LONELINESS OF WOMAN.--EASY DEVOTION.--WORLDLY THEOLOGY OF THE JESUITS
AND HOME.--WOMEN AND CHILDREN ADVANTAGEOUSLY MADE USE OF.--WAR OF
THIRTY YEARS, 1618-1648.--GALLANT DEVOTION.--DEVOUT NOVELS.--CASUISTS.
Hitherto we have spoken of a rare exception--the life of a woman full
of action, and doubly employed; as a saint and foundress, but
especially as a wife, the mother of a family, and prudent housewife.
The biographers of Madame de Chantal remark, as a singular thing, that
in both conditions, as wife and as widow, she conducted her own
household herself, directed her dependents, and administered the
property of her husband, her father, and her children.
This indeed was becoming rare. The taste for household and domestic
cares which we find everywhere in the sixteenth century, but especially
among citizens and the families of the Bar, grows much weaker in the
seventeenth, when every one desires to live in great style.
The absence of occupation is a taste of the period, proceeding also
from the state of things. All society is ever idle on the morrow of
religious wars, each local action has ceased, and central life, that is
to say, court life, has hardly begun. The nobility have finished their
adventures, and hung up their swords; the citizens have nothing further
to do, being no longer engaged in plots, seditions, or armed
processions. The _ennui_ of this want of occupation falls particularly
heavy upon woman; she is about to become at once unoccupied and lonely.
In the sixteenth century she was kept in communication with man by the
vital questions that were debated, even in her family, by common
dangers, fears, and hopes. But there was nothing of the sort in the
seventeenth century.
Add to this a more serious circumstance which is likely to increase in
the following ages; namely, that in every profession the spirit of
speciality and detail, which gradually absorbs man, has the effect of
insulating him in his family, and of making him, as it were, a mute
being for his wife and kindred. He no longer communicates to them his
daily thoughts; and they can understand nothing of the minute
intricacies and petty technical problems which occupy his mind.
But, at least, woman has still her children to console her? No; at the
time we are now speaking of, the mansion, silent and empty, is no
longer kept alive by the noise of children; instruction at home is now
an exception, and gives way daily to the fashion of collective
education. The son is brought up among the Jesuits, the daughter by
the Ursulines, or other nuns; the mother is left alone.
The mother and the son are henceforth separated! An immense evil, the
bud of a thousand misfortunes for families and society! I shall return
to this subject later.
Not only separated, but, by the effect of a totally opposite life, they
will be more and more opposed in mind, and less and less able to
understand each other. The son a little pedant in _us_, _i.e._ Latin,
the mother ignorant and worldly, have no longer a common language
between them.
A family thus disunited will be much more open to influence from
without. The mother and the child, once separated, are more easily
caught; though different means are employed. The child is tamed, and
broken in by an overwhelming mass of studies; he must write and write,
copy and copy again, at best translate and imitate. But the mother is
entrapped by means of her excessive loneliness and _ennui_. The lady
of the mansion is alone in her residence; her husband is hunting, or at
the court. The president's lady is alone in her hotel; the gentleman
starts every morning for the palace, and returns in the evening: a sad
abode is this hotel in the Marais or City, some overgrown grey house in
a dismal little street.
The lady in the sixteenth century beguiled her leisure hours by
singing, and often by poetry. In the seventeenth they forbad her all
worldly songs; as to religious songs, she abstains from them much more
easily. Sing a psalm! It would be to declare herself a Protestant!
What then remains for her? Gallant devotion--the conversation of the
director or the lover.
The sixteenth century, with its strong morality and fluctuation of
ideas, took, as it were, by fits and starts, flying leaps from
gallantry to devotion, then from God to the devil: it made sudden and
alternate changes from pleasure to penitence. But in the seventeenth
century people were more ingenious. Thanks to the progress of
equivocation, they are enabled to do both at once, and, by mingling the
language of love with that of devotion, speak of both at the same time.
If, without being seen, you could listen to the conversation in a
coquettish neighbourhood, you would not always be able to say whether
it is the lover or the director who is speaking.
