, to relate the simple story of a life passed in 
 the wild haunts of the Vosges, in diffusing the light, charity, 
 and peace of the Gospel. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 Elizabeth Fry^-Her Youth and first Religious Feelings. 
 
 In the year 1780, there resided in a roomy quadrangular 
 house of the parish of St. Clement, in the town of Norwich, a 
 quaker family bearing the ancient name of Gurney. As far 
 
ELIZABETH FRY. 331 
 
 back as the days when William Rufus reigned, the Lords of 
 Gouruay en Brai in Normandy had held fiefs in Norfolk ; 
 and there they left their name and their descendants to be 
 perpetuated through many generations. In the latter part of 
 the seventeenth century, John Gurney, merchant, a younger 
 son of a younger branch, issued from the old Norman lords, 
 embraced the tenets of George Fox. John Gurney of Earl- 
 ham, his great-grandson, inherited his name and his principles. 
 In 1775 he married Catherine Bell, daughter of a London 
 merchant, and descended from Robert Barclay, the well-known 
 apologist of the Quakers. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. John Gurney were thus hereditary members 
 of the Society of Friends ; but their mild and lenient Quaker- 
 ism was not such as to win the approbation of those who called 
 themselves " Plain Quakers." They led a pleasant and a very 
 comfortable life, spending the winter at Norwich, and the 
 summer in the pretty village of Bramerton. They were both 
 of a cheerful, sociable disposition, and shrank not from gaiety : 
 they kept their carriage, saw company, and bad friends even 
 amongst those whose religious principles nominally differed 
 most from their own ; they used neither the plain garb nor the 
 " thee " and " thou " of Quakers ; their daughters sang, and 
 both sons and daughters learned to dance. In short, like many 
 members of their sect, John and Catherine Gurney had lost 
 the fervent spirit of early days ; from proselytizing enthusiasts, 
 they were now become calm, intellectual, amiable, moral, and 
 somewhat worldly people, who called themselves Quakers, and 
 attended meeting ; but in whom many a zealous brother silently 
 lamented to see " the marks of wealth and grandeur,'' which 
 the devout William Savery of America noted, amongst his 
 English brethren of Norwich. 
 
 In 1786, Mr. and Mrs. Gurney removed with their family 
 to Earlham Hall, an old mansion, irregularly built, but stand- 
 ing fair and venerable in the centre of an ancient park, with a 
 wide lawn, shady groves, and a dark avenue rising on the 
 banks of the clear and winding Wensum. Here were born 
 the last three of their twelve children : it was whilst they still 
 resided at Norwich, that Mrs. Gurney gave birth to her third 
 daughter, Elizabeth, on the 21st of May, 1780. 
 
 The child was fair, shy, and quiet ; her mother called her 
 " my dove-like Betsy : " her very faults were silent. She 
 
332 WOMEN OF CHMSTIANITT. 
 
 dreaded the dark with the intensity of childhood's fear, and 
 she never spoke of her terrors. She was gentle in look, man- 
 ner, and speech, but proud, and inexorably obstinate at heart. 
 She yielded to a request ; whereas nothing could subdue her 
 tacit revolt against a command, howsoever just. Her abilities 
 were great, though, for a child, peculiar ; for they were tact, 
 penetration, and independence of thought. She was weak, 
 sickly, and disliked study, in which she made little progress ; 
 indeed, she was thought stupid, and thought herself so. Her 
 pleasure was tranquil and meditative : she loved flowers, shells, 
 and, with her sister Rachel, had a little cabinet, where they 
 placed collections of natural curiosities, and all their childish 
 treasures. Her religious feelings were serious, and somewhat 
 solemn : her whole soul and being were impressed, when in 
 the evening, after hearing her mother read some portion of 
 Scripture and a Psalm, she sat by her awed and silent. That 
 mother, a beautiful and. amiable woman, Elizabeth loved with 
 a tenderness verging on passion ; but more deep than demon- 
 strative : the thought that she might die and leave her behind, 
 often made her lie awake and weep at night. She seldom 
 left her side, and she watched her sleeping, haunted by a fear 
 that her mother might cease to breathe, and waken no more 
 from that calm slumber which resembled all that she had heard 
 or knew of death. When death did at length remove Mrs. 
 Gurney, the grief of Elizabeth, then twelve years old, was deep 
 and enduring. Thirty-six years later, she felt and wrote that 
 the remembrance of this event was " sad even to the present 
 day." An incident of her childhood is too characteristic to be 
 omitted. She had so great a desire to visit a prison, that her 
 father at last took her to see a bridewell : the impression this 
 sight produced was never effaced. 
 
 Years elapsed, and wrought their change on Elizabeth Gur- 
 ney : the pale, shy child grew up into a tall, slight girl, of ele- 
 gant figure, and soft, winning aspect, heightened by a profu- 
 sion of flaxen hair. She had six sisters, who were all attractive, 
 gay, and lively. Elizabeth sang and danced with much spirit, 
 and rode both fearlessly and well : she appeared to peculiar 
 advantage in a certain scarlet riding-habit, and was fond of 
 dress and admiration. Her life was innocent, but her thoughts 
 were gradually settling on the world : ill health was her ex- 
 cuse for not attending meeting; and the excuse was reltic- 
 
ELIZABETH FRY. 333 
 
 tantly abandoned. When she went she seemed restless and 
 uneasy : her heai't was not with the grave worship of her bre- 
 thren. The religious feelings of her childhood, the silent awe 
 felt after the Scripture reading, had faded away : if she still 
 believed, it was vaguely ; with that dim belief which lingers in 
 every soul, save the dark and desolate one of the atheist. As 
 she reached her seventeenth year, light began to pierce this 
 gloom : doubts, the forerunners of faith, assailed her. She 
 stood half way between the world and religion — loving the 
 one, called by the other. A generous ambition awoke within 
 her ; she felt the want of " a better, a greater stimulus to vir- 
 tue than she then had, wrapt up in trifles as she was :" she 
 had the wish, but not the power. In the spirit of her sect, 
 she resolved to wait for the workings of her own heart. She 
 refused to read religious books : when the time came, if it was 
 to come, she would take up the New Testament, and shape 
 out her own path. 
 
 Her early journals paint very forcibly the state of her mind 
 and feelings at this period. At one time " her mind is in so 
 dark a state that she sees everything through a black me- 
 dium ;" then she longs " for the Prince to come,"'* and attri- 
 butes the desire to pride. She has to struggle against her 
 passions ; she would not give them up, but she would keep 
 them silent and subdued. She deplores the evils of a worldly 
 life ; the false stimulus which it creates ; the pomp, pride, va- 
 nity, jealousy, and ambition it fosters ; the vacancy of spirit 
 which ultimately compels to fly to novels and scandal as a 
 refuge. These philosophic reflections on the vanity of the 
 world are followed by a characteristic entry : " I met the Prince 
 — it showed me the folly of the world ; my mind feels very 
 flat after this storm of pleasure." 
 
 Her heart also overflowed with a vague and dreamy tender- 
 ness. She loved the luxury of her feelings — " to feel for the 
 sorrows of others — to pour wine and oil into the wounds of 
 the afflicted." The hopes and desires of her years are thus 
 frankly expressed on her seventeenth birthday : 
 
 " Monday, 21st. — I am seventeen to-day. Am I a happier 
 or a better creature than I was this time twelvemonths ? I 
 
 * His Royal Highness William Frederick, afterwards Duke cf Glou- 
 cester, then quartered at Norwich. 
 
334 WOMEN OF CHEISTIAOTTY. 
 
 know I am happier ; I think I am better., I hope I shall ba 
 much better this day year than I am now. I hope to be quite 
 an altered person ; to have more knowledge ; to have my 
 mind in greater order ; and my heart too, that wants to be 
 plit in order as much, if not more, than any part of me — it is 
 in such a fly-away state ; but I think, if' ever it settled on one 
 object, it would never, no, never, fly away any more ; it would 
 rest quietly and happily on the heart that was open to re- 
 ceive it." 
 
 .From such thoughts, Elizabeth sometimes turned towards 
 what is often the secret ambition of youth — self-subjection. 
 
 * June 20th. — If I have long to live in this world, may I 
 bear misfortunes with fortitude ; do what I can to alleviate the 
 sorrows of others ; exert what power I have to increase hap- 
 piness ; try to govern my passions by reason ; and strictly ad- 
 here to what I think light. 
 
 " July 7th. — I have seen several things in myself and others 
 i never before remarked ; but I have not tried to improve my- 
 self. I have given way to my passions, and let them have 
 command over me. I have known my faults and not correct- 
 ed them ; and now I am determined I will once more try, 
 with redoubled ardor, to overcome my wicked inclinations. I 
 must not flirt, I must not even be out of temper with the chil- 
 dren ; I must not contradict without a cause ; I must not 
 mump when my sisters are liked, and I am not ; I must not 
 allow myself to be angry ; I must not exaggerate, which I am 
 inclined to do ; I must not give way to luxury ; I must not be 
 idle in mind ; I must try to give way to every good feeling, 
 and overcome every bad. I will see what I can do ; if I had 
 but perseverance, 1 could do all that I wish : I will try. I 
 have lately been too satirical, so as to hurt sometimes : re- 
 member it is always a fault to hurt others. 
 
 "11th. . . . Company to dinner. I must beware of 
 not being a flirt : it is an abominable character ; I hope I 
 shall never be one, and yet I fear I am one now a little. Be 
 careful not to talk at random. Beware, and see how well I 
 can get through this day without one foolish action. If I do 
 pass this day without one foolish action, it is the first I ever 
 passed so. If I pass a day with only a few foolish actions, I 
 may think it a good one." 
 
 "August 6tf|. — I have a cross to-night. I had very much 
 
ELIZABETH FRY. 335 
 
 set my mind on going to the oratorio ; the Prince is to be 
 there, and by all accounts it will be quite a grand sight, and 
 there will be the finest music ; but if my father does not like 
 me to go, much as I wish it, I will give it up with pleasure, if it 
 be in my power, without a murmur. I went to the oratorio ; 
 I enjoyed it, but spoke sadly at random : what a bad habit !'' 
 
 This is the last time the name of the young Prince, who 
 seems to have exercised no slight fascination on Elizabeth, oc- 
 curs in the early journals. His image, and all the pleasures 
 and attractions of the world, were slowly fading away before 
 thoughts more solemn and joys more holy. But ere the vic- 
 tory could be won, there was a struggle, sharp though brief, 
 to undergo : the mind of Elizabeth was tossed on a sea of 
 doubts. " She does not know if she shall not soon be rather 
 religious," and then "she fears being religious, in case she 
 should be enthusiastic." One day she writes, " Idle and re- 
 laxed in mind, greatly dissipated by hearing the band, <fec, 
 &c. Music has a great effect on me : it at times makes me 
 feel almost beside myself." 
 
 And then, a few months later, after expressing, in vivid and 
 ardent language, how great is her need of religion, she adds 
 with sudden caution, " But I have the greatest fear of religion, 
 because I never saw a person religious, who was not enthusi- 
 astic." 
 
 This fear kept her back until she felt herself sinking into a 
 state of mental darkness, from which there seemed no coming 
 into light. She sadly confesses that she has "no real faith in 
 any sort of religion." " I don't feel any real religion,'' she 
 writes in January, 1798; "I should think those feelings im- 
 possible to obtain ; for even if I thought all the Bible was 
 true, I do not think I could make myself feel it : I think I 
 never saw any person who appeared so totally destitute of it. 
 I fear I am by degrees falling away from the path of virtue 
 and truth." Two days later, a change has already occurred : 
 " Her mind is in a state of fermentation : she believes she is 
 going to be religious, or some such thing." 
 
 The instrument of a change which affected the whole exist- 
 ence of Elizabeth Gurney, was William Savery of America, 
 then on a religious visit to England. He had once been a 
 gay, unbelieving man ; ho was then a fervent Quaker, enthu- 
 siastic, eloquent, yet humble. On the 4th of February, 1798, 
 
336 WOMEN OF CHBISTIAUITT. 
 
 he preached at the Friends' meeting-house in Norwich. Ri- 
 chenda Gurney thus described the impression he produced on 
 her sister : 
 
 " On that day, we, seven sisters, sat as usual in a row under 
 the gallery at meeting. I sat by Betsy. William Savery was 
 there. We liked- having yearly meeting friends come to 
 preach ; it was a little change. Betsy was generally rather 
 restless at meeting, and on this day I remember her very 
 smart boots were a great amusement to me : they were pur- 
 ple, laced with scarlet. 
 
 "At last William Savery began to preach. His voice and 
 manner were arresting, and we all liked the sound ; her atten- 
 tion became fixed : at last I saw her begin to weep, and she 
 became a good deal agitated. As soon as meeting was over, 
 I have a remembrance of her making her way to the men's 
 side of the meeting, and, having found my father, she begged 
 him if she might dine with William Savery at the Grove, to 
 which he soon consented, though rather surprised by the 
 request. We went home as usual, and, for a wonder, we wish- 
 ed to go again in the afternoon. I have not the same clear 
 remembrance of this meeting; but the next scene that has 
 fastened itself on my memory is our return home in the car- 
 riage. Betsy sat in the middle, and astonished us all by the 
 great feeling she showed. She wept most of the way home. 
 The next morning William Savery came to breakfast, and 
 preached to our dear sister after breakfast, prophesying of the 
 high and important calling she would be led into. What she 
 went through in her own mind, I cannot say, but the results 
 were most powerful and most evident. From that day her 
 love of pleasure and of the world seemed gone." 
 
 It seemed, but was not. Nothing of good or evil perishes 
 utterly in a day. Many a conflict did the heart of Elizabeth 
 endure before the final victory was won. The force and depth 
 of her own impressions alarmed her. She dreaded lest what 
 she had felt should wear away. On the evening of that day, 
 to her so eventful, she writes, in the language of mingled 
 doubt and awe : 
 
 " My imagination has been worked upon, and I fear all that 
 I have felt will go off. I fear it now, though at first I was 
 frightened, that a plain Quaker should have made so deep an 
 impression upon me ; but how truly prejudiced in me to 
 
ELIZABETH FRY. 33? 
 
 think, that because good came from, a Quaker, I should be led 
 away by enthusiasm and folly., I. wish the state of enthusiasm 
 I am now in may last, for to-day I have felt that there is a 
 God." 
 
 For two days she was humbled and subdued. It was as if 
 a refreshing shower from heaven had fallen on her spirit, 
 parched like " earth that had been dried up for ages ;" but, 
 alas! she went to Norwich; and though she had "a very 
 serious ride there," yet " meeting, and being looked at, with 
 apparent admiration, by some officers, brought on vanity." 
 She came home " as full of the world as she went to town full 
 of heaven." 
 
 The next Sunday found her oppressed with all her old irre- 
 ligious feeling at meeting. Her mind was naturally inclined to 
 both scepticism . and enthusiasm : when she reasoned and 
 argued, faith fled; when she yielded to her feelings, and 
 waited in patient humility, it returned, a willing and welcome 
 guest. Her fidelity was soon put to the test by a visit to 
 London and all its gaieties. Like a novice who' leaves her 
 convent before pronouncing the irrevocable vows, in order to 
 partake once more in all the pleasures and vanities she is going 
 to forsake, Elizabeth Gurney beheld what is called the world 
 for a few weeks, to bid it adieu for ever, and bind herself down 
 to the austere faith and habit of her most rigid brethren. 
 
