[3] The preliminary confession of the nuns to the superior, easily

acceded to in the first fit of enthusiasm, soon becomes an intolerable

vexation. Even in Madame de Chantal's time, it was much complained of.

See her letters, and Fichet, 256; also Ribadeneira, Life of St. Theresa.

[4] Sister Marie Lemonnier was shut up with mad girls: here she found a

Carmelite nun, who had been there nine years. The third volume of the

_Wandering Jew_ contains the real history of Mademoiselle B. All this

happened very lately, not in a mad-house, but in a convent. Since I

have this opportunity of saying a word to our admirable novelist, let

him permit me to ask him why he thought proper to idealise the Jesuits

to this extent? who does not know that certain dignitaries of their

order have become immortal by ridicule? It is difficult to believe

stupid writers to be strong minds, or profound machinators. I look in

vain for a Rodin, and find only Loriquets.

[5] All these people buy and sell, and become brokers. Prelates

speculate in lands and buildings, the Lazarists turn agents for

military recruits, &c. The latter, the successors of St. Vincent de

Paul, the directors of our Sisters of Charity, have been so blessed by

God for their charity, that they have now a capital of twenty millions.

Their present chief, Mr. Etienne, then a procurer of the order, was

lately the Lazarist agent in a distillery company. The very important

law-suit they have at the present moment will decide whether a society

engaged by a general, its absolute chief, is freed from every

engagement by a change of generals.

[6] Did not this horrible art calculate well on the influence of the

body? this art that does not awaken man's energy by pain, but enervates

it by diet and the misery of dungeons! (See Mabillon's Treatise on

Monastic Prisons.) The revelations of the prisoners of Spielberg have

enlightened us upon this head.

[7] The affairs at Avignon, Sens, Poictiers, though the guilty parties

have been but slightly punished, permit us to hope that the law will at

length awake. We read in one of the newspapers of Caen: "A report was

current yesterday at the _palais_, that the _procureur-general_ was

going to evoke not only the affair of the sequestration of Sister

Marie, but also that of Sister Ste-Placide, about whose removal the

_avocat-general_, Sorbier, wrote to the under-prefect of Bayeux, on the

13th of August last. Lastly, that of Madmlle. H----, of Rouen, whom

the attorney-general (_procureur du roi_), of Rouen, was obliged to

remove from the establishment of Bon-Sauveur."--_National_ (newspaper),

March 10, 1845.

[8] The inspection of convents ought to be shared between the judiciary

and municipal magistracy, and the administrations of charity. The bar

is too much occupied to be able to undertake it alone. If these houses

are necessary as asylums for poor women, who earn too little in a

solitary life, at least let them be free asylums like the _beguinages_

of Flanders; but not under the same direction. When a woman has ended

the task of the wife, she begins that of the mother or grandmother.

CHAPTER VI.

ABSORPTION OF THE WILL.--GOVERNMENT OF ACTS, THOUGHTS, AND

WILLS.--ASSIMILATION.--TRANSHUMANATION.--TO BECOME THE GOD OF

ANOTHER.--PRIDE.--PRIDE AND DESIRE.

If we believe politicians, happiness consists in reigning. They

sincerely think so, since they accept in exchange for happiness so much

trouble and so many annoyances; a martyrdom often that perhaps the

saints would have shrunk from.

But the reign must be real. Are we quite sure that it is really to

reign, to make ordinances that are not executed, to enact with great

effort, and as a supreme victory, one law more, which is doomed to

sleep in the bulletin of laws at the side of thirty thousand of the

same kin?

It is of no use to prescribe acts, if we are not first masters of the

mind; in order to govern the bodily world, we must reign in the

intellectual world. This is the opinion of the thinking man, the

profound writer; and he believes he reigns. He is, indeed, a king; at

least for the next age. If he is really original, he outsteps his

century, and is postponed till another time. But he will reign

to-morrow, and the day after, and so on for ages, and ever more

absolute. To-day he will be alone; every success costs a friend, but

he acquires others; and I am willing to believe both ardent and

numerous; those he loses were, no doubt, worth less, but they were

those he loved; and he will never see the others. Work, then,

disinterested man, work on; you will have for your reward a little

noise and smoke. Is not that a sufficient reward for you? King of

ages yet unborn, you will live and die empty-handed. On the shore of

that sea of unknown ages, you, a child, have picked up a shell, which

you hold to your ear, to try to catch a faint sound, in which you fancy

you hear your own name.

Look on the other hand at that man, that _Priest_, who at the very time

he is telling us his kingdom is above, has adroitly secured for himself

the reality of the earth beneath. He lets you go, as you please, in

search of unknown worlds; but he himself seizes on the present one;

your own world, poor dreamer! that which you loved, the nest where you

hoped to come back and be cherished. Accuse no one but yourself, it is

your own fault. With your eyes turned towards the dawn you forgot

yourself, whilst you were peeping to catch a glimpse of the first ray

of the future. You turn round when it is rather too late; another

possesses the cherished casket in which you had left your heart.

The sovereignty of ideas is not that of the will. We can only get

possession of the will by the will itself: not general and vague, but

an especial and personal will, which attaches itself perseveringly to,

and really commands, the person, because it makes it in its own image.

Really to reign, is to reign over a soul. What are all the thrones in

comparison to this kingly sway? What is dominion over an unknown

crowd? The really ambitious have been too shrewd to make a mistake!

They have not exhausted their efforts in the extension of a vague and

weak power, which loses by being extended; they have aimed rather at

its solidity, intensity, and immutable possession.

The end thus settled, the priest has a great advantage which no one

else possesses. His business is with a soul _which gives itself up of

its own accord_. The great obstacle for other powers is, that they do

not well know the person acted upon; they see only the outside, but the

priest looks within.

Whether he be clever, or only of an ordinary stamp, still, by the sole

virtue of hopes and fears, by that magic key which opens the world to

come, the priest opens also the heart, and that heart wishes to lay

itself open; all its fear is lest it should conceal anything. It does

not see itself entirely; but whenever it is at a loss, the priest sees

his way clearly, and penetrates into it, by the simple method of

obtaining revelations from servants, friends, and relatives, and

comparing them together. With all this enlightening he forms a mass of

light, which, concentrated upon the object, renders it so thoroughly

luminous, that he knows not only its present existence, but its future

state, deciphering, from the very first day, in its instinct and

sentiment, what will be its thoughts on the morrow. He, therefore,

truly knows this heart, both by sight and foresight. This rare science

would remain inexplicable without a word in explanation. If it knows

its subject to this degree, it is because it is its own work. The

director creates the directed; the latter is his work, and becomes in

time one and the same man. How is it possible the former should not

know the ideas and wishes which he himself has inspired, and which are

his own? A transfusion takes place between the two in this incessant

action, in which the inferior, receiving everything from the other,

goes on gradually losing his personality. Growing weaker and more idle

every day, he thinks himself happy in no longer having a will of his

own, and is glad to see that troublesome will, which has caused too

many sufferings, die away and be lost. Even so a wounded man sees his

blood, his life-blood flowing away, and feels himself the easier.

But who is to make good within you, and fill up the void left by this

draining away of moral personality, by which you escape from

yourself?--In two letters--_he_.

_He_, the patient, cunning man, who, day by day, taking from you a

little of yourself, and substituting a little of himself, has gently

subtilised the one, and put the other in its place. The soft and weak

nature of women, almost as yielding as that of children, is well

adapted for this transfusion. The same woman seeing ever the same man,

takes without knowing it, his turn of mind, his accent, his language,

nay more, something of his gait and physiognomy. She speaks as he

does, and walks in the same manner as he. In only seeing her pass by,

a person of any penetration would see that _she is he_.

But this outward similarity is but a weak sign of the profound change

within. What has been transformed is the intimate, most intimate part.

A great mystery has been effected, that which Dante calls

_transhumanation_; when a human person, melting away without knowing

it, has assumed (substance for substance) another humanity; when the

superior replacing the inferior, the agent the patient, no longer needs

to direct him, but becomes his being. _He_ is, the other is not;

unless we consider him as an accident, a quality of this being, a pure

phenomenon, an empty shadow, a nothing.

Why did we just now speak of influence, dominion, and royalty? This is

a much higher thing than royalty--this is divinity. It is to be the

god of another.

If there be in this world an occasion on which we may become mad, it is

this. The thought of the man who has reached this point, in whatever

humility he may cloak himself, is that of the pagan: "Deus factus sum!"

I was a man, I am God!

More than God. He will say to his creature, "God had created you so,

and I have made you another person; so that being no longer His, but

mine, you are myself, my inferior self, who are only to be

distinguished from myself by your adoring me."

Dependent creature, how could you have helped yielding?--God yields to

my word when I make Him descend to the altar. Christ becomes humble

and docile, and comes down at my hour, at my sign, to take the place of

the bread that is no more.[1]

We are no longer surprised at the furious pride of the priest, who, in

his royalty of Rome, has often carried it to greater extremes than all

the follies of the emperors, making him despise not only men and

things, but his own oath, and the word which he gave as infallible.

