Produced by Al Haines
PRIESTS,
WOMEN, AND FAMILIES,
TRANSLATED FROM THE EIGHTH EDITION
OF
LE PRETRE, LA FEMME, ET LA FAMILLE.
BY
J. MICHELET.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY THE PROTESTANT EVANGELICAL MISSION,
5, RACQUET COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1874.
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
When it was first proposed to publish an English Translation of this
admirable work, its gifted Author wrote to the Translator to the
following effect: "This work cannot be without interest to the people
of England, among whom, at this moment, the Jesuits are so madly
pursuing their work. Nothing is more strange than their chimerical
hopes of speedily converting England."
Indeed, their intrigues and manoeuvres were thought at that
time--1845--to be "chimerical," even by many who were _forced_ to join
in the Jesuit Crusade. One of the Bishops, directed by Dr. Wiseman to
use the "Litany for the Conversion of England," replied, "You may as
well pray that the blackamoor may be made white." He was ordered to
Rome, and six months' detention there quieted his opposition to the
Jesuit schemes intended to "bend or break" his country.
In presenting a New Issue of "PRIESTS, WOMEN, AND FAMILIES", we meet a
want--a necessity--of Society. The CONFESSIONAL UNMASKED, which so
_faithfully_ portrayed the Romish and Ritualistic Priest, and which was
so unjustly and _illegally_ suppressed by the violence and intrigues of
Priests and those whom they "directed," was too plain in its utterances
for general reading. Its _testimony_ as a WITNESS _was_ and _is_ of
the highest importance; but we fully concur with the Author of this
"work of art" that it should not be disfigured by the portraits of
Priests.
The following _Illustrations_ are a proof that something ought to be
done on behalf of the deluded creatures who, under the pretence of
becoming the "Brides of Christ," are subjected to "indignities" and
cruelty, not tolerated anywhere else.
"ARTICLES OF PIETY;"
OR, INSTRUMENTS OF TORTURE IN ENGLISH CONVENTS.
[Illustration: This engraving is copied from a _Photograph_, Published
by the Society. For a description of these and other "Articles of
Piety," see _Oxford and Roman Railway_. Price 1s.]
Instruments of Torture are _now_ practised upon Nuns in Romish Convents
in _London_ and in all parts of the country.
The Romish "Articles of Piety," named on the next page, were bought at
"Little's Ecclesiastical Warehouse", 20, Cranbourne Street, and at the
Convent of the "Sisters of the Assumption of the Perpetual Adoration of
the Blessed Sacrament," London.
Such Instruments of Torture are fitter for the worshippers of Baal,
than for the worshippers of God; and a person using them upon cattle
would lay himself open to a prosecution by the "Society for Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals." Both the parties who purchased these articles
are intimately known to Mr. Steele, the Secretary of the Protestant
Evangelical Mission and Electoral Union.
COPIES OF BILLS GIVEN TO PURCHASERS.
No. 1. Jan. 15, 1868.
Ecclesiastical Warehouse,
20, Cranbourne Street.
s. d.
To Hair Shirt .................. 12 6
To Discipline .................. 4 0
Two Do., had last week ......... 3 6
To Massive Waist Chain ......... 8 6
Two Armlets, 3s. 6d. & 1s. 6d. 5 0
One Hair Band .................. 5 0
L1 18 6
Rec. C. Cuddon. for F. A. LITTLE
No. 2. Convent of the Assumption,
24, Kensington Sq.
s. d.
One Iron Discipline ........... 7 0
One Nut ....................... 2 6
Total ............. 9 6
Rec. Sr. M. Bernardine, May 1, 1869.
No. 3. Convent of the Assumption,
24, Kensington Sq.
s. d.
Iron Discipline ............... 5 6
Two Bracelets ................. 1 6
One Nut ....................... 2 6
9 6
Paid S--: Sep. --, 1869.
No. 4. Little's Ecclesiastical
Warehouse, 20, Cranbourne Street.
s. d.
To Discipline (9 tails) ....... 6 6
" Ditto (7 tails) ............ 2 3
" Chain Band ................. 6 6
Ditto Smaller ................. 4 6
19 9
Received with thanks, Sep. --, 1869.
Christian Reader,--It is your duty to testify, on God's behalf, against
the _Blasphemy_ and _Cruelty_ of Romanism. The _Maker_ and _Preserver_
of man is the loving _Father_ who gave His only begotten Son to die for
us; and thus make atonement for our sin. "By Him all that believe are
justified from all things."--Acts xiii. 38, 39; Micah vi. 6-8; John
iii. 16; Rom. iii. 20-26; Heb. ix. 22.
IRON DISCIPLINES OF "THE CHURCH."
Saint Liguori, the Doctor of the Romish Church, commends the use of
_Disciplines_ to the "True Spouse of Christ" thus:--
"_Disciplines_, or _Flagellations_, are a species of mortification,
strongly recommended by St. Francis de Sales, and universally adopted
in Religious Communities of both sexes. All the modern Saints, without
a single exception, have continually practised this sort of penance.
It is related of St. Lewis Gonzaga, that he often scourged himself into
blood three times a-day. And at the point of death, not having
sufficient strength to use the lash, he besought the Provincial to have
him disciplined from head to foot."
[Illustration: Instruments of Discipline or Flagellation]
A. This is a band for going round the body to "mortify the flesh." It
is made of _Iron wire_, and the _ends_ of each link form Spikes which
range in length from the sixteenth of an inch to half an inch.
B. This is a _Flagellum_, made of strong iron wire. It has _five_
tails to represent the "Five wounds;" and at the end of each tail there
is a _Spike_, about an inch long, to _pierce_ the flesh. It will be
seen that the lowermost joints are the heaviest, so as to increase the
severity of the blows.
C. This is a _Cross_ resting upon an "I. H. S."--Jesus the Saviour of
Man. It is for wearing on the breast, and is made of _iron_, as,
indeed, all the other articles represented in the engraving are. It is
covered over with _spikes_ on the side next the body.
D. This is another _Flagellum_, commemorative of the "Five wounds."
At the end of each tail there is a kind of _Rowel_ with sharp points.
It is impossible to use this without cutting the flesh.
E. This _Belt_ is similar to A, but of stronger material. This _belt_
sometimes becomes _imbedded_ in the flesh of the devoted _victim_ of
"the Church."
F. This _Flagellum_ has _Nine_ tails, to represent the nine months
during which "The Word was made flesh." The "Cat-and-nine-tails" and
the "Incarnation"!!
G. This _Flagellum_ is a modification of B, D, and L.
H, J, P. These are _Bands_ for the _limbs_, and, like A and E, are
covered with _spikes_.
I. This is a _Cross_ similar to that resting upon the "I. H. S." above.
K. This is a _Cross_ and _Heart_ to be worn over the seat of the
affections, to show that all "natural affection" is to be crucified.
This was painfully illustrated in the case of a young lady who had left
her home and entered one of these Conventual Establishments to the
great grief of her parents. Her father called at the convent to see
her. She was brought to him, and on his expostulating with her, and
soliciting her return home, he observed that she pressed her hands
against her breast, and seemed to suffer excruciating pain. After a
little, blood oozed through her dress, and she was then withdrawn by
the "Sisters."
L. This _Flagellum_ may be called the Mother Superior's "_Wild Cat_."
M. This _Flagellum_ has Seven tails, to represent the "Seven Dolours"
of the Virgin; and a doleful tale they tell.
N. These two _Nets_ of Iron wire, covered over with _spikes_, are for
the most cruel and immodest purposes. We dare not describe them.