To explain to one's self the singular success of the latter, we must
not forget the moral situation of the time, the uneasy and bewildered
state of every one's conscience on the morrow of a period of religious
wars, harassed by passions. In the dull tranquillity that succeeded,
in the nullity of the present, the past would rise up in glowing
colours, and the remembrance of it become the more importunate. Then
was awakened in many minds, especially among weak and impassioned
women, the terrible question of eternal bliss or woe.
The whole fortune of the Jesuits, and the confidence placed in them by
the nobles and fine ladies, arose from the clever answer they gave to
this question. It is, therefore, indispensable to say a few words
about it.
Who can save us? The theologian on the one hand, and the jurist or
philosopher on the other, give diametrically opposite answers.
The theologian, if he be really such, attributes the greatest share to
Christianity, and answers, "It is the grace of Christ, which serves us
as a substitute for justice[1], and saves whomsoever it will. A few
are predestined to be saved, the greater number to be damned."
The jurist answers, on the contrary, that we are punished or rewarded
according to the good or bad use that we freely make of our will; that
we are paid according to our works, according to justice. This is the
eternal debate between the jurist and the theologian, between justice
and predestination.[1]
In order to have a clearer idea of the opposition of these two
principles, let us imagine a mountain with two declivities, its summit
terminating in a very narrow ridge, with the edge as sharp as a razor.
On one side is predestination that damns, on the other, justice that
strikes--two terrible monsters. Man is on the top, with one foot on
one slope and one on the other, ever on the point of slipping.
And when was the fear of sliding stronger than after those great crimes
of the sixteenth century, when Man was top-heavy, and lost his balance?
We know the religious horror of Charles IX. after the massacre of Saint
Bartholomew: he died for want of a Jesuit confessor. John III., King
of Sweden, who killed his brother, did not die of remorse: his wife
took care to send for the good Father Possevino, who purified him and
made him a Catholic.
The means employed by the Jesuits to calm consciences fill us, at first
sight, with surprise. They adopted both skilfully and carefully; still
they did adopt the principle of the jurists, namely, that man is saved
or lost by his works, by the use he makes of his free will.
A liberal doctrine, yet severe, it would seem: you are free,
consequently responsible, and punishable. You sin, and you expiate.
The jurisconsult, who is in earnest, requires here a serious
expiation--the personal chastisement of the guilty party. "He must
forfeit his head," says he: "the law will cure him of his malady of
iniquity by the sword."
We should fare better by going to the Jesuit, and get off much cheaper.
The expiation he requires is not so terrible. He will often prove that
there is no necessity for any expiation. The fault, properly
interpreted, will turn out, perhaps, to be a merit. At the worst, if
found to be a fault, it may be washed out by good works; now, the very
best work of all is to devote one's self to the Jesuits, and espouse
the Ultramontane interest.
Do you perceive all the skill of the Jesuits in this manoeuvre of
theirs? On the one hand, the doctrine of liberty and justice, with
which the middle ages had reproached the jurisconsults as pagan and
irreconcilable with Christianity, is now adopted by the Jesuits, who
show themselves to the world as the friends and champions of free will.
On the other hand, as this free will brings on the sinner
responsibility and justice according to his works, he finds himself
very much embarrassed with it. The Jesuit comes very seasonably to his
relief; he takes upon himself the task of _directing_ this inconvenient
liberty, and reduces works to the capital one of serving Rome. So that
moral liberty, professed in theory, will turn practically to the profit
of authority.
A double lie. These people who give themselves the title of Jesuits,
or men of Jesus, teach that man is saved less by Jesus than by himself,
by his free will. Are, then, these men philosophers, and friends of
liberty? Quite the contrary; they are at once the most cruel enemies
of philosophy and liberty.
That is to say, with the word free will they juggle away Jesus; and
only retain the word Jesus to cheat us of the liberty which they set
before us.
The thing being thus simplified on both sides, a sort of tacit bargain
was made between Rome, the Jesuits, and the world.
