1637.
CHARACTER OF THE CANADIAN JESUITS.
Jean de Brébeuf • Charles Garnier • Joseph Marie Chaumonot • Noël
Chabanel • Isaac Jogues • Other Jesuits • Nature of their Faith •
Supernaturalism • Visions • Miracles
Before pursuing farther these obscure, but noteworthy, scenes in the
drama of human history, it will be well to indicate, so far as there are
means of doing so, the distinctive traits of some of the chief actors.
Mention has often been made of Brébeuf,--that masculine apostle of the
Faith,--the Ajax of the mission. Nature had given him all the passions
of a vigorous manhood, and religion had crushed them, curbed them, or
tamed them to do her work,--like a dammed-up torrent, sluiced and guided
to grind and saw and weave for the good of man. Beside him, in strange
contrast, stands his co-laborer, Charles Garnier. Both were of noble
birth and gentle nurture; but here the parallel ends. Garnier's face was
beardless, though he was above thirty years old. For this he was laughed
at by his friends in Paris, but admired by the Indians, who thought him
handsome. [1] His constitution, bodily or mental, was by no means
robust. From boyhood, he had shown a delicate and sensitive nature, a
tender conscience, and a proneness to religious emotion. He had never
gone with his schoolmates to inns and other places of amusement, but
kept his pocket-money to give to beggars. One of his brothers relates of
him, that, seeing an obscene book, he bought and destroyed it, lest
other boys should be injured by it. He had always wished to be a Jesuit,
and, after a novitiate which is described as most edifying, he became a
professed member of the Order. The Church, indeed, absorbed the greater
part, if not the whole, of this pious family,--one brother being a
Carmelite, another a Capuchin, and a third a Jesuit, while there seems
also to have been a fourth under vows. Of Charles Garnier there remain
twenty-four letters, written at various times to his father and two of
his brothers, chiefly during his missionary life among the Hurons. They
breathe the deepest and most intense Roman Catholic piety, and a spirit
enthusiastic, yet sad, as of one renouncing all the hopes and prizes of
the world, and living for Heaven alone. The affections of his sensitive
nature, severed from earthly objects, found relief in an ardent
adoration of the Virgin Mary. With none of the bone and sinew of rugged
manhood, he entered, not only without hesitation, but with eagerness, on
a life which would have tried the boldest; and, sustained by the spirit
within him, he was more than equal to it. His fellow-missionaries
thought him a saint; and had he lived a century or two earlier, he would
perhaps have been canonized: yet, while all his life was a willing
martyrdom, one can discern, amid his admirable virtues, some slight
lingerings of mortal vanity. Thus, in three several letters, he speaks
of his great success in baptizing, and plainly intimates that he had
sent more souls to Heaven than the other Jesuits. [2]
[1] "C'est pourquoi j'ai bien gagne à quitter la France, où vous me
fesiez la guerre de n'avoir point de barbe; car c'est ce qui me fait
estimer beau des Sauvages."--Lettres de Garnier, MSS.
[2] The above sketch of Garnier is drawn from various sources.
Observations du P. Henri de St. Joseph, Carme, sur son Frère le P.
Charles Garnier, MS.--Abrégé de la Vie du R. Père Charles Garnier, MS.
This unpublished sketch bears the signature of the Jesuit Ragueneau,
with the date 1652. For the opportunity of consulting it I am indebted
to Rev. Felix Martin, S. J.--Lettres du P. Charles Garnier, MSS. These
embrace his correspondence from the Huron country, and are exceedingly
characteristic and striking. There is another letter in Carayon,
Première Mission.--Garnier's family was wealthy, as well as noble. Its
members seem to have been strongly attached to each other, and the young
priest's father was greatly distressed at his departure for Canada.
Next appears a young man of about twenty-seven years, Joseph Marie
Chaumonot. Unlike Brébeuf and Garnier, he was of humble origin,--his
father being a vine-dresser, and his mother the daughter of a poor
village schoolmaster. At an early age they sent him to Châtillon on the
Seine, where he lived with his uncle, a priest, who taught him to speak
Latin, and awakened his religious susceptibilities, which were naturally
strong. This did not prevent him from yielding to the persuasions of one
of his companions to run off to Beaune, a town of Burgundy, where the
fugitives proposed to study music under the Fathers of the Oratory. To
provide funds for the journey, he stole a sum of about the value of a
dollar from his uncle, the priest. This act, which seems to have been a
mere peccadillo of boyish levity, determined his future career. Finding
himself in total destitution at Beaune, he wrote to his mother for
money, and received in reply an order from his father to come home.
