orthodoxy, he made himself remarkable by a spirit of tolerance unusual
in that age, by discountenancing superstition, and by his enlightened
disapproval of the abuses of the conventual system. A great doubter
of modern miracles, he scrupled not, when a bishop, to protest in
a letter to his flock, relating to some miraculous cross, against
"those who put their confidence in wood and in lying prodigies." His
natural good sense and kindness of heart made him oppose the compulsory
profession of young women. In the _Mémoires_, he relates an anecdote
of a young girl, at whose reception as a nun M. Chéron, the grand
vicar of Bourges, was requested to assist. The vicar, having donned
his sacerdotal robes, asked the novice, in the usual formula, what she
demanded. "I demand the keys of the monastery, Sir, in order to leave
it," was her firm reply, which astonished all present. The vicar could
not believe his ears, till she repeated her words, adding, that she
had chosen that opportunity to protest against her destiny, because
there were abundant witnesses. "If the girls who are daily sacrificed
had as much resolution," says Fléchier, "the convents would be less
populous, but the sacrifices offered up in them would be more holy and
voluntary." When invested with the episcopal purple, the worthy man
acted up to these sound opinions. "I may be allowed," says M. Gonod
in his appendix, "to cite, to his glory and to that of religion, his
conduct with regard to a nun at Nismes, who had not, like her sister
at Bourges, had the courage to demand the keys of the convent, and who
subsequently yielded to another description of weakness. Fléchier,
then bishop of Nismes, extended to her his paternal hand, and in this
instance, as in many others, approved himself of the same merciful
family as a Vincent de Paul and a Fénelon." This story is told by
D'Alembert in his "Eulogiums read at the public sittings of the
French Academy," p. 421. An unfortunate girl, whom unfeeling parents
had forced into a convent, was unable to conceal the consequences
of a deplorable error, and her superior confined her in a dungeon,
where she lay upon straw, scarcely nourished by an insufficient
ration of bread, and praying for death as a rescue from suffering.
Fléchier heard of it, hastened to the convent, and after encountering
much resistance, obtained admission into the wretched cell where
the unfortunate creature languished and despaired. On beholding her
pastor, she extended her arms as to a liberator sent by divine mercy.
The prelate cast a look of horror and indignation at the abbess. "I
ought," he said, "if I obeyed the voice of human justice, to put you
in the place of this unhappy victim of your barbarity; but the God of
clemency, whose minister I am, bids me show, even to you, an indulgence
you have not had for her. Go, and for sole penance, read daily in the
Evangelists the chapter of the woman taken in adultery." He released
the nun, and caused every care to be taken of her, but she was past
recovery, and died soon afterwards, blessing his name.
How can we, after reading such traits as this, criticise with any
severity the occasional levity displayed in the _Mémoires_? How dwell
invidiously on the small frivolities and flippancies of the Abbé, whose
after life was a pattern of Christian virtue and charity? Short of a
degree of perfection impossible to humanity, we can scarcely imagine
a more charming character than that of Fléchier, whose very failings
"leaned to virtue's side." His sincere benevolence and gentle temper
display themselves in each page of his book, in every recorded action
of his life. His professed principles--from which we can nowhere trace
his practice to have differed--breathed a very different spirit to
that usually attributed to the Roman Catholic priesthood. "Violence
and oppression," he says, in a letter to M. Vignier, "are not the
paths the gospel has marked out for us." His smallest actions were
inspired by the same kindly maxims, by a spirit of tolerance and
compassion for human frailty. The vein of satire we have exemplified by
extracts is tempered by a tone of good-humoured _bonhomie_; and such
sallies, moreover, could not have been intended to wound the feelings
of persons in whose lifetime, it is pretty evident, Fléchier did not
destine his book to publication. Neither can fault be fairly found
with the occasional freedom of his language and peculiarity of his
topics. What we esteem license in these strait-laced days, was regarded
as decorous, and passed without censure or observation in those in
which he wrote; and the most rigorous will admit the absence of all
offensive intention. The Abbé is a chronicler; as such he puts down
facts, unmutilated and unabridged. If the words in which he clothes
them have sometimes more of the courtier's easy pleasantry than of the
churchman's grave reserve, we must make allowance for the spirit of the
age, look to intention rather than form, and we shall admit that his
_gaillardises_ are set down all "in the ease of his heart," without the
least design of conveying impure thoughts or immodest images to the
imaginations of his contemporaries or of future generations. "If any
wonder," says M. Gonod, "at Fléchier's language, as being sometimes
rather free, I tell them he derived his freedom from his virtue;
unreproached by his conscience, he thought he might speak plainly:
_omnia munda mundis_. As an historian, he understood the historian's
duty differently from the Abbé Ducreux, differently from this or that
obscure critic who may dare attack him; he took as a guide this maxim:
'Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat.'--(_Cic. de
Orat._ ii. 15.) We must also revert to the times in which he wrote; do
we not see, if only by Molière's comedies, how much more prudish and
reserved our language has become?"