O. Each of these two hemispheres, together forming a _Nut_, has _five
brass spikes_, which are used for imprinting the _Stigmata_ or "Five
wounds" of Christ upon the _Religious_.
Were such cruelties perpetrated upon the _Heathen_, all our _Christian_
Churches would resound with appeals to the sympathy of the people to
come to the help of the sufferers, whether _Fanatics_ or _Victims_.
This would be commendable. Why, then, is the same course not adopted
on behalf of Nuns, who, as Rev. Pierce Connelly says, "are not only
slaves, but who are, _de facto_, by a Satanic consecration, secret
prisoners for life, and may any day be put an end to, or much worse,
with less risk of vengeance here in England than in Italy or
Spain!"--Extracted from the Annual Report of the Protestant Evangelical
Mission and Electoral Union, January, 1873.
PREFACE.
The following pages--intended to restore _Domestic Life_ to French
Society--formed the Preface to the Third Edition of _Priests, Women,
and Families_, by M. Michelet, of which celebrated work, "THE
PROTESTANT EVANGELICAL MISSION" have published an Edition in English.
This book has produced upon our adversaries an effect we had not
anticipated. It has made them lose every sense of propriety and
self-respect:--nay, more, even that respect for the sanctuary which it
was their duty to teach us. From the pulpits of their crowded churches
they preach against a living man, calling him by his name, and invoking
upon the author and his book the hatred of those who know not how to
read, and who will never read this work. The heads of the clergy must,
indeed, have felt themselves touched to the quick, to let loose these
furious preachers upon us.
We have hit the mark too fairly, it should seem. Woman!--this was the
point on which they were sensitive. Direction, the spiritual guidance
of women, is the vital part of ecclesiastical authority; and they will
fight for it to the death. Strike, if you will, elsewhere, but not
here. Attack the dogma--all well and good; they may, perhaps, make a
show of violence, or perpetrate some empty declamation; but if you
should happen to meddle with this particular point, the thing becomes
serious, and they no longer contain themselves. It is a sad sight to
see pontiffs, elders of the people, gesticulating, stamping, foaming at
the mouth, and gnashing their teeth.[1] Young men, do not look;
epileptic convulsions have occasionally a contagious effect upon the
spectators. Let us leave them and depart; we must resume our studies
without loss of time: "Art is long, life is short."
I remember having read in the correspondence of Saint Charles Borromeo,
that one of his friends, a person of authority and importance, having
censured some Jesuit or other who was too fond of confessing nuns, the
latter came in a fury to insult him. The Jesuit knew his strength:
being a preacher then in vogue, well off at court, and still better at
the court of Rome, he thought he need not stand upon ceremony. He went
to the greatest extremes, was violent, insolent, as much as he pleased:
his grave censor remained cool. The Jesuit could no longer keep within
the bounds of decency, and made use of the vilest expressions. The
other, calm and firm, answered nothing; he let him continue his
declamation, threats, and violent gestures; he only looked at his feet.
"Why were you always looking at his feet?" inquired an eye-witness, as
soon as the Jesuit, was gone. "Because," replied the noble man calmly,
"I fancied I saw the cloven hoof peeping out every now and then; and
this man, who seemed possessed with a devil, might be the tempter
himself, disguised as a Jesuit."
One prelate predicts in sorrow that we are sending the priests to
martyrdom.
Alas, this martyrdom is what they themselves demand, either aloud or in
secret, namely--marriage.
We think, without enumerating the too well known inconveniences of
their present state, that if the priest is to advise the family, it is
good for him to know what a family is; that as a married man, of a
mature age and experience, one who has loved and suffered, and whom
domestic affections have enlightened upon the mysteries of moral life,
which are not to be learned by guessing, he would possess at the same
time more affection and more wisdom.
It is true the defenders of the clergy have lately drawn such a picture
of marriage, that many persons perhaps will henceforth dread the
engagement. They have far exceeded the very worst things that
novelists and modern socialists have ever said against the _legal
union_. Marriage, which lovers imprudently seek as a confirmation of
love, is, according to them, but a warfare: we marry in order to fight.
It is impossible to degrade lower the virtue of matrimony. The
sacrament of union, according to these doctors, is useless, and can do
nothing unless a third party be always present between the
partners--_i.e._, the combatants--to separate them.
It had been generally believed that two persons were sufficient for
matrimony: but this is all altered; and we have the new system, as set
forth by themselves, composed of three elements: 1st, _man_, the
strong, the violent; 2ndly, _woman_, a being naturally weak; 3rdly, the
_priest_, born a man, and strong, but who is kind enough to become weak
and resemble woman; and who, participating thus in both natures, may
interpose between them.
Interpose! interfere between two persons who were to be henceforth but
one! This changes wonderfully the idea which, from the beginning of
the world, has been entertained of marriage.
But this is not all; they avow that they do not pretend to make an
impartial interference that might favour each of the parties, according
to reason. No, they address themselves exclusively to the wife: she it
is whom they undertake to protect against her natural protector. They
offer to league with her in order to transform the husband. If it were
once firmly established that marriage, instead of being unity in two
persons, is a league of one of them with a stranger, it would become
exceedingly scarce. Two to one! the game would seem too desperate; few
people would be bold enough to face the peril. There would be no
marriages but for money; and these are already too numerous. People in
difficulties would doubtless not fail to marry; for instance, a
merchant placed by his pitiless creditor between marriage and a warrant.
To be transformed, re-made, remodelled, and changed in nature! A grand
and difficult change! But there would be no merit in it, if it was not
of one's free will, and only brought about by a sort of domestic
persecution, or household warfare.
First of all, we must know whether transformation means amelioration,
whether it be intended by transformation to ascend higher and higher in
moral life, and become more virtuous and wise. To ascend would be well
and good; but if it should be to fall lower?
And first of all, the wisdom they offer us does not imply knowledge.
"What is the use of knowledge and literature? They are mere toys of
luxury, vain and dangerous ornaments of the mind, both strangers to the
soul." Let us not contest the matter, but pass over this empty
distinction that opposes the mind to the soul, as if ignorance was
innocence, and as if they could have the gifts of the soul and heart
with a poor, insipid, idiotic literature!
But where is their heart? Let us catch a glimpse of it. How is it
that those who undertake to develope it in others dispense with giving
any proof of it in themselves? But this living fountain of the heart
is impossible to be hidden, if we really have it within us. It springs
out in spite of everything; if you were to stop it on one side, it
would run out by the other. It is more difficult to be confined than
the flowing of great rivers:--try to shut up the sources of the Rhone
or Rhine! These are vain metaphors, and very ill-placed, I allow: to
what deserts of Arabia must I not resort to find more suitable ones?
We are in a church: see the crowd, the dense mass of people who after
having wandered far, enter here weary and athirst, hoping to find some
refreshment; they wait with open mouths. Will there even be one small
drop of dew?
No; a decent, proper, blunt-looking man ascends the pulpit: he will not
affect them; he confines himself to proofs. He makes a grand display
of reasoning, with high logical pretensions and much solemnity in his
premises. Then come sudden, sharp conclusions; but for middle term
there is none: "These things require no proof." Why, then, miserable
reasoner, did you make so much noise about your proofs?
Well! do not prove! only love! and we will let you off everything else.
Say only one word from the heart to comfort this crowd. All that
variegated mass of living heads, that you see so closely assembled
around your pulpit are not blocks of stone, but so many living souls.
Those yonder are young men, the rising generation, our future society.