 Mr. Gurney took his daughter to London, and left her there 
 under the care of a relation. The first prospect of going had 
 put the mind of the young girl " in a whirl ;*' but reflection 
 sobered down this mood, and the thought of seeing William 
 Savery and his friends, the plain Quakers, agitated her more 
 than a visit to the capital and a share in all its pleasures. Two 
 days after her arrival, on February 26th, she went to Drury 
 Lane ; and for the first time entered the magic circle, where 
 feigned joys, woes, and passions charm the fancy and subdue 
 the heart of the beholder. But the expectations of Elizabeth 
 had been raised too highly for the spell to work : the house 
 she found " grand and dazzling ;" for the rest she cared not. 
 The play perhaps was not good : at all events it failed to please 
 her. She saw Miss Decamp, Jack Bannister, Mrs. Jordan, and 
 she wished the performance over. This impression was not 
 removed by other plays and different performers. With her 
 hair dressed, which made her " feel like a monkey," she went 
 
 15 
 
338 WOMEN OF OHEISTIANTTT. 
 
 to see " Hamlet" and " Bluebeard." She found the acting, 
 music, and scenery perfect, but she still wished the entertain- 
 ment fairly ended. " I do not like plays," she writes in her 
 diary;," I think them so artificial, that they are to me not 
 interesting, and all seems so — so very far from pure virtue 
 and nature." This indifference to theatrical amusements did 
 not save Elizabeth from a dissipated, worldly frame of mind ; 
 which she records, and briefly laments. 
 
 " Wednesday, February 28th. — We were out this morning ; 
 I felt proud, vain, and silly. In the evening we had a dance. 
 
 "March 4th. — I feel uncharitably towards . I said 
 
 uncharitable things of them, and gave way. to inclination, for 
 I own I love scandal, though I highly disapprove of it ; there- 
 fore it is the more commendable if I overcome it. 
 
 " 5th. — I took a lesson in dancing, and spent the day 
 quietly." 
 
 Two days after the dancing lesson, a meeting where Eliza- 
 beth heard William Savery preach from a text in Eevelations, 
 and pray "most eloquently, brought out religious fervour. 
 "Most awfully she felt it,'' and, as before, fear and doubt 
 blended with her enthusiasm. She wished for the quiet of 
 Earlham ; for though plays were not attractive, there were 
 other gaieties which, she confesses, troubled and excited her 
 greatly. The last records of this London visit betray her 
 weakness, and show that, whilst it lasted, she saw something 
 of London society. 
 
 " March 26th. — This morning I went to Amelia Opie's^ and 
 had a pleasant time. I called on Mrs. Siddons, who was not 
 at home ; then on Dr. Batty ; then on Mrs. Twiss, who gave 
 me some paint for the evening. I was painted a little. I had 
 my hair dressed, and did look pretty, for me. Mr. Opie, 
 Amelia, and I, went to the opera concert. I own I do 
 love grand company. The Prince of Wales was there ; and I 
 must say, I felt more pleasure in looking at him, than in seeing 
 the rest of the company, or hearing the music. I did nothing 
 but admire his royal highness; but I had a very pleasant 
 evening indeed. 
 
 " 27th, I called with Mrs. H ■ and Amelia on Mi's. Inch- 
 bald. I like her vastly ; she seems so clever and so interest- 
 ing. I then went to Hampstead, and staid at our cousin 
 Hoar's until the 12th of April. I returned to Clapham. My 
 
ELIZABETH BRY. 339 
 
 uncle Barclay, with great begging, took us to the opera. The 
 house is dazzling, the company animating, the music hardly 
 
 at all so, the dancing delightful. H ■ came in, in the 
 
 middle of the opera ; I was charmed to see him — I was most 
 merry — I just saw the Prince of Wales. — Tuesday. My 
 
 dearest father came to London. We dined at the , and 
 
 went to a rout in the evening. — Friday. I had a pleasant, 
 merry day with Peter Pindar (Dr. Walcot). — Monday. I 
 went with my father and the Barclays to Sir George Staun- 
 ton's. 
 
 " April 16. I arrived at home with my father, after paying 
 a few more visits." 
 
 Thirty years later, Elizabeth Gurney, then Mrs. Fry, of 
 European celebrity, reviewed, in serious mood, this period of 
 her youth, " like the casting die of her life," during which she 
 was marvellously " protected," and received striking proof of 
 "the tender mercy of her God." The severest part of the 
 struggle was now over. The thoughts of Elizabeth Gurney 
 daily became more turned towards the austere tenets of her 
 sect ; she had for a long time been eveiy night troubled with 
 a strange and bitter dream, of an agitated sea rising against 
 her v/ith waves ready to wash her away : the circumstances 
 might vary ; the danger, and its agony of fear, ever recurred. 
 At length, when come to the day of perfect faith, the dream 
 changed : the sea did indeed rise as usual, but she stood safe 
 beyond the reach of its waters ; from that night the dream 
 troubled her no more. Elizabeth looked on this as a warning 
 from above, as a type of her future destiny ; and, recording it, 
 devoutly hoped " not to be drowned in the ocean of the world, 
 but permitted to mount above its waves, and remain a steady 
 and faithful servant to the God whom she worshipped." 
 
 She had always been charitable, for her nature led her to 
 pity and relieve suffering ; but now she extended the sphere 
 of her duties. She visited and relieved the poor of Earlham 
 and Norwich, especially the sick ; she read the Bible to them, 
 and instructed their children. A school at home, which had 
 begun with one boy, so increased, that she had to receive her 
 pupils in a vacant laundry. She ruled and instructed alone 
 no less than seventy children : a singular instance of that 
 power of tuition and control which she displayed so strikingly 
 in after-life. 
 
340 WOMEN OF OHKISTLAJSTITY. 
 
 A few days spent at Colebrook Dale, with, relatives who 
 were plain Quakers and fervent believers, confirmed Elizabeth 
 in this resolve. She gradually gave up dancing and music, 
 which she held to be " the first pleasures in life ;" she said 
 " thee" and " thou," and modified her dress until it acquired 
 the strict simplicity of Quaker attire. Her journals reveal, 
 however, how much these sacrifices cost her : what between the 
 love of pleasure and the dread of ridicule, her mind was sorely 
 troubled. Once chancing to meet an old acquaintance, and 
 not knowing how to address him in the plain language, she 
 fairly ran away. It was also painful when asked to sing and 
 dance by her friends, either to do so with a sense of wrong, or 
 to grieve them by a refusal. The struggle was evidently a 
 bitter one ; but, in the end, her deep — though, as we think, 
 mistaken — sense of duty, prevailed. 
 
 It was not merely because plain Quakers object to music 
 and dancing that Elizabeth abstained from both ; she found 
 them exciting, and therefore dangerous. If dancing did 
 indeed make her feel, as she says, vain and disposed to flirt, 
 she did well to relinquish it ; but though the excitement which 
 it created was the only objection which she could raise to 
 music, she held it sufficient. If excitement be in itself a sin, 
 then it is wrong for the heart to be raised with some gene- 
 rous emotion : to feel the thrill which is awakened by the sight 
 or sound of the beautiful ; to indulge, like David, in the trans- 
 ports of religious fervor, and express them in the ardent and 
 impassioned language of the shepherd boy of Israel. 
 
 The excitement of religion is not its noblest part — no more 
 is it so in pleasure or art— but it exists : to deny it, would be 
 useless. Of all the ideas which can absorb a human heart, 
 there is none more exciting than religion : it gives to this life 
 its aim and aspirations, and holds before our gaze the solemn 
 mysteries of a life yet to come. God, futurity, our souls, all 
 that we can conceive of sublime, or awful, or sympathetic, lie 
 comprised in the word. That perfect calmness, which a mis- 
 taken idea of religion has caused so many to seek, would be 
 the death of the soul, if it were possible ; but it is not. The 
 Supreme Being alone may unite incessant action to eternal 
 repose ; that repose does not exist even in Nature : she is not 
 always calm and soothing: she has aspects and murmurs 
 more seductive than man's sweetest music, because infinitely 
 
ELIZABETH FEY. 341 
 
 more beautiful. We may indeed strive to check the outpour- 
 ings of the spirit with which we have been gifted, but we can 
 -never wholly succeed : if the pleasant and the beautiful are to 
 be set aside, something must take their place. God gave 
 them to us as antidotes against the sordid cares of life : 
 against instincts less noble, and feelings far more selfish. Is 
 our wisdom greater than His ? 
 
 But though we cannot help protesting against the strange 
 mistake into which Elizabeth Gurney fell, we must not be 
 misunderstood. When once she thought wrong that which 
 had formerly appeared innocent, she did well to relinquish it 
 utterly ; indeed, no other course was left open to her. It is 
 only fair to state, that she was by no means precipitate : that 
 conscience and judgment, and not those friends, whom in her 
 enthusiasm she calls " superior, fascinating Quakers," guided 
 her in this step ; and that one of her chief reasons for adopting 
 it was, the sincere conviction that " the formation of her mind 
 required the bonds and ties of Quakerism to fit it for immor- 
 tality.'' There is a never-failing virtue in sacrifice, howsoever 
 mistaken : that of Elizabeth Gurney was entire and generous 
 — it bore its fruit. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Elizabeth Fry — Her Married Life — Visits to the Prisoners in Newgate. 
 
 In 1800 Elizabeth Gurney married Mr. Joseph Fry, and 
 removed from her countiy home to St. Mildred's Court in 
 the city. She there inhabited the house where her husband 
 and his brother carried on their extensive business. He was, 
 of course, a Quaker ; and, indeed, all his family were so 
 strictly devout that the young bride found herself the " gay, 
 instead of the plain and scrupulous one of the family," as she 
 had been at home. 
 
 The first nine years of Mrs. Fry's married life offer few 
 events of importance. The birth of five children, the death 
 of valued friends, household cares and duties, gentle acts of 
 charity — thrown into the shade, but not effaced, by the exer* 
 
342 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 tions of later years — belong to this period of her existence: 
 She was happy, and acknowledged it with a thankful heart 
 " Time slips through quickly," she writes on the second anni- 
 versary of her marriage, " trials and pleasures, before unknown, 
 have indeed been felt by me ; trials and joys of many kinds 
 The love of a husband, the unity experienced, the love of a 
 child, the maternal feelings, when under subordination, are 
 real and great sources of enjoyment." 
 
 In the spring of 1809 Mr. and Mrs. Fry removed to Plashet, 
 in Essex. The change from the city to the country was delight- 
 ful to one who, whilst she cared little for the works of men, 
 ever keenly enjoyed the exquisite loveliness of Nature. She 
 promptly established a girls' school on the Lancasterian 
 system, and distinguished herself by acts of universal charity : 
 she kept a dep6t of calico, flannels, and outer garments, ever 
 ready for the poor ; a large closet was well stored with medi- 
 cines for their use ; and in the hard winters, soup was boiled 
 in an out-house, and distributed to hundreds of poor people. 
 About half a mile from Plashet, there was a little Irish colony 
 where "Madam Fry" was deservedly beloved and popular. 
 " It was a pleasant thing to observe the influence obtained by 
 Mi's. Fry over these wild, but warmhearted people. She had 
 in her nature a touch of poetry, and a quick sense of the droll ; 
 the Irish character furnished matter for both. Their powers 
 of deep love and bitter grief excited her sympathy ; almost 
 against her judgment, she would grant the linen shirt and the 
 boughs of evergreen to array the departed, and ornament the 
 bed of death. She frequently visited Irish Row, never but to 
 do good or administer consolation. Gathering her garments 
 round her, she would thread her way through children and 
 pigs, up broken staircases and by narrow passages, to the 
 apartments she sought ; there she would listen to their tales 
 of want or woe, or of their difficulties with their children, or of 
 the evil conduct of their husbands. She persuaded many of 
 them to adopt more orderly habits, giving little presents of 
 clothing as encouragements ; she induced some to send their 
 children to school, and, with the consent of the priest, circu- 
 lated the Bible amongst them. On one occasion, when the 
 weather was extremely cold, and great distress prevailed, being 
 at the time too delicate herself to walk, she went alone in the 
 carriage, literally piled with flannel petticoats for Irish Row ; 
 
ELIZABETH FEY. 343 
 
 the rest of the party walking to meet her, to assist in the 
 delightful task of distribution."* 
 
 The gipsies, who yearly visited Plashet on their way to a 
 neighboring fair, were not forgotten by the kind lady. She 
 also did an amount of good, that can scarcely be estimated, 
 by extending vaccination. She was not only successful in 
 performing the operation, an art which she had learned from 
 Dr. Willan, but at intervals " she made a sort of investigation 
 of the state of the parish, with a view to vaccinating the 
 children. The result was, that small-pox was scarcely known 
 in the villages over which her influence extended." 
 
 Beautiful and pure as was a life thus spent, happy as' she 
 was in many respects, Elizabeth Fry — to whose religious 
 fervor time had only given more strength — was secretly 
 troubled at heart by the thought of work left undone, and of 
 a high destiny unfulfilled. Every one knows, of course, that 
 the Friends do not exclude women from the ministry. Two 
 years before her marriage, at the time when William Savery 
 visited Norwich, there is an indication in the journal of Eliza- 
 beth Gurney, that the prospect of " becoming a preacher" had 
 offered itself to her mind. Her sister Kichenda mentions how 
 he prophesied " the high and important calling she would be 
 led into." On a solemn evening spent at Colebrook Dale, 
 and when, as Elizabeth expressed it, " her heart began to feel 
 itself silenced before God," Deborah Darby, a minister 
 amongst the Friends, spoke, and addressed part of her dis- 
 course to the young girl ; who, with awe and wonder, heard 
 herself designated as one that was to become " a light to the 
 blind, speech to the dumb, and feet to the lame." There can 
 be no doubt that these prophecies, founded on a subtle 
 perception of the innate eloquence, zeal, and fervor of 
 the young girl, helped to work their own fulfilment in the 
 woman. 
 
 Soon after her marriage, this subject began to haunt her 
 with strange doubts and fears. Was she really called to the 
 ministry ? Was it imagination that misled and lured her too 
 far, or lukewarmness and want of zeal that kept her back ? 
 The struggle, and to her it was most momentous, lasted ten 
 years. 
 
 * Memoir of the Life of Elizabeth Fry. 
 
3H women of cHEisTiAJsrrrr. 
 
 On the 20th of August 1808, Elizabeth Fry writes thus : 
 " I have been married eight years yesterday ; various trials of 
 faith and patience have been permitted me ; my course haa 
 been very different to what I had expected ; instead of being, 
 as I had hoped, a useful instrument in the church militant, 
 here I am a careworn wife and mother, outwardly, nearly 
 devoted to the things of this life." But, after a long conflict 
 against her secret dread, the spell was broken. She poured 
 forth her soul, in thanksgiving and prayer, by the death-bed 
 of her father, and on her return to Plashet she spoke in the 
 meeting, and thus assumed the ministry. This event took 
 place at the close of 1810. Mrs. Fry was naturally a timid, 
 sensitive woman ; she found strength in the belief that this 
 work was not " her own doing, nor at her own command." 
 She thought herself called by the Lord, and professed her 
 willingness to follow " in the ways of His requirings, even if 
 they led her into suffering and into death." 
 
 Sirs. Fry was soon acknowledged as a minister by the 
 society ; she was gifted, eloquent, and, when deeply moved, 
 forgot all dread of man and his presence. Her voice, her 
 jnanner, arrested attention; her fervor filled with awe, and 
 moved to devotion. The testimony of all who ever heard her 
 is unanimous ; and they were not always of her own faith, nor 
 insensible to the strangeness of hearing a woman pray and 
 preach in public. 
 
 We have not thought it right to pass over this period of 
 her life hastily. It is not, indeed, to her early doubts and 
 struggles, to her labors in the ministry, that Elizabeth Fry 
 owes her celebrity. Her name is associated with the darkest 
 haunts of wretchedness and crime ; with labors, spiritual 
 indeed, but seemingly foreign to a nature so tender and a piety 
 so mystical. But every human being whose story is told, has 
 a right to have the tale related even as it befell. It is not 
 indifferent to know by what steps the gay young girl of Earlham, 
 who danced, who flirted, whom looks of admiration greeted, 
 and who knew it but too well, became a visiter of prisons, and 
 an apostle of light and truth amongst those who lingered there 
 in the darkness of sin. The ways of the human heart, like 
 those of its Creator, are many : it is something to know the 
 path along which, and according to her faith, journeyed a 
 woman like Elizabeth Fry. The spirit which moved her to 
 
ELIZABETH FET. 845 
 
 speak was no transitory enthusiasm. On two solemn and 
 trying occasions — the death of her father, and later, of one of 
 her young children — she shrank not from uttering a fervent 
 thanksgiving for the pure victory won by the departed, in a 
 manner never to be forgotten by those who heard her. And 
 yet her grief was deep ; and by the journal, we see how much 
 ' her heart yearned towards the beautiful and much loved child 
 that slept in Barking burying-ground. 
 