Stung with the thought of being posted as a thief in his native village,
he resolved not to do so, but to set out forthwith on a pilgrimage to
Rome; and accordingly, tattered and penniless, he took the road for the
sacred city. Soon a conflict began within him between his misery and the
pride which forbade him to beg. The pride was forced to succumb. He
begged from door to door; slept under sheds by the wayside, or in
haystacks; and now and then found lodging and a meal at a convent. Thus,
sometimes alone, sometimes with vagabonds whom he met on the road, he
made his way through Savoy and Lombardy in a pitiable condition of
destitution, filth, and disease. At length he reached Ancona, when the
thought occured to him of visiting the Holy House of Loretto, and
imploring the succor of the Virgin Mary. Nor were his hopes
disappointed. He had reached that renowned shrine, knelt, paid his
devotions, and offered his prayer, when, as he issued from the door of
the chapel, he was accosted by a young man, whom he conjectures to have
been an angel descended to his relief, and who was probably some
penitent or devotee bent on works of charity or self-mortification. With
a voice of the greatest kindness, he proffered his aid to the wretched
boy, whose appearance was alike fitted to awaken pity and disgust. The
conquering of a natural repugnance to filth, in the interest of charity
and humility, is a conspicuous virtue in most of the Roman Catholic
saints; and whatever merit may attach to it was acquired in an
extraordinary degree by the young man in question. Apparently, he was a
physician; for he not only restored the miserable wanderer to a
condition of comparative decency, but cured him of a grievous malady,
the result of neglect. Chaumonot went on his way, thankful to his
benefactor, and overflowing with an enthusiasm of gratitude to Our Lady
of Loretto. [3]
[3] "Si la moindre dame m'avoit fait rendre ce service par le dernier de
ses valets, n'aurois-je pas dus lui en rendre toutes les reconnoissances
possibles? Et si après une telle charité elle s'étoit offerte à me
servir toujours de mesme, comment aurois-je dû l'honorer, lui obéir,
l'aimer toute ma vie! Pardon, Reine des Anges et des hommes! pardon de
ce qu'après avoir reçu de vous tant de marques, par lesquelles vous
m'avez convaincu que vous m'avez adopté pour votre fils, j'ai eu
l'ingratitude pendant des années entières de me comporter encore plutôt
en esclave de Satan qu'en enfant d'une Mère Vierge. O que vous êtes
bonne et charitable! puisque quelques obstacles que mes péchés ayent pu
mettre à vos graces, vous n'avez jamais cessé de m'attirer au bien;
jusque là que vous m'avez fait admettre dans la Sainte Compagnie de
Jésus, votre fils."--Chaumonot, Vie, 20. The above is from the very
curious autobiography written by Chaumonot, at the command of his
Superior, in 1688. The original manuscript is at the Hôtel Dieu of
Quebec. Mr. Shea has printed it.
As he journeyed towards Rome, an old burgher, at whose door he had
begged, employed him as a servant. He soon became known to a Jesuit, to
whom he had confessed himself in Latin; and as his acquirements were
considerable for his years, he was eventually employed as teacher of a
low class in one of the Jesuit schools. Nature had inclined him to a
life of devotion. He would fain be a hermit, and, to that end, practised
eating green ears of wheat; but, finding he could not swallow them,
conceived that he had mistaken his vocation. Then a strong desire grew
up within him to become a Récollet, a Capuchin, or, above all, a Jesuit;
and at length the wish of his heart was answered. At the age of
twenty-one, he was admitted to the Jesuit novitiate. [4] Soon after its
close, a small duodecimo volume was placed in his hands. It was a
Relation of the Canadian mission, and contained one of those narratives
of Brébeuf which have been often cited in the preceding pages. Its
effect was immediate. Burning to share those glorious toils, the young
priest asked to be sent to Canada; and his request was granted.
[4] His age, when he left his uncle, the priest, is not mentioned. But
he must have been a mere child; for, at the end of his novitiate, he had
forgotten his native language, and was forced to learn it a second time.