Every priest being able to make God, can just as well make odd even, or

things done things undone, things said things unsaid. The angel is

afraid of so much power, and stands back respectfully before this man

to see him pass.[2]

Go, boast to me now of your privations and mortifications! I am indeed

much touched by them!--Do you think, then, that through that plain robe

and meagre body, ay, in that pale heart I do not see the deep,

exquisite and maddening enjoyment of pride, which composes the very

being of a priest? What he carries within his robe, and broods over so

jealously, is a treasure of terrific pride. His hands tremble with it:

a bright ray of delight gleams in his downcast eyes.

Oh! with what fervour he hates everything that is an obstacle to him,

everything that prevents his infinity from being indeed infinite! How

does he desire with all his infinite heart to annihilate it! Oh! how

diabolical it is to hate in God!

A great suffering is connected with this great enjoyment of being the

god of another soul: all that is wanting to complete this divinity

causes horrible pangs. You cannot be surprised if this man pursues

with an insatiable ardour the absorption of a soul which he hopes to

assimilate. You may easily understand the real and profound cause of

this strange avidity, which wants to see and know everything, both the

trivial and the important, the principal and the accessory, the

essential and the indifferent, and which, not satisfied with enveloping

it outwardly, tries to reach the bottom, and probing lower and lower in

the very depth, would attain the essence. Suppose even this to be

reached, still it will cry out for--more! Alas! it may ever acquire

more, and again more; but something will ever remain beyond. Who can

measure a soul? It preserves in its recesses, unknown to itself (and

to you also), both space and depth. That soul which seemed to you

already acquired, and which you thought in your entire possession,

hides behind it, perhaps, a world of liberty which you can never reach.

This is humiliating, gloomy, nay, almost despair. Horrible suffering!

not to have all, is, for a god, to have nothing.

Then, even then, in their very pride, an ironical voice is heard,

scoffing at their pride; it is the voice of desire, which it had

silenced till now: "Poor god," says she, "you are no god; it is your

own fault; I told you so before. Come, leave off your school-divinity,

and your _distinguo_ of the corporeal and spiritual natures. To

possess, is to have all. He alone has possession who can both use and

abuse. For the soul to be really thine, one thing is still

wanting--the body."

[1] "Origen thinks that the priest must be a little God, to do an act

that is beyond the power of angels." Father Fichet (a Jesuit), "Life

of Madame de Chantal." p. 615. If you require a more serious Jesuit

than Fichet, here is Bourdaloue: "Though the priest be in this

sacrifice only the substitute of Jesus Christ, it is nevertheless

certain, that Jesus Christ _submits to him_, that He _becomes his

subject_, and renders him, every day upon our altars, _the most prompt

and exact obedience_. If faith did not teach us these truths, could we

think that a man could ever attain to such an elevation, and be

invested with a character that enables him, if I may say so, to

_command_ his sovereign Lord, and make Him descend from heaven?"

[2] One of the new priests, under the orders of St. Francois de Sales

often saw his guardian angel. Having arrived at the church-door, he

stopped. They asked him the reason: he answered ingenuously, that "he

was accustomed to see his guardian angel walk before him, and that this

prince of heaven _had then stopped and stood aside, out of respect for

his character, giving him the precedence_."--Maupas du Tour, Life of

St. Francois de Sales, p. 199.

CHAPTER VII.

DESIRE.--ABSORPTION AND ASSIMILATION CONTINUED.--TERRORS OF THE OTHER

WORLD.--THE PHYSICIAN AND THE

PATIENT.--ALTERNATIVES.--POSTPONEMENTS.--THE 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 CANNOT

REVIVE.

Let us a pause a moment at the brink of the abyss that we have just had

a glimpse of, and before we descend into it, let us know well where we

are.

The unlimited dominion, of which we spoke just now, could never be

sufficiently explained by the power of habit, strengthened by all the

arts of seduction and captation; it would be especially impossible to

understand how so many inferior men succeed in obtaining their ends.

We must repeat here what we have said elsewhere: _If this power of

death has so much hold upon the soul, the reason is, that it generally

attacks it in its dying state_; when weakened by worldly passions, and

crushing it more and more by the ebb and flow of religious passions, it

finds at last that it has neither strength, nor nerve, nor anything

that can offer resistance.

Which of us has not known, in his life, those moments when violent

activity having ruffled our hearts, we hate action, liberty, and

ourselves?--when the wave that bore us upon its gentle but treacherous

bosom retires suddenly and harshly from beneath, leaving us upon the

dry strand--where we remain like a log? Never could the soul, thus

stranded, be set in motion again, if it were not, independently of its

will, floated off by the waves of Lethe. A low voice then says, "Move

not; act no more, do not even wish; die in will."--"Happy release! wish

for me! There, I give up to you that troublesome liberty, the weight

of which oppressed me so much. A soft pillow of faith, a childish

obedience is all I now want. Now I shall sleep happily!"

But such people do not sleep, they only dream. How can they, nervous

and trembling with weakness, expect to repose? They lie still, it is

true; but they are also plunged in dreams. The soul will not act, but

the imagination acts without her; and this involuntary fluctuation is

but the more fatiguing. Then, all the terrors of childhood crowd upon

the patient, and more steadfastly than they did upon the child. The

phantasmagoria of the middle ages, which we thought forgotten, revives;

the dark infernal region of hell, which we had laughed away, exacts a

heavy interest, and takes a cruel revenge: this poor soul belongs to

it. What would become of her, alas! had she not a spiritual physician

at her bedside to succour and encourage her? "Do not leave me, I am

too much afraid!"--"Do not fear; you are not responsible for all this:

God will pardon you these disordered emotions; they are not yours; the

devil stirs thus within us."--"The devil! ah! I felt him; I thought,

indeed, this violent and strange emotion was foreign to me. But how

horrible to be the sport of the malignant spirit!"--"I am here; be not

afraid; hold me fast; go straight on; the abyss, it is true, is gaping

wide, on the right and on the left; but, by following the narrow

bridge, with God's assistance, we shall walk along this razor-edge to

Paradise."

Great, indeed, is the power to be so necessary, ever called and

desired! to hold, as it were, the two threads of hope and fear, which

drag the soul at pleasure. When troubled, they calm her; when calm,

they agitate her: she grows more and more feeble, and the physician is

so much the stronger; he perceives it, and he enjoys it. He, to whom

every natural enjoyment is forbidden, feels a gloomy happiness, a

mawkish sensuality, in exercising this power; making the ebb and the

flow, afflicting in order to console, wounding, healing, and wounding

again. "Oh! let her be ill for ever! I suffer, let her suffer with

me. It is at least something to have pain in common."

But they do not gather these sighs, and support the languid head with

impunity. He who wounded, is wounded in his turn. In these

outpourings of the heart, the most simple person often says, without

knowing it, things that inflame the passions. He draws back, as if

indignant and angry, before the scorching flame that a gentle hand has

applied without being aware of it: he endeavours to conceal his emotion

under a well-feigned pious anger; he tries to hate sin, but he only

envies it.

How gloomy he seems that day! See him ascend the pulpit. What ails

this holy man of God? People see too plainly; it is the zeal of the

law that devours him--he bears all the sins of the people. What

thunder and lightning in his discourse! is it the last judgment? every

one flinches. One woman, however, has received the whole force of the

thundering denunciation; she grows pale, her knees no longer support

her; the blow struck home: for he who knows her inmost soul found too

easily the terrible word, the only word that could strike and touch her

to the quick. She alone felt it; she finds herself now alone in the

church (the crowd no longer exists for her), and alone she sees herself

falling into the infernal dark abyss. "Father, reach me your hand! I

feel I am sinking!"

Not yet, it is not yet time! She must struggle and fall still lower,

then rise a little to sink lower still. Now, she comes to him every

day more grieving, and more pressing. How she prays and insists! But

she will not yet get the comforting word: "To-day? No, on Saturday."

And on Saturday he puts her off till Wednesday.[1] What! three days

and three whole nights in the same anxiety? She weeps like a child.

No matter; he resists and leaves her, but he is troubled even in

resisting her. In thus humbling this _belle madame_, he tastes a

secret pleasure of pride; and yet he thinks himself that he has been

too harsh towards her: he loves her, and he has made her weep!

Cruel man! do you not see that the poor woman is dying? that she is

becoming weaker at every burst of grief? What is it you want? her

downfall? But in this prostration of strength, in this terror of

despair and abandonment of dignity, is there not already a complete

downfall? No; what he wants till now, is, that she may suffer as he

does, resemble him in sufferings, and be his partner in his woes and

frenzy. He is alone; then let her be alone. He has no family; he

hates her as a wife and mother; he wants to make her a lover, a lover

of God: he is deceiving himself in deceiving her.

But in the midst of all this, and fascinated as she is, she is not,

however, so blind as you might believe. Women, even children, are

penetrating when they are afraid; they very soon get a glimpse of what

may comfort them. This woman, whilst she was dragged at his feet as a

frightened yet caressing suppliant, did not fail to notice, through her

tears, the emotion she excited. They were both in emotion

together--this is to be an accomplice. They both know (without,

however, knowing it clearly, but confusedly through instinct and

passion) that they have a hold upon each other, she by desire, and he

by fear.

