AT COURT
WHEN Louis XIII was on his deathbed, with all the Bishops and
Archbishops of France ready to offer him their services, it was M.
Vincent, the humble Mission Priest, who prepared him to meet his God.
During the last days of the King's life, Vincent never left him, and
in his arms Louis XIII breathed his last. Then, having done the work
for which he had come, Vincent slipped quietly out of the palace to
hasten back to St. Lazare and his beloved poor.
Some remarks made by the King during his illness and certain other
words of Vincent's were remembered by the Queen, Anne of Austria, who
had been left Regent during the minority of her son. Richelieu was
dead, and Mazarin, his pupil, a crafty and unscrupulous Italian, had
succeeded him as chief Minister of State. His influence over the Queen
was growing daily, but it was not yet strong enough to override all
her scruples. She was a good-natured woman, quite ready to do right
when it was not too inconvenient, and it was clear to her that of late
years bishoprics and abbeys had been too often given to most unworthy
persons. In France the Crown was almost supreme in such matters; the
Queen therefore determined to appoint a "Council of Conscience"
consisting of five members, whose business it would be to help her
with advice as to ecclesiastical preferment.
Mazarin's astonishment and disgust when he heard that Vincent de Paul
had been appointed one of the number were as great as Vincent's own
consternation. The responsibility and the difficulties which he would
have to face filled the humble Mission Priest with the desire to
escape such an honor at any price; he even applied to the Queen in
person to beg her to reconsider her decision.
But Anne was obdurate, and Vincent was forced to yield. "I have never
been more worthy of compassion or in greater need of prayers than
now," he wrote to one of his friends, and his forebodings were not
without cause. If Mazarin had been unable to prevent the Queen from
naming Vincent as one of the Council of Conscience, he had at least
succeeded in securing his own nomination. In the cause of honesty and
justice, and for the Church's welfare, the Superior of St. Lazare
would have to contend with the foremost statesman of the day, a
Minister who had built up his reputation by trading on the vices of
men who were less cunning than he. Well did Vincent know that he was
no match for such a diplomatist; but having once realized that the
duty must be undertaken, he determined that there should be no
flinching.
He went to Court in the old cassock in which he went about his daily
work, and which was probably the only one he had. "You are not going
to the palace in that cassock?" cried one of the Mission Priests in
consternation.
"Why not?" replied Vincent quietly; "it is neither stained nor torn."
The answer was noteworthy, for a scrupulous cleanliness was
characteristic of the man. As he passed through the long galleries of
the Louvre he caught sight of his homely face and figure in one of the
great mirrors that lined the walls. "A nice clodhopper you are!" he
said amiably to his own reflection, and passed on, smiling.
Among the magnificently attired courtiers his shabby appearance
created not a little merriment. "Admire the beautiful sash in which M.
Vincent comes to Court," said Mazarin one day to the Queen, laying
hold of the coarse woolen braid that did duty with poor country
priests for the handsome silken sash worn by the prelates who
frequented the palace. Vincent only smiled--these were not the things
that abashed him; he made no change in his attire.
At first it seemed as if his influence were to be paramount in the
Council. Nearly all the priests of Paris had passed through his hands
at the ordination retreats and those who belonged to the "Tuesday
Conferences" were intimately known to him. Who could be better fitted
to select those who were suitable for preferment? Mazarin, it is true,
objected to the Council on principle, but that was simply because he
considered that bishoprics and abbeys were useful things to keep in
reserve as bribes for his wavering adherents. Certain reforms on which
Vincent insisted were not to his mind either, although he offered no
opposition. It was not his way to act openly, and he bided his time;
the wonder was that Vincent was able to do what he did so thoroughly.
In the meantime it began to dawn upon the public that the Superior of
St. Lazare was for the moment a man of influence. It was already well
known that he was a man of immense charity, with many institutions on
his hands, several of which were in urgent need of funds. It seemed a
very simple thing to offer him a large sum of money for the poor on
condition that he would put in a good word for a brother or a nephew
who was just the man for a bishopric or anything else that might
offer.
Vincent's reception of these proposals was disconcerting. "God
forbid!" he would cry indignantly. "Better that we should all go
without the barest necessities of life."
Some would come with a recommendation from the Queen herself, which
made things doubly embarrassing; but in spite of everything Vincent
remained faithful to his first determination to choose for bishoprics
no priests save those worthy of the position by reason of their virtue
and learning.
Now, it was exceedingly unpleasant for needy noblemen to be obliged to
sue to a peasant priest in a shabby cassock for the preferment of
their relations; but it became quite intolerable when the shabby
priest refused to listen.