They are of happy dispositions, full of spirit, fresh and entire, such
as God made them, and untamed; they rush forward incautiously even to
the very brink of precipices. What! youth, danger, futurity, and hopes
clouded with fear--does not all this move you? Will nothing open your
fatherly heart?
Mark, too, that brilliant crowd of women and flowers: in all that
splendour so delightful to the eye there is much suffering. I pray you
to speak one word of comfort to them. You know they are your
daughters, who come every evening so forlorn to weep at your feet.
They confide in you, and tell you everything; you know their wounds.
Try to find some consoling word--surely that cannot be so difficult.
What man is there who, in seeing the heart of a woman bleeding before
him, would not feel his own heart inspired with words to heal it? A
dumb man, for want of words, would find what is worth more, a flood of
tears!
What shall we say of those who, in presence of so many desponding,
sickly, and confiding persons, give them, as their only remedy, the
spirit of an academy, glittering commonplaces, old paradoxes,
Bonaparteism, socialism, and what not? There is in all this, we must
confess, a sad dryness and a great want of feeling.
Ah! you _are_ dry and harsh! I felt this the other day (it was in
December last), when I read on the walls, as I was passing by, an order
from the archbishop. It was a case of suicide; a poor wretch had
killed himself in the church of Saint-Gervais. Was it misery, passion,
madness, spleen, or moral weakness in this melancholy season? No cause
was mentioned; the body alone was there with the blood on the marble
slabs; but no explanation. By what gradation of griefs,
disappointments, and anguish had he been induced to commit this
unnatural act? What steps of moral purgatory had he descended before
he reached the bottom of the abyss? Who could say? No one. But any
man with a gleam of imagination in his heart, sees in this solemn
mystery something to make him weep and pray. That man is not Mr.
Affre: read the mandate. There is compassion for the blood-stained
church, and pity for the polluted stones; but for the dead only a
malediction. But, whether a Christian or not, guilty or not, is he not
still a man, my lord bishop? Could you not, whilst you were condemning
suicide, let fall one word of pity by the way? No, no sentiment of
humanity, nothing for the poor soul, which, besides its misfortune
(which must have been terrible, indeed, since it could not support it),
departs all alone and accursed, to attempt that perilous flight of the
other life and judgment.
Another very different fact had given me some time before a similar
impression. I had gone on business to the house of the venerable
Sister * * *.
She was absent; and two persons, a lady and an aged priest, were
waiting, like myself, in the small parlour. The lady seemed actuated
by some motive of beneficence: the priest, as they are lords and
masters in every Religious house, seemed to be quite at home, and, to
beguile the time, was writing letters at the sister's bureau. At the
conclusion of every note, he listened to the lady for a moment. The
latter, whose gentle face bore traces of grief, impressed one at once
with the goodness of her disposition: perhaps she would not have
attracted my attention, but there was something in her that interested
me. Was it passion or grief? I overheard without listening--she had
lost her son.
An only son, full of affection, spirits, and courage; a young hero,
who, leaving the Polytechnic school, had abandoned everything, riches,
high life, pleasure, happiness, and such a mother! And regardless
alike of safety and danger, had rushed to Marseilles, thence to
Algiers, to the enemy, and to death.
The poor woman, wholly occupied with this idea, snatched, from time to
time, a little moment to put in a word; she wanted to speak to him, and
appeal to his compassion. The scene was infinitely touching and
natural, without any theatrical effect. Her moderate grief and sighs,
without tears, affected me the more.
She was evidently wasting her breath. The thoughts of the priest were
elsewhere. It was not possible for him not to listen; he was forced to
say something or other (the lady was rich, and her carriage was waiting
at the door); but he got off as cheap as he could: "Yes, Madam,
Providence tries us. It strikes us for our good. These are very
painful trials," &c., &c. Such vague and cold words did not discourage
the lady; she drew her chair nearer, thinking he would hear her better:
"Ah! Sir, how shall I tell you? Ah! how can you understand so heavy a
calamity?" She would have made a dead man weep.
Did you ever see the heart-rending sight of the poor pointer, that has
been wounded by a shot, writhing at his master's feet, and licking his
hands, as if praying to him to help him? The comparison will appear,
perhaps, strange to those who have not seen the reality. However, at
that moment, I felt it in my heart. That woman, mortally wounded, yet
so gentle in her grief, seemed to be writhing at the feet of the
priest, and to entreat his compassion.
I looked at that priest: he was vulgar and unfeeling, such as we see so
often, neither wicked nor good; there was nothing to indicate a heart
of iron, but he was as if made of wood. I saw plainly that no one word
of all which his ear had received had entered his soul. One sense was
wanting. But why torment a blind man by speaking to him of colours?
He answers vaguely; occasionally he may guess pretty nearly; but how
can it be helped? he cannot see.
And do not think that the feelings of the heart can be guessed at more
easily. A man without wife or child might study the mysterious working
of a family in books and the world for ten thousand years, without ever
knowing one word about them. Look at these men; it is neither time,
opportunity, nor facility that they lack to acquire knowledge; they
pass their lives with women who tell them more than they tell their
husbands; they know and yet they are ignorant: they know all a woman's
acts and thoughts, but they are ignorant precisely of what is the best
and most intimate part of her character, and the very essence of her
being. They hardly understand her as a lover (of God or man), still
less as a wife, and not at all as a mother. Nothing is more painful
than to see them sitting down awkwardly by the side of a woman to
caress her child: their manner towards it is that of flatterers or
courtiers--anything but that of a father.
What I pity most in the man condemned to celibacy is not only the
privation of the sweetest joys of the heart, but that a thousand
objects of the natural and moral world are, and ever will be, a dead
letter to him. Many have thought, by living apart, to dedicate their
lives to science; but the reverse is the case: in such a morose and
crippled life science is never fathomed; it may be varied and
superficially immense; but it escapes, for it will not reside there.
Celibacy gives a restless activity to researches, intrigues, and
business, a sort of huntsman's eagerness, a sharpness in the subtleties
of school-divinity and disputation; this is at least the effect it had
in its prime. If it makes the senses keen and liable to temptation,
certainly it does not soften the heart. Our terrorists in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were monks.[2] Monastic prisons were
always the most cruel.[3] A life systematically negative, a life
without its functions, developes in man instincts that are hostile to
life; he who suffers, is willing to make others suffer. The harmonious
and fertile parts of our nature, which on the one hand incline to
goodness, and on the other to genius and high invention, can hardly
ever withstand this partial suicide.
Two classes of persons necessarily contract much
insensibility--surgeons and priests. By constantly witnessing
sufferings and death, we become by degrees dead in our sympathetic
faculties. Let us, however, remark this difference, that the
insensibility of the surgeon is not without its utility: if he was
affected by his operation he might tremble. The business of the
priest, on the contrary, requires that he should be affected; sympathy
would be generally the most efficacious remedy to cure the soul. But
independently of what we have just said about the natural harshness of
this profitless life, we must observe that the priest, in contradiction
with a society, the whole of whose progress he condemns, becomes less
and less benevolent for the sinner and the rebel. The physician who
does not like his patient is less likely than another to cure him.
It is a sad reflection to think that these men, who have so little
sympathy, and who are, moreover, soured by contention, should happen to
have in their hands the most gentle portion of mankind; that which has
preserved the most affection, and ever remained the most faithful to
nature, and which, in the very corruption of morals, is still the least
corrupted by interest and hateful passions.
That is to say, that the least loving govern those who love the most.