Fear has much to do with love. The husband in the middle ages was

loved by the wife for his very severity. His humble Griselda

recognised in him the right of the paternal rod. The bride of William

the Conqueror, having been beaten by him, knew him by this token for

her lord and husband. Who has this right in our age? The husband has

not preserved it--the priest has it and uses it: he ever holds over

woman the rod of authority; he beats her submissive and docile with

spiritual rods. But he who can punish, can also pardon; the only one

who can be severe, he alone has also what with a timid person is

accounted supreme grace--clemency. One word of pardon gains for him

instantly, in that poor frightened heart, more than the most worthy

would obtain after years of perseverance. Kindness acts just in

proportion to the severities and terrors that have preceded it. No

seduction is comparable to this.

How can that man be resisted, who, to force one to love him, can entice

by the offer of Paradise, or frighten by the terrors of hell? This

unexpected return of kindness is a very dangerous moment for her, who,

conquered by fear, with her forehead in the dust, expects only the fury

of the thunderbolt. What! that formidable judge, that angel of

judgment, is suddenly melted! She, who felt already the cold blade of

the sword, feels now the warmth of a kind friendly hand, which raises

her from the earth. The transition is too great for her; she had still

held up against fear, but this kindness overcomes her. Worn out by her

alternate hopes and fears, the feeble person becomes weakness itself.

To be able to have all, and then abstain, is a slippery situation! who

will keep his footing on this declivity?

Here we find again, in the path of desire, the very point at which we

had just now arrived by the path of pride.

Desire, despised at first by pride, as brutal and coarse, turns

sophist, and puts before him the terrible problem at which love,

mingled with dread, flinches, and turns away his sight. He sees

without daring to look, he puts up his hand before his eyes, but with

his fingers apart, like the _Vergognosa_ of the Campo-Santo.

"Are you sure you possess the heart entirely, if you have not the body?

Will not physical possession give up corners of the soul, which

otherwise would remain inaccessible? Is spiritual dominion complete,

if it does not comprehend the other? The great popes seem to have

settled the question: they thought popedom implied empire; and the pope

himself, besides his sway over consciences, was king in temporal

matters."

Against this sophism of the flesh, the spirit still struggles, and does

not fail to answer, "That spiritual conquest, as soon as it is

completed in this manner, ceases to be spiritual; that this ambitious

conqueror, the spirit, cannot have all without perishing at the moment

of victory."

The flesh is not embarrassed; but taking refuge in hypocrisy, makes

itself of no importance, and becomes humble to regain its advantage:

"Is then the body so important that we should trouble our heads about

it? A simple dependent of the soul ought to follow wherever she goes."

The mystics are never behindhand, in this matter, in their insults to

the body and the flesh. The flesh is the brute animal, says one, which

we must cudgel. "Let her pass," says another, "through any muddy

brook: what does it signify to the soul that rides above, sublime and

pure, without deigning to look down?"

Afterwards comes the vile refinement of the Quietists: "If the inferior

part be without sin, the superior grows proud, and pride is the

greatest sin: consequently the flesh ought to sin, in order that the

soul may remain humble; sin, producing humility, becomes a ladder to

ascend to heaven."

"Sin!--But is it sin? (depraved devotion finds here the ancient

sophism:) The holy by its essence, being holiness itself, always

sanctifies. In the spiritual man, everything is spirit, even what in

another is matter. If, in its superior flight, the holy should meet

with any obstacle that might draw it again towards the earth, let the

inferior part get rid of it; it does a meritorious work, and is

sanctified for it."

Diabolical subtlety! which few avow clearly, but which many brood over,

and cherish in their most secret thoughts. Molinos is forgotten, but

Molinosism still exists.[2]

Besides, false reasonings are hardly necessary in the miserable state

of dreaming in which a soul lives, when deprived of will and reason.

Beside herself, and out of her senses, having lost all connection with

reality, ever buried in miracles, intoxicated with God and the devil,

she is weakened to death: but the excess of this weakness is yet strong

enough to give poison and fever in return; terrible contagion--you

thought that this morally dead person would toil after you, but it is

you who will follow her: she will bear away the living.

Here end the subtleties with which desire had been satisfied. A

horrible light breaks upon them, and sophistry finds no longer any

clouds to darken it. You see, then, when it is too late, that you have

done more than you wanted. You have destroyed precisely what would

have served you; for each of these suppressed powers, the will, the

mind, and the heart, which now are no more, would have been for you,

had they remained alive. But, alas! they are crushed, faded, and void.

The essence of existence once destroyed, no longer feels; it can

neither attach itself to anything, nor be captivated by anything. You

wanted to bind it fast, but you have stifled it. Now you would wish

her, whose life is annihilated, to be alive, or at least to revive.

That is a miracle beyond your power. The thing you see, is, and ever

will be, a cold shadow, without any life to answer you. Do what you

will, you will find no responsive throbbing. This will be your

despair. You can feign everything, and say everything, except one

word, which we defy you to pronounce without grief--the sacred name of

love.

Love! why, you have assassinated it! In order to love, you must have a

person; but what was a person you have made a thing. Proud man! you

who every day summon your Creator to descend upon the altar, you have

inverted the order of creation: you have destroyed a being.

You, who, out of a GRAIN OF CORN, can make a GOD, tell me, was it not

also a god that you held just now in that credulous and docile soul?

what have you done with that interior god of man, that we call liberty?

You have put yourself in its place; in the place of that power, by

which man is man, I see nonentity.

Well! that nonentity shall be your torment. You will probe it in vain;

however low you penetrate, you will find but a void, nothing, neither

_will_ nor _power_. There everything that could have loved has

perished.

[1] This postponing manoeuvre is admirably calculated to draw from a

woman a secret, that does not belong to confession, that she will not

tell, her husband's secret, her lover's _real name_, &c., &c. They

always get it out of her at last.

[2] This word Molinosism reminds us of an old forgotten system. In

practice, it is a thing of all times, an instinct, a blind belief,

which is natural to the weak, and which may be thus expressed:--with

the strong, everything is right; a saint cannot sin. See the patient,

if he is lucky enough to invite his physician to dinner with him: he

has recovered his assurance and boldness, and indulges in every dish

without being afraid. I believe, moreover, that real Molinosism is

always a powerful argument with the simple. A contemporary writer,

Llorente, relates (t. iii., ch. 28, article 2, ed. 1817), that when he

was secretary to the Inquisition, they brought before that tribunal a

capuchin friar, who was director of a community of Beguines, nearly all

of whom he had seduced, by persuading them that they were not straying

from the road to perfection. He would say to each of them, at the

Confessional, that he had received a singular grace from God; "Our

Lord," said he, "has deigned to appear to me in the consecrated wafer,

and He has said to me, almost all the souls that you direct here are

pleasant to Me, but especially such a one (_the capuchin named the one

he was then speaking to_). She is already so perfect that she has

overcome every passion, save desire, which is her torment. For this

reason, wishing her virtue to be rewarded and that she should serve Me

with a quiet mind, I charge you to give her dispensation, but in favour

of you; she is to speak of it to no confessor; it would be useless,

since with such dispensation she cannot sin." Out of seventeen

Beguines, of which the community was composed, this daring capuchin

gave dispensation to thirteen, who were discreet for a considerable

time; one of them, however, fell ill, expected to die, and revealed

all, declaring that she had never been able to believe in the

dispensation, but that she had availed herself of it. If the accused

party had simply confessed, he would have been let off with a very

trifling punishment, the Inquisition being, says Llorente, very lenient

towards that kind of offence. But, though he confessed the thing, he

maintained that he had acted properly, being empowered by Jesus Christ.

"What!" said they, "is it likely that our Lord appeared to you, to

exempt you from a precept of the Decalogue." "Why, he exempted Abraham

from the fifth commandment, ordering him to kill his son, and the

Hebrews from the seventh, ordering them to rob the Egyptians." "Yes,

but these were mysteries favourable to religion." "And what then is

more favourable to religion than to quiet thirteen virtuous souls, and

lead them to a perfect union with the divine essence?" I recollect,

says Llorente, saying to him, "But, father, is it not surprising that

this singular virtue happened to be precisely in the thirteen young and

handsome ones, and never in the four others who were ugly or old?" He

replied coldly, "The Holy Spirit inspires as it pleases."

The same author, in the same chapter, though reproaching the

Protestants with having exaggerated the corruption of the confessors,

avows, "In the sixteenth century, the Inquisition had imposed upon

women the obligation of denouncing guilty confessors, but the

denunciations were found to be so numerous, that the penitents were

declared to be relieved from denouncing." Trials of this description

were conducted with closed doors, and condemnations were hushed up in

secret little _autodafes_. From the number of trials which Llorente

extracts from the registers, he compares the morals of the different

religious orders, and finds, in figures, a very natural result that

might be guessed without the help of arithmetic. They deceived their

penitents, just in proportion to the more or less money and liberty

they had to seduce others with. Poor and secluded monks were dangerous

confessors; friars, who had more liberty, and secular priests, seldom

made use of the hazardous means of the Confessional; because they found

favourable opportunities elsewhere. They who, as directors, see women

_tete-a-tete_ at home, or in their own houses, have no need to corrupt

them at the altar.