Rome gave up _Christianity_, the principle which forms its basis
(salvation by Christ). Having been called upon to choose between this
doctrine and the contrary one, she durst not decide.
The Jesuits gave up _morality_ after religion; reducing the moral
merits by which man may earn his salvation to only one, the _Political_
merit of which we have spoken, that of serving Rome.
What must the world give up in its turn?
The world (by far the most worldly part of the world, woman) will have
to give up her best possessions, her family and her domestic hearth.
Eve once more betrays Adam. Woman deceives man in her husband and son.
Thus every one sold his God. Rome bartered away religion, and woman
domestic piety.
The weak minds of women after the great corruption of the sixteenth
century, spoiled beyond all remedy, full of passion, fear, and wicked
desires mingled with remorse, seized greedily the means of sinning
conscientiously, of expiating without either amendment, amelioration,
or return towards God. They thought themselves happy to receive at the
Confessional, by way of penance, some little political commission, or
the management of some intrigue. They transferred to this singular
manner of expiating their faults the very violence of the guilty
passions, for which the atonement was to be made; and in order to
remain sinful, they were often obliged to commit crimes.[2]
The passion of woman, inconstant in everything else, was in this case
sustained by the vigorous obstinacy of the mysterious and invisible
hand that urged her forward. Under this impulse, at once gentle and
strong, ardent and persevering, firm as iron and as dissolving as fire,
characters and even interests at length gave way.
Some examples will help us to understand it the better. In France, old
Lesdiguieres was politically, much interested in remaining a
Protestant; as such, he was the head man of the party. The king rather
than the governor of Dauphine, he assisted the Swiss, and protected the
populations of Vaud and Romand against the house of Savoy. But the old
man's daughter was gained over by Father Cotton. She set to work upon
her father with patience and address, and succeeded in inducing him to
quit his high position for an empty title, and change his religion for
the title of Constable.
In Germany the character of Ferdinand I., his interest, and the part he
had to play, would have induced him to remain moderate, and not become
the vassal of his nephew, Philip II. With violence and fanaticism he
had no choice but to accept a secondary place. The emperor's
daughters, however, intrigued so well that the house of Austria became
united by marriage to the houses of Lorraine and Bavaria. The children
of these families being educated by the Jesuits, the latter repaired in
Germany the broken thread of the destinies of the Guises, and had even
better fortune than the Guises themselves; for they made for their own
use certain blind instruments, agents in diplomacy and tactics--skilful
workmen certainly, but still mere workmen. I speak of that hardy and
devout generation, of Ferdinand II. of Austria, of Tilly, and
Maximilian of Bavaria, those conscientious executors of the great works
of Rome, who, under the direction of their teachers, carried on for so
long a time, throughout Europe, a warfare which was at once barbarous
and skilful, merciless and methodical. The Jesuits launched them into
it, and then carefully watched over them; and whenever Tilly on his
charger was seen dashing over the smoking ruins of cities, or the
battle-field covered with the slain, the Jesuit, trotting on his mule,
was not far off.
This vile war, the most loathsome in history, appears the more
horrible, by the almost total absence of free inspiration and
spontaneous impulse. It was, from its very beginning, both artificial
and mechanical[3]--like a war of machines or phantoms. These strange
beings, created only to fight, march with a look as void of martial
ardour, as their heart is of affection. How could they be reasoned
with? What language could be used towards them? What pity could be
expected from them? In our wars of religion, in those of the
Revolution they were men who fought; each died for the sake of his
idea, and, when he fell on the battle-field, he shrouded himself in his
faith. Whereas the partisans of the Thirty Years' War have no
individual life--no idea of their own; their very breath is but the
inspiration of the evil genius who urges them on. These automatons,
who grow blinder every day, are not the less obstinate and bloody. No
history would lead us to understand this abominable phenomenon, if
there did not remain some delineation of them in the hellish pictures
of that diabolical, _damned_ Salvator Rosa.[4]
Behold, then, this fruit of mildness, benignity, and paternity; see
how, after having by indulgence and connivance exterminated morality,
seized on the family by surprise, fascinated the mother and conquered
the child, and by the devil's own art raised the _man-machine_, they
are found to have created a monster, whose whole idea, life, and action
was _murder_, nothing more.