"You are an old lunatic," said a young man who had been refused a
benefice through Vincent's agency.
"You are quite right," was the only answer, accompanied by a
good-natured smile.
Another day a gentleman who had come to recommend his son for a
bishopric was so angry when Vincent explained that he did not see his
way to grant his request that he answered the "impertinent peasant"
with a blow. Vincent, without the slightest allusion to this
treatment, quietly escorted him downstairs and saw him into his
carriage. Insulted another day in public by a magistrate whose
interests he had refused to forward, the Superior of St. Lazare made
the noble answer: "Sir, I am sure that you try to acquit yourself
worthily in your office; you must allow me the same freedom of action
in mine."
But Vincent's strangest adventure was with a Court lady of high rank,
a certain Duchess in the household of the Queen. Catching her royal
mistress in an unguarded moment, this lady succeeded in inducing the
Queen to promise the bishopric of Poitiers to her son, a young man of
very bad character. The Queen's courage, however, failed her at the
prospect of breaking the news to M. Vincent, and she commissioned the
Duchess to let him know of the appointment. Off went the great lady to
St. Lazare, and, flouncing into the Superior's presence, haughtily
declared her errand. Vincent, aghast, begged her to sit down and talk
the matter over, but Madame declined curtly. She was in a great hurry,
she replied; the Queen had spoken; there was nothing more to be said.
She would be obliged if he would make out the deed of nomination and
take it to Her Majesty to sign.
What was to be done? To resist would only provoke; submission seemed
the wisest, if not the only course.
Next morning at an early hour M. Vincent made his appearance at the
palace with a roll of paper in his hand and was shown into the Queen's
presence.
"Oh," said Her Majesty, not without some embarrassment, "you have
brought me the nomination of the Bishop of Poitiers." Without a word,
Vincent handed her the roll, which she proceeded to unfold.
"Why," she cried, "what is this? It is blank! The form is not drawn up
at all!"
"If Your Majesty's mind is made up," said Vincent quietly, "I must beg
you to write down your wishes yourself; it is a responsibility which
my conscience forbids me to take." Then, noticing the hesitation of
the Queen: "Madame," he said hotly, "this man whom you intend to make
a bishop spends his life in public houses and is carried home drunk
every night. That his family should want to get him out of Paris is
not surprising, but I ask you if an episcopal see is a fitting retreat
for such a person."
Convinced by Vincent's vehement presentation of the facts of the case,
the Queen consented to revoke the nomination, but she openly confessed
to him that she had not courage to face the Duchess. "Suppose you go
and make my peace with her," she said pleasantly, despatching the
unfortunate Vincent on this very disagreeable errand.
He was shown into the lady's presence and carried out his mission with
the greatest possible tact, but the Duchess could not control her
fury. Seizing a heavy stool, she flung it at the head of the unwelcome
messenger, who bowed and retired from the house with the blood
streaming from a wound in his forehead. The brother who had
accompanied him and who was waiting in the antechamber, justly
indignant, begged to be allowed to give the great lady a piece of his
mind. "Come on," said Vincent; "our business lies in another
direction." "Is it not strange," he said, smiling, a few moments
later, as he tried to staunch the blood with his handkerchief, "to
what lengths the affection of a mother for her son will go!"
Such incidents did not pass unnoticed by Mazarin, who looked with
jealous eyes on Vincent's influence with the Queen. As time went on he
resolved at any cost to rid the Court of the presence of this man,
whose simple, straightforward conduct baffled the wily and defeated
their plans; but an attempt to get him ejected from the Council met
with such stormy opposition that the Prime Minister determined to
change his tactics. There was no man whom he revered or admired so
much as M. Vincent, he declared enthusiastically; no one who was of
such use in the Council of Conscience.
But the summoning of the Council rested with Mazarin, and the
intervals between its meetings became longer and longer. Anne of
Austria's sudden spurt of energy--she was a thoroughly indolent woman
by nature--began to die out as she became accustomed to her new
responsibilities; she was only too glad to leave all matters of State
to a man who declared that his only desire was to save her worry and
trouble. In course of time the Council of Conscience ceased to meet,
and the distribution of bishoprics and abbeys fell once more into the
hands of Mazarin, who used them, as of old, for his own ends.
Vincent de Paul, in bitter grief and sorrow, was forced to witness an
abuse that he had no longer any power to check. "I fear," he wrote in
after years to a friend, "that this detestable barter of bishoprics
will bring down the curse of God upon the country." A few years later,
when civil war, pestilence and famine were devastating France, and
Jansenism was going far to substitute despair for hope in the hearts
of men, his words were remembered.