Amongst the long list of crimes of which the Grands-Jours took
cognisance, that of sorcery was not forgotten. "Conversation is an
agreeable thing," says Fléchier, after three or four pages of gossip,
including an anecdote of Mademoiselle de Scudéry and her brother, who
had been arrested at Lyons on suspicion of high treason, for having
discussed rather too loudly the manner of slaying the king in a
projected tragedy--"but exercise is also necessary, and I know nothing
pleasanter than to take the country air after having passed several
hours discoursing in one's apartment. So we got into our coaches with
some ladies, and went to visit the source of the Clermont fountains,
one of the curiosities of the country." His elegant account of these
springs and the surrounding scenery is alone sufficient to establish
his reputation as a proficient in the descriptive art, and loses
little by comparison with Charles Nodier's brilliant description of
the same spot, the Tivoli of Auvergne. "On our return home we found M.
l'Intendant there before us. He had come from Aurillac, and had had
great difficulty in getting through the snow which had already fallen
in the mountains. He had caused a president of the election of Brioude
to be arrested, accused of several crimes, and especially of magic.
One of his servants deposed that he had given him certain characters
which made him sometimes rise from the ground, when at church, in
sight of all the congregation. The Intendant having questioned the
accused on this subject, he was so disconcerted that he nearly lost
his senses; he fell into a furious passion, and then entreated they
would not press him further, that he was not disposed to acknowledge
any thing that day, but that on the morrow he would confess all the
irregularities of his life. His prayer was granted, and M. de Fortia
gave him in charge to four of his people. I do not know if the devil
had promised to rescue him from the hands of a Master of Requests,
or if, by his art, he bewitched his keepers; but it is certain he
made his escape to the woods and mountains, where they have now for
three days pursued him. Here is an instance how the devil is friendly
and of good faith with those who love him, and how he deceives even
Intendants. I was very sorry to miss this opportunity of hearing news
of the witches' sabbath and of learning the secret of the characters;
perhaps some good angel, hostile to his demon, will deliver him again
into the hands of justice." This tone of mockery, when referring to
a belief pretty universal in those days,--the belief, namely, in
witchcraft and sorcerers--contrasts oddly enough with the strain of
grave credulity in which the same writer tells the touching tale of a
shepherd and shepherdess who gathered flowers together in the meadows,
held tender rendezvous in a green alley formed by nature at the foot
of a rock, made reciprocal presents of fruits and flowers, and drank
the water of the limpid fountain out of the hollow of each other's
hands. This loving pair, the Corydon and Phillis of Auvergne, were
ultimately united in the bonds of wedlock, when, behold, a malicious
farmer, two of whose ducks had been devoured by Phillis's poodle, laid
a spell upon them, greatly to the hindrance of the connubial felicity
they had so fondly anticipated. The charm was dissolved by the prayers
and interposition of Mother Church; and this little history, Fléchier
admonishes us, "shows that we ought not to treat these enchantments as
fables." Notwithstanding which injunction we should think the Abbé was
indulging in a bit of grave fun, did he not quote Hincmar, archbishop
of Rheims, and Virgil's Eclogues and other authorities, in support of
the authenticity of these malevolent practices.
It could hardly have excited surprise, if, in a narrative of criminal
assizes written by a churchman, the misdeeds of the priests had been
softened down, lightly passed over, or even entirely suppressed.
The least jesuitical of Abbés might have reconciled such a course
to his conscience by the argument that, although the crimes of the
individuals merited infamous publicity, the interests of religion and
of the ecclesiastic body would suffer by their revelation. No such
plausible plea is set up by Fléchier, either mentally or openly. He is
unsparing in his censure of the laxity of the clergy, and records their
derelictions as freely and unreservedly as those of the lay population.