PART III.

FAMILIES.

CHAPTER I.

SCHISM IN FAMILIES.--THE DAUGHTER;--BY WHOM EDUCATED.--IMPORTANCE OF

EDUCATION, AND THE ADVANTAGE OF THE FIRST INSTRUCTOR.--INFLUENCE OF

PRIESTS UPON MARRIAGE, WHICH THEY OFTEN RETAIN AFTER THAT CEREMONY.

The drama which I have endeavoured to sketch does not always, thanks be

to God, go so far as the annihilation of the will and personality. One

cannot well discern where it stops, owing to the dark cloak of reserve,

discretion, and hypocrisy, with which this black community is

enveloped. Besides, the clergy have been doubly guarded in their

conduct during the present contentions.[1] It is out of the church, in

houses, and family circles, that we must seek for what will throw the

principal light upon what the Church conceals. Look well; there you

see a reflection, unfortunately too clear, of what is passing elsewhere.

We have already said, if you enter a house in the evening, and sit down

at the family table, one thing will almost always strike you; the

mother and daughters are together, of one and the same opinion, on one

side; whilst the father is on the other, and alone.

What does this mean? It means that there is some one more at this

table, whom you do not see, to contradict and give the lie to whatever

the father may utter. He returns fatigued with the cares of the day,

and full of those which are to come; but he finds at home, instead of

repose and comfort for the mind, only the struggle with the past.

We must not be surprised at it. By whom are our daughters and wives

brought up? We must repeat the expression,--by our enemies, the

enemies of the Revolution, and of the future.

Do not cry out here, nor quote me this or that sermon you have preached.

What do I care for the democratical parade which you make in the

pulpit, if everything beneath us, and behind us, all your little

pamphlets which issue by thousands and millions, your ill-disguised

system of instruction, your confessional, the spirit of which now

transpires, show us altogether what you are,--the enemies of liberty?

You, subjects of a foreign prince; you, who deny the French church, how

dare you speak of France?

Six hundred and twenty thousand[2] girls are brought up by nuns under

the direction of the priests. These girls will soon be women and

mothers, who, in their turn, will hand over to the priests, as far as

they are able, both their sons and their daughters.

The mother has already succeeded as far as concerns the daughter; by

her persevering importunity, she has, at length, overcome the father's

repugnance. A man who, every evening, after the troubles of business

and the warfare of the world, finds strife also at home, may certainly

resist for a time, but he must necessarily give in at last; or he will

be allowed neither truce, cessation, rest, nor refuge. His own house

becomes uninhabitable. His wife having nothing to expect at the

confessional but harsh treatment, as long as she does not succeed, will

wage against him every day and every hour the war they make against

her; a gentle one, perhaps; politely bitter, implacable, and obstinate.

She grumbles at the fire-side, is low-spirited at table, and never

opens her mouth either to speak or eat; then bed-time, the inevitable

repetition of the lesson she has learned, even on the pillow. The same

sound of the same bell, for ever and ever; who could withstand it? what

is to be done? Give in or become mad!

If the husband were firm, obstinate, and persevering enough to stand

this trial, the wife, perhaps, would not resist. "How can I see her so

unhappy, pining, uneasy, and ill? She is evidently growing thinner. I

had much rather save my wife." Such is the language of the husband.

If he be not subdued by his wife, he is by his own heart. The next day

the son leaves his college for the _Christian college_, or the school

for the little seminary. The daughter is led triumphantly by her

mother to the excellent boarding-school close by, where the good abbe

confesses and directs. In less than a year the boarding-school is

found to be not quite good enough, being still too worldly; the little

girl is then given over to the nuns, whose superior our abbe happens to

be, in some convent of his, that is, under his protection and his lock

and key.

Good-humoured parent, lie easy and sleep sound. Your daughter is in

good hands: you shall be contradicted till your death. Your daughter

is really a girl of good sense; and on every subject, having been

carefully armed against you, will take, whatever you may say, the

opposite side of the question.

What is very singular, the father, generally, is aware that they are

bringing up his child against him. Man, you surprise me! what do you

expect then? "Oh! she will forget it; time, marriage, and the world

will wear away all that." Yes, for a time, but only to re-appear; at

the first disappointment in the world it will all return. As soon as

she grows somewhat in years, she will return to the habits of the

child; the master she now has will be her master then, whether for your

contradiction, in your old age, good man, or for the despair and daily

damnation of her father and husband. Then will you taste the fruit of

this education.

Education! a mere trifle, a weak power, no doubt, which the father may,

without danger, allow his enemies to take possession of!

To possess the mind, with all the advantage of the first possessor! To

write in this book of blank paper whatever they will! and to write what

will last for ever! For, remember well, it will be in vain for you to

write upon it hereafter; what has once been indited, cannot be erased.

It is the mystery of her young memory to be as weak in receiving

impressions as it is strong in keeping them. The early tracing that

seemed to be effaced at twenty re-appears at forty or sixty. It is the

last and the clearest, perhaps, that old age will retain.

What! will not reading, and the press, the great overruling power of

our own days, give a stronger education than the former one? Do not

rely on this. The influence of the press partly annuls itself; it has

a thousand voices to speak, and a thousand others to answer and destroy

what it has said. Education does not make so much noise; it does not

talk; it reigns. Look, in that little class, without witness, control,

or contradiction, a man is speaking; he is master, an absolute master,

invested with the most ample power to punish and chastise. His voice,

not his hand, has the power of a rod; the little, trembling, and

believing creature, who has just left her mother's apron, receives his

weighty words, which enter the soft tablet of her memory, and stick

into it, like so many nails of iron.

This is true in speaking of the school, but how much more so as regards

the church! especially in the case of the daughter, who is more docile

and timid, and certainly retains more faithfully her early impressions.

What she heard the first time in that grand church, under those

resounding roofs, and the words, pronounced with a solemn voice by that

man in black, which then frightened her so, being addressed to

_herself_;--ah! be not afraid of her ever forgetting them. But even if

she could forget them, she would be reminded of them every week: woman

is all her life at school, finding in the confessional her

school-bench, her schoolmaster, the only man she fears, and the only

one, as we have said, who, in the present state of our manners, can

threaten a woman.

What an advantage has he in being able to take her quite young, in the

convent where they have placed her, to be the first to take in hand her

young soul, and to be the first to exercise upon her the earliest

severity, and also the earliest indulgence which is so akin to

affectionate tenderness,[3] to be the father and friend of a child

taken so soon from her mother's arms. The confidant of her first

thoughts will long be associated with her private reveries. He has had

an especial and singular privilege which the husband may envy:

what?--why, the virginity of the soul and the first-fruits of the will.

This is the man of whom, young bachelors, you must ask the girl in

marriage, before you speak to her parents. Do not deceive yourselves,

or you will lose all chance. You shake your heads, proud children of

the age; you think you can never be induced to humble yourselves so

far. All I hope then is, that you may be able to live single, and wed

philosophy; otherwise, I can see you, even now, in spite of all your

fine speeches, gliding stealthily, sneaking by twilight into the

church, and kneeling down before the priest. There they were lying in

wait for you, and there they catch you. You had not foreseen it. Now

you are a lover, poor young man, and will do whatever they wish.

I only wish that this girl, bought so dearly, may be really yours. But

what with that mother and that priest, the same influence, though

diminished for a moment, will soon resume its strength. You will have

a wife, minus heart and soul, and you will understand, when it is too

late, that he who now gives her away knows well how to keep her.[4]

[1] This circumspection would bear carrying a little farther, if we are

to judge of it by the public adventures of the Abbes C. and N., who,

by-the-by, will not prosper the less on this account, as two others, of

high rank, and known to everybody, have already shown.

[2] M. Louandre gives the figure six hundred and twenty-two thousand

girls, in his conscientious statistics.--_Revue des Deux-Mondes_, 1844.

[3] What is direction generally?--1st, _Love before love_; it

cultivates in the little girl that power which is now awakening, and it

cultivates it so well, that on leaving the convent, her parents see the

necessity of a speedy marriage to support her, for she is in danger of

falling:--2ndly, _Love after love_. An aged female is, in a layman's

estimation, an _old_ woman: but according to the priest's, she is a

_woman_: the priest begins where the world ends.

[4] Let us add to this chapter a fact, which (being compared with what

we have said about ecclesiastical discipline) inclines us to think that

the clergy do not lose sight of the girls who are brought up in the

convents under their direction. A friend of mine, whose high position

and character render his testimony very important, lately told me that,

having placed a young relation of his in a convent, he had heard from

the nuns _that they sent to Rome_ the names of the pupils who

distinguished themselves the most. The _centralization_ of such

private information, about the daughters of the leading families of the

Catholic world, must indeed facilitate many combinations, and be of

especial service to Ultramontane politics. The Jesu, if it were so,

would be a vast marriage office.

CHAPTER II.