In order to know well what use they make of this empire over women,
which they claim as their own privilege, we must not confine ourselves
to their flattering and wheedling ways with fashionable ladies, but
inquire of the poor women whom they are able to treat unceremoniously,
those especially, who, being in convents, are at the mercy of the
ecclesiastical superiors, and whom they keep under lock and key, and
undertake to protect alone.
We are not quite satisfied with this protection. For a long time we
thought all was right; we were even simple enough to say to ourselves
that the law could see nothing amiss in this kingdom of grace. But
hark! from those gentle asylums, those images of paradise, we hear sobs
and sighs.
I shall not speak here of the convents that have become real houses of
correction, nor of the events at Sens, Avignon, and Poictiers, nor of
the suicides that have taken place, alas! much nearer home.
No, I shall speak only of the most honourable houses and the most holy
nuns. How are they protected by ecclesiastical authority?
First, _as to the Soul_, or conscience, that dearest possession, on
account of which they sacrifice all the pleasures of this world; is it
true that the sisters of the hospitals who passed for Jansenists have
been latterly persecuted, to make them denounce their supposed secret
directors; and that they have obtained a truce only through the
threatening mediation of a magistrate, who is a celebrated orator and a
firm Gallican?
Again, _as to the Body_, or personal liberty, which the slave gains as
soon as ever he does but touch the sacred soil of France--does
ecclesiastical authority secure this to the nuns? Is it true that a
Carmelite nun, within sixty leagues of Paris, was kept _chained_ for
several months in her convent, and afterwards shut up for _nine years
in a madhouse_?
Is it true that a Benedictine nun was put into a sort of _in pace_, and
afterwards into a room full of mad women, where nothing was heard but
the horrible cries, howlings, and impure language of ruined women, who,
from one excess to another, have become raving mad?[4]
This woman, whose only crime was good sense and a taste for writing and
drawing flowers, served her establishment a long time as housekeeper
and governess: she had taught most of the sisters to read. What does
she ask for? The punishment of her enemies? No: only the consolation
of confessing, and taking the sacrament; spiritual food for her old age.
People may say, "Perhaps the bishop did not know?" The bishop knew
all: "he was much moved"--but he did nothing. The chaplain of the
house knew they were going to put a nun _in pace_. "He sighed "--but
did nothing. The _Vicaire-General_ did not sigh, but sided with the
party against the nun: his _ultimatum_ was that she should die of
hunger, or return to her dungeon.
Who showed himself the real bishop in this business?--The Magistrate.
Who was the real priest? The Advocate, a studious young man, whom
science had withdrawn from the bar, but who, seeing this unfortunate
woman devoid of all succour, for whom no one durst either print or
plead (under the ridiculous system of terror), took up the affair,
spoke, wrote, and acted; taking every necessary step, making journeys
in the depth of winter, and sacrificing both his money and his
time--six months of his life. May God pay him back with interest!
Which is the good Samaritan in this case? Who proved himself the
neighbour of the wretched woman? Who picked up the bleeding victim
from the road, before whom the Pharisees had passed? Who is the real
priest, the true father?
A witty writer of the day uses the term _my fathers_, in speaking of
the magistrates who interpose in the affairs of the Church. He speaks
deridingly, but they deserve the name. Who bestows it upon them? The
afflicted who are the members of Christ, and who, as such, are also the
Church, I should think. Yes, they call them _fathers_ on account of
their paternal equity. Their helpful interposition had too long been
repelled from the threshold of the convents by these crafty words:
"_What are you going to do_? Should you enter here, you would disturb
the peace of these quiet asylums, and startle these timid virgins!"
Why! they themselves call for our assistance: we hear their shrieks
from the streets!
All of us laymen, of whatever denomination, whether magistrates,
politicians, authors, or solitary thinkers, ought to take up the cause
of women more seriously than we have hitherto done.
We cannot leave them where they now are, in hands so harsh and
unfeeling, and which are, moreover, unsafe in more than one respect.
Nothing can be more important or more worthy of uniting us together.
Let us, I pray you, come to an understanding about it; it is the most
holy of all causes: let there be then a cessation from religious
strife. We can recommence our disputes afterwards as much as we please.
And first let us frankly confess the truth to one another. The evil
when confessed and known has a better chance of being remedied. Whom
ought we to accuse in the present state of things?
Let us not accuse the Jesuits, who carry on their Jesuitical trade, nor
the priests, who are dangerous, restless, and violent, only because
they are unhappy. No; we ought rather to accuse ourselves.
If dead men return in broad daylight, if these Gothic phantoms haunt
our streets at noon-day, it is because the living have let the spirit
of life grow weak within them. How is it that these men re-appear
among us, after having been buried by history with all funeral rites,
and laid by the side of other ancient orders? The very sight of them
is a solemn token and a serious warning.
This has been allowed to take place, O ye men of the present day, to
bring you to your senses, and to remind you of what you ought to be.
If the future that is within you were revealed in its full light, who
would turn his eyes towards the departing shadows of darkness and
night? It is for you to find, and for you to make, the future. This
is not a thing that you must expect to find ready made. If the future
is already in you as a bud, transmitted from the most distant ages, let
it grow there as the desire for progress and amelioration, a paternal
wish for the happiness of those who are to follow you. Love in
anticipation your unknown son, for he will be born. Men call him "The
time to come." Then work for him.
The day when fellow-mortals will perceive in you the man of future and
a magnanimous mind, families will be rallied. Woman will follow you
everywhere, if she can say to herself, "I am the wife of a strong man."
Modern strength appears in the powerful liberty with which you go on
disengaging the reality from the forms, and the spirit from the dead
letter. But why do you not reveal yourself to the companion of your
life, in that which is for you your life itself? She passes away days
and years by your side, without seeing or knowing the grandeur that is
within you. If she saw you walk free, strong, and prosperous in action
and in science, she would not remain chained down to material idolatry,
and bound to the sterile letter; she would rise to a faith far more
free and pure, and you would be as one in faith. She would preserve
for you this common treasure of religious life, where you might seek
for comfort when your mind is languid; and when your various toils,
studies, and business have weakened the vital unity within you, she
would bring back your thoughts and life to God, the true, the only
unity.
I shall not attempt to crowd a large volume into a small Preface. I
shall only add one word, which at once expresses and completes my
thought.
Man ought to nourish woman. He ought to feed spiritually (and
materially if he can) her who nourishes him with her love, her milk,
and her very life. Our adversaries give women bad food; but we give
them none at all.
To the women of the richer class, those brilliant ones whom people
suppose so happy, to these we give no spiritual food.
And to the women of the poorer class, solitary, industrious, and
destitute, who try hard to gain their bread, we do not even give our
assistance to help them to find their material food.
These women, who are or will be mothers, are left by us to fast (either
in soul or in body), and we are punished especially by the generation
that issues from them, for our neglecting to give them the staff of
life.
I like to believe that good-will, generally, is not wanting--only time
and attention. People live in a hurry, and can hardly be said to live:
they follow with a huntsman's eagerness this or that petty object, and
neglect what is important.
You man of business or study, who are so energetic and indefatigable,
you have no time, say you, to associate your wife with your daily
progress; you leave her to her _ennui_, idle conversations, empty
sermons, and silly books; so that, falling below herself, less than
woman, even less than a child, she will have neither moral action,
influence, or maternal authority over her own offspring. Well! you
will have the time, as old age advances, to try in vain to do all over
again what is not done twice, to follow in the steps of a son, who,
from college to the schools, and from thence into the world, hardly
knows his family; and who, if he travels a little, and meets you on his
return, will ask you your name. The mother alone could have made you a
son; but to do so you ought to have made her what a woman ought to be,
strengthened her with your sentiments and ideas, and nourished her with
your life.
