When you wish to know anything, madame, it is better that I should
write it to you than say it, because it is then impossible that either
of us should forget it. I am at your service for whatever you want;
and I will now repeat what I think I have already said to you.
You must punish as seldom as you possibly can, and for this reason you
must not see all faults. But when you cannot ignore those you have
seen, you must not pardon them if they are considerable, or if they
have already been pardoned. It is now a question of bringing the young
ladies to a footing of perfect obedience. To this you must apply
yourself seriously, without, however, searching out those faults that
you could ignore....
Get it into your mind, once for all, that there are few circumstances
in life without their drawbacks, and that you must choose the side
that has the least. You must also distinguish clearly those that
disturb order and the public good; that is what we must especially
avoid in communities.
Yes, madame, you will have the necessary courage if you ask it of God,
if you act in His presence and for Him solely; or I should better say,
if you forget yourself entirely, without thinking whether you will be
loved or hated. If you punish without prejudice, without listening
to your repugnances or your inclinations, if you can think that you
please God, whatever you do, and are conscious that you seek good only
without respect to persons,--if you govern with those dispositions, as
I do not doubt you will, our Lord will govern with you. Pray to Him, I
implore you, for those who are guiding you.
_To Mlle. d'Aubigné_ [her niece, a pupil at Saint-Cyr].
CHANTILLY, May 11, 1693.
I love you too well, my dear niece, not to tell you all that I think
will be useful to you, and I should be very lacking to my obligations
if, being wholly occupied with the young ladies of Saint-Cyr, I
neglected you whom I regard as my own daughter. [The child was only
nine years old at the time this letter was written.] I do not know
if it is you who inspire the pride your companions have, or whether
it is they who have given theirs to you; however that may be, rely
upon it that you will be intolerable to God and men if you do not
become more humble and more modest than you are. You take a tone of
authority which will never be becoming in you, happen what may. You
think yourself a person of importance because you are fed and lodged
in a house where the king comes daily; but the day after my death
neither the king nor all those who caress you now will look at you.
If that should happen before you are married, you will have a very
poor country gentleman for a husband because you are not rich; and
if during my life you should marry a greater seigneur, he would only
consider you, after my death, as long as your humour was agreeable to
him; you would be valued only for your gentleness, and of that you
have none. Your _mignonne_ [term used in those days for an attendant
on girls] loves you too much, and does not see you as other people
see you. I am not prejudiced against you, for I love you much, but
I cannot see without pain the pride that appears in all you do. You
are assuredly very disagreeable to God; consider His example. You
know the Gospel by heart; and what good will such learning do you if
you are lost like Lucifer? Remember that it is solely the fortune of
your aunt that has made that of your father and yourself. You allow
persons to pay you a respect that is not due to you; you will not
suffer being told that it is only paid on my account; you would like
to raise yourself above me, so proud and lofty are you. How do you
reconcile that puffed-up heart with the pious devotion in which you
are being brought up? Begin by asking of God humility, contempt for
yourself,--who are, in truth, nothing at all,--and the esteem of your
neighbours. I speak to you as if you were a great girl because you
have a very advanced mind; but I would consent with all my heart to
your having less, and therefore less presumption.
If there is anything in my letter that you do not understand your
_mignonne_ will explain it to you. I pray Our Lord to change you so
that I may on my return find you modest, humble, timid, and putting
into practice what you know to be right. I shall love you much more. I
conjure you by the affection you have for me to work upon yourself and
to pray daily for the graces of which you are in need.
_To M. l'Abbé de Bisacier_ [special confessor at Saint-Cyr].
September, 1694.
The mother of the Demoiselles de ---- has been beheaded; I shall
always reproach myself for not following up that case with a care
which might have saved the life of the poor creature. God has disposed
otherwise. I am awaiting you before announcing this sad news to the
two daughters. I am requested to consult the king on sending them
away from Saint-Cyr. He does not understand any more than I do why
this crime should be visited on the children, and I conjure you to
reflect still further upon it with the Bishop of Chartres and the Abbé
Tiberge. They say that the Jesuits would not admit to their Society
in a like case, nor the nuns of the Visitation either. If that spirit
comes from Saint Ignatius or Saint François de Sales, I submit to it
without repugnance, but if it is only the effect of human wisdom or
the harshness of communities, I desire with all my heart to escape
it in this case. The father of M. de Luxembourg was beheaded; but
they confided to the latter the person of the king and his armies. We
saw M. de Rohan die upon the scaffold some twenty years ago, and all
his family were in offices round the king and queen, and receiving
condolences on the event without its entering the head of a single
courtier to speak against them. What! shall worldly decency go farther
than charity? Shall we fail to give our pupils the true ideas they
ought to have on all things? I am told that in the classes these girls
will meet with less respect and be exposed to reproaches: I should
put that act among the most punishable of faults; girls with proper
hearts would be incapable of it; the others must be corrected....