WOMAN.--THE HUSBAND DOES NOT CONSOCIATE WITH HIS 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.--WHICH OF THE TWO IS NOW THE MORTIFIED MAN.

Marriage gives the husband a single and momentary opportunity to become

in reality the master of his wife, to withdraw her from the influence

of another, and make her his own for ever. Does he profit by it? Very

rarely. He ought, in the very beginning, when he has much influence

over her, to let her participate in the activity of his mind, his

business, and ideas, initiate her in his projects, and create an

activity in her by means of his own.

To wish and think as he does, both acting with him and suffering with

him--this is marriage. The worst that may happen is not that she may

suffer, but that she may languish and pine away, living apart, and like

a widow. How can we wonder, then, if her affection for him be

lessened? Ah! if, in the beginning, he made her his own, by making her

share his ambition, troubles, and uneasiness:--if they had watched

whole nights together, and been troubled with the same thoughts, he

would have retained her affections. Attachment may be strengthened by

grief itself; and mutual sufferings may maintain mutual love.

Frenchwomen are superior to those of England or Germany, and, indeed,

to any other women, in being able not only to assist man, but to become

his companion, his friend, his partner, his _alter ego_. None but the

commercial classes, generally speaking, are wise enough to profit by

this. See, in the shop-keeping quarters, in the dark storehouses of

the _Rue des Lombards_, or the Rue de la Verrerie, the young wife,

often born of rich parents, who, nevertheless, remains there, in that

little glazed counting-house, keeping the books, registering whatever

is brought in or taken out, and directing the clerks and porters. With

such a partner the house will prosper. The household is improved by

it. The husband and wife, separated by their occupations during the

day, are the better pleased to unite together in common thought.

Without being able to participate so directly in the husband's

activity, the wife might also, in other professions, be able to

associate with him in his business, or, at least, in his ideas. What

makes this difficult (I have not attempted to disguise it) is the

spirit of specialty which goes on increasing in our different

professions, as well as in our sciences, and driving us into minute

details; whereas woman, being less persevering, and, moreover, less

called upon to apply herself with precision, is confined to a knowledge

of generalities. The man who will seriously initiate a woman into his

own life, can do it safely and completely, if she love him, but he

would require to possess both patience and kindness. They have come

together, as it were, from the two opposite poles, and prepared by a

totally different education. Since it is so, how can you expect that

your young wife, intelligent as she is, should understand you at once?

If she do not understand you, it is, too frequently, your own fault:

this almost always proceeds from the abstract, dry, and scholastic

forms which you have imbibed from your education. She, remaining in

the sphere of common sense and sentiment, understands nothing of your

formulas, and seldom, very seldom, indeed, do you know how to translate

them into plain language. This requires address, will, and feeling.

You would want, sir, let me tell you, both more sense and more love.

At the first word she does not understand, the husband loses his

patience. "She is incapable, she is too frivolous." He leaves her,

and all is over. But that day he loses much. If he had persevered, he

would gradually have led her along with him; she would have lived his

life, and their marriage would have been real. Ah! what a companion he

has lost! how sure a confidant! and how zealous an ally! In this

person, who, when left to herself, seems to him too trifling, he would

have found, in moments of difficulty, a ray of inspiration, and often

useful advice.

I am here entering upon a large subject, where I should wish to stop.

But I cannot. One word more: the man of modern times, a victim of the

division of work, and often condemned to a narrow speciality, in which

he loses the sentiment of general life, and becomes a morbid sort of a

being, would require to have with him a young and serene mind, more

nicely balanced, and less given to specialty than his own, that might

lead him from the confined notions of trade, and restore him to the

charms of a well-regulated mind. In this age of eager opposition, when

the day is taken up with active business, and we return home worn out

with toil or disappointment, it is necessary to have a wife at the

domestic fire-side to refresh the burning brain of the husband. This

workman (what are we all but workmen, each in his own particular

line?), this blacksmith, panting with thirst, after beating the iron,

would receive from her the living fountain of the beautiful and good,

of God and nature; he would drink for a moment of eternal streams.

Then he would _forget_, take courage, and breathe freely again. Having

been relieved by her, he would in his turn assist her with his powerful

hand, lead her into his own world, his own life, his way of progress

and new ideas--the way of the future!

Unfortunately this is not the way of the world. I have sought

everywhere, but in vain, for this fine exchange of thought, which alone

realizes marriage. They certainly try for a moment, in the beginning,

to communicate together, but they are soon discouraged: the husband

grows dumb, his heart, dried up with the arid influence of interest and

business, can no longer find words. At first she is astonished and

uneasy: she questions him. But questions annoy him; and she no longer

dares to speak to him. Let him be easy; the time is coming when his

wife, sitting thoughtful by the fire-side, absent in her turn, and

framing her imaginary plans, will leave him in quiet possession of his

taciturnity.

First of all, she has a son. It is to him, if he be left to her, that

she will devote herself entirely. Should she go out, she gives him her

hand, and soon her arm; he is now like a young brother, "a little

husband." How tall he has grown already! how quickly time passes; and

it is a pity he grows so; for now comes the separation, his Latin and

his tears. Must he not become a learned man? Must he not enter, as

soon as possible, into the world of violence and opposition, where he

will acquire the bad passions which are cultivated so carefully in us,

pride, ambition, hatred, and envy? The mother would like to wait

longer: "What is the hurry? he is so young, and those schools are so

strict! He will learn much better at home, if they will let him remain

with her; she will engage masters and superintend his studies herself;

she will discontinue going to balls."--"Impossible, madam, impossible!

you would make a milksop of him." The fact is, the father, though he

likes his son very much, finds, that in a well-regulated house this

movement and constant noise and bustle are intolerable. He is unable

to support anything of the sort: fatigued, disgusted, and ill-humoured,

he wants silence and repose.

Wise husbands, who make so little of the resistance of a mother, do you

not perceive that it is also by an instinct of virtue that this woman

wishes to keep her son the pure and irreproachable witness, before whom

she would always have remained holy? If you knew how useful the

presence of the child is to the house, you yourself would desire to

keep him. As long as that child remained there, the house was blessed.

In his presence how difficult it is to loosen the family tie! What

completes marriage and the family? The child, the object of their

hopes. Who maintains the family? The child they possess. He is the

aim and the end, the mediator--I had almost said the whole.

We cannot repeat it too often, for nothing is more true--woman is

alone. She is alone if she has a husband; she is also alone even with

a son. Once at school, she sees him only by favour, and often at long

intervals. When he leaves school, other prisons await the youth, and

other exiles.

A brilliant evening party is given: enter those well-lighted rooms; you

see the women sitting in long rows, well-dressed, and entirely alone.

Go, about four o'clock, to the Champs-Elysees, and there you will see

again the same women, sad and spiritless, on their way to the Bois de

Boulogne, each in her own carriage, and alone. These are in a calash,

those at the far end of a shop; but all are equally alone.

There is nothing in the life of women, who have the misfortune to have

nothing to do, that may not be explained by one single

word--loneliness, _ennui_. _Ennui_, which is supposed to be a

languishing and negative disposition of the mind, is, for a nervous

woman, a positive evil impossible to support. It grasps its prey, and

gnaws it to the core: whoever suspends the torment for a moment is

considered a saviour.

_Ennui_ makes them receive female friends, whom they know to be

inquisitive, envious, slandering enemies. _Ennui_ makes them endure

novels in newspapers, which are suddenly cut short, at the moment of

the greatest interest. _Ennui_ carries them to concerts, where they

find a mixture of every kind of music, and where the diversity of

styles is fatigue for the ear. Ennui drags them to a sermon, which

thousands listen to, but which not one of them could bear to read.

Nay, even the sickening half-worldly and half-devout productions, with

which the neo-Catholics inundate the Faubourg Saint German, will find

readers among these poor women, the martyrs of _ennui_. Such delicate

and sickly forms can support a nauseous dose of musk and incense; which

would turn the stomach of any one in health.

One of these young authors explains, in a novel, all the advantage

there is in beginning gallantry by gallant devotion. The proceeding is

not new. All I wish is, that those who borrowed it from Tartuffe would

not give it to us, without its fair portion of wit and humour.

But they have no great need of it. Women listen to their disguised

declarations and ambiguous endearments, as a matter of conscience to

earn their salvation. The woman, who, with the most sober friend,

would be offended at the very first word of friendship, suffers

patiently this double-meaning language of the young Levite. The

intelligent woman of experience and the world, who has read and seen

much, shuts her eyes to the mischief. If he has but little talent, if

he is heavy and uninteresting, yet his intentions are so good! Father

[Transcriber's note: Rather?] such a one answers for him; he is an

excellent young man.

The fact is, that while he pretends devotion, he speaks of love; this

is his merit. Even though it be spoken of in a weak and insipid

manner, it is still a merit with her who is no longer young. The

husband, however distinguished he may be, has the fault of being a

_positive_ man, entirely taken up, as they say, with worldly interests.

It is very true he is working for the interest of his family; he

provides for the future welfare of his children; he consumes his life

to support the luxury in which his wife lives, and beyond his fortune.

