Produced by David McClamrock
SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL
c. 1581-1660
By F.A. [Francis Alice] Forbes
"Blessed is he that understandeth concerning the needy and the poor:
the Lord will deliver him in the evil day."
--Psalm 40:2
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Wherefore he hath anointed me to
preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the contrite
of heart, to preach deliverance to the captives, and sight to the
blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the
acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of reward."
--Luke 4:18-19
Nihil Obstat: Francis M. Canon Wyndham
Censor Deputatus
Imprimatur: Edmund Canon Surmont
Vicar General
Westminster
July 2, 1919
Originally published in 1919 by R. & T. Washbourne, Limited, London,
as _Life of St. Vincent de Paul_ in the series _Standard-bearers of
the Faith: A Series of Lives of the Saints for Young and Old._
"Extend mercy towards others, so that there can be no one in need
whom you meet without helping. For what hope is there for us if God
should withdraw His mercy from us?"
--St. Vincent de Paul
CONTENTS
1. A Peasant's Son
2. Slavery
3. A Great Household
4. The Galleys
5. Mission Work
6. The Grey Sisters
7. The Foundlings
8. At Court
9. The Jansenists
10. Troubles in Paris
11. "Confido"
SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL
"Dearly beloved, let us love one another, for charity is of God. And
every one that loveth, is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth
not, knoweth not God: for God is charity."
--1 John 4:7-8
Chapter 1
A PEASANT'S SON
A MONOTONOUS line of sand hills and the sea; a vast barren land
stretching away in wave-like undulations far as eye can reach; marsh
and heath and sand, sand and heath and marsh; here and there a
stretch of scant coarse grass, a mass of waving reeds, a patch of
golden-brown fern--the Landes.
It was through this desolate country in France that a little peasant
boy whose name was destined to become famous in the annals of his
country led his father's sheep, that they might crop the scanty
pasture. Vincent was a homely little boy, but he had the soul of a
knight-errant, and the grace of God shone from eyes that were never
to lose their merry gleam even in extreme old age.
He was intelligent, too, so intelligent that the neighbors said that
Jean de Paul was a fool to set such a boy to tend sheep when he had
three other sons who would never be good for anything else. There was
a family in the neighborhood, they reminded him, who had had a bright
boy like Vincent, and had put him to school--with what result? Why,
he had taken Orders and got a benefice, and was able to support his
parents now that they were getting old, besides helping his brothers
to get on in the world. It was well worthwhile pinching a little for
such a result as that.
Jean de Paul listened and drank in their arguments. It would be a
fine thing to have a son a priest; perhaps, with luck, even a
Bishop--the family fortunes would be made forever.
With a good deal of difficulty the necessary money was scraped
together, and Vincent was sent to the Franciscans' school at Dax, the
nearest town. There the boy made such good use of his time that four
years later, when he was only sixteen, he was engaged as tutor to the
children of M. de Commet, a lawyer, who had taken a fancy to the
clever, hardworking young scholar. At M. de Commet's suggestion,
Vincent began to study for the priesthood, while continuing the
education of his young charges to the satisfaction of everybody
concerned.
Five years later he took minor Orders and, feeling the need of
further theological studies, set his heart on a university training
and a degree. But life at a university costs money, however thrifty
one may be, and although Jean de Paul sold a yoke of oxen to start
his son on his career at Toulouse, at the end of a year Vincent was
in difficulties. The only chance for a poor student like himself was
a tutorship during the summer vacation, and here Vincent was lucky.
The nobleman who engaged him was so delighted with the results that,
when the vacation was over, he insisted on the young tutor taking his
pupils back with him to Toulouse. There, while they attended the
college, Vincent continued to direct their studies, with such success
that several other noblemen confided their sons to him, and he was
soon at the head of a small school.
To carry on such an establishment and to devote oneself to study at
the same time was not the easiest of tasks; but Vincent was a hard
and conscientious worker, and he seems to have had, even then, a
strange gift of influencing others for good. For seven years he
continued this double task with thorough success, completed his
course of theology, took his degree, and was ordained priest in the
opening years of that seventeenth century which was to be so full of
consequences both for France and for himself.