 In November 1812, Mrs. Fry and her family left Plashet 
 for St. Mildred's Court, where they were to spend the winter. 
 Four Friends, well known to her, visited Newgate in the 
 month of January. Their representations induced her to 
 visit the female prisoners, for the purpose of giving them some 
 relief during this inclement season. The relief was needed 
 indeed. In two wards and two cells, of which the extent did 
 not exceed one hundred and ninety superficial yards, were 
 confined three hundred women and their children. Some 
 were tried ; others still unconvicted ; but all lived together, 
 and fared alike : they lived, cooked, and washed in these four 
 rooms. Their clothes were in rags, the floor was their bed, its 
 boai-ds raised for that purpose, served them as a pillow. No 
 employment was assigned to them ; they fought, drank, and 
 gambled without restraint, The power of the law literally 
 ceased at the doors of the wards tenanted by this reckless 
 crew. Mr. Newman, the governor, never entered this part of 
 the prison without reluctance. When Mrs. Fry, and Miss 
 Anna Buxton, sister of Sir T. F. Buxton, made their first visit, 
 Mr. Newman, fearing lest their watches should be snatched 
 from them, advised them, though in vain, to leave them behind : 
 Property was not safe in the very dungeons erected by society 
 for the preservation of property. Mrs. Fry was shocked with 
 " the filth, the closeness of the room, the ferocious manners, 
 and the abandoned wickedness which everything bespoke." 
 Her journal, which was more the record of her religious feel- 
 ings than of her life, is meagre and incomplete on this interest- 
 ing subject : she knew not to what important results this first 
 step was to lead. Her third visit to Newgate is thus simply 
 mentioned on the 16th of February: "Yesterday we were 
 some hours at Newgate with the poor female felons, attending 
 to their outward necessities ; we had been twice previously. 
 Before we went away, dear Anna Buxton uttered a few words 
 
 15* 
 
346 "WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 in supplication, and very unexpectedly to myself, I did also. 
 I heard weeping, and I thought they appeared much tendered ; 
 a very solemn quiet was observed : it was a striking scene ; 
 the poor people on their knees around us, in their deplorable 
 condition." 
 
 Mrs. Fry did not renew her visits to Newgate until the 
 Christmas of 1816. The physical condition of the prisoners 
 was somewhat improved, but they were still idle, profligate, 
 and fierce. On her second visit, she requested to be left 
 alone with them. She read to them the parable of the lord 
 of the vineyard, and addressed them at some length. They 
 seemed moved ; but some thought themselves beyond redemp- 
 tion : others asked who was Christ. The proposal of estab- 
 lishing a school in the prison, with a schoolmistress of their 
 own appointment for the children, was, however, adopted 
 with tears of joy. An unoccupied cell was granted for the 
 schoolroom ; Mary Connor, a young girl committed for theft, 
 was appointed schoolmistress; and, on paying her next visit, 
 Mrs. Fry opened the school for children and young persons 
 under twenty-five years of age. Many women asked to be 
 admitted, but could not for want of room. Mrs. Fry was 
 accompanied by her friend, Mary Sanderson, who visited a 
 prison for the first time, and described her feelings in forcible 
 language : " The railing was crowded with half-naked women, 
 struggling together for the front situations with the most 
 boisterous violence, and begging with the utmost vociferation. 
 She felt as if she were going into a den of wild beasts, and 
 she well recollects quite shuddering when the door was closed 
 upon her, and she was locked in with such a herd of novel 
 and desperate companions." 
 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Pryor, who long shared the benevolent 
 exertions of Mrs. Fry, beheld one of these desperate women 
 come out and rush round the prison yard with her arm 
 extended, " tearing everything of the nature of a cap from the 
 heads of the other women, and yelling like a wild beast." 
 This sams woman left Newgate a reformed character. She 
 married, and often came to see Mrs. Pryor. Her conduct was 
 good, and her appearance most respectable. 
 
 In her evidence before the Committee of the House of 
 Commons, Mrs. Fry mentions " the dreadful proceedings that 
 went forward on the female side of the prison ;" the begging, 
 
ELIZABETH FJBT. 347 
 
 swearing, gaming, fighting, singing, dancing, dressing up in 
 men's clothes," seems too bad to be described, and which 
 prevented the ladies from admitting young persons with them 
 
 These fierce and degraded women asked, however, to shara 
 in the benefits extended to their children. In opening the 
 school, Mrs. Fry had scarcely hoped for their reformation ; the 
 chance was not to be neglected. In April, 1817, she succeeded 
 in forming a ladies' committee, consisting of the wife of a 
 clergyman and eleven members of the Society of Friends.- 
 ■They formed themselves into "An Association for the Im- 
 provement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate." The object 
 of this association was, " to provide for the clothing, the 
 instruction, and the employment of the women ; to introduce 
 them to a knowledge of the holy Scriptures ; and to form in 
 them, as'much as possible, those habits of order, sobriety, and 
 industry, which may render them docile and peaceable whilst 
 in prison, and respectable when they leave it." 
 
 Even by the friends of the ladies, this scheme was con- 
 sidered visionary and hopeless. The sheriffs, though they 
 had no faith in its success, showed themselves willing to assist, 
 so far as assistance in this case was possible. They met the 
 ladies one Sunday afternoon at Newgate. In their presence 
 and in that of the Ordinary and the Governor, Mrs. Fry 
 asked the assembled women, " whether they were willing to 
 abide by the rules, which it would be indispensable to estab- 
 lish amongst them, for the accomplishment so much desired 
 by them all V The women fully and unanimously assured 
 her of their determination to obey them strictly. The sheriffs 
 also addressed them, giving the plan the countenance of -their 
 approbation ; and then turning to Mrs. Fry and her com- 
 panions, one of them said, " Well, ladies, you see your 
 materials."* 
 
 The prospect did not discourage them. They devoted 
 themselves to their task with heroic zeal. They suspended 
 every other labor — they gave themselves no leisure — "chey 
 literally lived among the prisoners." Mrs. Fry was unre- 
 mitting in her exertions ; but confesses that this multiplicity 
 of cares was like being " in the whirlwind and in the storm." 
 The consciousness of the good effected supported her. She 
 
 • Memoir of the Life of Elizabeth Fry. 
 
348 WOMEN OF CHBISHAIOTY. 
 
 writes in April : " Already, from being like wild beasts, ihej 
 appear harmless and kind." 
 
 Religious instruction of the simplest kind, the morals of 
 Christianity, and not the doctrines of sects, -was the plan 
 adopted by Mrs. Fry. It proved most successful : the women 
 flocked to hear her read, pray, or exhort. She ruled by the 
 law of kindness ; and yet it was thought " more terrible to be 
 brought up before her than before the judge." The rules 
 were seldom broken — order was preserved; and of twenty 
 thousand articles of wearing apparel which had been manu- 
 factured by them, when Mrs. Fry gave her evidence before the 
 House of Commons, but three were ever missed, and it was 
 doubtful whether the women were guilty. To find them 
 employment had been the first task of the association ; for 
 without work religious instruction was useless. It occurred to 
 one of the ladies that they might supply Botany Bay with 
 stockings and articles of clothing. She called on Messrs. Rich- 
 ard Dixon & Co. of Fenchurch Street, and, informing them 
 that she was desirous of depriving them of this branch of their 
 trade, explained her views, and solicited their advice. So far 
 from opposing this laudable project, they engaged to provide 
 the work. With these two principles — employment and reli- 
 gious instruction — Mrs. Fry and her coadjutors entered on their 
 task. 
 
 The improvement which a fortnight effected was wonderful. 
 A gentleman who then visited Newgate gave the following 
 account :— -" I went and requested permission to see Mrs. Fry, 
 which was shortly obtained, and I was conducted by a turnkey 
 to the entrance of the women's wards. On my approach, no 
 loud, or dissonant sounds or angry voices indicated that I was 
 about to enter a place, which, I was credibly assured, had long 
 had for one of its titles that of ' Hell above ground.' The 
 courtyard into which I was admitted, instead of being peopled 
 with beings scarcely human, blaspheming, fighting, tearing 
 each other's hair, or gaming with a filthy pack of cards for the 
 very clothes they wore, which often did not suffice even for 
 decency, presented a scene where stillness and propriety reigned. 
 I was conducted by a decently dressed person, the newly 
 appointed yards-woman, to the door of a ward, where, at the 
 head of a long table, sat a lady, belonging to the Society of 
 Friends. She was reading aloud to about sixteen women, pri- 
 
ELIZABETH FRY. 349 
 
 soners, who were engaged in needlework around it. Each 
 wore a clean-iooking blue apron and bib, with a ticket, having 
 a number on it, suspended from her neck by a red tape. They 
 all rose on my entrance, curtsied respectfully, and then, at a 
 signal given, resumed their seats and employments. Instead 
 of a scowl, leer, or ill-suppressed laugh, I observed upon their 
 countenances an air of self-respect and gravity, a sort of con- 
 sciousness of their improved character, and the altered position 
 in which they were placed. I afterwards visited the other 
 wards, which were the counterparts of the first." 
 
 The ladies continued their exertions, and were rewarded by 
 the gradual improvement of the women. The governor' &nd 
 clergyman at the penitentiary soon noticed the marked differ- 
 ence between those who came from other prisons, and those 
 who had been under their care. Rewards of books and cloth- 
 ing, and good or bad marks, were part of the plan, and suc- 
 ceeded well. The personal influence* of Mrs. Fry was great. 
 Learning, on one occasion, that some gaming still went on, she 
 called the women up, and earnestly requested them to give up 
 their cards : she did not expect they would do so ; but, to her 
 surprise, five packs were brought to her, with many expressions 
 of penitence. Mrs. Fry stated this interesting fact in the evi- 
 dence which she gave before the Committee of the House of 
 Commons, " on the prisons of the metropolis," in February, 
 1818. She dwelt on the necessity of a prison exclusively for 
 women, with none save female officers over them. She also 
 explained the plan on which she had proceeded : it was both 
 simple and judicious ; but, to use the language of the com- 
 mittee in its report, " much was to be ascribed to unremitting 
 personal attention and influence." When the experiment had 
 been tried for a month, the city adopted the plan as a part of 
 the system of Newgate ; empowered the ladies to punish the 
 refractory by short confinement, and undertook part of the 
 expense of the matron. The cost of the undertaking was still 
 considerable ; the ladies quickly exhausted their private resour- 
 ces"; a subscription came Jo their aid ; the sheriffs gave £80, 
 and the relatives of Mrs. Fry assisted her liberally. As the 
 means increased, the association extended its labors. 
 
 Before the ladies visited Newgate, the female convicts had 
 made it a rule to tear down and burn everything, on the eve 
 of their departure for Botany Bay. They were now, for the 
 
350 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 , . — — — - — — — « 
 
 first time, induced to leave the prison in peaceable order. Mrs. 
 Fry and her companions accompanied them to Deptford, saw 
 them on board, divided them into classes, made them elect 
 monitors for the voyage, gave them Bibles, established a school 
 for the children, and, finally, provided them with work. This 
 was not the easiest part of the matter ; for there were no less 
 than one hundred and twenty-^ight convicts. The difficulty 
 was obviated by Admiral Young, who suggested patch-work ; 
 it was not only convenient for a long voyage, but it sold well 
 in New South Wales. The Manchester houses in London 
 were applied to ; in a few days they had sent a sufficient num- 
 ber *6f pieces of coloured cotton. Some of the quilts thus 
 manufactured sold for a guinea a-piece at Rio de Janeiro. 
 After five weeks, during which the ship lay in the river, the 
 kind ladies parted from the poor creatures for whom they had 
 done so much. " Mi's. Fry stood at the door of the cabin, 
 attended by her friends and the captain ; the women on the 
 quarterdeck, facing them. The sailors, anxious to see what 
 was going on, clambered into the rigging, on to the capstan, 
 or mingled in the outskirts of the group. The silence was 
 profound, when Mrs. Fry opened her Bible, and, in a clear, 
 audible voice, read a portion from it. The crews of the vessels 
 in the tier, attracted by the novelty of the scene, leant over the 
 ships on either side, and listened, apparently with great atten- 
 tion ; she closed the Bible, and, after a short pause, knelt down 
 on the deck, and implored a blessing on this work of Christian 
 charity from that God who, though one may sow, and another 
 water, can alone give the increase. Many of the women wept 
 bitterly, all seemed touched; when she 'left the ship they fol- 
 lowed her with their eyes and their blessings, until, her boat 
 having pushed within another tier of vessels, they could see 
 her no more."* 
 
 From this time it became part of the duties of the ladies of 
 the Association to see to the moral and physical welfare of the 
 female convicts. The convict ship committee, which still 
 exists, was established at a later period. The amount of human 
 misery which these generous women and their successors have 
 contributed to lessen, will never be known until the great 
 judgment-day. They provided the female convicts with food, 
 
 * Memoir, &c. 
 
ELIZABETH FEY. 351 
 
 clothing, and employment. Many of these poor creatures 
 came on board chained to each other, and some laden with 
 irons, which tbey had worn for months. The influence of the 
 ladies caused this evil to cease. 
 
 The miseries of the female convicts were frequently increased 
 by a cruel separation from their children. " Often did Mrs. 
 
 Pryor, and her friend and companion Lydia J , quit these 
 
 scenes, in which they had passed nearly the whole day, not to 
 return to their homes, but to go to Whitehall to represent 
 such cases ; that the necessary letters should be despatched 
 without the loss of a post, ordering the restoration of these 
 poor nurslings to their mothers, before the ship should sail." 
 
 In the convict ship, as well as in the prison, Mrs. Fry was 
 indefatigable. A peculiar blessing attended her labors. Her 
 aspect, her voice, her manner, possessed . an indescribable 
 charm. One who had seen her as she returned from a convict 
 ship, still spoke with enthusiasm, twenty-six years after the 
 meeting, of " this beautiful, persuasive, and heavenly-minded 
 woman. To see her," he adds, "was to love her; to hear 
 aer, was to feel as if a guardian angel had bid you follow that 
 teaching which could alone subdue the temptations and evils 
 of this life, and secure a Eedeemer's love in eternity." 
 
 Mrs. Fry was naturally of a timid nature ; but now neither 
 fear nor the dearest feelings of her heart could keep her back. 
 On one occasion, she reached Deptford late in the afternoon 
 of a tempestuous day in March ; and it was dark when, after 
 being exposed to wind and rain, she returned to shore. But 
 on being pressed to stay for rest and refreshment, by the 
 family of Admiral Young, she refused, and said she was anx- 
 ious to go home, having left one of her children seriously ill. 
 The answer struck them deeply. 
 
 These philanthropic labors occupied some years. The 
 change they wrought in the mode of life of Mrs. Fry — the 
 mistress of a family, the mother of nine children — was great 
 indeed, and felt to be such. Her correspondence alone was a 
 serious matter. She strove to neglect no duty ; but the burden 
 was heavy. " Ob ! that I could prosper at home in my labors, 
 as I appear to do abroad," she writes, on reaching the close 
 of 1817, that year to her so eventful. "Others," she adds, 
 " appear to fe»r for me that I am too much divided ; but, alas ! 
 what can I do but follow the openings." She alsp dreaded 
 
352 WOMEN OF CHKISTIAOTTY. 
 
 lest the praise of man, and not the service of God, should 
 become her aim. Vain fear, with a soul and heart like 
 here. 
 
 Celebrity found and left her the same humble and devoted 
 servant of her God. In the presence of a large party assem- 
 bled at Devonshire House, a noble lord spoke with tears of one 
 of her Newgate exhortations, and called it " the deepest tra- 
 gedy he had ever witnessed." Her name was mentioned with 
 praise and honor in the Address, moved by the Marquis of 
 Lansdowne, on the State of the Prisons of the United King- 
 dom. Queen Charlotte spoke to her publicly at the Mansion 
 House. To know her was held a privilege ; to hear her 
 addressing the women at Newgate was an intellectual treat, 
 eagerly sought for by the most eminent and fashionable per- 
 sonages. The friendship of the good, the homage of popular 
 writers, the praise of poets, were and deserved to be her meed. 
 To her Hannah More very appropriately dedicated her " Prac- 
 tical Piety ;" and Crabbe, in his " Tales of the Hall," recorded 
 her first visit to Newgate. 
 