Perhaps this husband would be justified in saying that all this,

however material may be the result, is also for him a moral interest,

_an interest of the heart_. Perhaps he might add, that in being

engaged with worldly interests in our assemblies and tribunals, besides

a thousand other different positions for the profit of others, we may

show ourselves to be more _disinterested_, and consequently more

spiritualised, than all those _brokers of spirituality_ who turn the

Church into an exchange.

Let us here point out a contrast which is not sufficiently noticed.

In the middle ages the _priest_ was the spiritual and _mortified man_.

By the studies to which he alone devoted himself, by nocturnal prayers

and vigils, by the excess of fasting, and by monastic flagellations, he

mortified his body. But in these days very little remains of all that;

the Church has softened down everything. The priests live as others

do: if many pass a mean and pitiful life, it is, at least, generally

unattended with risk. We see it, moreover, in the freedom of mind with

which they engage the leisure of women with interminable conversations.

Who is the mortified man in the present day, in this time of hard work,

eager efforts, and fiery opposition? It is the layman, the worldly

man. This man of the world, full of cares, works all day and all

night, either for his family, or for the State. Being often engaged in

details of business or studies, too thorny to interest his wife and

children, he cannot communicate to them what fills his own mind. Even

at the hour of rest he speaks little, being always pursuing his idea.

Success in business and invention in science are only obtained at a

high price--the price that Newton mentions, _by ever thinking of it_.

Solitary among his kindred, he runs the risk, making their glory, or

their fortune, to become a stranger to them.

The Churchman, on the contrary, who, in these days, to judge of him by

what he publishes, studies little, and invents nothing, and who no

longer wages against himself that war of mortifications imposed by the

middle ages, coolly and quietly pursue two very different occupations

at the same time. By his assiduity and fawning words, he gains over

the family of the man of business, at the very moment he hurls down

upon him from the pulpit the thunders of his eloquence.

CHAPTER III.

THE MOTHER.--ALONE, FOR A LONG TIME, SHE CAN BRING UP HER

CHILD.--INTELLECTUAL NOURISHMENT.--GESTATION, INCUBATION, AND

EDUCATION.--THE CHILD GUARANTEES THE MOTHER.--THE MOTHER GUARANTEES THE

CHILD.--SHE PROTECTS ITS NATURAL ORIGINALITY.--PUBLIC EDUCATION MUST

LIMIT THIS ORIGINALITY.--EVEN THE FATHER LIMITS IT.--THE MOTHER DEFENDS

IT.--MATERNAL WEAKNESS.--THE MOTHER WOULD MAKE HER SON A HERO.--THE

HEROIC DISINTERESTEDNESS OF MATERNAL LOVE.

We have already said, if you wish your family to resist the foreign

influence which dissolves it, _keep the child at home_ as much as

possible. Let the _mother_ bring it up under the father's direction,

till the moment when it is claimed for public instruction by its great

mother, its native land. If the mother bring up the child, the

consequence will be, that she will always remain by her husband's side,

needing his advice, and anxious to receive from him fresh supplies of

knowledge. The real idea of a family will here be realised, which is

for the child to be initiated by the mother, and the mother by the

husband.

The mother's instinct is just and true; it deserves to be respected.

She wishes to keep her child: forcibly separated from him at the moment

of birth, she is ever seeking to rejoin that part of herself which a

cruel violence snatched from her, but which has its root in her heart.

When they take it from her to bring it up at a distance, it is a second

separation. The mother and the child weep in common, but their tears

are disregarded. This is not right. These tears, in which we think we

see only weakness, ought not to be disregarded. They show that the

child needs her still. Nursing is not yet finished. Intellectual

nourishment, like physical food, ought in the beginning to be

administered to the child under the form, as it were, of milk, fluid,

tepid, mild, and full of life. Woman alone can so give it. Men expect

too much at once of this new-born babe, whose teeth, scarcely formed,

are painful. They want to give it bread, and they beat it if it does

not bite. In God's name give him more milk: he will drink willingly.

Who will believe some future day that men have thus undertaken to nurse

and feed these sucklings? Ah! leave them alone to women! A lovely

sight to see a child rocked in the arms of a man! Take care, awkward

idiot! It is fragile; handling it in your clownish hands you may break

it.

This is the dispute between the master and child: man imparts science

by methods proper to man, in a state of fixed rules by very precise

classifications, with angular, and, as it were, crystallised forms.

Well! these crystal prisms, as luminous as they may be, wound by their

angles and sharp points. The child, in a soft and tender state,

cannot, for a long time, receive anything which has not the fluidity of

life. The master grows angry and impatient at the slowness of the

pupil, and knows not how to succeed with him. There is but one person

in the world who has the delicate perception of the careful management

which the child requires, and this one person is she who has borne it,

and who forms for ever with it an identical whole. Gestation,

incubation, and education, are three words which are long synonymous.

Much longer than people would believe. The influence of the mother

over the child, whose faculties are developing, is greater and more

decisive than that which she exercised over the suckling infant. I do

not know whether it be indispensable for the mother to feed it from her

breast; but I am very sure it is necessary that she should nourish it

from her heart. Chivalry was perfectly aware that love was the most

powerful motive for education. That alone did more in the middle ages

to advance humanity than all the disputes of school-divinity have been

able to do to retard it.

We also have our school-divinity, the spirit of empty abstractions and

verbal disputes: we shall be able to combat its influence only by

prolonging that of the mother, associating her with education, and by

giving the child a well-beloved teacher. Love, they say, is a great

master. This is especially true of the greatest, the deepest, and the

purest of all affections.

How blind and imprudent we are! We take the child from its mother at a

time when it was most necessary to her. We deprive her of the dear

occupation for which God had formed her; and we are afterwards

surprised if this woman, cruelly separated, now languishing and idle,

give herself up to vain musings; suffer anew the yoke she formerly

bore; and, if, as is often the case, fancying herself to remain

faithful, she listen to the tempter, who speaks to her in the name of

God.

Be prudent, be wise; leave her her son. Woman must ever be loving.

Leave her rather the lover whom nature gives her; him whom she would

have preferred to all others, whilst you are occupied with your

business (with your passions perhaps). Leave on her arm the tall and

slender youth, and she will be proud and happy. You fear, lest, having

been kept too long by his mother, he may become effeminate. But, on

the contrary, if you left her her son, she would become masculine. Try

her, she will change, and you will be astonished yourself. Little

excursions on foot, and long ones on horseback--no trouble will be too

much for her. She begins bravely and heartily the exercises of the

young man; she makes herself of his own age, and is born again in this

_vita nuova_; even you on your return will think, when you see your

Rosalind, that you have two sons.

It is a general rule to which, at least, I have hardly ever seen any

exception, that superior men are all the _sons of their mother_. She

has stamped upon them, and they reproduce her moral as well as her

physical features.

I am about to surprise you. I will tell you that without her he will

never be a man. The mother alone is patient enough to develope the

young creature, by taking proper care of his liberty. We must be on

our guard, and take especial care not to place the child, still too

weak and pliable, in the hands of strangers. People of the best

intentions, by pressing too much upon him, run the risk of so crushing

his faculties, that he will never be able to enjoy the free use of them

again. The world is full of men, who remain bondsmen all their lives,

from having borne a heavy load too soon. A too solid and too

precocious education has injured something within them; their

originality, the _genius_ and _ingegno_, which is the prime part of man.

Who respects in these days the original and free ingenuity of

character, that sacred genius which we receive at our birth? This is

almost always the part which offends and gets blamed; it is the reason

why "_this boy is not like everybody else_." Hardly does his young

nature awake, and flourish in its liberty, than they are all

astonished, and all shake their heads: "What is this? we never saw the

like."--Shut him up quickly--stifle this living flower. Here are the

iron cages.--Ah! you were blooming, and displaying your luxuriant

foliage in the sun. Be wise and prudent, O flower! become dry, and

shut up your leaves.

But this poor little flower, against which they are all leagued--what

is it, I pray you, but the individual, special, and original element by

which this being would have distinguished itself from others, and added

a new feature to the great variety of human characters--a genius,

perhaps, to the series of great minds. The sterile spirit is almost

always that plant which, having been tied too fast to the dead wood

which serves to support it, has dried upon it, and gradually become

like it; there it is, very regular, and well fastened up, you may fear

nothing eccentric from it; the tree is, however, _dead_, and will never

bear leaf more.

What do I mean? that the support is useless, and that we must leave the

plant to itself? Nothing is further from my thoughts. I believe in

the necessity of both educations, that of the family and that of the

country. Let us distinguish their influence.

The latter, our public education, which is certainly better in our days

than it ever was--what does it require? What is its end and aim? It

wishes to harmonise the child with his native land, and with that great

country the world. This is what constitutes its legitimacy and

necessity. It purposes especially to give him a fund of ideas common

to all, to make him a reasonable being, and prevent him from being out

of tune with what surrounds him; it hinders him from jarring in the

great concert where he is going to take his part, and it checks what

may be too irregular in his lively sallies.