A sincere lover of religion, he entertained an honest detestation for
those who, under its mask, violated its tenets; and he pillories a
priest as readily and heartily as he does Mad Canillac, or Montvallat
the extortioner, or any other of the profane and tyrannical gentry
of Auvergne. And some very pretty tales he finds to tell about his
brethren in black, conveying most unflattering ideas of their morality
and Christian virtues. Amongst others, is that of a certain _curé_
of St Babel, who was condemned to death for murder, upon very strong
evidence--a companion of the slain man having sworn positively to the
murderer's identity, and there being besides a mass of circumstantial
evidence. When the _curé_ had been hung his innocence was discovered.
He denied to the very last moment the crime for which he suffered,
avowing, however, that he was guilty of many others. And some of his
offences, written down by Fléchier, deserved severe castigation,
although the gallows was rather too violent a penalty for them. He was
particularly blamed for his amours, and so indiscreet in the choice of
time and place, that he was known to make love to a servant maid whilst
her mistress lay dying in an adjoining apartment, anxiously awaiting
the last sacrament. "He forgot where he was," says Fléchier, "and
love overcame duty. Instead of hearing the confession of the one, he
made a declaration to the other, and far from exhorting the sick woman
to a pious death, he solicited the healthy one to an evil life." And
then this antithetical chronicler proceeds, rather unnecessarily, to a
_verbatim_ report of the libertine _curé's_ love speeches, adding, we
suspect, some slight embellishments of his own. The priest's profligacy
was indirectly the cause of his death, for the murder for which he
undeservedly suffered was committed on a peasant who had detected him
in an intrigue, and fastened him into a barn with one of the objects
of his illicit flame. When, a day or two afterwards, the author of
this practical joke was set upon and slain, suspicion naturally fell
on him who had been its object, and he was arrested by the lieutenant
of the watch, who apparently anticipated an attempt at evasion, for
"he insinuated himself into his house under pretence of having masses
said, and conducted him very adroitly to Clermont." Upon the day of
this man's condemnation or execution, (it does not appear very clearly
which of the two is meant,) a ray of sunshine again seduced Fléchier
and his company out of the town, and they made an expedition to the
country-house called Oradoux, then and still the property of the
family of Champflour. The grounds were rendered very agreeable to the
party by a multitude of purling streams, whose waters were applied
to various fantastical purposes, "making very pleasant figures," as
Fléchier informs us. "One finds basins supplied by a thousand streams,
floating islands forming small apartments, where all manner of parties
of pleasure take place; an aviary enclosing cascades, a grotto whence
the water flows on all sides by a hundred little leaden tubes, and a
Diana in a niche who throws up streamlets of water, and is completely
covered by a liquid veil falling unceasingly and always preserving its
form." Whilst perambulating these aqueous parterres, the Abbé fell in
with a canon, seemingly a worthy and sensible man, who had sought that
retirement with a view to serious meditation. Unrestrained by this
latter consideration, Fléchier, having formed at first sight so good
an opinion of the stranger's worth and wisdom, courteously addressed
him. "I saluted him as civilly as I could, accosting him with a smiling
air, in which was mingled, however, a little of my habitual gravity."
The canon took the interruption kindly, and the pair walked and
talked together. Their dialogue is given at length in the _Mémoires_,
indebted, no doubt, to Fléchier's nimble pen for many flowers of style,
and, perhaps, for much of the subject matter. The church of Clermont
was the subject of discourse, and from the church a transition to the
bishops was very easy. Various saints, and more than one sinner, had
ruled the diocese of Clermont; and in the latter class was reckoned a
certain Joachim d'Estaing, who had worn the mitre for the first six
and thirty years of the seventeenth century. He was stone blind, but
the infirmity affected him little. When overtaken by it (at an early
age) he took for his motto: _Charitate et fide, non oculis, Christi
diriguntur oves_. Charitable he was, faith he may have had, his cecity
was perhaps no absolute impediment to the discharge of his pastoral
duties; but neither charity, faith, nor blindness, sufficed to restrain
him within the limits of ecclesiastical decorum. Such a rattling,
love-making, rollicking boy of a bishop had seldom been heard of. His
principal occupations were making war with his chapter and pleading
against his canons. These maintained their privileges with much vigour
and success. So that when he was on the point of death, some one having
exhorted him to do good to a chapter whose tranquillity he had so long
troubled:--"I have done them more good than all my predecessors," was
his sharp and prompt reply, "since in pleading against them, I have
established their privileges upon an immoveable basis." When overtaken
by blindness, he had assigned to him, as an episcopal aide-de-camp,
André de Sausia, Bishop of Bethlehem, who, proceeding to perform some
particular duties in the church of Clermont, the canons shut the door
against him, pretending that only the bishop of Clermont had that
privilege. Thereupon M. L'Estaing, having obtained the sanction of
the temporal authorities, burst open the doors with battering-rams,
"not unlike those formerly used by the Romans." On another occasion,
the Viscount de Polignac, governor of the province, having had a
praying-desk (_prie-Dieu_) placed for him in the nave of the church,
without regard to a previous warning that the King alone had that
right, the blind bishop had sufficient courage and decision to expel
him the sacred edifice. Fléchier does not give the details of this
scandalous scene, but they are to be found in contemporary authors. The
bishop, it appears, used force to expel M. de Polignac, who ordered his
guards to fire, when one of the bishop's gentlemen prevented bloodshed
and sacrilege by swearing that if they made a movement, he would run
his sword through the Viscount's body. The bishop's firmness, although
it had a degree of violence less becoming in a church dignitary than
in a temporal warrior, is approved by Fléchier as an episcopal virtue.