 In time, the fame and moral power of the English Quakeress 
 spread beyond her own country to foreign lands : in Paris, 
 Turin, Amsterdam, Berlin, and St. Petersburg, her name was 
 reverenced, her counsel was asked and heeded. The Em- 
 press Mary Federovna set the greatest value on the sugges- 
 tions concerning the treatment of the insane, which, through 
 the medium of Mr. Venning, she received from Mrs. Fry; 
 whose letters were, immediately on their receipt, translated 
 and entered in the journals of the Lunatic Asylum. Four- 
 teen rules were thus adopted in one day. In her admiration 
 and sympathy, the empress could not help once exclaiming ; 
 " How much I should like to see that excellent woman, 
 Madame Fry, in Russia!" It would indeed have been a 
 meeting. Ladies' committees were established, with the 
 happiest results, in St. Petersburg, Turin, Berlin, and Am- 
 sterdam. Many interesting communications concerning their 
 management and success reached Mrs. Fry in England. Her 
 own exertions, though for some years they remained confined 
 to Great Britain, were unremitting ; there were few prisons 
 in England, Scotland, or Ireland, which she did not visit ; 
 and everywhere she strove to improve the physical and mora] 
 :ondition*of the prisoners, and to establish ladies' committees, 
 
ELIZABETH FEY. 353 
 
 She took a -warm interest in every philanthropic cause of the 
 day, and an active share in some. 
 
 The abolition of capital punishment and of slavery were 
 alwa3 r s subjects near to her heart. She remonstrated strongly, 
 and for years, on the condition of the female convicts, placed 
 under the care of sailors during the voyage, and unprovided 
 with a home on their arrival. She took an active part in the 
 proceedings of " The British Ladies' Society for Promoting 
 the Reformation of Female Prisoners ;" and, from her own 
 experience, did much to encourage the hopes expressed by 
 " The Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline, and 
 Reformation .of Juvenile Offenders." 
 
 She had the happy art of suggesting to others things it 
 was not in her own power to attempt : a conversation with 
 Miss Neave, in which she drew her attention to the great 
 want of an asylum for discharged prisoners, led to the Tothill 
 Fields Asylum. It began with four inmates, and, under the 
 name of " The Royal Manor Hall Asylum," it has contained 
 fifty young women at a time. Another conversation with 
 Mrs. Benjamin Shaw, led to a school of discipline for the 
 vicious and neglected female children of London. Wherever 
 circumstances led her, Mrs. Fry left tokens of her presence. 
 To establish district visiting societies, for the purpose of en- 
 couraging industry and frugality amongst the poor, assisting 
 cases of real distress, and preventing imposture, was one of 
 her favorite objects, — if she could indeed be said to show 
 favor when there was good to achieve. 
 
 Whilst she was doing these things, the joys and sorrows of 
 domestic life visited Elizabeth Fry as well as any other woman. 
 The birth of children, the death of dear relatives, the marriage 
 of her elder sons and daughters out of the Society to which 
 she was so warmly attached, and which they forsook, one by 
 one ; many cares and anxieties, the censure of some, the ex- 
 aggerated expectations of others, were obstacles which some- 
 times retarded the progress of her cherished task, but were 
 never allowed to impede it long. She had repeated attacks 
 of ill-health : but even sickness was made subservient to 
 good. It was at Brighton, where she went in 1824 for the 
 restoration of her health, that the utter seclusion in which the 
 coast-guards spent their days, first suggested to her mind the 
 libraries which were some years afterwards established 
 
354: WOMEN OF CHKISTIAOTTY. 
 
 throughout Great Britain for their use, and chiefly through 
 her means. To the troubles and sorrows from which no hu- 
 man Jife is exempt, a heavy misfortune was added in 1828: 
 a house of business in which her husband was partner failed. 
 The change thus wrought in her life was much felt by Mrs. 
 Fry, bora and bred in a state of affluence which rendered 
 wealth essential to her comfort. Plashet was given up ; 
 many dear ties were broken ; many tasks of charity were left 
 undone. The visitation, though deeply felt, was borne in a 
 spirit both humble and resigned. 
 
 We think that, without seeking for artificial divisions, the 
 life of Mrs. Fry will admit of being considered under two, — 
 "distinct and characteristic. Her youth, her first religious 
 feelings, her marriage and its domestic cares, the ministry 
 amongst the Friends, the early visits to Newgate — comprise 
 the first ; in the second, we follow a life of settled benevolence 
 in its peaceful flow. The good deeds are there still ; but 
 •with the novelty, much of the first interest is gone : we ad- 
 mire, but we no longer wonder. All that can be done by 
 one woman in Newgate, — and not in Newgate only, but 
 throughout Great Britain, — has been done by Elizabeth Fry : 
 she has imparted her spirit to sisters in mercy, and to men in 
 authority. She takes her share in the task, but calmly and 
 peacefully, — like one who feels that it might go on without 
 her now. There was a change, too, in public opinion, which 
 she accepted cheerfully. On the first of January, 1831, she 
 writes : " My interest in the cause of prisons remains strong, 
 and my zeal unabated ; though it is curious to observe how 
 much less is felt about it by the public generally. How little 
 it would answer, in these important duties, to be too much af- 
 fected by the good or bad opinion of man !" 
 
 Through this comparative repose, there is a spiritual 
 change revealed by the journals. Their tone is more hope- 
 ful ; there is more real faith ; a spirit moi'e lofty, more en- 
 lightened, — more in charity with the opinions and ' creeds 
 from which it differs. Not in vain has Elizabeth Fry seen 
 fallen beings, moved in the world, and beheld at work the 
 passions of men. The charity so simply expressed, yet so 
 true ; the evident joy with which good is acknowledged and 
 revered in all, is a beautiful feature in her character and re- 
 ligious opinions. 
 
ELIZABETH FRY. 355 
 
 We have dwelt at some length on the early life of Mrs. 
 Fry, — on her first, labors and their happy result : we shall 
 be compelled to record more briefly the tasks and events — 
 less important, it is true — which occupied and filled her lattei 
 years. In 182V she went to Ireland, chiefly to exercise the 
 ministry amongst the Friends there, but also visiting the 
 prisons and establishing- committees on her way. A second ' 
 visit, in 1832, showed her that the first had not been unpro- 
 ductive of good. Her third and last visit was paid in 1836. 
 She wished to see the large female prison in Grange-Gorman 
 Lane, Dublin, which was then nearly completed. A prison 
 for women, and as exclusively under the government of 
 women as circumstances would permit, had long been a 
 cherished plan with Mrs. Fry, and she rejoiced in the success 
 of this experiment ; to which her judicious advice much con- 
 tributed. 
 
 In 1833, Mrs. Fry spent some time in the islands of Jer- 
 sey and Guernsey. She took great pains to establish district 
 societies, and endeavored to improve the prison and hospital, 
 both in a neglected condition. It was not until 1836 that 
 she had the satisfaction of seeing these objects carried out by 
 government. An interesting task in which she was long en- 
 gaged, which gave her much trouble, which she had to press 
 repeatedly on the attention of persons in office, — libraries for 
 the coast-guard stations throughout Great Britain, was ac- 
 complished in the same year. Upwards of fifty-two thousand 
 volumes were thus disseminated amongst the coast-guards and 
 their families. 
 
 Although, owing to the great improvement in prison disci- 
 pline, Mrs. Fry's prison labors were naturally drawing to a 
 close, she took unabated interest in the subject, and exerted . 
 in its favor whatever influence she possessed. She visited 
 the prisons of Scotland in 1834 and 1838, and besides sug- 
 gesting improvements, she examined some of the systems 
 adopted. Mrs. Fry was slow in pronouncing on <the silent 
 and solitary systems ; but, after much thought, she conclu- 
 ded against both, as cruel and inefficient : she held, that by 
 treating human beings like machines, the chance of reclaim- 
 ing them, by an appeal to their sympathies, was wantonly 
 thrown away. The submission arising, from sheer terror of a 
 punishment so awful that it drives men mad, was not, indeed. 
 
356 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 that obedience which she and her coadjutors had found, 
 when they first entered Newgate, and read the Gospel to 
 women fierce, degraded, and amenable to no authority save 
 that of the stone walls, and iron bolts and bars of their 
 prison. 
 
 In 1836, Mrs. Fry paid her first brief visit to France. She 
 went as far as Paris in 1838; visited France again in 1839, 
 and extended her journey as far as Switzerland. In the fol- 
 lowing year, Holland and Northern Germany were visited ; 
 Denmark was included in 1841. In 1843, she saw Paris for 
 the third and last time. "Wherever she went, Mrs. Fry ex- 
 cited much interest and curiosity, and saw as much as she 
 desired of what is called good society. But her errand was 
 not to them : charitable asylums, and above all, prisons, were 
 the places in which she delighted. Her power to do good 
 was naturally limited by difference of creed, the difficulty of 
 expressing herself in a foreign language, and the shortness of 
 her stay. Much that she saw afforded, however, matter of 
 instruction, interest, and profitable thought. The following 
 just remarks were suggested by a visit to the charitable in- 
 stitutions of St. Omer : — " The sacrifice that must be made 
 to give up the whole life, as the Sisters of Charity do, to 
 teach and bring up the poor children, and attend to the sick 
 in their hospitals, is very exemplary ; and the slackness of 
 some Protestants, and coldness of too many, led me to think 
 that whilst, on the one hand, the meritoriousness of good 
 works may be unsoundly upheld by the Roman Catholics, 
 yet, that it stimulates to much that is excellent ; and a fear 
 arose in my mind that the true doctrine that teaches that we 
 have no merit in any thing that we do, is either so injudi- 
 ciously represented, or so misunderstood, that in many cases 
 it leads to laxity as to sin, and a want of diligence in works 
 of righteousness and true holiness." 
 
 Some touching incidents marked these foreign travels ot 
 Elizabeth* Fry. In February, 1838, she visited the great 
 women's prison of St. Lazare, in Paris ; it then contained nine 
 hundred and fifty-two inmates. Mrs. Fry asked and obtained 
 permission, that a French lady, who accompanied her, might 
 read to them ; and the parable of the prodigal son was cho- 
 sen. Mrs. Fry commented upon it ; the French lady trans- 
 lated every sentence as it was uttered, and the women, and 
 
ELIZABETH FEY. 357 
 
 not only the women, but the jailor and the turnkeys, wept as 
 they heard her. The charm of the voice, of the delivery, of 
 the language, always pure and eloquent, were not there : 
 nothing but the earnestness of a rich lady, who had left her 
 home, her country, to address the outcasts of a foreign land. 
 When Mrs. Fry visited St. Lazare again in the following year, 
 she was recognized with delight by many of the women. 
 
 In 1843, Mrs. Fry, then on her way to Paris, visited the 
 great central prison at Clermont-en-Oise. Men never enter 
 it ; it then held nine hundred women, under the rule of a 
 superior and twenty-two nuns. The superior, evidently a 
 woman of strong intellect, showed the English ladies over 
 the prison. Mrs. Fry greatly desired to see all the nuns as- 
 sembled ; this was at first thought impossible ; but as she 
 was going to leave, the superior led her guest into an apart- 
 ment, around which sat the twenty-two nuns, in their gray 
 robes, and the lay sisters in black. In the centre of the 
 room stood the superior, holding the Quakeress lady by the 
 hand. Mrs. Fry began an address, which was translated by 
 her daughter. She spoke on those subjects to which her 
 best energies had been given, and their whole lives had been 
 devoted. She told them of Newgate, of what the Gospel 
 had done there, and, though daughters of a different creed, 
 the nuns wept to hear her. She concluded, saluting them 
 as " sisters in Christ," with a short blessing and prayer in 
 French. The whole scene was strange, unusual, but solemn 
 and impressive. 
 
 It was on her return from this last journey that Mrs. Fry 
 sank into that declining state of health from which she never 
 rallied. She lingered for two years, in much suffering of the 
 body and the spirit. The death of old friends, who had 
 shared her philanthropic labors, or been her companions in 
 the ministry ; of grandchildren, dear relatives, and finally of a 
 much-loved son, tried her deeply. It was, as she wrote in 
 her journal, "sorrow upon sorrow." 
 
 On the third of June, 1845, Mrs. Fry was, for the last 
 time, present at the yearly meeting of the Ladies' British 
 Society. She was then residing in Upton Lane ; and, to ac- 
 commodate her in her suffering state, the meeting was held 
 at the Friends' meeting-house, at Plaistow, in Essex. The 
 reports on the state of the prisons, and the moral and physi- 
 
358 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 cal welfare of the prisoners, were deeply gratifying to one 
 who remembere'd their condition when she visted Newgate, 
 upwards of thirty-three years before. For the last time 
 Elizabeth Fry spoke on " the objects of philanthropy and 
 Christian benevolence, with which her life had been identi- 
 fied." She was not able to stand ; but her mind was as 
 strong as ever, her thirst of good unabated. 
 
 The progress of her illness during the course of this year 
 showed that her life was drawing to a close. She felt it, and 
 as death approached, the secret fear in which she had always 
 held this solemn change vanished. She expressed to those 
 around her the belief, that whatever human dread remained 
 in her heart would be taken away from her ; or that, " in 
 tender mercy to her timid nature," she should be permitted 
 to pass unconsciously through the dark valley. In July she 
 was removed to Ramsgate, for the benefit of the sea air ; but 
 her health, and with it the powers of her mind, continued to 
 decline. On the 13 th of October she grew much worse. 
 One of her daughters, who sat reading Isaiah to her, heard 
 her saying, in a slow, distinct voice, " Oh ! my dear Lord, 
 help and keep thy servant." She never spoke again, but 
 sank into a state of unconsciousness. Her agony was long, 
 but its bitterness was for those who beheld it, not for her. 
 At length, early on the morning of the following day, her 
 bonds were broken : the Master had released his servant. 
 
 All that was mortal of Elizabeth Fry now rests by the side 
 of her little child, in the Friends' burying-ground at Barking ; 
 but her name, her deeds, her spirit, are with us still. Who 
 shall estimate not only the good which she did, but that to 
 which her example led ? How noble, how generous, was 
 the use she made of the personal beauty, exquisite voice, 
 ready eloquence, and many talents with which she was gift- 
 ed ! The extremes which met in her character gave her 
 greater power. Timid, daring, prudent, enthusiastic, practi- 
 cal, equally alive to the beautiful and to the humorous, Eliz- 
 abeth Fry was eminently fitted for her task. She possessed 
 an insight into character and a power of control which en- 
 abled her to influence almost every one who came within her 
 sphere. 
 
 This was not simply the result of her earnestness ; for 
 others as earnest have failed ; but of exquisite tact and judg- 
 
ELIZABETH EEY. 359 
 
 ment. In the year 1835 she chanced to visit the peniten- 
 tiary at Portsea. The inmates were assembled in the parlor 
 when Mrs. Fry entered it ; two were pointed out to her as 
 peculiarly refractory and hardened. Of this she took no 
 notice ; she sat down and addressed a general exhortation 
 to all. When it was concluded she rose to depart, and, 
 going up to these two, she held out her hand to each of 
 them, saying, in her simple Quaker speech : " I trust I shall 
 hear better things of thee." The manner, the tone, had a 
 power more deep than admonition or reproach ; they both 
 burst into tears. 
 
 This same tact guided her in every thing, and made her 
 feel at home everywhere. She was as much at her ease in 
 the palaces of kings, amongst the courtly and the polished of 
 foreign lands, before committees and public assemblies, as in 
 the humblest meeting held in a stocking-weaver's room, with 
 homely "Friends sitting on the stocking-loom for want of 
 chairs," and the mistress of the place " getting up during the 
 meeting to attend to dressing the dinner." 
 