I say all this for justice, and from the desire I have that our girls
should have their minds and their hearts right, for it may very well
be that the girls in question are not suitable for us. I do not need,
monsieur, to commend them to your charity; I pray God to console and
bless them.
_To Mme. du Pérou._
1696.
Madame, I have always forgotten to ask you why they continue to serve
the young ladies with rye bread in days when wheat is no longer dear.
It was very proper that they should learn by their own experience
the inequality of the riches of the world, and take some share in
the public sufferings; but they ought to be put back into the usual
system when there is no reason to keep them out of it. The tendency
of communities is to retrench on food, rather than on commodities or
embellishments which they ought to go without. As our nourishment is
simple and frugal, nothing should touch it. The girls are murmuring
in their hearts much more bitterly than they dare say. I try in
everything to help you with my experience.
Do not think, either for yourself or for your girls, that those who
do not feel dull have no need of relaxation. Serious occupations wear
upon us, little by little, without our perceiving it until too late;
that is why, my dear daughter, you ought to prevent such a result by
diversions of the mind that are innocent. Take care only that nothing
passes contrary to religious modesty, nothing worldly, nothing excited
or excessive; but that gentleness, holy liberty, simplicity, charity,
modesty reign in everything. I wish no dancing.
_To Mme. de Radouay._
October 15, 1696.
Profit, I conjure you, for yourself and for others by the experience
you have just had of quinine. Nothing is more unreasonable than
notions; our age assumes them about everything; they decide all
things; there is no one who does not seek to be a doctor, or meddle in
the direction of affairs; all have decided opinions; women pretend to
judge of books, sermons, governments, of the spiritual and the bodily;
modesty is no longer in usage. No one ever replies now, "I do not
know," or "It is not for me to judge;" no one is baffled; the place of
knowledge and judgment is filled by intolerable presumption, for never
were persons more ignorant. Do not have, or allow that quality in your
midst. Say out, simply, that you do not know. Let yourselves be guided
by confessors, doctors, superiors, magistrates, the king; inspire that
modesty in your novices, to whom this letter is as necessary as to you.
I am delighted that the Reds desire to please me; what pleasure if
at my next visit you can tell me they have all been good. They will
obtain that happiness if they ask it of God and serve Him with their
whole heart.
_To Mme. de Fontaines_ [now the Superior].
December, 1696.
Complaint is made, my dear daughter, that you do not give enough
little comforts to the classes. You want me to speak to you freely and
I shall do so. I think it true that you are too stern about expenses
and all sorts of economy. Consider, I beg of you, that the most
important thing in your case is not to save a thousand francs more or
less (and the favours asked of you would not cost more than that), but
to firmly establish and cause to be liked your rule as Superior; and
you can do it in no better way than by entering, not only into the
just needs of your community, but even into some wants that are not
altogether necessary.
When certain of the mistresses ask me for ribbon for use in
representing the tragedies, and I give it, do you not think that
I do better than if I replied dryly that my money would be better
employed in giving alms? Am I not doing a much greater good by this
compliance to the mistresses of the different classes? They are
pleased; and it is just to soften their labour; we make their young
ladies like them, and so dispose them to receive instruction; the
latter will open their hearts themselves to those who grant them these
attentions. Nevertheless, you refuse them twenty pairs of gloves, or
you deduct those gloves from the next distribution; do you not see,
my dear daughter, that to save ten francs you have vexed sixteen
of your mistresses? Saint-François de Sales sent Mme. de Chantal
word as to a lawsuit she had gained which he did not wish her to
undertake. "This time," he said, "you have been more just than kind;
I would rather have you more kind than just." Apply those words to
yourself, and be more kind than saving, more careful than thrifty;
make yourself beloved, and in that way you will do a solid good to
the establishment. Keep your negatives for all that is against the
regulations; never relax there, but even there you can make answers
that will not be harsh by saying: "The Constitution forbids that; the
rules point to this," and so on. But for details within those lines,
I beg you to give ear to what the mistresses request, leaning to
compliance rather than severity. I pray God to give you the courage of
which you have need to fulfil your duties, and an extension of charity
and perception which will make you prefer great duties to little ones.