The faults he finds with the diocesan of Clermont are of a different
stamp. He deplores his weaknesses, as tending, by example, to the
encouragement of immorality, and to the disrepute of the church. "All
the balls were held at his house, which, instead of an abode of prayer
and penitence, was one of festival and rejoicing; and he appeared there
not as a bishop instructing his flock, but as a gentleman in a violet
coat, saying soft things to the ladies. His manner of saluting these
was other than paternal; and, passing his hands over their faces, he
would form an exact estimate of their appearance, never deceiving
himself as to their beauty, blind though he was; having his discernment
in his hands as others have in their eyes, and, like a good shepherd,
knowing all his sheep." These facial manipulations were of small
impropriety compared to other particulars of the bishop's conduct and
discourse. Under such a prelate, the conduct of the clergy was not
likely to be very exemplary, and accordingly we read that canons were
seen habitually dressed in coloured clothes, throwing aside their
ecclesiastical garb when service was over, and appearing covered with
gay ribbons. They left the altar to run to the playhouse, escorting
ladies thither, and making a scandalous mixture of worldly vanity and
external piety. The parish priests were no better; and we are told
of one so fond of the chase that he passed all his time in it, to
the neglect of his parochial duties. To such an extent did he carry
his passion for field sports, that, when conveying the consecrated
wafer to a distant farm, he was known to make his clerk carry his
fowling-piece, so that he might have a shot at any game he met upon
the road. Which piece of profanity elicits from the worthy Fléchier an
angry and indignant ejaculation. It is not surprising that, under the
lax rule of Monseigneur Joachim, the clerical profession was in favour
with the idle and dissolute. During his time a vast number of religious
fraternities sprang up in the diocese; no less than eight convents and
monasteries being established in the town of Clermont. An ordinance,
published in 1651, by Jacques Pereyret, canon of the cathedral church,
is directed at ecclesiastics who "frequent public games, taverns,
and gambling tables; buying and selling at fairs and markets; having
commerce with persons of profligate life, and abandoning themselves
to all manner of vices and excesses," &c. &c. This state of things,
however, was not limited to the diocese of Clermont, but was at that
time only too general in France. The following is curious, on account
both of the state of things it exhibits, and of the cavalier manner
in which Fléchier refers to his holiness the Pope. "So great were the
irregularities of the clergy of Clermont, that there exists a papal
bull exempting the canons and the children they might have had, by any
crime whatever, from the bishop's jurisdiction. This bull appeared to
us of an extraordinary form, and we admired the effrontery of the court
of Rome and of the canons of that day."