 But however much Mrs. Fry owed to her natural endow- 
 ments, to penetration, tact, and eloquence, " to the silver 
 tones of her voice, and the majestic mien with which she 
 delivered the message of God,"* we do not mean to say 
 that there lay the secret of her power. We think we can 
 trace it more surely in the confession which she made to a 
 friend during her last illness. " Since my heart was touched 
 at seventeen years old, I believe I never have awakened from 
 sleep, in sickness^ or in health, by day or by night, without 
 my first waking thought being, ' how best I might serve my 
 Lord.'" 
 
 It needs not much faith — not much knowledge of our 
 nature — to say that she who, for forty-eight years, could 
 keep one unchanged desire of love in her heart, was indeed 
 destined to achieve great things, and fit to be a servant of 
 ber God. 
 
 * Memoirs of W. Allen, p. 462. 
 
360 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Sarah Martin. 
 
 The labors of Mrs. Fry were limited. She could do much, 
 but not all. Everywhere she left room for individual exertion. 
 It was not always, however, that this indirect appeal was 
 responded to, as in the case, well known, but still interesting, 
 which we will proceed to relate. 
 
 In the month of August, of the year 1819, a woman was 
 sent to the jail of Yarmouth, in Norfolk, for having cruelly 
 beaten her own child. The prison of Yarmouth was all that 
 the vices of its inmates and the neglect of its rulers could 
 make it : a den where human beings, covered with vermin, and 
 the prey of skin diseases, spent their days in gambling, blas- 
 phemy, and strife ; where the purifying influence of labor was 
 unknown, and the voice of God's teachers had never been 
 heard, the very stronghold of moral and physical evil. From 
 this abode the unnatural mother was expected to come forth 
 penitent and amended. 
 
 The lamentable state of Yarmouth jail was not unknown 
 in the town and its vicinity. A young woman, who resided 
 with a widowed grandmother at Caistor, had heard of the 
 condition of the prisoners. She was twenty-eight years of 
 age, a dressmaker by trade ; Sarah Martin was her name. 
 Devout, sensible, full of tenderness, and yet essentially prac- 
 tical, she was of those whom the high aims of faith early 
 invest with moral dignity. From her nineteenth year she 
 had devoted the Sabbath — her only day of rest after the 
 labors of the week— to the task of teaching in a Sunday- 
 school ; she had visited the inmates of the workhouse, and 
 read the Scriptures to the aged and the sick ; but her am- 
 bition rose beyond this. "Whilst frequently passing the 
 jail," she wrote in after-life, "I felt a strong desire to obtain 
 admission to the prisoners to read the Scriptures to them, for 
 I thought much of their condition, and of their sin before 
 God ; how they were shut out from the society whose rights 
 they had violated, and how destitute they were of that scrip- 
 tural instruction which alone could meet their unhappy cir- 
 
SABAH MARTIN. 30 J 
 
 cumstanoes. ... I did not make known my purpose of 
 seeking admission to the jail, even to my beloved grand- 
 mother, until the object was attained, so sensitive was my 
 fear lest any obstacle should thereby arise in my way, and 
 the project seem a visionary one. G-od led me, and I con- 
 sulted none but Him." 
 
 This sensitive fear long influenced Sarah Martin ; but 
 when she heard of the incarceration of the unnatural mother 
 above alluded to, her heart moved her to go and speak to 
 her. She asked permission, was refused, and, nothing de- 
 terred, asked again; this time the request was granted. 
 The woman gazed with surprise on her unknown visitor. 
 Sarah Martin simply told her errand : she was come to speak 
 to her of her guilt, and of God's infinite mercy. In the sim- 
 plicity of her pure heart, Sarah does not seem to have 
 imagined that the criminal whom she addressed might, per- 
 chance, not know the feeling of remorse, nor care to be told 
 that she could yet be pardoned. And indeed it was not so : 
 she who had violated the dearest laws of nature, burst into 
 tears on receiving a token of Christian sympathy ; and 
 listened, a subdued penitent, whilst Sarah read the divine 
 promise of forgiveness recorded in the twenty-third chapter of 
 St. Luke. 
 
 The work thus begun was earnestly continued. For the 
 first few months Sarah Martin only paid short visits to the • 
 prisoners, for the purpose of reading the Scriptures to them ; 
 fcut, desiring to instruct them in reading and writing as well, 
 she gave up to them one day every week. To this day many 
 other days were afterwards added ; and though she lived by 
 her labor, " the loss," she said, " was never felt." Her mode 
 of teaching was simple : those who knew not how to read she 
 encouraged to learn, and other prisoners who knew, taught 
 them in her absence. Thus, also, those who required not her 
 teaching in writing, were induced to improve themselves by 
 copying extracts from books lent to them. The prisoners who 
 could read, daily learned verses from the Scriptures. Sarah 
 Martin encouraged them by her own example : she learned 
 her set of verses, and repeated them with the rest. This si- 
 lenced the pride of many who had at first refused, saying, 
 " it would be of no use." " It is of use to me," calmly replied 
 Sarah, " and why should it not be so to you ? You have mot 
 
 16 
 
362 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 tried it, but I have." So great was the ascendency which 
 she finally obtained over them, that, during her absence, the 
 prisoners not only learned their appointed lessons, but added 
 to them, in order to please and surprise their kind teacher. 
 Of these labors, and their failure or success, Sarah, at a later 
 period, when she attended the prison daily, kept exact record 
 in an every- day book. The following extract will show hei 
 manner of proceeding with her pupils : 
 
 May 16. 
 " Skinner, Psalm cxix., 1 verse. 
 Beams, John vii., 1 verse. 
 Whitby, % Matt. v., 1 verse. 
 Doyle, Matt, xx., 2 verses. 
 Turner, John xv., 14 verses. Hymn, 3 verses, 
 Brown, Isaiah li., 4 verses. Hymn, 3 verses. 
 Bowlin, Matt, viii., 2 verses. 
 Howerel, John iv., 4 verses." 
 
 " General Observations." 
 
 " It astonishes me to observe how strictly and constanil) 
 the prisoners labor to learn their verses from the Holy Scrip- 
 tures every day. Poor old S. takes uncommon pains to re- 
 member one every day. T., who, on April 21, could only at- 
 tempt one, has for some time learned five regularly, and sev- 
 eral of Watts' Divine Songs. Since yesterday, he has learn- 
 ed fourteen, from John xv., perfectly. It is no less gratify- 
 ing and wonderful to observe the success of H., who, with a 
 defective memory, perseveres, by constant study, in furnish- 
 ing his mind and memory with from two to five verses daily. 
 
 " I was particularly pleased with the progress of B. ; and 
 the youngest B. had learned perfectly the verse which, as he 
 could not read it alone, I had commenced teaching him yes- 
 terday. But when I returned to R. H., a dull person, who 
 has been committed four days, he said he had been so busy 
 mending his clothes, that he had not had time. I entered on 
 the subject, explaining its advantages ; and on his acknowl- 
 edging that, as an ignorant and guilty creature, he was not 
 happy, that he needed instruction, God's mercy, and to be 
 reclaimed from a bad course, that he had better, knowing the 
 thing to be right, give his mind to what I proposed, and not 
 
SAKAH MAETIN. 363 
 
 consult his inclination, but at once begin to store bis mind 
 with suitable portions from the Testament. 
 
 " May IV. This morning R. H. repeated three verses from. 
 Matt, viii." 
 
 It was more easy to induce in the prisoners a wish for read- 
 ing. Sarah Martin procured them tracts, children's books, 
 and four or five larger volumes ; which were great favorites, 
 and were daily exchanged in every room. For those whom 
 this supply did not satisfy, she procured more serious works, 
 chiefly from the Religious Tract Society. 
 
 This was not all. No chaplain attended the jail ; the Sab- 
 bath was broken and desecrated ; it was neither the day of 
 ■«st nor that of worship. Sarah Martin pressed the prison- 
 ;rs to form Sunday services among themselves. They agreed 
 to do so; but, to insure the performance of their promise, 
 she was present. After several trials, they ultimately fixed 
 upon her as their reader. Laborious as was the task, she ac- 
 cepted and fulfilled it, until the year 1831, when a minister, 
 who came to reside in her parish, undertook the afternoon 
 service. Sarah confessed that it was " a timely relief." One 
 of these Sunday services is thus described by Captain W. J. 
 Williams in his Parliamentary Reports : " Sunday, November 
 29, 1835. Attended divine service in the morning at the 
 prison. The male prisoners only were assembled ; a female, 
 resident in the town, officiated; her voice was exceedingly 
 melodious, her delivery emphatic, and her enunciation exceed- 
 ingly distinct. The service was the Liturgy of the Church 
 of England ; two psalms were sung by the whole of the pris- 
 oners, and extremely well, much better than I have frequent- 
 ly heard in our best-appointed churches. A written dis- 
 course, of her own composition, was read by her ; it was of a 
 purely moral tendency, involving no doctrinal points, and ad- 
 mirably suited to the hearers. During the performance of 
 the service, the prisoners paid the profoundest attention and 
 most marked respect, and, as far as it is possible to judge, 
 appeared to take a devout interest. Evening service was 
 read by her afterwards, to the female prisoners." 
 
 But perhaps it will be asked how this quiet, unpretending 
 woman had first acquired the power of making herself listen- 
 ed to and obeyed by these lawless beings. She has not told 
 us how the thing was done. We wonder and admire, and 
 
364 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 can find no other explanation than that which lies in the 
 might of faith and charity, even over the most evil and aban- 
 doned. Those spiritual labors of Sarah Martin stand the first 
 in order and in honor — but they stand not alone. The char- 
 ity which teaches degraded creatures that they are beings 
 with immortal souls ; which reclaims the vicious from sin to 
 virtue, is by far the noblest charity ; and would ever be hon- 
 ored as such, if those who profess it did not so often contra- 
 dict its teaching by their example, talking of heavenly aspi- 
 rations while their souls cling to earth. Those whose faith is 
 living are generous in all things, temporal and spiritual: 
 Christ taught sinners and fed the hungry multitude. 
 
 Having first made a moral and religious impression on the 
 prisoners, Sarah strengthened it by every means in her pow- 
 er. Idleness was their great bane. She had the art to make 
 them love labor, and was ingenious in finding them work. 
 She first made the attempt with the women. One gentleman 
 had given her ten shillings, and another a pound, for prison 
 charity. It occurred to her to spend the money on material 
 for baby clothes to be made by the prisoners. The experi- 
 ment succeeded. They soon made shirts, coats, and other 
 articles of clothing ; the plan became known under the name 
 of Female Prisoners' Employment. Charitable persons sup- 
 ported it ; and the British Ladies' Society made liberal dona- 
 tions. The advantages were twofold : many of the female 
 prisoners learned to sew, and found themselves possessed of 
 a little money by the end of their imprisonment ; and the ar- 
 ticles thus manufactured were either given to the poor, or 
 sold to them at reduced prices. The original fund of £1 10s. 
 rose to £7 7s., and from the period of its establishment to 
 the time when Sarah Martin wrote her memoirs, £408 worth 
 of various articles had been made by the prisoners and sold 
 for charity. 
 
 The men were similarly employed. They made straw 
 hats, bone spoons and seals, men's and boys' caps ; the ma- 
 terial being old cloth or moreen — whatever, in short, Sarah 
 could obtain from her friends. Some of the younger ones 
 even learned to sew gray cotton shirts, and to make patch- 
 work, sooner than remain idle. Nothing, indeed, was more 
 remarkable than her ingenuity in rendering every thing of use 
 to her great aim: pieces of print for patchwork, scraps of 
 
SARAH MARTIN. 305 
 
 paper or pasteboard, pictures, the leaves of spelling-books, 
 the worn-out Testaments of schools, became in her hands so 
 many instruments of pleasure and good to the prisoners. On 
 one occasion she showed them an etching of the chess-player 
 by Retzch ; two of the men, one a shoemaker and the other 
 a bricklayer, desired much to copy it ; they were allowed to 
 do so, and supplied with materials. They succeeded so well 
 as to induce a similar wish in others ; for a year or two after- 
 wards many prisoners continued to make copies of it. 
 
 This is only a meagre outline of the great and heroic 
 labors scarcely dwelt upon in Sarah Martin's brief memoirs, 
 but revealed by her account-books. Strange books these 
 are : besides poems, they contain a considerable number of 
 addresses written for the prisoners, and a large Scripture 
 place-book for daily use. Sarah also wrote down accurate 
 accounts of the funds she received and spent for the prison- 
 ers, under the various heads of " The Female Prisoners' Em- 
 ployment ;" " Employment for the Destitute, and Donations 
 for General Purposes." The "Every-day- Book" records 
 minutely the behavior, good or ill, of the prisoners whom she 
 taught : her patience under disappointment — her constant 
 hope of their reformation ; whilst the book entitled " Liber- 
 ated Prisoners," shows with what earnest and watchful love 
 she followed the steps of those whom she had attempted to 
 reclaim. We have already explained the nature of the ac- 
 counts kept under the head of Female Prisoners' Employ- 
 ment ; the book of Employment for the Destitute, which may 
 be said to continue it, opens with the year 1827. A young 
 girl of loose character had attempted suicide ; she was for- 
 tunately saved from death ; but, on visiting her, Sarah dis- 
 covered that she needed employment as well as religious in- 
 struction. She collected £2 6s., and bought materials for 
 articles of clothing, which the girl made for sale. The 1 same 
 benefit was extended to many female prisoners after their dis- 
 charge. At a later period, the donations and subscriptions 
 of a few liberal individuals enabled Sarah Martin to adopt a 
 similar plan with those male prisoners who earned nothing in 
 prison, and who on leaving it found themselves destitute. 
 She could thus, while serving them, observe their conduct 
 and strengthen their good resolves. 
 
 The time and labor required by each separate charity can 
 
366 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 scarcely be estimated. Sarah Martin's account-books are 
 models of accuracy and order. She was never known to 
 have a bill in all her life ; she praised and practised the apos- 
 tolic injunction : " Owe no man any thing, but to love one an- 
 other." We can see that to keep an exact account of all the 
 money she received and disbursed was no slight task ; but 
 the time, thought, and energy which she gave so freely, are 
 things of which she kept no record, and left to conjecture. 
 When she provided labor for the destitute, she had to pur- 
 chase materials, .to cut them out and prepare them. After a 
 day's hard labor, and an evening of writing, she has been 
 known to stand cutting out work until past midnight, or to 
 prepare copy-books for her pupils in the jail, — a constantly 
 recurring task, as she could allow only two sheets of paper at 
 a time, in order to be able to see when part of the quantity 
 was abstracted. This one precaution shows the harassing 
 nature of her self-imposed task. But even this was not all ; 
 the liberated prisoners were to be attended to, aided, watched, 
 and strengthened. An honest home and lasting employment 
 were to be found for them, lest they should fall back into evil 
 courses. Dangerous companions had to be removed, friends 
 and masters to be persuaded into forgiveness ; and all this 
 was to be effected by a delicate, sensitive woman, who labored 
 for her bread, and who, though she never allowed herself to 
 be dismayed, keenly felt every check. 
 
 Her path was beset with irritating obstacles, which chiefly 
 arose from the perverse nature of those whom she endeavored 
 to reform. We have already mentioned that the younger 
 prisoners amused themselves with patchwork. Sarah pro- 
 vided them with pieces to sew together, yet never dared to 
 give them as many as they wished for, lest they should cease 
 to value their occupation. She regretted to leave them often 
 idle ; but she knew their wayward temper too well to act 
 differently. Tact and patience were needed to steer her 
 through her difficult course ; not less did she require the 
 most ardent faith and charity to endure the things which she 
 braved daily. The prisoners were infested with vermin, and 
 a prey to skin diseases. The horror and disgust of Sarah 
 Martin were the greater that she dared not mention her dis- 
 tress, lest the houses of her customers and friends should be 
 closed upon her. She endured all silently, and commended 
 
SAHAH MAitTIN. 367 
 
 herself to God. The thought of shrinking from her task does 
 not seem to have occurred to her. 
 