If I look beyond the family and domestic affections, I find our
negligence towards women resembles hard-heartedness; the cruel effects
which result from it recoil upon ourselves.
You think yourself good and kind-hearted; you are not insensible to the
fate of poor women; an old one reminds you of your mother, a young one
of your daughter. But you have not the time either to see or know that
the old one and the young one are both literally dying with hunger.
Two machines are constantly working to exterminate them:--the convent,
that immense _Workshop_, that works for little or nothing, not relying
on its labour for subsistence. Then the large shop, with sleeping
partners, that buys of the convent, and destroys by degrees the smaller
shops which employed the workwomen. The latter has but two chances
left--the Seine, or to find at night some heartless wretch who takes
advantage of her hunger--suicide or dishonour.
Men receive about as much as women from public charity: this is unjust.
They have infinitely more resources. They are stronger, have a greater
variety of work, more _initiative_, a more active impulse, more
locomotion, if I may so express myself, to go and hunt out work. They
travel, emigrate, and find engagements. Not to mention countries where
manual labour is very dear, I know of provinces in France, where it is
very difficult to find either journeymen or man-servants. Man can
wander to and fro. Woman remains at home and dies.
Let this workwoman, whom the opposition of the convent has crushed,
crawl to the gate of the convent--can she find an asylum there? She
would want, in default of dowry, the active protection of an
influential priest, a protection reserved for devout persons, such as
have had the time to follow the "_Mois de Marie_"--Devotions to the
Virgin--the _Catechisms of Perseverance_, &c., &c., and who have been,
for a long time past, under ecclesiastical authority. This protection
is often very dearly purchased; and for what? To get permission to
pass one's life shut up within walls, to be obliged to counterfeit a
devotion one has not! Death cannot be worse.
They die then, quietly, decently, and alone. They will never be seen
coming down from their garrets into the street to walk about with the
motto, "_To live working or die fighting_." They will make no
disturbances; we have nothing to fear from them. It is for this very
reason, that we are the more bound to assist them. Shall we then feel
our hearts affected only for those of whom we are afraid?
Men of money, if I must speak to you in your own money language, I will
tell you, that as soon as we shall have an economical government, it
will not hesitate to lay out its money for women, to help them to
maintain themselves by their industry.
Not only do these sickly women crowd our hospitals, and leave them only
to return, but the offspring of these poor exhausted creatures, if they
do not die in the Foundling, will be, like their mothers, the habitual
inmates of those hospitals. A miserably poor woman is a whole family
of sick persons in perspective.
Whether we be philosophers, physiologists, political economists, or
statesmen, we all know that the excellency of the race, the strength of
the people, come especially from the woman. Does not the nine months'
support of the mother establish this? Strong mothers have strong
children.
We all are, and ever shall be, the debtors of women. They are mothers;
this says everything. He who would bargain about the work of those who
are the joy of the present and the destiny of the future, must needs
have been born in misery and damnation. Their manual labour is a very
secondary consideration; that is especially our part. What do they
make?--Man: this is a superior work. To be loved, to bring forth both
physically and morally, to educate man (our barbarous age does not
quite understand this yet), this is the business of woman.
"_Fons omnium viventium_!" What can ever be added to this sublime
saying?
Whilst writing all this, I have had in my mind a woman, whose strong
and serious mind would not have failed to support me in these
contentions: I lost her thirty years ago (I was a child then);
nevertheless, ever living in my memory, she follows me from age to age.
She suffered with me in my poverty, and was not allowed to share my
better fortune. When young I made her sad, and now I cannot console
her. I know not even where her bones are: I was too poor then to buy
earth to bury her!
And yet I owe her much. I feel deeply that I am the son of woman.
Every instant in my ideas and words (not to mention my features and
gestures), I find again my mother in myself. It is my mother's blood
which gives me the sympathy I feel for by-gone ages, and the tender
remembrance of all those who are now no more.
What return then could I, who am myself advancing towards old age, make
her for the many things I owe her? One, for which she would have
thanked me--this protest in favour of women and mothers: and I place it
at the head of a book believed by some to be a work of controversy.
They are wrong.
The longer it lives, if it should live, the plainer will it be seen,
that, in spite of polemical emotion, it was a work of history, a work
of faith, of truth, and of sincerity:--on what, then, could I have set
my heart more?
[1] This will not appear exaggerated to those who have read the furious
libel of the Bishop of Chartres. A newspaper asks me why I did not
prosecute him for defamation. This mad violence is much less guilty
than the treacherous insinuations they make in their books and
newspapers, in the saloons, &c. Now they attribute to me whatever has
been done by other Michelets, to whom I am not even related (for
instance, Michelet of Languedoc, a poet and soldier under the
Restoration); now they pretend to believe, though I had told them the
contrary at the end of my preface, that this book is my lecture of
1844. Then, again, they get up a little petition from Marseilles, to
pray for the dismissal of the professor. So far from wishing to stifle
the voice of my adversaries, I have claimed for their writings the same
liberty I asked for my own. _Lesson of the 27th of February_,
1845:--"I see among you the greater part of those who had aided me to
maintain in this chair the liberty of discussion. We will respect this
liberty in our adversaries. This is not chivalry, it is simply our
duty. It is, moreover, essential to the cause of truth, that no
objection be suppressed; but that each party may be at liberty to state
their reasons. You may be sure that truth will prevail and conquer.
We pass away; but truth lasts and triumphs. Yet, as long as her
adversaries may have any thing to say, her triumph is mingled with
doubt."
[2] For the fifteenth century, see my History of France, A.D. 1413.
[3] Mabillon on _Monastic Imprisonment_, posthumous works, vol. ii. p.
327.
[4] We should, perhaps, have reserved these facts for some future
occasion, if they had not been already divulged by the newspapers and
reviews. Besides, several magistrates have expressed their opinions on
many analogous facts in the same locality. A solicitor-general writes
to the underprefect:--"I have reason to be as convinced _as you_, that
Madame * * * was in full possession of her senses. A longer
imprisonment would most certainly have made her really mad," &c. A
letter from the Solicitor-General Sorbier, quoted by Mr. Tilliard, in
favour of Marie Lemonnier, p. 65.
MEMOIR.
The following brief Memoir of the Author of "Priests, Women, and
Families" was written for, and embodied in, the "Dictionary of
Universal Biography," published by Mackenzie about 1862.
Another Memoir of this celebrated Historian of France was given in _The
Times_, Feb. 12, 1874, two days after his decease. _The Times_ states
that he "died of heart disease":--
"Michelet, Jules, one of the greatest of contemporary French writers,
was born at Paris on the 21st of August, 1798. In the introduction to
his little book, 'Le Peuple,' Michelet has told the story of his early
life. He was the son of a small master printer, of Paris, who was
ruined by one of the Emperor Napoleon's arbitrary measures against the
Press, by which the number of printers in Paris was suddenly reduced.