We find several ladies, amongst them some of high family and name,
appearing as plaintiffs or defendants before the tribunal of the Grands
Jours. The commencement of the third month's sitting, was signalised
by "an audience that every body found very diverting, because there was
pleaded the cause of the Countess of Saigne against her husband, on a
pleasant difference they had together." The old count had committed
the common blunder of marrying a young and pretty wife, who became
desirous of a separation, and brought a variety of scandalous charges
against him. She had the sympathy and support of many of her own
sex, and especially of the _grisettes_, whom the reverend Fléchier
gravely defines as "young, _bourgeoises_, having rather a bold style
of gallantry, and priding themselves on much liberty." Finally,
the count and countess made up their quarrel. The affair of Madame
de Vieuxpont, a Norman lady, was of a more serious nature. She was
arraigned for conspiracy against the _procureur du Roi_ at Evreux,
against whom she conceived so violent an animosity, that she resolved
to ruin him at any price, and to that end associated herself with an
intendant of woods and forests, a serjeant, and three or four other
persons. Her plot being ripe, she accused the obnoxious magistrate
of conspiracy against the state, of having called the king a tyrant,
and of a design to establish in France a republic after the model of
Venice. The unfortunate functionary was arrested and sent to Paris,
where he died before his trial was at an end, and narrowly escaped
posthumous condemnation. At last his memory was cleared by a decision
of the Chamber of Justice, and his perjured accusers were brought
before the Grands-Jours. M. Talon, the public prosecutor, pressed for
the perpetual banishment of Madame de Vieuxpont and the confiscation
of all her property. She was even in fear of capital punishment, and
her countenance brightened greatly when the decision of the court,
condemning her to three years' exile and a fine of two thousand livres,
was intimated to her. She was a lady of violent character, and had
lived on very bad terms with her husband, in whose death some hinted
her agency; but this, Fléchier charitably remarks, was perhaps a mere
calumny, invented in retaliation of those wherewith she had assailed
other persons. It is distinctly stated, however, that she went so far
as to challenge her husband to fight a duel; and when he declined a
combat in all respects so singular, her mother wounded him with a
pistol-shot,--an advertisement, the Abbé quietly remarks, never to fall
out with one's mother-in-law. Then we have the story of a handsome
village maiden, who might have pleased the most fastidious courtiers as
well as the bumpkins of Mirefleurs. She was besieged by admirers, from
amongst whom she selected one whom she loved with great fidelity. And
after her marriage, one of her former suitors risking a daring attempt
upon her virtue, she mustered the courage of Lucretia, to protect
herself from the evil designs of a modern Tarquin. Finding tears and
entreaties unavailing, and as the sole means of preserving her honour,
she seized a halbert that stood in a corner of the chamber, and
inflicted a deadly wound on her insolent pursuer. "She pierced," says
Fléchier, in his flowery style, and not in the very best taste, "the
wretch's heart that burned for her; two or three ardent sighs escaped
it, and he expired." The testimony of the neighbours, whom she called
in, and her reputation for virtue, absolved her in the eyes of her
judges. But when the Grands-Jours came, the relatives of the deceased
revived the case; and that tribunal--upon what grounds it is difficult
to say--condemned the woman and her family to a heavy fine. There seems
to have been scanty justice. At the present day in France, the verdict
of justifiable homicide does not preclude a civil action for damages;
but these would now hardly be granted by any French court in such a
case as the above. The justice of the Grands-Jours was evidently of a
very loose description. They had not to dread the revision of a higher
court, or the lash of newspaper satire; the king would not trouble
himself much about them, so long as they duly scourged the tyrannical
counts and barons who impoverished the country and caused discontent
amongst the peasantry; and thus, unfettered by any of the usual
checks, the bench of gentlemen in square caps, loose cloaks, flowing
curls, and delicate moustaches, represented in the frontispiece to M.
Gonod's publication, certainly did render some very inexplicable and,
as it appears from Fléchier's chronicle, very iniquitous judgments.
Whilst they blundered and mismanaged in their department, an elderly
lady of great enterprise and activity made herself exceedingly busy in
hers. It was a jurisdiction she had created for herself, without the
least shadow of a right, and it is inconceivable how she was allowed
to exercise, even for a day, her self-conferred authority. Madame
Talon, the respectable mother of the advocate-general, had no sooner
arrived at Clermont, than she undertook the whole police regulation
of the town, imposing taxes, correcting weights and measures, fixing
a tariff of prices, and lecturing the Clermont ladies as to the mode
of distributing their alms. At last the housewives of Auvergne would
stand this no longer, and then she turned her attention to monastic
abuses, and hospital regulations. She was evidently an officious
nuisance; and although Fléchier supports her, it is after a feeble
manner, his faint praise strongly resembling condemnation. "When people
do good," he says, "it is impossible to keep the world from murmuring.
Some say she would do better to alter her head-dress, which is a very
extraordinary one; others have remarked, that she wears a spreading
cap, bearing some resemblance to a mitre, which is the livery of her
mission and the character of her authority. Others complain, that she
spoils every thing instead of doing good, prevents charities by her
rigorous examination of charitable ladies, destroys the hospital by
endeavouring to regulate it, because she sends away those who, to her
thinking, are not ill enough, leaving it empty, &c., &c. And it is
said, she ought not to meddle so much, examining every thing, even to
a prison allowance and an executioner's wages; but," concludes the sly
Abbé--who doubtless concealed a little solemn irony under this long
recapitulation of charges and brief acquittal of the accused--"Virtue
is generous and puts itself above all such murmurs."