Up to this time there had been nothing to distinguish Vincent from
any other young student of his day. Those who knew him well respected
him and loved him, and that was all. But with the priesthood came a
change. From thenceforward he was to strike out a definite line of
his own--a line that set him apart from the men of his time and
faintly foreshadowed the Vincent of later days.
The first Mass of a newly ordained priest was usually celebrated with
a certain amount of pomp and ceremony. If a cleric wanted to obtain a
good living it was well to let people know that he was eligible for
it; humility was not a fashionable virtue. People were therefore not
a little astonished when Vincent, flatly refusing to allow any
outsiders to be present, said his first Mass in a lonely little
chapel in a wood near Bajet, beloved by him on account of its
solitude and silence. There, entirely alone save for the acolyte and
server required by the rubrics, and trembling at the thought of his
own unworthiness, the newly made priest, celebrating the great
Sacrifice for the first time, offered himself for life and death to
be the faithful servant of his Lord. So high were his ideals of what
the priestly life should be that in his saintly old age he would
often say that, were he not already a priest, he would never dare to
become one.
Vincent's old friend and patron, M. de Commet, was eager to do a good
turn to the young cleric. He had plenty of influence and succeeded in
getting him named to the rectorship of the important parish of Thil,
close to the town of Dax. This was a piece of good fortune which many
would have envied; but it came to Vincent's ears that there was
another claimant, who declared that the benefice had been promised to
him in Rome. Rather than contest the matter in the law courts Vincent
gave up the rectorship and went back to Toulouse, where he continued
to teach and to study.
Some years later he was called suddenly to Bordeaux on business, and
while there heard that an old lady of his acquaintance had left him
all her property. This was welcome news, for Vincent was sadly in
need of money, his journey to Bordeaux having cost more than he was
able to pay.
On returning to Toulouse, however, he found that the prospect was not
so bright as he had been led to expect. The chief part of his
inheritance consisted of a debt of four or five hundred crowns owed
to the old lady by a scoundrel who, as soon as he heard of her death,
made off to Marseilles, thinking to escape without paying. He was
enjoying life and congratulating himself on his cleverness when
Vincent, to whom the sum was a little fortune, and who had determined
to pursue his debtor, suddenly appeared on the scene. The thief was
let off on the payment of three hundred crowns, and Vincent, thinking
that he had made not too bad a bargain, was preparing to return to
Toulouse by road, the usual mode of traveling in those days, when a
friend suggested that to go by sea was not only cheaper, but more
agreeable. It was summer weather; the journey could be accomplished
in one day; the sea was smooth; everything seemed favorable; the two
friends set out together.
A sea voyage in the seventeenth century was by no means like a sea
voyage of the present day. There were no steamers, and vessels
depended on a favorable wind or on hard rowing. The Mediterranean was
infested with Turkish pirates, who robbed and plundered to the very
coasts of France and Italy, carrying off the crews of captured
vessels to prison or slavery.
The day that the two friends had chosen for their journey was that of
the great fair of Beaucaire, which was famous throughout Christendom.
Ships were sailing backwards and forwards along the coast with
cargoes of rich goods or the money for which they had been sold, and
the Turkish pirates were on the lookout.
The boat in which Vincent was sailing was coasting along the Gulf of
Lyons when the sailors became aware that they were being pursued by
three Turkish brigantines. In vain they crowded on all sail; escape
was impossible. After a sharp fight, in which all the men on
Vincent's ship were either killed or wounded--Vincent himself
receiving an arrow wound the effects of which remained with him for
life--the French ship was captured.
But the Turks had not come off unscathed, and so enraged were they at
their losses that their first action on boarding the French vessel
was to hack its unfortunate pilot into a thousand pieces. Having thus
relieved their feelings, they put their prisoners in chains. But
then, fearing lest the prisoners die of loss of blood and so cheat
them of the money for which they meant to sell them, they bound up
their wounds and went on their way of destruction and pillage. After
four or five days of piracy on the high seas, they started, laden
with plunder, for the coast of Barbary, noted throughout the world at
that time as a stronghold of sea robbers and thieves.