For the benefit of his creditors, the elder Michelet, with no aid but
that of his family, printed, folded, bound, and sold some trivial
little works, of which he owned the copyright; and the Historian of
France began his career by 'composing' in the typographical, not the
literary, sense of the word. At twelve he had picked up a little Latin
from a friendly old bookseller who had been a village schoolmaster; and
his brave parents, in spite of their penury, decided that he should go
to college. He entered the Lycee Charlemagne, where he distinguished
himself, and his exercises attracted the notice of Villemain. He
supported himself by private teaching until, in 1821, he obtained, by
competition, a professorship in his college. His first publications
were two chronological summaries of modern history, 1825-26. In 1827
he essayed a higher flight by the publication, not only of his 'Precis
de l'Histoire Moderne,' but by that of his volume on the Scienza Nuova
of Vico ('Principes de la Philosophie d'Histoire'), the then
little-known father of the so-called philosophy of history, whose work
was thus first introduced to the French public, and, indeed, to that of
England. These two works procured him a professorship at the ecole
normale. After the Revolution of the Three Days, the now distinguished
professor was placed at the head of the historical section of the
French archives, a welcome position, which gave him the command of new
and unexplored material for the History of France. The first work in
which he displayed his peculiar historical genius, was his 'Histoire
Romaine,' 1831, embracing only the History of the Roman Republic. From
1833, dates the appearance of his great 'History of France,' of which
still uncompleted work, twelve volumes had appeared in 1860. In 1834,
Gruizot made the dawning Historian of France his _suppleant_, or
substitute, in the Chair of History connected with the Faculty of
Letters; and in 1838 he was appointed Professor of History in the
College de France. Meanwhile, besides instalments of his 'History of
France,' he had published several works, among them (1835) his
excellent and interesting 'Memoires de Luther,' in which, by extracts
from Luther's Table-talk and Letters, the great reformer was made to
tell himself the history of his life; the 'OEuvres Choises de Vico;'
and the philosophical and poetical 'Origines du Droit Francais.' In
the education controversy of the later years of Louis Philippe's reign,
Michelet and his friend Edgar Quinet vehemently opposed the pretensions
of the clerical party, and carried the war into the enemies' camp by
the publication of their joint work, 'Les Jesuites,' 1843, followed, in
1844, by Michelet's 'Du Pretre, de la Femme, et la Famille,' translated
into English as 'Priests, Women, and Families.' Guizot bowed to the
ecclesiastical storm which these works invoked, and suspended the
lectures of the two anti-clerical professors. To 1846 belongs
Michelet's eloquent and touching little book, 'Le Peuple.' The
Revolution of February, 1848, restored Michelet to his functions. He
waived, however, the political career which was now opened to him, and
laboured at his grandiose 'History of the French Revolution,' of which
the first volume had appeared in 1847. In 1851 he was again
suspended--this time by the ministry of the Prince President--from his
professional functions, and on account of his democratic teachings.
After the _coup d'etat_ he refused to take the oaths, and lost all his
public employments. Since then he has been occupied with his 'History
of France,' and of the French Revolution, and with the production of
other and some minor works. It is not among the last that must be
classed his two striking volumes, 'L'Oiseau,' 1856, and 'L'Insecte,'
1857, the result of a retreat from a pressure of a new political system
into the realm of nature. In 'L'Amour,' 1858, and 'La Femme,' 1859,
the intrusion of physiology into the domain of thought and feeling was
too much for English tastes. In 'La Mer,' 1861, Michelet addresses
himself to the natural history and the poetry of the sea."
CONTENTS.
PREFACES.
Editor's Preface
Author's Preface
Memoir
PART I.
ON DIRECTION IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
CHAPTER I.
Religious Re-action in 1600--Influence of the Jesuits over Women and
Children--Savoy; the Vaudois; Violence and Gentleness--St. Francois de
Sales
CHAPTER II.
St. Francois de Sales and Madame de
Chantal--Visitation--Quietism--Results of Religious Direction
CHAPTER III.
Loneliness of Woman--Easy Devotion--Worldly Theology of the
Jesuits--Women and Children advantageously made use of--Thirty Years'
War, 1618-1648--Gallant Devotion--Religious Novels--Casuists
CHAPTER IV.
Convents--Convents in Paris--Convents contrasted; the Director--Dispute
about the Direction of the Nuns--The Jesuits Triumph through Calumny
CHAPTER V.
Re-action of Morality--Arnaud, 1643; Pascal, 1657--The Jesuits lose
Ground--They gain over the King and the Pope--Discouragement of the
Jesuits; their Corruption--They Protect the Quietists--Desmarets--Morin
burnt, 1663--Immorality of Quietism
CHAPTER VI.
Continuation of Moral Re-action--_Tartuffe_, 1664--Real Tartuffes--Why
Tartuffe is not a Quietist
CHAPTER VII.
Apparition of Molinos, 1675--His Success at Rome--French
Quietists--Madame Guyon and her Director--"The Torrents"--Mystic
Death--Do we return from it?
CHAPTER VIII.
Fenelon as Director--His Quietism--"Maxims of Saints," 1697--Fenelon
and Madame de la Maisonfort
CHAPTER IX.
Bossuet as Director--Bossuet and Sister Cornuau--Bossuet's
Imprudence--He is a Quietist in Practice--Devout Direction inclines to
Quietism--Moral Paralysis
CHAPTER X.
Molinos' "Guide"--Part Played in it by the Director; Hypocritical
Austerity--Immoral Doctrine; Approved by Rome, 1675--Molinos Condemned
at Rome, 1687--His Morals--His Morals Conformable to his
Doctrine--Spanish Molinosists--Mother Agueda
CHAPTER XI.
No more Systems: an Emblem--The Heart--Sex--The Immaculate--The Sacred
Heart--Mario Alacoque--The Seventeenth Century is the Age of
Equivocation--Chimerical Politics of the Jesuits--Father
Colombiere--England--Papist Conspiracy--First Altar of the Sacred
Heart--The Ruin of the Galileans, Quietists, and Port-Royal--Theology
annihilated in the Eighteenth Century--Materiality of the Sacred
Heart--Jesuitical Art
PART II.
ON DIRECTION IN GENERAL, AND ESPECIALLY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
CHAPTER I.
Resemblances and Differences between the seventeenth and nineteenth
Centuries--Christian Art--It is we who have restored the Church--What
the Church adds to the Power of the Priest--The Confessional
CHAPTER II.
Confession--Present Education of the Young Confessor--The Priest in the
Middle Ages--1st, believed--2ndly, was mortified--3rdly, knew--4thly,
interrogated less--The Dangers of the Young Confessor--How he
Strengthens his Tottering Position
CHAPTER III.
Confession--The Confessor and the Husband--How they Detach the
Wife--The Director--Directors in Concert--Ecclesiastical Policy
CHAPTER IV.
Habit--Power of Habit--Its Insensible Beginning; its Progress--Second
Nature; often fatal--A Man taking Advantage of his Power--Can we get
clear of it?
CHAPTER V.
On Convents--Omnipotence of the Director--Condition of the Nuns,
Forlorn and Wretched--Convents made Bridewells and
Bedlams--Captation--Barbarous Discipline; Struggle between the Superior
Nun and the Director; Change of Directors--The Magistrate
CHAPTER VI.
Absorption of the Will--Government of Acts, Thoughts, and
Wills--_Assimilation_ of the Soul--_Transhumanation_--To become the God
of another--Pride and Desire
CHAPTER VII.
Desire. Terrors of the other World--The Physician and his
Patient--Alternatives; Postponements--Effects of Fear in Love--To be
All-powerful and Abstain--Struggles between the Spirit and the
Flesh--Moral Death more Potent than Physical Life--It will not revive
PART III.
CHAPTER I.
Schism in Families--The Daughter; by whom Educated--Importance of
Education--The Advantage of the First Instructor--Influence of Priests
upon Marriage--Which they Retain after that Ceremony
CHAPTER II.