 The most serious obstacles with which Sarah Martin had 
 to contend, and the manner in which she overcame them, are 
 frankly set down in her several books. What follows is ex- 
 tracted from the Every-day Book : 
 
 "February 2. — I had been accustomed to allow the 
 prisoners, in the middle of every day, to write a copy in my 
 absence, with the view of filling up their time. On Friday, 
 in consequence of a note being sent over to the female 
 prisoners' ward, the governor, to prevent the improper use of 
 pen and ink, took both away, with their books also. Since 
 that day not a single prisoner has learned any lessons. On 
 leaving, after reading with them to-day, I asked why it was 
 that all had done so ? — F. J. replied he wished to write, that 
 would do him some good ; the other would do none, — so he 
 would learn no more. I reasoned with him ; but his reply 
 was, ' I am sure it will do me no good.' I turned to the 
 Bible as a standard to convince him. ' As for that,' said he, 
 ' I won't believe one word of it, it is all nonsense ; victuals is 
 what I want.' ' Yes,' replied B., a poor, ignorant creature, 
 ' victuals is what we want, and not to be put in here for no- 
 thing ; we don't want religion, we want victual^.' I then 
 took pains to show that religion, which enforced justice, in- 
 dustry, &c, brought plenty ; and in the absence of its prin- 
 ciples, there was want and destitution. I still referred to the 
 Bible ; it was my standard, although F. J., in rejecting it, 
 had none. F. J. said, exultingly, ' I have a right to think as 
 I like.' I replied, ' If such be your thoughts, you have no 
 right, viper-like, to cast forth the poison upon other people.' 
 It was remarkable, that when he spoke the most dangerous 
 things, the others seconded him at the beginning of the con- 
 test ; not so at the end. I requested, as a favor, an answer 
 to one plain question : Did they still wish me to visit them, 
 or was it their wish that I should keep away ? If it were 
 the latter, as I would never go where I was unwelcome 
 knowingly, I would never enter the room again until they 
 were gone. All but F. J. eagerly desired that I would still 
 come ; that they were quite sure I intended good to them, 
 and hoped I would on no account leave them. I told them 
 it was enough; I would visit them still. J. B. said, 'Al- 
 
368 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 though I am bad, and have not followed them up, I am con- 
 vinced that your views are right:' he acknowledged that 
 what I taught from the Bible was true, and those who fol- 
 lowed up such views were the best people. All agreed to 
 this excepting F. J. ; and at parting I said, ' If any of you 
 think proper to learn more from the Scriptures, I shall feel 
 happy to hear you, except F. J. ; with his views, I shall not 
 hear any from him.' 
 
 "February 3. — On entering the middle room to-day, all 
 received me in the most respectful and grateful manner ; all 
 had learned a lesson from the Scriptures to repeat, except 
 F.. J. ; and all except him read a verse in turn in general 
 reading. As we read, I adverted to what had been said the 
 day before : J. B., as spokesman, said, ' What you said yes- 
 terday, madam, was satisfactory ; it removed all doubts ; 
 you are in the right ; you can have no motive but our 
 good.' F. J. did not speak once. One said there must be 
 a Creator : this opened the way for carrying forward the 
 subject ; the Creator is good ; his works are good ; man is 
 not good — hence the need of a Redeemer. W. and all said, 
 I certainly meant for their good, and thought I was happy 
 in it : Yes, I said, and if the surface of one's mind be dis- 
 turbed for a moment, my happiness in the work is not in 
 human power ; and you can no more touch that, than you 
 can bring the sun from the firmament." 
 
 The offender proved sullen, and several days elapsed be- 
 fore he showed signs of repentance. On Februaiy 10, we 
 find the following entry : " J. B. followed me to the gate to 
 speak to me in behalf of F. J., who wished I would allow 
 him to have some conversation with me apart from the rest ; 
 also, that I would receive him again. He wished to retract 
 all he had said against the Bible and religion. J. B. said : 
 ' F. J. thinks you were wrong in casting him off so hastily, 
 and, you will excuse me, madam, I think so too,' J. B. 
 said, ' F. J. thinks some remarks I made on Sunday were 
 entirely meant for him, which, however, were unpremedi- 
 tated.' I asked : ' Do you frequently think me personally 
 severe, then ?' ' We do,' he replied, ' and the prisoners 
 talk of it.' ' But if they feel offended at the moment, they 
 feel the justice of it afterwards.' 'That,' said he, 'has 
 been my own case ; but I have done the same thing, and 
 
SARAH MARTIN. 3J3G 
 
 have been as bad as they.' I went up to the room, and 
 told F. J. I should be happy to receive him. again, and he 
 thanked me. 
 
 "February 11. — This day I afforded F. J. the oppor- 
 tunity he desired, of some private conversation with me, by 
 asking him to take my Bible up to the gate. He said he 
 should be sorry to bring up his children with such views as 
 he had expressed ; that he had reflected, and felt that he 
 had been wrong : he expected to be ridiculed by the other 
 prisoners, but was determined to adopt a new line of con- 
 duct altogether. There was deep feeling, thoughtfulness, 
 and strong earnestness of manner : he spoke highly of his 
 wife. Here I asked : ' Do you love your wife ?' ' Oh 
 yes, and my wife loves me.' ' And do you love your chil- 
 dren ?' ' Oh yes, I love my children.' ' And were I or 
 any other to say, I hate your wife, I hate your children, 
 would you like it?' ' No, I should not.' 'And yet you 
 spoke against my God ; and of this lovely book you said, ■ It 
 is all a pack of nonsense, I do not believe one word of it !' 
 F. J. acknowledged the application with much emotion. 
 He said he had been accustomed to sit from Sunday morn- 
 ing till Sunday night in a public house, but would atUnd 
 a place of worship in future, which his wife had formerly 
 advised in vain. He acknowledged that I was justified in . 
 leaving him, after his having spoken of the Bible and of 
 God as he did.' 
 
 In the Liberated Prisoners' Book we find F. J. thus men- 
 tioned under the date of July 1 : " F. J. has called upon 
 me, and of him I have the highest hope. He was tried 
 and convicted for a felony, and sentenced to six months' 
 imprisonment : his previous character had been bad. At 
 first he was quiet, and for a while I did not discover that 
 he was a scorner of all things sacred. The circumstance 
 which led to this discovery is written in the Every-day Book. 
 After the date of February 11, he seemed a new character, 
 no longer close or shy on the one hand, nor presuming on 
 the other ; but simple, honest, and open. The poor fellow 
 has obtained no work ; his children are ill ; ana his excel- 
 lent wife, whilst rejoicing at the change in her husband, is 
 cast down by extreme poverty. I gave them an order for 
 some flour."' 
 
 16* 
 
370 WOMEN OF OHEISTIAUITT. 
 
 We have extracted somewhat largely, because we think 
 that the preceding passages give a fair insight into the char- 
 acter of Sarah Martin. We see her there in her earnest- 
 ness ; persevering, patient, and forgiving ; yet not free from 
 a certain human pride and warmth of temper, which she 
 regretted, but could not always rule. In one of those 
 written prayers and confessions, in which she laid her heart 
 bare before her God, she penitently exclaims : " Oh that 
 I had returned good for evil, and love and gratitude for 
 good ! . . . . When- I reproved the sinner, I did it not in 
 love, but in the feeling of human vexation, and of human 
 anger : I did not love the sinner, but felt great dislike, yea, 
 aversion to him. Have pity on the lost and guilty one : 
 teach him to pray ; and whilst I try thine infinite forbear- 
 ance as I do, give me the grace of patience and forbear- 
 ance to others." It was hard, indeed, to see her most 
 earnest efforts often fail : to behold prisoners leave the jail 
 obdurate in evil, and return to it again and again, worse 
 every time they came back. Faith bore her through this 
 trial : that a few should heed her, or rather the truth that 
 spoke through her, seemed ample reward to her humble 
 heart. She tells us herself, in that glowing language which 
 the daily study of the Scriptures had rendered familiar to 
 her, that " the sower is rewarded when, by a power not his 
 own, the grain arises, and is still nourished by the sun and 
 the rain from heaven ; what is that to the delight which I 
 have known, when, in my happy course, I could stand still 
 and see the salvation of God !" 
 
 This fervent enthusiasm did not unfit Sarah for the more 
 humble duties of charity — attention, prudence, and fore- 
 thought. A few entries from the Liberated Prisoners' Book 
 will show the minute details into which she daily entered. 
 
 "October, 1837. — G. N., a donkey, eighteen shillings. 
 
 "October 17. — N. has been in the jail six months for 
 stealing deals out of the sea ; he has a wife and four young 
 children, and earned his living by fishing, selling fish, &c. 
 The chief means of their support, in winter, appears to 
 have been that of selling fish in the villages, which was 
 hung in hampers on each side of his donkey. During his 
 imprisonment his wife sold the donkey, as she could not 
 afford to feed it, and wanted the money for her own surv 
 
SAEAH MAETIK. 371 
 
 port. They had a pig also, which she was obliged to sell 
 to procure food for the family. The parish gave them a 
 small allowance part of the time, up to the last fortnight of 
 N.'s imprisonment, which was then withdrawn, as the offi- 
 cers thought his term of imprisonment was six lunar months, 
 and they were calendar. Their distress was relieved by a 
 threepenny loaf each day for that fortnight, at the end of 
 which they must all have gone to the workhouse, except 
 some efficient means of support had been immediately 
 adopted. After considerable attention to the matter, my 
 conclusion was this : I had better set about purchasing a 
 suitable donkey, and let him load it with fish to sell along 
 the villages, by which N. thinks he can honestly keep out 
 of the workhouse. 
 
 " October 18. — N. came to speak to me this morning, as 
 I desired ; he was liberated yesterday ; he thought a don- 
 key would save him and his family from the workhouse. I 
 judged the thing worth the trial, and consulted where it 
 would be best to seek one, as I was at liberty, in the hope 
 that he would turn out well, to purchase a donkey at the 
 expense of the magistrates, which, if it answered the purpose, 
 and he used it well, would in the end be his own. His 
 wife's relations, at a village a few miles off, knew of one four 
 years old, which had not been broken down by bad usage, 
 for which the owner asked a pound. He offered to go and 
 fetch the animal for me to look at, which I desired him to 
 do ; and as he had six persons to feed, and was earning 
 nothing, I gave him one hundred herrings to sell on his way. 
 N. came this evening with the donkey and its owner ; it 
 seemed a good animal, and I bought it for 18s., the least he 
 would take. He said he would not have sold it in Yar- 
 mouth, except where he thought it would be used well. N. 
 sold his hundred herrings on the way, and said he got Is. 
 3d. by them. He engages to lead the donkey to my resi- 
 dence frequently for me to see, and inform me of his success." 
 
 The little family thus rescued from ruin is again mention- 
 ed in the month of March of the following year. We then 
 learn that they still had the donkey, " and valued it greatly." 
 Instances of the kind and grateful feelings often manifested 
 by the liberated prisoners, are faithfully recorded by their 
 friend. 
 
372 WOMEN OF CHEISTIANTTT. ' 
 
 T. E., we are told, came to see her some time after his 
 liberation, " with a new hat on, new blue slop, yellow silk 
 handkerchief, and quite smart. I said : 'You have been to 
 the public-house ? ' ' Yes,' he replied, ' but not to drink ; 
 we have had our making-up dinner ; the owners pay for it ; 
 I only took a little ale ; I was forced to it.' I said : ' Ale is 
 poison with you ; I wish you would spare a little money for 
 the savings bank.' He replied : I ' can't, for I bought my 
 mother a gown and a pair of shoes ; my sister a new gown 
 and a hat ; and my sister's child a new frock, for they are 
 so poor ; and I bought myself two such beautiful books ; 
 they cost 2s.' ' How foolish ! Why not let me buy them 
 for you ? What are they about ?' ' I don't know ; may I 
 bring them and show you? and may I write you some 
 copies on paper, to make you a present of, because you 
 taught me ?' I told him to bring the books, as I wished to 
 see him again. His kind feeling towards his mother is right. 
 The public-house was his ruin at first, and, with his want of 
 firmness, much is to be feared." 
 
 Another lad, designated as R. H, whose chief fault seems 
 to have been wan* of steadiness, was practically encouraged 
 to keep his good resolves. 
 
 " January 3. — I have provided R. H. with a pair of scales 
 from the liberated prisoners' fund which cost 2s. 6d., also 
 with a pound and a half-pound weight, which cost 10d., 
 and a basket, which cost Is., to sell sprats. I went also to 
 a fish-merchant's, and paid for a stone of red sprats for him. 
 
 " January 5. — R. H. called to inform me of his success : 
 he saved 9d. by the first stone. He then bought a half-stone 
 of sprats, which he sold, and gave his mother the money. 
 I shall see his mother soon, although I believe the boy is 
 going on rightly. 
 
 "January 10. — R. H. has obtained work at a twine spin- 
 ner's, and is to have 2d. a skein the first week, and 2jd. the 
 next. At this season he is to sell sprats,,being prevented 
 from working by the weather. 
 
 " February 3. — This evening R. H. called to speak to me. 
 He has obtained regular employment in a ropemaker's yard. 
 I allowed him to read a fellow-prisoner's letter I had that 
 day received ; having done so, he said, ' It is a nice letter ; 
 I wish he could get some work : when people come out of 
 
SAEAH MAETIN. 373 
 
 that place it is a hard matter ; thank God I have got work. 
 L. and I made vows together that we would never do what 
 was bad after we got out of prison, as we had done before.' 
 
 " February 7. — R. H. is conducting himself so much to my 
 satisfaction, that I desired him to bring the duplicate of a 
 jacket and waistcoat which had been pawned, and went my- 
 self with him to P.'s, to get them out, for which I paid 
 2s. 4jd., being aware that he stood in great need of them, 
 without the means of procuring them for himself." 
 
 We cannot help giving one last extract from this interest- 
 ing book, as it illustrates forcibly not only the hardships of 
 the poor, but the sort of friendship and assistance they re- 
 quire. 
 
 " March 22. — W. R. was discharged, after being six months 
 in jail. He called upon me directly, expressed his determi- 
 nation to follow an honest course, and whatever his difficul- 
 ties might be, not to do wrong with the view of removing 
 them. He has been convicted before, knows no trade, and 
 although he has a home with his father, he is destitute of 
 means of support. His father earned his living by making 
 and selling peppermint-balls. I ordered him a threepenny 
 loaf a day for seven days, whilst seeking work. 
 
 " March 26. — W. R. came to inform me that he had en- 
 tered on board a man-of-war; „as there seemed no prospect 
 of his getting work, it appeared the only opening to obtain 
 an honest living. He said he felt more happy in his mind 
 than he had done for years. 
 
 " April 12. — W. R., after entering the navy, and leaving 
 Yarmouth, has been returned home, with fourteen others, as 
 more had been received than were wanted, except regular 
 seamen, which is a sad disappointment. I have been to the 
 house : there are three sons without the knowledge of any 
 trade, who have no work. One young man sat with an ex- 
 pression of grief, who was prevented even from going out to 
 seek work, because he was entirely without shoe's. I have 
 determined, after much consideration, to venture on the pay- 
 ment of half the price of a half-barrel of herrings, and send 
 W. R. into the country to sell them. 
 
 "April 13. — W. R. has. made inquiry where he could best 
 get the herrings, and the cheapest likely to answer are 9s. 6d. 
 the half-barrel. I went with him to the fish-office (W. B.'s), 
 
374 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and if his father can either borrow money or get credit for 
 the other half, he shall start in the morning to sell them in 
 the villages. The business was managed about the herrings : 
 I paid Mr. B. 4s. 9d., being my half part. W. R., accom- 
 panied by the brother whose shoes were scarcely sufficient, 
 went out on Thursday morning. They returned to-day, and 
 he has this moment been to tell me that, after having paid 
 expenses, they had 3s. to spare." 
 
 To another, these duties, which not only required so much 
 thought and attention, but were also ever recurring, might 
 have seemed sufficient; yet Sarah Martin found time and 
 energy to attend a factory girl's evening school, which opened 
 .n 1837. The fatigue, however, proved too much for her, 
 and at the e»d of two years she was obliged to relinquish the 
 "school, and devote herself exclusively to the jail. There she 
 suffered greatly, through the bad character and conduct of 
 the turnkey. 
 