"Jamais y eut-il homme sur terre plus obligé que moi à la Sainte Famille
de Jésus, de Marie et de Joseph! Marie en me guérissant de ma vilaine
galle ou teigne, me délivra d'une infinité de peines et d'incommodités
corporelles, que cette hideuse maladie qui me rongeoit m'avoit causé.
Joseph m'ayant obtenu la grace d'être incorporé à un corps aussi saint
qu'est celui des Jésuites, m'a preservé d'une infinité de misères
spirituelles, de tentations très dangereuses et de péchés très énormes.
Jésus n'ayant pas permis que j'entrasse dans aucun autre ordre qu'en
celui qu'il honore tout à la fois de son beau nom, de sa douce présence
et de sa protection spéciale. O Jésus! O Marie! O Joseph! qui méritoit
moins que moi vos divines faveurs, et envers qui avez vous été plus
prodigue?"--Chaumonot, Vie, 37.
Before embarking, he set out with the Jesuit Poncet, who was also
destined for Canada, on a pilgrimage from Rome to the shrine of Our Lady
of Loretto. They journeyed on foot, begging alms by the way. Chaumonot
was soon seized with a pain in the knee, so violent that it seemed
impossible to proceed. At San Severino, where they lodged with the
Barnabites, he bethought him of asking the intercession of a certain
poor woman of that place, who had died some time before with the
reputation of sanctity. Accordingly he addressed to her his prayer,
promising to publish her fame on every possible occasion, if she would
obtain his cure from God. [5] The intercession was accepted; the
offending limb became sound again, and the two pilgrims pursued their
journey. They reached Loretto, and, kneeling before the Queen of Heaven,
implored her favor and aid; while Chaumonot, overflowing with devotion
to this celestial mistress of his heart, conceived the purpose of
building in Canada a chapel to her honor, after the exact model of the
Holy House of Loretto. They soon afterwards embarked together, and
arrived among the Hurons early in the autumn of 1639.
[5] "Je me recommandai à elle en lui promettant de la faire connoître
dans toutes les occasions que j'en aurois jamais, si elle m'obtenoit de
Dieu ma guérison."--Chaumonot, Vie, 46.
Noël Chabanel came later to the mission; for he did not reach the Huron
country until 1643. He detested the Indian life,--the smoke, the vermin,
the filthy food, the impossibility of privacy. He could not study by the
smoky lodge-fire, among the noisy crowd of men and squaws, with their
dogs, and their restless, screeching children. He had a natural
inaptitude to learning the language, and labored at it for five years
with scarcely a sign of progress. The Devil whispered a suggestion into
his ear: Let him procure his release from these barren and revolting
toils, and return to France, where congenial and useful employments
awaited him. Chabanel refused to listen; and when the temptation still
beset him, he bound himself by a solemn vow to remain in Canada to the
day of his death. [6]
[6] Abrégé de la Vie du Père Noël Chabanel, MS. This anonymous paper
bears the signature of Ragueneau, in attestation of its truth. See also
Ragueneau, Relation, 1650, 17, 18. Chabanel's vow is here given
verbatim.
Isaac Jogues was of a character not unlike Garnier. Nature had given him
no especial force of intellect or constitutional energy, yet the man was
indomitable and irrepressible, as his history will show. We have but few
means of characterizing the remaining priests of the mission otherwise
than as their traits appear on the field of their labors. Theirs was no
faith of abstractions and generalities. For them, heaven was very near
to earth, touching and mingling with it at many points. On high, God the
Father sat enthroned; and, nearer to human sympathies, Divinity
incarnate in the Son, with the benign form of his immaculate mother, and
her spouse, St. Joseph, the chosen patron of New France. Interceding
saints and departed friends bore to the throne of grace the petitions of
those yet lingering in mortal bondage, and formed an ascending chain
from earth to heaven.
These priests lived in an atmosphere of supernaturalism. Every day had
its miracle. Divine power declared itself in action immediate and
direct, controlling, guiding, or reversing the laws of Nature. The
missionaries did not reject the ordinary cures for disease or wounds;
but they relied far more on a prayer to the Virgin, a vow to St. Joseph,
or the promise of a neuvaine, or nine days' devotion, to some other
celestial personage; while the touch of a fragment of a tooth or bone of
some departed saint was of sovereign efficacy to cure sickness, solace
pain, or relieve a suffering squaw in the throes of childbirth. Once,
Chaumonot, having a headache, remembered to have heard of a sick man who
regained his health by commending his case to St. Ignatius, and at the
same time putting a medal stamped with his image into his mouth.