Woman--The Husband does not Associate with the Wife--He seldom knows
how to Initiate her into his Thoughts--What Mutual Initiation would
be--The Wife Consoles Herself with her Son--He is taken from her; her
Loneliness and _Ennui_--A pious young Man--The _Spiritual_ and the
_Worldly_ Man--Who is now the Mortified Man
CHAPTER III.
The Mother--Alone for a Long Time, she can bring up her
Child--Intellectual Nourishment--Gestation, Incubation, Education--The
Child Guarantees the Mother, and she the Child--She protects his
Originality, which Public Education must Limit--The Father even Limits
it, the Mother Defends it--Her Weakness; she wishes her Son to be a
Hero--Her Heroic Disinterestedness
CHAPTER IV.
Love--Love wishes to _raise_ and not absorb--False Theory of our
Adversaries; Dangerous Practice--Love wishes to form an Equal who may
love freely--Love in the World, in the Civil World--And in Families,
not understood by the Middle Ages--Family Religion
ONE WORD TO THE PRIESTS:--We do not Attack Priests, but their Unhappy
and Dangerous Position--Not Rome but France is the Pope--Our Sympathy
for Priests, Victims of the Laws--Priests and Soldiers--_Priest_ means
_Old Man_
PRIESTS, WOMEN, AND FAMILIES.
PART I.
ON DIRECTION IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
CHAPTER I.
RELIGIOUS REACTION IN 1600.--INFLUENCE OF THE JESUITS OVER WOMEN AND
CHILDREN.--SAVOY; THE VAUDOIS; VIOLENCE AND MILDNESS.--ST. FRANCOIS DE
SALES.
Everybody has seen in the Louvre Guide's graceful picture representing
the Annunciation. The drawing is incorrect, the colouring false, and
yet the effect is seducing. Do not expect to find in it the
conscientiousness and austerity of the old schools; you would look also
in vain for the vigorous and bold touch of the masters of the
_Renaissance_. The sixteenth century has passed away, and everything
assumes a softer character. The figure with which the painter has
evidently taken the most pleasure is the angel, who, according to the
refinement of that surfeited period, is a pretty-looking singing boy--a
cherub of the Sacristy. He appears to be sixteen, and the Virgin from
eighteen to twenty years of age. This Virgin--by no means ideal, but
real, and the reality slightly adulterated--is no other than a young
Italian maiden whom Guido copied at her own house, in her snug oratory,
and at her convenient praying-desk (prie-Dieu), such as were then used
by ladies.
If the painter was inspired by anything else, it was not by the Gospel,
but rather by the devout novels of that period, or the fashionable
sermons uttered by the Jesuits in their coquettish-looking churches.
The Angelic Salutation, the Visitation, the Annunciation, were the
darling subjects upon which they had, for a long time past, exhausted
every imagination of seraphic gallantry. On beholding this picture by
Guide, we fancy we are reading the Bernardino. The angel speaks Latin
like a young learned clerk; the Virgin, like a boarding-school young
lady, responds in soft Italian, "O alto signore," &c.
This pretty picture is important as a work characteristic of an already
corrupt age; being an agreeable and delicate work, we are the more
easily led to perceive its suspicious graces and equivocal charms.
Let us call to mind the softened forms which the devout reaction of
this age--that of Henry IV.--then assumed. We are lost in astonishment
when we hear, as it were on the morrow of the sixteenth century, after
wars and massacres, the lisping of this still small voice. The
terrible preachers of the Sixteen,--the monks who went armed with
muskets in the processions of the League--are suddenly humanised, and
become gentle. The reason is, they must lull to sleep those whom they
have not been able to kill. The task, however, was not very difficult.
Everybody was worn out by the excessive fatigue of religious warfare,
and exhausted by a struggle that afforded no result, and from which no
one came off victorious. Every one knew too well his party and his
friends. In the evening of so long a march there was nobody, however
good a walker he might be, who did not desire to rest: the
indefatigable Henry of Beam, seeking repose like the rest, or wishing
to lull them into tranquillity, afforded them the example, and gave
himself up with a good grace into the hands of Father Cotton and
Gabrielle.
Henry IV. was the grandfather of Louis XIV., and Cotton the great uncle
of Father La Chaise--two royalties, two dynasties; one of kings, the
other of Jesuit confessors. The history of the latter would be very
interesting. These amiable fathers ruled throughout the whole of the
century, by dint of absolving, pardoning, shutting their eyes, and
remaining ignorant. They effected great results by the most trifling
means, such as little capitulations, secret transactions, back-doors,
and hidden staircases.
The Jesuits could plead that, being the constrained restorers of Papal
authority, that is to say, physicians to a dead body, the means were
not left to their choice. Dead beat in the world of ideas, where could
they hope to resume their warfare, save in the field of intrigue,
passion, and human weaknesses?
There, nobody could serve them more actively than Women. Even when
they did not act with the Jesuits and for them, they were not less
useful in an indirect manner, as instruments and means,--as objects of
business and daily compromise between the penitent and the confessor.
The tactics of the confessor did not differ much from those of the
mistress. His address, like hers, was to refuse sometimes, to put off,
to cause to languish, to be severe, but with moderation, then at length
to be overcome by pure goodness of heart. These little manoeuvres,
infallible in their effects upon a gallant and devout king, who was
moreover obliged to receive the sacrament on appointed days, often put
the whole State into the Confessional. The king being caught and held
fast, was obliged to give satisfaction in some way or other. He paid
for his human weaknesses with political ones; such an amour cost him a
state-secret, such a bastard a royal ordinance. Occasionally, they did
not let him off without bail. In order to preserve a certain mistress,
for instance, he was forced to give up his son. How much did Father
Cotton forgive Henry IV. to obtain from him the education of the
dauphin.[1]
In this great enterprise of kidnapping man everywhere, by using woman
as a decoy, and by woman getting possession of the child, the Jesuits
met with more than one obstacle, but one particularly serious--their
reputation of Jesuits. They were already by far too well known. We
may read in the letters of St. Charles Borromeo, who had established
them at Milan and {36} singularly favoured them, what sort of character
he gives them--intriguing, quarrelsome, and insolent under a cringing
exterior. Even their penitents, who found them very convenient, were
nevertheless at times disgusted with them. The most simple saw plainly
enough that these people, who found every opinion probable, had none
themselves. These famous champions of the faith were sceptics in
morals: even less than sceptics, for speculative scepticism might leave
some sentiment of honour; but a doubter in practice, who says Yes on
such and such an act, and Yes on the contrary one, must sink lower and
lower in morality, and lose not only every principle, but in time every
affection of the heart!
Their very appearance was a satire against them. These people, so
cunning in disguising themselves, were made up of lying; it was
everywhere around them, palpable and visible. Like brass badly gilt,
like the holy toys in their gaudy churches, they appeared false at the
distance of a hundred paces: false in expression, accent, gesture, and
attitude; affected, exaggerated, and often excessively fickle. This
inconstancy was amusing, but it also put people on their guard. They
could well learn an attitude or a deportment; but studied graces, and a
bending, undulating, and serpentine gait are anything but satisfactory.
They worked hard to appear a simple, humble, insignificant, good sort
of people. Their grimace betrayed them.
These equivocal-looking individuals had, however, in the eyes of the
women a redeeming quality: they were passionately fond of children. No
mother, grandmother, or nurse could caress them more, or could find
better some endearing word to make them smile. In the churches of the
Jesuits the good saints of the order, St. Xavier or St. Ignatius, are
often painted as grotesque nurses, holding the divine darling (poupon)
in their arms, fondling and kissing it. They began also to make on
their altars and in their fantastically-ornamented chapels those little
paradises in glass cases, where women are delighted to see the wax
child among flowers. The Jesuits loved children so much, that they
would have liked to educate them all.