 It was some consolation to her to feel that even he could not 
 deprive her of the respect of the prisoners ; but his power was 
 great ; that power was against her, and as he daily became 
 worse, anxiety impaired her health. Comfort came to her in a 
 way which might have dismayed another, but which could only 
 strengthen the trust of her generous heart : her occupation as 
 dressmaker daily declined. We have already said how she 
 devoted one day every week to the prison ; a charitable lady 
 proposed to pay her for another day, to be given to the same 
 labor ; she accepted, and now the four remaining days seem- 
 ed likely to be left to charity. In December, 1838, Sarah 
 Martin found herself entirely free : she had literally nothing 
 to do but to attend the prisoners ; she did so daily ; and the 
 introduction of a new and efficient governor tended, as well 
 as her increased exertions, to produce many happy results. 
 Her satisfaction was complete. 
 
 What, it may be asked, were her means of support ? The 
 interest of two or three hundred pounds, inherited from her 
 grandmother. Prospects so narrow and dismal could not 
 appal Sarah Martin. In a noble passage of her memoirs we 
 read the secret of her strength : " My mind, in the contem- 
 plation of such trials, seemed exalted by more than human 
 energy, for I had counted the cost, and my mind was made 
 up. If, whilst imparting truth to others, I became exposed 
 
SAEAH MARTIN. 375 
 
 to temporal want, the privation, so momentary to an indi- 
 vidual, would not admit of comparison with following the 
 Lord, in thus administering to others." 
 
 The noble woman's trust was justified. She labored inces- 
 santly in that work which was the delight of her heart, of 
 which she fervently declared that "it had afforded her the 
 highest elevation of desire and satisfaction that she could 
 contemplate on this side of heaven ; that it had brought in 
 wealth which the mind of an archangel might fail to esti- 
 mate ;" and the God whom she served did not forsake her. 
 She received presents of clothing and other articles, and so 
 well was she known, that these donations were often accom- 
 panied by the express declaration, " that they were not 
 meant for her charities, but for her own exclusive use." 
 
 Some years before this, it had been proposed to make a 
 provision for Sarah Martin, from the Borough funds ; the 
 design was relinquished, to be resumed in 1841. Sarah op- 
 posed / it ; she wished that the good she did should be freely 
 done. Her objections were overruled ; the wife of a magis- 
 trate who had brought the subject before the council, wrote 
 to her in somewhat imperious strain : " We consider it im- 
 possible, from the manner in which you live, that you can 
 
 long continue your arduous labors at the jail. Mr. and 
 
 myself will feel angry and hurt if you refuse to accept it." 
 
 This threat of anger and wounded feelings, which would be 
 amusing were it not so impertinent, did not affect Sarah Mar- 
 tin ; although she declares that the writer was a very dear 
 friend, and one, no doubt, from whom she had derived much 
 valuable aid. She still objected to receive payment for the 
 labor and devotion of a life ; and it surely required little tact 
 or delicacy to feel that the refusal was justified. " Such 
 scruples," observes the writer, in the ' Edinburgh Review,' 
 with whom lies the merit of drawing general attention to 
 the history of Sarah Martin, " should have been held sacred. 
 Corporation gratitude should have been exhibited in some 
 way which would not have excited a feeling of self-degrada- 
 tion ; but, alas ! a jail committee does not enter into ques- 
 tions of feeling. It was coarsely intimated to this high- 
 souled woman, — ' If we permit you to visit the prison, you 
 must submit to our terms ;' and these worshipful gentlemen, 
 who were then making use of Sarah Martin as a substitute 
 
376 WOMEN OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 for the schoolmaster and the chaplain, whom it was by law 
 cheir bounden duty to have appointed, converted her into 
 their salaried servant, by the munificent grant of twelve 
 pounds per annum." 
 
 Sarah Martin enjoyed this liberal salary for two years. For 
 the last year of her existence, there was an evident decay of 
 nature's powers, but no diminution of that spiritual strength 
 which had ever sustained her ; and which only rose higher at 
 the aspect of death. For this event she had long been pre- 
 pared, and had herself written her own funeral sermon as 
 early as 1832. A simple inscription, recording her name and 
 age, and recording no more, was likewise prepared by her, 
 and may now be read on a plain stone in the churchyard of 
 Caistor. 
 
 She was patient and resigned throughout her whole illness ; 
 but the sufferings of her last hours were great : they closed 
 in August, 1843, in the fifty-third year of her age. About 
 twenty minutes before her death she begged for more ano- 
 dyne to still the pain. The nurse knew with what fearless 
 spirit she had to deal. She told her that the hour was near. 
 " Thank God ! Thank God !" exclaimed Sarah ; and she 
 clapped her hands in token of victory won — that Christian 
 victory which snatches its triumph from the grave, and says 
 to death : " Where is thy sting ?" 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 With the name of Sarah Martin, an humble working-girl of 
 our own times, we close this series of generous women, who, 
 for eighteen hundred years and more, steadily followed in the 
 path opened by Dorcas, a lowly disciple of the first Chris- 
 tian age. 
 
 They were of every land ; of every race ; of every rank : 
 they differed in aspect ; they spoke languages that were to 
 one another as unknown tongues ; but they burned with the 
 same. spirit, and everywhere they struggled nobly in the same 
 cause. These Daughters of the Cross felt themselves called 
 to a destiny more lofty than a life of pleasure and idleness : 
 they labored from dawn of day, the sun set not on their toil ; 
 and behold the things they accomplished ! The mansions of 
 their charity outnumber the palaces of kings. The boasted 
 hospitality of Eastern princes and ancient patriarchs sinks 
 into nothing before theirs ; for they build dwellings to receive 
 lifelong guests, and glory in the name of servants of the poor. 
 
 When men liberate nations and win realms, their names 
 live forever. But who shall count the multitudes these wo- 
 men redeemed from misery ? Who shall reckon the souls 
 they conquered to heaven ? And yet their memory too often 
 lies buried beneath the dust of past ages, and the worldly in- 
 difference of to-day. The ambition, the genius, the very 
 beauty of woman, have had their meed of power or praise ; 
 but those do not seem to have been thought of whose glory 
 is, that, like the sisters of Bethany, they received the divine 
 Master beneath their roof : that, like Martha, they labored in 
 his service with zealous love, and yet, forgetting not the bet- 
 ter part, humbly sat like Mary at the feet of their God. 
 
 Such women dwell amongst us still, as obscure and neg- 
 lected as their predecessors. Names worthy of record have 
 been omitted with regret ; but, besides that I knew how much 
 
378 CONCLUSION. 
 
 those who bore them would shrink from observation and praise, 
 I also felt that it was not in their own lifetime they could be 
 judged rightly. When they are fairly in their graves, per- 
 haps their zeal will not be called party spirit, or their charity 
 ostentation : perhaps the good they did may then be con- 
 fessed ; and what seemed narrow and trifling, indicate a lofty 
 and generous spirit. On this chance let them rest their hope : 
 if, indeed, their hopes are of those that look for the praise and 
 honor of man. 
 
 But because such is the case, it does not follow that it 
 need be. Shall spirits so noble, lives so pure, natures so holy 
 and yet so lovely, ever pass away from amongst us, unheeded 
 in life, forgotten in death ? If we but knew it, we could 
 find, even in the imperfect records of the good, the same 
 strange charm which lies in the story of troubled feelings and 
 tragic passions ; for if there we see their triumph, here we 
 behold their subjection. It is not just to them, and it is dan- 
 gerous to ourselves, to consider them as privileged against 
 either error or temptation. We lose the true lesson of their 
 lives if we look but at the result, howsoever fair and beautiful 
 it may seem ; if, in contemplating the outward victory, we 
 forget the inward cost : the natural longings repressed ; the 
 sinless wishes and pleasures not indulged ; the weariness of 
 spirit and of flesh endured ; the struggles overcome ; the sac- 
 rifices daily made, and never repined at : things which, even 
 more than whatever they did, have sanctified the lives of the 
 pure and the good. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 .dSia Flacilla, Page 45. 
 
 Pulcheria Augusta, 45-52. 
 
 Agnes, 25. 
 
 105. 
 
 St., House of, founded, 194. 
 
 Agnesi, Maria-Gaetana, 270-272. 
 
 Aiguillon, Madame d', 177, 189. 
 
 Albina, 31-33. 
 
 Alice of Burgundy, 70. 
 
 Allardin, Marie Anne, 319. 
 
 Allen, William, account from his 
 Journal of the " Enfants Trou- 
 ves,"^310; his description of the 
 Hospital of St. Petersburg, 312 ; 
 his description of Mary Fedorov- 
 na, 313 ; account of the Orphan 
 Institution, 313 ; quotation from 
 his Memoirs, 359. 
 
 Almoner, office of, created by Ba- 
 thildis, 65. 
 
 Ancients, decaying faith of, 10. 
 
 Anne of Austria, 184. 
 
 of Austria, Queen of Spain, 
 
 131. 
 
 Queen of Poland, 131. 
 
 of Brittany, 134. 
 
 Queen of Hungary, 131. 
 
 Henriette, Madame, 301. 
 
 Anthnsa, 28. 
 
 Arcadia, 45-47 ; 50. 
 
 Arianism extirpated by Theodolin- 
 da, 68. 
 
 Armyne, Lady, 219. 
 
 Arnauld, Mane-Angelique, 198. 
 
 Catherine, 198. 
 
 Angelique, 198. 
 
 Askew, Anne, 127. 
 
 Astell, Mary, 245. 
 
 AthanasiuS, 30. 
 
 Athenais (see Eudocia). 
 
 Augustine, St., 39-44. 
 
 Augustines, order of, founded, 104. 
 
 Author's aim in this Work, 10. 
 
 Austrebertha, 67. 
 
 Auverger, Anne-Marie-Gilbert, 273 
 -275. 
 
 B. 
 
 Bacon, Anna, 128. 
 
 Barrau, Mademoiselle, 325. 
 
 Basil, St., the elder, 27. 
 
 the younger, 27. 
 
 Bathildis, St., 61-65. 
 
 Baxter, Bichard, describes his -wife's 
 character, 236 ; gives an explana- 
 tion of their marriage, 239. 
 
 Margaret, 236-241. 
 
 Baynard, Anne, 236. 
 
 Beaufort, Margaret, ,127. 
 
 Benedict 51V., Pope, his venera- 
 tion for Pulcheria, 52. 
 
 Berteau, Caroline, of Elboeuf, 326. 
 
 Bertha, 58. 
 
 Bertilla, St., 62, 63. 
 
 Beuve, Madame de St., 186. 
 
 Biblis, 19. 
 
 Biget, Anne, 285-289. 
 
 Bihard, Anne, 322. 
 
 Biscot, Jeanne, 190-197; 210. 
 
 Blagge, Mrs. Margaret (see Mrs. 
 Godolphin). 
 
 Blanche of Castile, 101. 
 
 Blandina, 18. 
 
 Boadicea, 55. 
 
 Bohemia, prevalence of Christianity 
 there, 69. 
 
 Boniface, 65. 
 
 Bourjet, Anne (see Madame Qua- 
 tremere). 
 
 Bovey, Catherine, 245. 
 
 Boyle, Kichard, First Earl of Cork, 
 223 * 
 
 Bridget, St., 57. 
 
 of Sweden, 112. 
 
 Brooke, Lady Elizabeth, 218. 
 
 Brunehaut, 55. 
 
 Burleigh, Lady Mildred, 128-131. 
 
 Lord, a meditation of his, 128- 
 
 131. 
 
 Bury, Elizabeth, 244. 
 
 C. 
 Cahouet, Catherine, 273. 
 Carmelites, order of, founded, 104. 
 
380 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cassand>a, Fedele, 125. 
 
 Catherine, 25. 
 
 of Aragon, 126. 
 
 of Genoa, 114. 
 
 de Medici, 134. 
 
 • ■ St., of Sienna, 106-113. 
 
 -of Sweden, 113. 
 
 Cecilia, 25. 
 
 Chantal, Madame de, 139-156 ; 210. 
 
 Baron de, 141-144. 
 
 Charitana, 12. 
 
 Charles IX., 134-136. 
 
 Chateaubriand, quotation from his 
 Etudes Historiques, 26. 
 
 Chelles, monastery of, 61. 
 
 Childeric, his respect for Gene- 
 vieve, 56. 
 
 Christians, early, their character- 
 istics, 13 ; their eagerness for 
 martyrdom, 26. 
 
 Christian charity, changes wrought 
 by it, 34. 
 
 Christianity, influence of, 10. 
 
 ■ its effect on the condition of 
 
 woman, 11. 
 
 women its earliest adherents, 
 
 11. 
 
 its influence on the Eastern 
 
 character, 26. 
 
 its civilizing power, 54. 
 
 owes much to women in the 
 
 middle ages, 55 ; why embraced 
 by women in the middle ages, 55 ; 
 its virtues essentially feminine, 
 55 ; its progress in Gaul, 56 ; its 
 earliest triumphs derived from 
 the enthusiasm of women, 56. 
 
 its slow progress in the north, 
 
 68. 
 
 its inherent democratic power, 
 
 106. 
 
 Chrysostom, St. John, 28. 
 
 Clare, 104-105. 
 
 Clares, Poor, convents of, 99, 102 ; 
 foundation of the order, 104. 
 
 Claude, wife of Francis the First, 
 134. 
 
 Clifford, Anne, Countess of Pem- 
 broke, 220-222. 
 
 Clotaire, 59, 60. 
 
 Clotildis, 57. 
 
 Clovis, his conversion, 57. 
 
 Clovis II., influence of Bathildis 
 over him, 68. 
 
 Combe, Mary Magdalene of, 187- 
 189. 
 
 Commaohius, 84. 
 
 Congreve, description by him of 
 "Divine Aspasia," 252. 
 
 Conrad of Marburg, 85-94. 
 
 Constantia, 44. 
 
 Constantine the Great, religious 
 principles introduced by his con- 
 version 44. 
 
 Conti, Princess of, 177-. 
 
 Convents, importance of, 58; causes 
 which peopled them, 59. 
 
 Corbion, Jeanne de, 284-285. 
 
 Cousin, Victor, a project of his, 189. 
 
 Cunegondes, 70. 
 
 (see Kinga). 
 
 D. 
 
 Dancy, Elizabeth, 128. 
 
 Deaconesses, office of, 14. 
 
 Denis, King of Portugal, 97-99. 
 
 Dominic establishes a female reli- 
 gious order, 106. 
 
 Dominicans, order of, founded, 104 ; 
 third order of, 106. 
 
 Donata, 20. 
 
 Dorcas, 9, 11. 
 
 Douillot, Francoise, 322. 
 
 Catherine, 322. 
 
 Drahomira, 68, 69. 
 
 Duncan, the Eev. John, account by 
 him of Lady Falkland, 214. 
 
 E. 
 
 Edburge, 67. 
 
 Edgar Atheling, 71. 
 
 Editha, 67. 
 
 Eighteenth century, its character- 
 istics, 247. 
 
 Eleanor of England, 101. 
 
 Empress of Austria, 200-210. 
 
 Elizabeth of Austria, 134-138. 
 
 wife of Bishop Burnet, 242-244. 
 
 of Bohemia, 199. 
 
 Countess or Bridgewater, 218. 
 
 Christina, Queen of Prussia, 
 
 303. 
 
 St., of Hungary, 78-95 ; her 
 
 descendants, 96, et seq. 
 
 Queen of Portugal, 96-100. 
 
 .of York, 127. 
 
 Elizabeth, Madame, 803-809. 
 
 Emmelia of Cesarea, 27. 
 
 Enfants Trouves, account of, 810. 
 
 Ethelberga, 58. 
 
 Ethnea, 56. 
 
 Eudocia, 48-51. 
 
 Eustochium, 81-87. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 381 
 
 Evelyn, quotation from, on the 
 treatment of the sick in Paris, 184. 
 
 ■ quotations from his "Diary," 
 
 228-235. 
 
 F. 
 Fahiola, 81-34. 
 Falkland, Lucius Cary, Viscount, 
 
 212. 
 