Wise politicians, amiable men, good fathers, who with so much mildness
have skilfully arranged from afar the Thirty Years' War, seducing
Aquaviva, you learned Canisius, and you good Possevino, the friend of
St. Francois de Sales, who will not admire the flexibility of your
genius? At the very time you were organising the terrible intrigue of
this second and prolonged St. Bartholomew, you were mildly discussing
with the good saint the difference that ought to be observed between
"those who died in love, and those who died for love."
What by-path led from these mild theories to such atrocious results?
How did it happen that souls enervated by gallant devotion and devout
gallantry, and spoiled by the daily facilities of an obliging and
accommodating casuistry, allowed themselves to be taken asleep in the
meshes of political intrigue? It would be a long story. In order to
set about it one must wade through their nauseous literature; but one
sickens at the sight of their filthy trash.
One word, however, for it is important. Prepared as the world was,
both by bad morals and bad taste, for the miserable productions with
which the Jesuits inundated it, all this insipid flood would have
subsided without leaving any traces behind, had they not mingled with
it a part of the pure original stream, which had already delighted the
human heart. The charm of St. Francois de Sales, his sublime spiritual
union with Madame de Chantal, the holy and mild seducing influence
which he had exercised over women and children, served indirectly, but
very efficaciously, the purpose of this great religious intrigue.
With small morality and cheap absolution, the Jesuits could very easily
corrupt consciences, but not tranquillise them. They could play, with
more or less skill, upon that rich instrument Falsehood, which their
institution gave them, airs of science, art, literature, and theology.
But could they, with all this false fingering, produce one true
note?--Not one!
But this true and gentle note was precisely that which was sounded for
them by St. Francois. They had only to play after his method to make
the false appear a little less discordant. The amiable qualities of
his writings, nay, their pleasing errors, were skilfully made the most
of. His taste for the minute and humble, which made him bestow a
partial regard upon the lesser beings of the creation, such as little
children, lambs, birds, and bees, became a precedent among the Jesuits
for whatever is finical and narrow-minded, for a meanness of style and
littleness of heart. The bold but innocent language of an angel, pure
as light itself, who incessantly points out God in his sweetest
revelation, woman suckling, and the divine mysteries of love,
emboldened his imitators to make the most perilous equivocations, and
was the occasion of their carrying their ambiguous terms to such a
pitch, that the line of demarcation between gallantry and devotion, the
lover and the spiritual father, became at length invisible.
The friend of St. Francois de Sales, good bishop Camus, with all his
little romances, contributed much to this. There was nothing now but
pious sheep-folds, devout Astreas, and ecclesiastical Amyntases.
Conversion sanctifies everything in these novels; I am aware of it.
The lovers at the end of the story enter a convent or seminary, but
they arrive there by a long roundabout road, which enables them to
dream by the way.
A taste for the romantic and insipid, the benignant and paternal style,
thus gained ground rapidly. The event showed that the innocent had
worked for the benefit of the cunning. A St. Francois and a Camus
prepared the way for Father Douillet.
The essential point for the Jesuits was to reduce and to lessen, to
make minds weak and false, to make the little very little, and turn the
simple into idiots: a mind nourished with trifles and amused with toys
must be easy to govern. Emblems, rebuses, and puns, the delight of the
Jesuits, were very fit for that purpose. Among the class of silly
emblems, few books can vie with the _Imago primi Soeculi Societatis
Jesu_.
All this paltry nonsense succeeded admirably with women who had no sort
of occupation, and whose minds had been for a long time corrupted by an
unintellectual gallantry. It has been proved by experience, in every
age, that to please the sex only two things are requisite; first, to
amuse them, to participate in their taste for everything that is
trifling, romantic, and false; secondly, to flatter them, and spoil
them in their weaknesses, by making one's self weaker, more effeminate,
and womanish than they.