So far for public education. Family life is liberty. Yet even here

there are obstacles and shackles to his original moral activity. The

father regulates this activity: his uneasy foresight imposes on him the

duty to bring early this wild young colt to the furrow, where he must

soon toil. It too often happens that the father makes a mistake,

consults, first of all, his own conveniences, and seeks the profitable

and ready traced career, rather than that to which his young and

powerful colt was called by nature.

The triumphs of the courser have frequently been lost in the trammels

of the riding-school.

Poor liberty! Who then will have eyes to see thee, or a heart to

cherish thee? Who will have the patience, the infinite indulgence

required to support thy first wanderings, and encourage occasionally

what fatigues the stranger, the indifferent person, nay, the father

himself? God alone, who has made this creature, and who, having made

him, knows him well enough to see and love what is good in him, even in

what is bad, God, I say, and with God the mother: for here it is one

and the same thing.

When we reflect that ordinary life is so short, and that so many die

very young, we hesitate to abridge this first, this best period of

life, when the child, free under its mother's protection, lives in

Grace, and not in the Law. But if it be true, as I think, that this

time, which people believe lost, is precisely the only precious and

irreparable period, in which among childish games sacred _genius_ tries

its first flight, the season when, becoming fledged, the young eagle

tries to fly--ah! pray do not shorten it. Do not banish the youth from

the maternal paradise before his time; give him one day more;

to-morrow, all well and good; God knows it will be soon enough!

To-morrow, he will bend to his work and crawl along the furrow. But

to-day, leave him there, let him gain full strength and life, and

breathe with an open heart the vital air of liberty. An education

which is too zealous and restless, and which exacts too much, is

dangerous for children. We are ever increasing the mass of study and

science, and such exterior acquisitions; but the interior suffers for

it. The one is nothing but Latin, the next shines in Mathematics; but

where is the _man_, I pray you? And yet it was the _man_, precisely,

that was loved and taken care of by the mother. It was man she

respected in the wanderings of the child. She seemed to depress her

own influence, and even her superintendence, in order that he might act

and be both free and strong; but, at the same time, she ever surrounded

him as if with an invisible embrace.

There is a peril, I am well aware of it, in this education of love.

What love wishes and desires more than all, is to sacrifice itself, and

everything else--interests, conveniences, habits, and even life, if

necessary. The object of this self-sacrifice may, in his own childish

egotism, receive all the sacrifices as a thing due, allow himself to be

treated as an inert, motionless idol, and become the more incapable of

action, the more they do for him.

This danger is real, but it is counterbalanced by the ardent ambition

of the maternal heart, which places, almost always, her best hopes upon

her child, and burns to realise them. Every mother of any value, has

one firm belief, which is, that her son is destined to be a hero, in

action or in science, no matter which. All that has disappointed her

expectations in her sad experience of this world will now be realised

by this infant. The miseries of the present are already redeemed by

the prospect of this splendid future: everything is miserable now; but

only let _him_ grow, and everything will be prosperous! O poetry! O

hope! where are the limits of maternal thought? "I am only a woman,

but here is a man: I have given a man to the world." Only one thing

perplexes her: will her child be a Bonaparte, a Voltaire, or a Newton?

If, in order to be so, he absolutely must leave her--well! let him go,

let him depart from her; she consents to it: if she must tear her own

heart-strings, she will. Love is capable of doing everything, even of

sacrificing love itself. Yes, let him depart, follow his high destiny,

and accomplish the grand dream she had when she bore him in her bosom,

or upon her knees. And then, a miracle: this fearful woman, who just

before durst not see him walk alone, without fearing he might fall, is

become so brave, that she launches him forth in the most dangerous

career, on the ocean, or else to that bloody war in Africa. She

trembles, she is dying of uneasiness, and yet she persists. What can

support her? Her belief that her child cannot perish, since he is

destined to be a hero.

He returns. How much he is changed! What! is this fierce soldier my

son? He departed a child, and he comes back a man: he seeks to be

married. This is another sacrifice, which is not less serious. He

loves another! And his mother, in whose heart he is, and ever will be

the first, will possess the second place in his affections--alas! a

very small place in the moments of his passion. She seeks for, and

chooses her own rival: she loves her on his account; she adorns her;

she becomes her attendant, and leads her to the altar; and all she asks

for there is, that the mother may not be forgotten in the wife!

CHAPTER IV.

LOVE.--LOVE WISHES TO RAISE, NOT TO ABSORB.--THE FALSE THEORY OF OUR

ADVERSARIES, AND THEIR DANGEROUS PRACTICE.--LOVE WISHES TO FORM FOR

ITSELF AN EQUAL WHO MAY LOVE FREELY.--LOVE IN THE WORLD, AND IN THE

CIVIL WORLD.--LOVE IN FAMILIES.--LITTLE UNDERSTOOD BY THE MIDDLE

AGES.--FAMILY RELIGION.

Will it be said that, in the preceding chapter, being seduced by a

sweeter subject, I have lost sight of the whole subject in dispute

hitherto pursued in my book?

I think I have, on the contrary, thrown much light upon the question.

Maternal love (that miracle of God) and maternal education enable us to

understand what every education, direction, or initiation ought to be.

The singular advantage which the mother has in education is, that,

being more than all others devoted and disinterested, she respects

infantine personality in the fragile little thing which is becoming a

person. She is, for the child, the defender of his original

individuality. She wishes, even at the expense of her own feelings,

that he should act according to his genius, and that he may grow up and

_rise_. What can education and true direction require? What love

desires in its highest and most disinterested idea--that the young

creature may _rise_. Take this word in both its acceptations. She

wishes the child may rise above herself, up to the level of him who

helps her, and even above him, if he can. The stronger party, far from

absorbing the weaker, wishes to make him strong, and put him on an

equal footing. She endeavours to do this by developing in him not only

whatever is similar in their natures, but even whatever is

characteristically distinctive between them, by exciting his free

originality, provoking activity in this being born for action, and by

appealing to the person, and what is most personal in the person, his

will. The dearest wish of love is to excite the will, and the moral

force of the person loved, to its highest degree, to heroism!

The ideal of every mother, and it is the true one in education, is to

make a hero, a man powerful in actions and fruitful in works, who may

be endowed with will, power, and a creative genius. Let us compare

with this ideal that of ecclesiastical education and direction.

The latter wishes to make a saint, and _not_ a hero; it believes these

two words to be diametrically opposite. It is mistaken also in its

idea of sanctity, in making it consist not in being in harmony with

God, but in absorption in God.

All this priestly theology, as soon as we provoke it a little, and do

not allow it to remain in inconsistency, falls headlong down the

irresistible declivity, right into this abyss. There it ended, as it

was obliged to end, in the seventeenth century. The great directors of

that time, who, by being the last, had the advantage of analysing the

thing, show us perfectly well the bottom of it, which is annihilation,

the art of annihilating activity, the will, and personality.

"Annihilate? Yes, but in God." But does God wish it? His active and

creating spirit must wish us to resemble Him, to act and to create.

You have a wrong idea of God the Father.

This false theory is convicted in practice. By following it closely we

have seen that it arrives at quite an opposite goal. It promises to

absorb man in God; and it consoles him for this absorption, by

promising him that he shall participate in the infinite existence which

he is entering. But, in reality, it does nothing more than absorb man

in man, in infinite littleness. The person directed being annihilated

in the director, of two persons there remains but one; the other, as a

person, has perished; and become a thing.

Devout direction, noticed in our first part among the most loyal

directors, and among very pious women, gives me two results, which I

state thus:--

1st. A saint who discourses for a long time with a female saint on the

love of God, infallibly converts her to love.

2nd. If this love remain pure, it is a chance; it is because the man

is a saint; for the person directed, losing gradually all her own will,

must, in course of time, be at his mercy. We must suppose, also, that

he who may do everything will take no advantage of it, and that this

miracle of abstinence will be renewed every day. The priest has always

thought himself, in his interior strength, to be a great master in

matters of love. Accustomed to control his own passions, to be

deceitful, and to beat about the bush, he believes he is the exclusive

possessor of the real secret how passions are to be managed. He

advances under cover of ambiguous expressions, and he advances in

safety; for he is patient, and waits till he has gained a footing in

habits and in customs. He laughs in his sleeve at our impassioned

vivacity, imprudent frankness, and ungoverned impetuosity, which cause

us to pass wide of the mark.

If love was the art of surprising the soul, of subjugating it by

authority and insinuation, and of conquering it by fear, in order to

gain it by indulgence, so that, when wearied and drowsy with exertion,

it may allow itself to be enveloped and caught in an invisible net; if

this were love, then certainly the priest would be its great teacher.

Clever masters! learn from ignorant and unskilful men, that with all

your little arts, you have never known what is this sacred thing. It

requires a sincere heart, and loyalty in the means, as its first

condition; the second is, that generosity which does not wish to

enslave, but rather to set at liberty and fortify what it loves; to

love it in liberty, leaving it free to love or not to love.

Come, my saints! and listen to worldly men on this subject: to

dramatists, to Moliere, and to Shakspeare. These have known more about

it than you. The lover is asked who is the loved object? of what name?

of what figure? and of what shape? "_Just as high as my heart_."