_To Mme. de Pérou._
1699.
We should have an equitable not a superficial charity. For instance,
we should rid ourselves of a girl who would be capable of corrupting
others, without listening to the sentiments of a weak compassion
which would lead us to say: "But she is so poor; what will her family
do? she will be ruined in the world." Better that she should be lost
alone than ruin your whole establishment. For certain defects which
cannot injure others and only make you suffer yourself, I exhort you
to have infinite patience; how many we have known who were bad and
are now among our best girls! I was listening to one the other day
with great pleasure as she told me with humility and simplicity the
evil inclinations that might have led her to bad ways, and yet she has
done marvels. Such cases ought to encourage you and make you see that
if there are some pains in educating there are also many grounds for
consolation.
I entreat you to tell my sister de Riancourt that she must give good
nourishment to the sick, take great care that they rest well, warm
them in their chills, and dry them if they perspire. But easy chairs
in which they lounge all day, loose dressing-gowns without belts like
fashionable women, soups without bread crumbs, such things, I say, are
delicacies out of all proportion with the illnesses I have known you
have, so far. Read her this part of my letter, I beg of you, and bind
her conscience to establish the infirmary on the footing of religious
charity but with none of that laxness which ought not to be allowed
among your young ladies.
_To Mme. de la Rozières_ [the sub-mistress of a class].
October 3, 1699.
I must, my dear daughter, repair by a letter the wrong I did in not
seeing you in private when I saw the others. My want of leisure makes
me fail in many things I ought to do, and want to do. It is a great
pity to have for mother a person who is always moving about, off
hunting, or at cards, when she ought to be talking with her daughters.
You are too good to put up with me and my many defects, but I assure
you that I am well punished, and there is nothing in the pleasures I
speak of to console me for not going oftener to Saint-Cyr.
_To Mme. de Pérou._
February 23, 1701.
It has seemed to me as if you desired that I should write to you on
all things that might be of consequence to your establishment. I place
in that rank the representations of the beautiful tragedies I caused
to be written for you,[20] and which may in the future be imitated. My
object was to avoid the miserable compositions of nuns, such as I saw
at Noisy. I thought it was judicious and necessary to amuse children;
I have always seen it done in places where they are collected; but I
wished while amusing those of Saint-Cyr to fill their minds with fine
things of which they would not be ashamed when they entered the world;
I wished to teach them to pronounce properly; to occupy them in a way
that would withdraw them from conversations with one another, and
especially to amuse the elder ones, who from fifteen to twenty years
of age get rather weary of the life at Saint-Cyr. These are my reasons
for still continuing the representations, provided your superiors
[meaning the Bishop of Chartres and the confessors] do not forbid
them. But you must keep them entirely confined to your own house, and
never let them be seen by outside persons under any pretext whatever.
It is always dangerous to allow men to see well-made girls who add
to the charms of their person by acting well what they represent.
Therefore do not, I say, permit the presence of any man, whoever he
may be, poor, rich, young or old, priest or secular,--I would even say
a saint, if there were such on earth. All that can be allowed, if one
of the superiors [priests] insists on judging the performance, is to
let the youngest children act a play before him--as, in fact, we have
already done.
_To Mme. de Gruel_ [head mistress of the Reds].
March, 1701.
You admire too much what I do for your class, but nevertheless, such
as it is you do not imitate it enough. You talk to your children
with a stiffness, a gloominess, a brusqueness which will close their
hearts. They should feel that you love them, that you are grieved by
their faults for their own sake, and that you are full of hope that
they will correct themselves; you should take them expertly, encourage
them, praise them, in a word, employ all means except roughness--which
will never lead any one to God. You are too rigidly of a piece,
very proper to live with saints, but you ought to know how to adapt
yourself, to be every sort of person, and especially a kind mother to
a large family, all of whom are equally dear to her.
I have always forgotten to tell you that I noticed several days ago,
in hearing you explain the Gospel, that you seem to me to embrace too
many topics; children want but few. You also talk too much; I think
you had better make the children talk more, so as to see if they have
listened and understood. I likewise think that you are too eloquent.
For example, you said to them that they must make an eternal divorce
from sin; that is true, and well said, but I doubt if there are three
girls in your class who know what a divorce is. Be simple, and think
only of making yourself intelligible.