Not one of them, however learned he might be, disdained to be a tutor,
to give the principles of grammar, and teach the declensions.
There were, however, many people among their own friends and penitents,
even those who trusted their souls to their keeping, who, nevertheless,
hesitated to confide their sons to them. They would have succeeded far
less with women and children, if their good fortune had not given them
for ally a tall lad, shrewd and discreet, who possessed precisely what
they had lacked to inspire confidence,--a charming simplicity.
This friend of the Jesuits, who served them so much the better as he
did not become one of them, invented, in an artless manner, for the
profit of these intriguers, the manner, tone, and true style of easy
devotion, which they would have ever sought for in vain. Falsehood
would never assume the shadow of reality as it can do, if it was always
and entirely unconnected with truth.
Before speaking of Francois de Sales, I must say one word about the
stage on which he performs his part.
The great effort of the Ultramontane reaction about the year 1600 was
at the Alps, in Switzerland and Savoy. The work was going on bravely
on each side of the mountains, only the means were far from being the
same: they showed on either side a totally different countenance--here
the face of an angel, there the look of a wild beast; the latter
physiognomy was against the poor Vaudois in Piedmont.
In Savoy, and towards Geneva, they put on the angelic expression, not
being able to employ any other than gentle means against populations
sheltered by treaties, and who would have been protected against
violence by the lances of Switzerland.
The agent of Rome in this quarter was the celebrated Jesuit, Antonio
Possevino[2], a professor, scholar, and diplomatist, as {38} well as
the confessor of the kings of the North. He himself organised the
persecutions against the Vaudois of Piedmont; and he formed and
directed his pupil, Francois de Sales, to gain by his address the
Protestants of Savoy.
Ought I to speak of this terrible history of the Vaudois, or pass it
over in silence? Speak of it! It is far too cruel--no one will relate
it without his pen hesitating, and his words being blotted by his
tears.[3] If, however, I did not speak of it, we should never behold
the most odious part of the system, that artful policy which employed
the very opposite means in precisely the same cases; here ferocity,
there an unnatural mildness. One word, and I leave the sad story. The
most implacable butchers were women, the penitents of the Jesuits of
Turin. The victims were children! They destroyed them in the
sixteenth century: there were four hundred children burnt at one time
in a cavern. In the seventeenth century they kidnapped them. The
edict of pacification, granted to the Vaudois in 1655, promises, as a
singular favour, that their children under twelve years of age shall no
longer be stolen from them; above that age it is still lawful to seize
them.
This new sort of persecution, more cruel than massacres, characterises
the period when the Jesuits undertook to make themselves universally
masters of the education of children. These pitiless plagiarists[4],
who dragged them away from their mothers, wanted only to bring them up
in their fashion, make them abjure their faith, hate their family, and
arm them against their brethren.
It was, as I have said, a Jesuit professor, Possevino, who renewed the
persecution about the time at which we are now arrived. The same,
while teaching at Padua, had for his pupil young Francois de Sales, who
had already passed a year in Paris, at the college of Clermont. He
belonged to one of those families of Savoy, as much distinguished by
their devotion as by their valour, who carried on wars long against
Geneva. He was endowed with all the qualities requisite for the war of
seduction, which they then desired to commence--a gentle and sincere
devotion, a lively and earnest speech, and a singular charm of
goodness, beauty, and gentleness. Who has not remarked this charm in
the smile of the children of Savoy, who are so natural, yet so
circumspect?
Every favour of Heaven must, we certainly believe, have been showered
upon him, since in this bad age, bad taste, and bad party, among the
cunning and false people who made him their tool, he remained, however,
St. Francois de Sales. Everything he has said or written, without
being free from blemishes, is charming, full of affection, of an
original gentleness and genius, which, though it may excite a smile, is
nevertheless very affecting. Everywhere we find, as it were, living
fountains springing up, flowers after flowers, and rivulets meandering
as in a lovely spring morning after a shower. It might be said,
perhaps, that he amuses himself so much with flowerets, that his
nosegay is no longer such as shepherdesses gather, but such as would
suit a flower-girl, as his Philothea would say: he takes them all, and
takes too many; there are some colours among them badly matched, and
have a strange effect. It is the taste of that age, we must confess;
the Savoyard taste in particular does not fear ugliness; and a Jesuit
education does not lead to the detestation of falsehood.
But even if he had not been so charming a writer, his bewitching
personal qualities would still have had the same effect. His fair mild
countenance, with rather a childish expression, pleased at first sight.
Little children, in their nurses' arms, as soon as they saw him, could
not take their eyes off him. He was equally delighted with them, and
would exclaim, as he fondly caressed them, "Here is my little family."
The children ran after him, and the mothers followed their children.
Little family? or little intrigue? The words (_menage manege_) are
somewhat similar; and though a child in appearance, the good man was at
bottom very deep. If he permitted the nuns a few trifling
falsehoods[5], ought we to believe he never granted the same indulgence
to himself? However it may be, actual falsehood appeared less in his
words than in his position; he was made a bishop in order to give the
example of sacrificing the rights of the bishops to the Pope. For the
love of peace, and to hide the division of the Catholics by an
appearance of union, he did the Jesuits the important service of saving
their Molina accused at Rome; and he managed to induce the Pope to
impose silence on the friends, as well as the enemies, of Grace.
This sweet-tempered man did not, however, confine himself to the means
of mildness and persuasion. In his zeal as a converter, he invoked the
assistance of less honourable means--interest, money, places; lastly,
authority and terror. He made the Duke of Savoy travel from village to
village, and advised him at last to drive away the remaining few who
still refused to abjure their faith.[6] Money, very powerful in this
poor country, seemed to him a means at once so natural and
irresistible, that he went even into Geneva, to buy up old Theodore de
Beze, and offered him, on the part of the Pope, a pension of four
thousand crowns.
It was an odd sight to behold this man, the bishop and titular prince
of Geneva, beating about the bush to circumvent his native city, and
organising a war of seduction against it by France and Savoy. Money
and intrigue did not suffice; it was necessary to employ a softer charm
to thaw and liquify the inattackable iceberg of logic and criticism.
Convents for females were founded, to attract and receive the
newly-converted, and to offer them a powerful bait composed of love and
mysticism. These convents have been made famous by the names of Madame
de Chantal and Madame Guyon. The former established in them the mild
devotion of the Visitation; and it was there that the latter wrote her
little book of _Torrents_, which seems inspired, like Rousseau's
_Julie_ (by the bye, a far less dangerous composition), by the
Charmettes, Meillerie, and Clarens.
[1] The masterpiece of the Jesuit was to get the shepherd-poet Des
Yveteaux, the most empty-headed man in France, named tutor, reserving
to himself the moral and religious part of education.
[2] See his Life, by Dorigny, p. 505.; Bonneville, Life of St.
Francois, p. 19, &c.
[3] Read the three great Vaudois historians, Gilles, Leger, and Arnaud.
[4] Plagiarius, in its proper sense, means, as is well known, a
man-stealer.
[5] Little lies, little deceits, little prevarications. See, for
instance, OEuvres, vol. viii. pp. 196, 223, 342.
[6] Nouvelles Lettres Inedites, published by Mr. Datta, 1835, vol. i.
p. 247. See also, for the intolerance of St. Francois, pp. 130, 131,
136, 141, and vol. ix. of the OEuvres, p. 335, the bounden duty of
kings to put to the sword all the enemies of the Pope.