A noble standard, which is that of love, as well as that of education,

and of every kind of initiation: a sincerely wished-for equality, the

desire of raising the other person to one's own height, and of making

her one's equal, "Just as high as one's heart." Shakspeare has said

so; Moliere has done so. The latter was, in the highest degree, "the

educating genius;" one who wishes to raise and set free, and who loves

in equality, liberty, and intelligence. He has denounced as a crime

that unworthy love which surprises the soul by keeping it apart in

ignorance, and holding it as a slave and captive.

In his life, conformable to his works, he gave the noble example of

that generous love, which wishes that the person loved should be _his

equal, and as much as himself_, which strengthens her, and gives her

arms even against himself. This is love, and this is faith. It is the

belief that sooner or later the emancipated being must return to the

most worthy. And who is the most worthy? Is it not he who wished to

be loved with liberty?

Nevertheless, let us well weigh the meaning of this important word _his

equal_, and all the dangers it may contain. It is as if this creator

said to the creature, whom he has made and is now emancipating, "Thou

art free; the power under which thou hast grown up holds thee no more:

being away from me, and attached to me now only by the heart and

memory, thou mayest act and think elsewhere, nay against me if thou

wilt!"

This is what is so sublime in love; and the reason why God pardons it

so many weaknesses! It is because in this unlimited disinterestedness,

wishing to make a free being and to be loved freely by it, it creates

its own peril. The saying, "You may act elsewhere," contains also "to

love elsewhere," and the chance of losing the object. That hand, so

weak before, but now strengthened and made bold by all the cares of

affection, receives the sword from love: even would she turn it against

him, she can; there is nothing to hinder her, for he has reserved

nothing for himself.

Pray let us exalt this idea, and extend it from the love of woman to

universal love, to that which makes the life both of the world and of

civil society.

In the world, it calls incessantly from kingdom to kingdom the

ever-quickening life, which receives the flame, and goes on rising. It

raises from unknown depths beings which it emancipates, and arms with

liberty, with the power of acting well or ill, and even of acting

against him, who creates them, and makes them free.

In the civil world, does love (charity, patriotism, or whatever they

call it) do anything but this? Its work is to call to social life and

political power whatever is yet without life in the city. It raises up

the weak and poor in their rough path, where they crawl on their hands

and feet against destiny, and bestows upon them equality and liberty.

The inferior degree of love is a desire to absorb life. Its superior

degree is to wish to exalt life in energy and fruitfulness. It

rejoices in raising, augmenting, and creating what it loves. Its

happiness is to see a new creature of God rise under its influence, and

to contribute its aid to the creation, whether it be for good or for

ill.

"But is not love, with this disinterestedness, an uncommon miracle?

One of those very short instances when the night of our egotism is

illumined by a ray from God?"

No, the miracle is permanent. You see it, you have it before your

eyes, but you turn away your head. Uncommon, perhaps, in the lover, it

is everywhere visible in the mother. Mortal, you seek God in heaven

and under the earth, but he is in your own domestic circle.

Man, woman, and child, the unity of the three persons, and their mutual

mediation--this is the mystery of mysteries. The divine idea of

Christianity is thus to have put the family upon the altar. It placed

it there, and there it has left it, for fifteen hundred years. My poor

monk, in the middle ages, contemplated it there in vain. He could

never understand the mother as initiation. He exhausted his energies

by taking the sterile side; he pursued the Virgin, and left us Our Lady.

Man of modern times! thou shalt do what he could not. This shall be

thy work. Mayest thou only, in the height of thy abstract genius, not

disdain women and children, who will teach thee life! Instruct them in

science and the world, and they will speak to thee of God.

Let the family-hearth become firm and strong, then the tottering

edifice of religion, political religion, will quietly settle down. Let

it never be forgotten, that humble stone, in which we see only our good

old domestic Lares, is the corner-stone of the Temple, and the

foundation-stone of the City.

ONE WORD TO THE PRIESTS.

I have finished, yet my heart has not. Therefore, one word more.

One word to the priests. I handled them gently, yet they have attacked

me. Well! even now, it is not them that I attack. This book is not

against them.

It attacks their own slavish state, the unnatural position in which

they are kept, and the strange conditions which make them at once

unhappy and dangerous: if it has any effect, it will prepare for them

the period of deliverance, personal and mental freedom.

Let them say and do what they please, they will not prevent me from

being interested in their fate. I impute nothing to them. They are

not free to be just, or to love or to hate, they receive the words they

are to say, their sentiments and thoughts, from higher powers. They

who set them on against me are the same men who are, at this moment,

preparing against them the most cruel inquisition. The more insulated

and miserable they are made, the greater will be the advantage derived

from their restless activity; let them have neither home, family,

country, nor heart, if it be possible: to serve a dead system, none but

dead men are wanted--wandering and troubled spirits, without a

sepulchre and without repose.

By means of the words _unity_ and _universal Church_, they have made

them quit the ways of the Church of France. They now enjoy the fruits

of this change! They well know what Rome is, and what a Jesuitical

bishop is. If the universality of mind (which is the only true one)

was ever possessed by Rome, she lost it a long time ago; it is to be

met with again, in modern times, and it is in France. For two

centuries past, we may say, morally speaking, that France is the pope.

The authority is here, under one form or another; it is here by Louis

XIV., by Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau, by the _Constituante_,

the Code and Napoleon. Europe has always its centre, every other

nation is on the outside.

The world goes on, and flies away, far, very far from the middle ages.

Most people think of them no more; but I shall not forget them. The

shameful parade made of them by any one before my eyes, will not induce

me to turn my heart from those dark and mournful ages, with which I

have been so long acquainted, suffering when they have suffered. The

sympathy I retain for that by-gone age, whose ashes I have warmed

again, prevents me from being indifferent to its most faithless

representatives. I do not hate, but I make comparisons, and am sad. I

cannot pass the front of the church-porch without saying to Notre Dame,

in the words of the ancient, "O miseram domum, quam dispari dominaris

domino!" Alas! poor house, thou hast made a sad change of masters!

I have never been insensible either to the humiliation of the Church,

or to the sufferings of the priest. I have them all present, both

before my imagination and in my heart. I have followed this

unfortunate man in the career of privations, and in the miserable life

into which he is dragged by the hand of a hypocritical authority. And

in his loneliness, on his cold and melancholy hearth, where he

sometimes weeps at night, let him remember that a man has often wept

with him, and that I am that man.

Who would not pity this victim of social contradictions? The laws tell

him things diametrically opposite to one another, as if to sport with

him. They will and they will not have him obey nature. The canon law

says No, and the civil law says Yes. If he take the latter to be

serious, the man of the civil law, the judge, whose protection he

expects, acts like a priest, seizes him by the robe, and hands him over

degraded to the yoke of the canon law. Agree together, then, O laws!

and let us be able to find authority somewhere. If this be law, and

the other one directly contrary be also law, what will he do, who

believes them both to be sacred?

Oh how my heart swells for all these unfortunate men! How many prayers

have I made that they may be permitted to abandon a condition, which

gives so rude a contradiction to nature and to the progress of the

world! Oh! that I might with my hands build up and cheer the domestic

hearth of the poor priest, give him the first rights of man,

re-establish him in truth and life, and say to him, "Come and sit with

us, leave that deadly shadow, and take thy place, O brother, in the

sunshine of God!"

Two men have always deeply touched my heart, two solitary beings, two

monks--the soldier and the priest. I have seen, often in my thoughts,

and always with sadness, these two great sterile armies, to whom

intellectual food is refused, or measured out with so niggardly a hand.

They whose hearts have been weaned would require to be nourished with

the vivifying food of the mind.

What will be the ameliorations and the remedies for these serious

evils? We shall not attempt to tell them now. Either means and

contrivances are found out by time, or it manages to do without them.

What we may safely say is, that one day or other, these terms _priest_

and _soldier_ will indicate two ages, rather than two conditions. The

word _priest_, in its origin, meant _old man_; a young priest is a

nonsensical contradiction.

The soldier is the youth who, after the school of childhood, and that

of work, comes to be proved in the great national school of the army,

and to gain strength, before he settles down to the quiet state of

matrimony and the family table. Military life, when the state has made

it what it ought to be, will be the last education, varied with

studies, voyages, and perils, the experience of which will be of

advantage to the new family which the man will form on his return.

The priest, on the contrary, in the highest acceptation of the term,

ought to be an old man, as he was at first, or at least a man of a

mature age, who, having passed through the cares of this world, and

being well acquainted with family life, has been taught by his

experience to understand the sense of the Great Family of the Universe.

Seated among the old men, like the elders of Israel, he would

communicate to the young the treasures of his experience; he would be

the man for all parties; the man who belongs to the poor, the

conciliating umpire to prevent lawsuits, and the physician of health to

prevent diseases. To be all that, something more is required than an

excitable, hot-headed young man. It ought to be a man who has seen,

learned, and suffered much, and who has at last found in his own heart

the kind words which may comfort us on our way to the world to come.

London: Printed by Robert Banks, Racquet Court, Fleet Street.

End of Project Gutenberg's Priests, Women, and Families, by J. Michelet