 Viscountess, 212-217. 
 
 Fanshawe, Lady, 210. 
 Farinvilliers, Madame de, 177. 
 Felicitas, 21-24. 
 Fethlimia, 56. 
 Flavia Domitilla, 12. 
 Fougeret, Madame de, 280-282. 
 " Foundations," by Theresa of Avi- 
 
 la, quotation from, 120. 
 Foundlings, condition of, in the 
 
 seventeenth century, 165. 
 France, impure moral state of, in 
 
 the seventeenth century, 156. 
 Frances of Amboise, Duchess of 
 
 Brittany, 132. 
 Francis, St., of Assissi, "founds the 
 
 order of the Franciscans, 104. 
 Francis, St., of Sales, 148-151 ; 154. 
 Franciscans, order of, founded, 104. 
 Francon, Eegina, of St. Etienne, 
 
 325. 
 Frddegonde, 55. 
 
 Frederick the Great, King of Prus- 
 sia, 303-309. 
 Fremiot, President Benigne, 140. 
 Fry, Mrs. Elizabeth; 323 ; 830-859. 
 Fuller, Dr., quotation from him, 
 
 127. 
 
 G. 
 
 Galindo, Beatrix, 126. 
 
 Gandersheim, convent of, 68. 
 
 Gamier, Mesdemoiselles, 824. 
 
 Gaulish matrons, their indomitable 
 spirit, 55. 
 
 General Hospital established, 167. 
 
 Genevieve, 56. 
 
 Genovcfa Malatesta, 125. 
 
 Geral, Suzanne (see Mad. Gui- 
 raud). 
 
 Gethin, Lady Grace, 236. 
 
 Girard, Marie Madeleine, 820. 
 
 Giselle, 68. 
 
 Godolphin, Mrs., 210, 227-235. 
 
 Goujon, Marie, 319. 
 
 Gonzaga, Anne of, Princess Pala- 
 tine, 190. 
 
 Gonzaga, Cecilia, 125. 
 
 Lucretia of, 125. 
 
 Eleonora of, 125. 
 
 Isabella of, 125. 
 
 Julia of, 125. 
 
 Gorgonia, 28. 
 
 Gospel, the, an era in the modern 
 world, 10. 
 
 what it did for woman, 10. 
 
 its influence on their charac- 
 ter, 10. 
 
 Goussault, Madame de, 164. 
 
 Govona, Eosa, 266-268. 
 
 Gregory of Nyssa, 27. 
 
 of Nanzianzen, 28. 
 
 Grey, Lady Jane, 127. 
 
 Grivel, Madame de, 2S2. 
 
 Gu^ry, Marie, 824. 
 
 Guiraud, Madame, 823. 
 
 Gurnall, W., quotation from, on 
 Lady Vere, 217. 
 
 Gurney, Elizabeth (see Mrs. Eliza- 
 beth Fry). 
 
 H. 
 
 Hastings, Elizabeth, 253-257. 
 
 Halket, Lady, 236. 
 
 Hedwiges, Duchess of Poland, 96. 
 
 St., of Hungary, 102. 
 
 Heinault, President, his eulogy of 
 St. Bathildis, 65. 
 
 Helena, Empress, 44. 
 
 Cornaro, 199. 
 
 Hfiiot, Madame, 186. 
 
 Hereswith, 61. 
 
 Hermitte,~ Therese Melanie, 821. 
 
 Heron. Cecilia, 128. 
 
 Herrade of Landsberg, 68. 
 
 Hilda, 61. 
 
 History, Christian women neglect- 
 ed by, 9. 
 
 filled with deeds of men, 9. 
 
 share of women in, 10. 
 
 spirit in which it has been 
 
 written, 10. 
 
 Hobart, Lady Frances, 219. 
 
 Hopton, Susannah, 236. 
 
 Hortulana, 104. 
 
 Hospital, the first, founded in 
 Bome, 34. 
 
 Hroswrta, the Abbess, 68. 
 
 the Nun, 68. 
 
 Huntingdon, Selina, Countosa oK 
 265. 
 
 Hutchinson, Mrs., 210. 
 
382 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 I. 
 
 Icasia, 67. 
 
 Institution of the order of St. Cath- 
 
 "~ erine founded, 313. 
 
 of Alexander founded, 813. 
 
 Isabel, 101, 102. 
 Isabella of Castile, 126. 
 
 Jacqueline, 198. 
 
 Jerome, St., 31-37. 
 
 Joan of Valois, 183. 
 
 Jugan, Jeanne, of Canoale, 327. 
 
 Julia, 25. 
 
 Killigrew, Anne, 236. 
 
 Catherine, 128. 
 
 Kinga of Hungary, 96. 
 Kynegild, 65. 
 
 L. 
 
 Litta, 37. 
 
 Lafage, Catherine, 319. 
 
 Langham, Lady Elizabeth, 218. 
 
 Legras, Mademoiselle, 157-160 ; 
 165, 168. 
 
 Lecksinska, Mary,Queen of France, 
 290-303. 
 
 Leonides, 21. 
 
 Leopold, Emp. of Austria, 200-204. 
 
 Lewis, Landgrave of Thuringia, 
 78-89. 
 
 Lihanius, his exclamation on Chris- 
 tian women, 28. 
 
 Lioba, St., 65-67. 
 
 Lioud, Mesdemoiselles, 824. 
 
 Longueville, Duchess, 190. 
 
 Louisa of Bohemia, 199. 
 
 Louis, St., King of France, 101. 
 
 Louise of Lorraine Vaudeniont, 138. 
 
 Madame, 803. 
 
 Lucia of Marny, 125. 
 
 Lucy, Lady Alice, 211. 
 
 Ludmilla, 68. 
 
 Lydia, 11. 
 
 M. 
 Macrina, St., the elder, 27. 
 
 the youngei-j 27. 
 
 Madeleine du Bois, 188. 
 Magdalen, St., of Pazzi, 198. 
 Magnelai, Marchioness of, 186. 
 Maiiw', T -iiy, 235. 
 Malcolm *il,, of Scotland, 71. 
 Mareella, 31-36 
 
 Marcellina, 87. 
 
 Marcian raised to the empire, 51. 
 
 Marechal, 319. 
 
 Margaret, 77. 
 
 of Scotland, 70-75. 
 
 Margaret of Hungary, 96. 
 
 Margaret of Lorraine, Duchess of 
 Aleneon, 131. 
 
 Pa'leologue, Duchess of Man- 
 tua, 132. 
 
 Margueritte of Provence, 102. 
 
 Bourgeois, 189. 
 
 Marian, 24. 
 
 Marillac, Louise de (see Made- 
 moiselle Legras). 
 
 Marina, 45, 50. 
 
 Marie TherSse, 184. 
 
 Martha, Sister (see Anne Biget). 
 
 Martin, Sarah, 823 ; 860-376. 
 
 Martyrs, Christian, 12 ; 17-26. 
 
 Mary of Egypt, 26. 
 
 St., ofOignies, 76. 
 
 of Escobar, 126. 
 
 Queen of Portugal, 126. 
 
 Countess of Warwick, 223-227. 
 
 ■ Clotildis, Queen of Piedmont, 
 
 308. . 
 
 Fedorovna, Empress of Eus- 
 
 sia, 803 ; 309-317. 
 
 Masham, Lady, 236. 
 
 " Maternal Charity" founded, 281. 
 
 Matilda, wife of Henry the First, 75. 
 
 Maud, Empress of Germany, 69. 
 
 Maximilian II., Emperor, His ad- 
 dress to his daughter, 135. 
 
 Mayerj Margueritte, 826. 
 
 Melama, the elder, 81. 
 
 the younger, 81. 
 
 Melun, Mademoiselle de, 185. 
 
 Method of Devotion, A, by Mrs. 
 Burnet, 343. 
 
 Middle Ages, religious spirit of, 76. 
 
 Miramion, Mad. de, 166; 168-188; 
 210. 
 
 Miramionnes, 178. 
 
 Monasteries, their influence in. pre- 
 venting degradation, 54. 
 
 Increase of, 65 ; 103. 
 
 Monica, 37-44. 
 
 Montagu^ Lady Mary Wortley, re- 
 mark trom her on the Empress 
 Eleanor, 209. 
 
 Montalembert, Count Charles of, his 
 regret at the few traces left of St. 
 Elizabeth of Hungary, 95. 
 
 . Montveran, Marie-Margueritte, 820. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 383 
 
 Montyon Prizes, 818. 
 More, Hannah, 257-264. 
 Morison, Lady Lettioo (see "Vis- 
 countess Falkland). 
 Mailer, Fanny, 320. 
 
 N. 
 
 Neeker, Madame, 282, 283. 
 Nelson, Robert, his praise of Lady 
 
 Elizabeth Hastings, 255. 
 Neuvillette, Baroness of, 187. 
 Neville, Lady Katherine, 244. 
 Nioareta, 29. 
 Nonna, 28. 
 Nans, apostolic labors of, 65. 
 
 Olga, the Russian princess, 69. 
 Olympias, 29, 30. 
 Oraison, Martha d', 184. 
 Order of the Visitation of the Vir- 
 gin Mary established, 150. 
 
 P. 
 
 Pantadia, 29. 
 
 Pastoret, Madame de, 282, 288. 
 
 Patrick, St., 56, 57. 
 
 Paul I., Emperor of Russia, 316. 
 
 Paula, 32-37. 
 
 the younger, 87. 
 
 Malatesta, 125. 
 
 Pelagia, 26. 
 
 Penda, King of Mercia, his children 
 
 become Christians, 58. 
 Penitents, Christian, 27. 
 Persecution of Christians, 15 % at 
 
 Lyons and Vienna, 17-20. 
 of Christians at Carthage, 20- 
 
 25 ; by Maximimis H., 27. 
 Peter (the Apostle), 9. 
 
 of Sebaste, 27. 
 
 Duke of Brittany, 132. 
 
 Petit-Jean, Mademoiselle, 320. 
 
 Philip of Hesse, 95. 
 
 Pierre, Charlotte, 819. 
 
 Pigot, Mrs. Lettice, 245. 
 
 Poitiers, Monastery of the Holy 
 
 Cross founded there, 60. 
 Pol, Madame de St., 186. 
 Pontieus, 19. 
 Potamiana, 24. 
 Praxedes, 11. 
 Prie, Madame de, 290. 
 Procula, 29. 
 Pryor, Mrs. Elizabeth, 848. 
 
 Pudentiana, 11. 
 
 Purity, a distinctive mark of the 
 early Christians, 13. 
 
 Q. 
 
 Quatrerne're, 275-282. 
 
 R. 
 
 Rabutin, Bussy de, 170-173. 
 Radegonde, St., 59, 60 ; 77. 
 Rainbow, Bishop, his description 
 
 of the self-denial of Anne Clif- 
 ford, 221. 
 Raingarda, 67. 
 
 Ranfaing, Mary Elizabeth de, 187. 
 Raymond of Capua, quotation from 
 
 him, 109. 
 Religion, its influence on women in 
 
 the middle ages, 55. 
 of the middle ages, compared 
 
 with that of modern times, 76, 
 
 77. 
 Reynell, Lady, 218. 
 Russell, Elizabeth, 128. 
 
 Lady Rachel, 210 ; 245. 
 
 Rogers, lines from him, 222. 
 Roman people, depraved state of, 
 
 11. 
 
 emperors, tyranny of, 11. 
 
 Roper, Margaret, 127. 
 
 Rosinas, 267-269. 
 
 Rowe, Mrs. Elizabeth, 247-253. 
 
 Rubelie, Marie Bonneau de (see 
 
 Madame de Miramion). 
 
 Sabina, 12. 
 
 Sabliere, Madame do la, 184. 
 
 Salles d'Asiles, 283. 
 
 Salvina, 29. - 
 
 Saunderson, Mary, 346. 
 
 Savery, William, effect of his 
 
 preaching on Elizabeth Gurney, 
 
 336. 
 Saxe, Marechal de, 294. 
 Skepticism of the sixteenth century, 
 
 124. 
 Scheppler, Louisa, 329. 
 Schreiber, Dorothea, 325. 
 Secunda, 20. 
 "Servants of the Poor" (see Sistere 
 
 of Charity). 
 Sevign6, Madame de, born, 154- 
 
 156. 
 her comment on the death ol 
 
 Madame Miramion. 182. 
 
384 
 
 INDEl 
 
 Sisters of Charity, their-pfSce insti- 
 tuted, 157 ; their order establish 
 ed, 160 ; regulations for their eon- 
 duct, 161 ; extracts from their 
 Journal, 166. 
 
 Slavery not at once abolished by 
 Christianity, 61. 
 
 struggles of Bathildis against 
 
 it, 63. 
 
 Sobieski, John, King of Poland, 
 201, 208. 
 
 Sophia of Bohemia, 199. 
 
 Steele, Sir Eichard, his mention of 
 Catherine Bovey, 245. 
 
 Susannah, Countess of Suffolk, 218. 
 
 Symphorian, 20. 
 . Syncletica, 27. 
 
 Tabitha (see Doroas). 
 
 Teresa, St., of Avila, 114-123. 
 
 Tertullian, his advice to Christian 
 women, 14. 
 
 shows the increase of Chris- 
 tians, 15. 
 
 Thais the courtezan, 26. 
 
 Thecla, St., 65. 
 
 Theodolinda, Queen of the Lom- 
 bards, 63. 
 
 Theodoric, monk of Durham, his 
 account of Margaret of Scotland, 
 72, 74. 
 
 Theodosius, 45-51. 
 
 Tollendal, Lally de, comment by 
 him on Madame Necker, 282. 
 
 Traversal, Madame de, 177. 
 
 Treille, Claudine, 324. 
 
 Trivulzi, Prince, founds a hospital 
 in Milan, 272. 
 
 TJ. 
 Uraca, Queen of Portugal, 101. 
 Usher, Archbishop, quotation from 
 a letter of his, 217. 
 
 V. 
 
 Vaillant, Opportuna, 825. 
 Ventadour, Duchess of, 273. ' 
 Vere; Lady Mary, 217. 
 Vestma, 20. 
 
 Vincentina Lomelino of Genoa, 126 , 
 Vincent, St., of Paul, 157-168. 
 Virgins, consecration of, 13. 
 
 VirgtGo, ..Eoir mode of iife, 18. 
 Vivia Perpetua, 21-24. 
 Voltaire, passage from him, on the 
 Sisters of Charity, 163. 
 
 W. 
 
 Walburge, St., 65. 
 
 Wenceslas, Duke of Bohemia, 68, 
 • 69. . 
 
 Widows, their mode of life, 14. 
 
 ofCharity, the, 312. 
 
 Wilberforee, 260. 
 
 Wilhelmina, Margravine of Bareith, 
 her account of the marriage of 
 Elizabeth Christina, 304. 
 
 William of Malmesbury's picture of 
 the slave trade on the English 
 coast, 61. i 
 
 Women, their share in history, 10. 
 
 Influence of the Gospel on, 10. 
 
 Effect of Christianity on their 
 
 condition' 11. 
 
 the earliest adherents of Chris- 
 tianity, 11. i 
 
 not exempt from martyrdom, 
 
 12. 
 
 Effect of Christianity on their 
 
 morals, 12. 
 
 the chief examples of Christian 
 
 virtue, 18. 
 
 their importance among Chris- 
 tians, 14. 
 
 of home virtues, 27. 
 
 Christian, their characteristics 
 
 during the first Ave ages of their 
 faith, 52. 
 
 their civilizing power, 54. 
 
 embody the virtues, vices, and 
 
 crimes of their race, 55. 
 
 • limited education of, in the 
 
 thirteenth century, 68. 
 
 of the seventeenth century 
 
 characterized by their earnest- 
 ness, 139. 
 
 afforded powerful aid to St 
 
 Vincent of Paul, 157. 
 
 of the seventeenth eentui y, 
 
 their charity, 183. 
 
 of England in the seventeenth 
 
 century, their lives imperfectly 
 written, 211. 
 
 their utilitarian spirit mora ap- 
 parent in later times, 282.