Accordingly he tried a similar experiment, putting into his mouth a
medal bearing a representation of the Holy Family, which was the object
of his especial devotion. The next morning found him cured. [7]
[7] Chaumonot, Vie, 73.
The relation between this world and the next was sometimes of a nature
curiously intimate. Thus, when Chaumonot heard of Garnier's death, he
immediately addressed his departed colleague, and promised him the
benefit of all the good works which he, Chaumonot, might perform during
the next week, provided the defunct missionary would make him heir to
his knowledge of the Huron tongue. [8] And he ascribed to the deceased
Garnier's influence the mastery of that language which he afterwards
acquired.
[8] "Je n'eus pas plutôt appris sa glorieuse mort, que je lui promis
tout ce que je ferois de bien pendant huit jours, à condition qu'il me
feroit son héritier dans la connoissance parfaite qu'il avoit du
Huron."--Chaumonot, Vie, 61.
The efforts of the missionaries for the conversion of the savages were
powerfully seconded from the other world, and the refractory subject who
was deaf to human persuasions softened before the superhuman agencies
which the priest invoked to his aid. [9]
[9] As these may be supposed to be exploded ideas of the past, the
writer may recall an incident of his youth, while spending a few days in
the convent of the Passionists, near the Coliseum at Rome. These worthy
monks, after using a variety of arguments for his conversion, expressed
the hope that a miraculous interposition would be vouchsafed to that
end, and that the Virgin would manifest herself to him in a nocturnal
vision. To this end they gave him a small brass medal, stamped with her
image, to be worn at his neck, while they were to repeat a certain
number of Aves and Paters, in which he was urgently invited to join; as
the result of which, it was hoped the Virgin would appear on the same
night. No vision, however, occurred.
It is scarcely necessary to add, that signs and voices from another
world, visitations from Hell and visions from Heaven, were incidents of
no rare occurrence in the lives of these ardent apostles. To Brébeuf,
whose deep nature, like a furnace white hot, glowed with the still
intensity of his enthusiasm, they were especially frequent. Demons in
troops appeared before him, sometimes in the guise of men, sometimes as
bears, wolves, or wild-cats. He called on God, and the apparitions
vanished. Death, like a skeleton, sometimes menaced him, and once, as he
faced it with an unquailing eye, it fell powerless at his feet. A demon,
in the form of a woman, assailed him with the temptation which beset St.
Benedict among the rocks of Subiaco; but Brébeuf signed the cross, and
the infernal siren melted into air. He saw the vision of a vast and
gorgeous palace; and a miraculous voice assured him that such was to be
the reward of those who dwelt in savage hovels for the cause of God.
Angels appeared to him; and, more than once, St. Joseph and the Virgin
were visibly present before his sight. Once, when he was among the
Neutral Nation, in the winter of 1640, he beheld the ominous apparition
of a great cross slowly approaching from the quarter where lay the
country of the Iroquois. He told the vision to his comrades. "What was
it like? How large was it?" they eagerly demanded. "Large enough,"
replied the priest, "to crucify us all." [10] To explain such phenomena
is the province of psychology, and not of history. Their occurrence is
no matter of surprise, and it would be superfluous to doubt that they
were recounted in good faith, and with a full belief in their reality.
[10] Quelques Remarques sur la Vie du Père Jean de Brébeuf, MS. On the
margin of this paper, opposite several of the statements repeated above,
are the words, signed by Ragueneau, "Ex ipsius autographo," indicating
that the statements were made in writing by Brébeuf himself.
Still other visions are recorded by Chaumonot as occurring to Brébeuf,
when they were together in the Neutral country. See also the long notice
of Brébeuf, written by his colleague, Ragueneau, in the Relation of
1649; and Tanner, Societas Jesu Militans, 533.
In these enthusiasts we shall find striking examples of one of the
morbid forces of human nature; yet in candor let us do honor to what was
genuine in them,--that principle of self-abnegation which is the life of
true religion, and which is vital no less to the highest forms of
heroism.