I think, my dear daughter, that you will consider it right that I
should give you my opinion from time to time on what I see you do.
Inspire your children, I conjure you, with the practices of piety,
with a horror of sin, a sense of God's presence, and a docility in
being led by you. I beg you also to guide them according to the spirit
of the Church; as for this, I have written a little compendium which
you must follow.
Adieu, my dear daughter.
_To Mme. de Montalembert_ [head mistress of the Blues].
October 19, 1703.
Your arrangements are all that could be wished, my dear daughter; we
cannot thank God enough for what He does for you by means of your
saintly and able confessor. I tell you again, my joy would be perfect
if I could see you walking as straight without that great support;
but I will have confidence in God and believe that the provision of
strength you are making now will nourish you for the future.
The affection you feel for your girls will never harm you if you love
them all equally; preferences would be ruinous to the class and to
yourself; you must have none, except for the very best girls, and such
preferences ought not to offend the others.
Why do you not ask of your class all that you know I should ask of
them? My greatest honour at Saint-Cyr is that Saint-Cyr can do without
me; what I should now do would be nothing; what there was of good
in me has passed to you, my dear children, and will ever remain in
the Institution. I desire with all my heart that it may be a school
of virtue, and that you may live there as angels while corruption
increases daily in the world. What would I not give to have you all
see as I do how long and wearisome our days are here at Court; I
do not mean only for those persons who have outlived the follies
of youth, but for youth itself, which is dying of ennui because it
wants to amuse itself continually and finds nothing to content that
insatiable desire for pleasure. I toil at the oar to amuse Mme. la
Duchesse de Bourgogne. It would not be thus if they sought only to
please God, to work and sing His praises, as with you; the peace which
that kind of life puts into the heart is a solid and lasting joy.
Adieu; this subject would lead me far. I write to none but you to-day;
assure the dear sisters that the healths about which they inquire are
very good.
_To Mme. de Bouju_ [head mistress of the Yellows].
January 4, 1704.
Yes, my dear daughter, you must use simple language; a nun should rule
that as she rules her eyes, her walk, and all her actions. We should
feed on Holy Scripture, but not use its terms more than is necessary
to make it understood. M. Fagon is often praised because he talks
medically in so simple and intelligible a way that we think we see
the things that he explains; a village doctor talks Greek. Explain to
your girls what you find in the books you read to them; but tell them
always they are never to use those words. In this our Mother and I are
not aiming at any one in particular, only at the names you introduce;
and from them we pass to learned words, in short, to that which may be
called the pedantic spirit. We cannot endure this in learned people;
how much more displeasing is it in ignorant ones and particularly in
those of our sex! We should do very wrong, my dear daughter, to tell
you this in a roundabout way; because, by the favour God has done you,
we can say to you all without reserve. Ask Him, I beg of you, to give
to me the same grace.
_To Mme. du Pérou._
FONTAINEBLEAU, October 1, 1707.
I think as you do about Saint-Cyr; and whatever reasons I may have
to open the door to certain persons sometimes, I am always enchanted
when they go out of it, and I never love Saint-Cyr so well as when
it is its natural self. My sister de Radouay will tell you if that
is flattery; she tells us many truths in a jesting way, and I should
like, as she advises, to prepare you for the change you will some
day feel; but I find difficulty in doing so, and I fall back on what
wisdom has told us: "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
My intention was to answer all letters with my own hand, but I have
so many things to do that I must husband myself from early morning in
order to be able to go on till night; my sister de Fontaines would
choke at the recital of my days; my restraints extend to everything.
The letter of my sister de Jas has furnished me with many subjects
of rejoicing in the account she gives me of her interior and her
exterior; but those are subjects of confession,--they must not be
answered. Our good mistress of the novices goes quietly to her ends;
she asks me to send her a "Conversation;" if she saw me, she would
not ask it. My poor mind is dragged apart by four horses; it is not
yet eleven o'clock, but my head feels bound with iron, and yet I must
sustain my rôle as personage till ten at night.
I see no difficulty in putting Mlle. de Grouchy into the novitiate;
why not also Fontanges, who desires it so ardently? Their appearance
is not charming, but we must accustom ourselves to value only that
which God values. I am perfectly well so far as my general health is
concerned; that is to say, I no longer have fever or weakness, but
many rheumatic pains in my head as soon as I expose myself to cold.
Adieu, my children. I shall see you again on the 17th of October, and
I defy you to be more glad than I.
_To Mme. de Saint-Périer_ [mistress of the Blues].