This was the line of conduct laid down for all.--How is it that the
lover gets an advantage over the husband? Generally speaking, it is
less by his passion, than by his assiduity and complaisance, and by
flattering woman's fancy. The director will make use of the very same
means; he will flatter, and so much the more successfully, as some
degree of austerity at least was expected from his character and
profession. But what is to prevent another from flattering still more?
We have just now seen an instance (a respectable one, it is true) of
these spiritual infidelities.
In changing continually one confessor for another, merely on account of
his being more gentle and indulgent than the former, we run the risk of
falling very low in morality. To get the upper hand over so many
accommodating directors, an entirely new standard of effeminacy and
baseness is required. The new comer must entirely change the
characters; and instead of being the judge, as formerly, at the bar of
penitence, he must be a suppliant; justice will be obliged to plead
before the sinner, and the divine man becomes the penitent!
The Jesuits, who by these means supplanted so many directors, bear
witness, that in this sort of opposition they had no one to fear. They
knew well enough, that no other would be found better qualified than a
Jesuit for easy indulgence, disguised connivance, and subtilty to
overreach the Deity. Father Cotton was so little afraid of his
penitents leaving him, that, on the contrary, he used occasionally to
advise them to go to the other confessors: "Go," said he, "go and try
them; you will return to me!"
Only imagine this general emulation among confessors, directors, and
consulting casuists, to justify everything, to find every day some
adroit means of carrying indulgence still further, of declaring
innocent some new case, that had hitherto been supposed guilty. The
result of this manner of waging war against sin, emulously carried by
so many learned men, was its gradual and universal disappearance from
the common life of man; sin could no longer find a haven of refuge, and
one might reasonably suppose that in a few years it would cease to
exist in the world.
The great book of "Provinciales," with all the artifice of method,
omits one thing, which we regret. In showing us the unanimity of the
casuists, the author presents them, as it were, on the same line, and
as contemporaries. It would have been more instructive to have dated
them, and given to each his appointed period; and thus, according to
his merits in the progressive development of casuistry, to show how
they severally advanced towards perfection, outbidding, surpassing, and
eclipsing one another.
In so great a rivalry, it was necessary to make every effort, and set
all their wits to work. The penitent having the option, might become
difficult. He wanted his absolution at a cheaper rate every day; and
they who would not lower their price lost their customers. It was
business that required a clever man to find out, in so great a
relaxation, by what means further indulgence might be given. A fine,
elastic, and indulgent science, that, instead of imposing rules,
adapted itself to proportions, narrowing or widening, and taking
measurement, as the case might be. Every progress of this kind, being
carefully noted down served as a starting-post to go further. In
countries that have once become aguish, fever produces fever; the sick
inhabitant neglecting the precaution for preserving health, filth
accumulates on filth, the waters form marshes, and the miasma grows
stronger; a close, heavy, and noxious atmosphere oppresses the country.
The people crawl or lie down. Do not speak to them of attempting any
remedy; they are accustomed to the fever; they have had it on and off
ever since their birth, and their forefathers had it. Why try
remedies? The country has been in the same state from time immemorial;
it would be almost a pity, according to these authorities, to make a
change.
[1] The Apostle puts the matter thus:--Therefore by the deeds of the
law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight: for by the law is
the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law
is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the
righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and
upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have
sinned, and come short of the glory of God: being justified freely by
His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath
set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare
His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the
forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness:
that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in
Jesus.--Rom. iii. 20-26.
[2] See in Leger, the vast system of espionage, intrigue, and secret
persecution, that the first ladies of Piedmont and France had
organised, under the direction of the Jesuits.
[3] Excepting the electrical moment of Gustavus-Adolphus.
[4] The term is a harsh one, and I am sorry for it. If this great
artist paints war so cruelly, it is doubtless because he had more
feeling than any of his contemporaries, and appreciates more keenly the
horror of this terrible epoch.