While he wished to
hold Him in whom he had not anything [cf.
hold Him in whom he had not anything [cf.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v21 to v25 - Rab to Tur
Once a little in advance,
M. de Longueville hid himself in a doorway, allowed M. de Cois-
lin to pass on, and then went quietly home to bed. Meanwhile
the duke, lighted by the torch-bearers, searched for M. de Longue-
ville all over the town; but meeting with no success, was obliged
to give up the chase, and went home all in a sweat.
He was
obliged of course to laugh a good deal at this joke, but he evi-
dently did not like it overmuch.
With all his politeness, which was in no way put on, M. de
Coislin could when he pleased show a great deal of firmness,
and a resolution to maintain his proper dignity worthy of much
praise. At Nancy, on this same occasion, the Duc de Créqui, not
finding apartments provided for him to his taste on arriving in
town, went in his brutal manner and seized upon those allotted
to the Duc de Coislin. The latter, arriving a moment after,
found his servants turned into the street, and soon learned who
had sent them there. M. de Créqui had precedence of him in
rank; he said not a word, therefore, but went to the apartments
provided for the Maréchal de Créqui (brother of the duke), and
serving him exactly as he himself had just been served, took up
his quarters there. The Maréchal de Créqui arrived in his
turn, learned what had occurred, and immediately seized upon
the apartments of Cavoye, in order to teach him how to provide
quarters in future so as to avoid all disputes.
On another occasion, M. de Coislin went to the Sorbonne to
listen to a thesis sustained by the second son of M. de Bouillon.
When persons of distinction gave these discourses, it was cus-
tomary for the princes of the blood, and for many of the court,
to go and hear them. M. de Coislin was at that time almost
last in order of precedence among the dukes. When he took his
seat, therefore, knowing that a number of them would probably
arrive, he left several rows of vacant places in front of him, and
sat himself down. Immediately afterward, Novion, Chief Presi-
dent of the Parliament, arrived and seated himself in front of
M. de Coislin. Astonished at this act of madness, M. de Coislin
said not a word, but took an arm-chair; and while Novion turned
his head to speak to Cardinal de Bouillon, placed that arm-chair
## p. 12721 (#135) ##########################################
SAINT-SIMON
12721
right in front of the Chief President, in such a manner that he
was as it were imprisoned, and unable to stir. M. de Coislin then
sat down. This was done so rapidly that nobody saw it until
it was finished. When once it was observed, a great stir arose.
Cardinal de Bouillon tried to intervene. M. de Coislin replied,
that since the Chief President had forgotten his position he must
be taught it; and would not budge. The other presidents were
in a fright; and Novion, enraged by the offense put on him,
knew not what to do. It was in vain that Cardinal de Bouillon
on one side, and his brother on the other, tried to persuade M.
de Coislin to give way. He would not listen to them. They
sent a message to him to say that somebody wanted to see him
at the door on most important business. But this had no effect.
"There is no business so important," replied M. de Coislin, "as
that of teaching M. le Premier Président what he owes me; and
nothing will make me go from this place unless M. le Président,
whom you see behind me, goes away first. ”
At last M. le Prince was sent for; and he with much per-
suasion endeavored to induce M. de Coislin to release the Chief
President from his prison. But for some time M. de Coislin
would listen as little to M. le Prince as he had listened to the
others, and threatened to keep Novion thus shut up during all
the thesis. At length he consented to set the Chief President
free, but only on condition that he left the building immediately;
that M. le Prince should guarantee this; and that no "juggling
tricks" (that was the term he made use of) should be played off
to defeat the agreement. M. le Prince at once gave his word
that everything should be as he required; and M. de Coislin then
rose, moved away his arm-chair, and said to the Chief President,
"Go away, sir! go away, sir! Novion did on the instant go
away, in the utmost confusion, and jumped into his coach. M. de
Coislin thereupon took back his chair to its former position, and
composed himself to listen again.
>>>>
On every side M. de Coislin was praised for the firmness he
had shown. The princes of the blood called upon him the same
evening, and complimented him for the course he had adopted;
and so many other visitors came during the evening that his
house was quite full until a late hour. On the morrow the
King also praised him for his conduct, and severely blamed the
Chief President. Nay more: he commanded the latter to go to
M. de Coislin, at his house, and beg pardon of him. It is easy to
XXII-796
## p. 12722 (#136) ##########################################
12722
SAINT-SIMON
comprehend the shame and despair of Novion at being ordered
to take so humiliating a step, especially after what had already
happened to him. He prevailed upon M. de Coislin, through
the mediation of friends, to spare him this pain; and M. de Cois-
lin had the generosity to do so. He agreed therefore that when
Novion called upon him he would pretend to be out, and this
was done. The King, when he heard of it, praised very highly
the forbearance of the duke.
He was not an old man when he died; but was eaten up with
the gout, which he sometimes had in his eyes, in his nose, and
in his tongue. When in this state, his room was filled with the
best company.
He was very generally liked, was truth itself in
his dealings and his words, and was one of my friends, as he
had been the friend of my father before me.
A MODERN HARPY
From the 'Memoirs'
THE
HE Princesse d'Harcourt was a sort of personage whom it is
good to make known, in order better to lay bare a court
which did not scruple to receive such as she. She had
once been beautiful and gay; but though not old, all her grace
and beauty had vanished. The rose had become an ugly thorn.
At the time I speak of she was a tall, fat creature, mightily brisk
in her movements, with a complexion like milk-porridge; great,
ugly, thick lips, and hair like tow, always sticking out and hang-
ing down in disorder, like all the rest of her fittings-out. Dirty,
slatternly, always intriguing, pretending, enterprising, quarreling,
- always low as the grass or high as the rainbow, according to
the person with whom she had to deal,- she was a blonde Fury,
nay more, a Harpy: she had all the effrontery of one, and the
deceit and violence; all the avarice and the audacity: moreover,
all the gluttony, and all the promptitude to relieve herself from
the effects thereof; so that she drove out of their wits those at
whose house she dined; was often a victim of her confidence;
and was many a time sent to the Devil by the servants of M. du
Maine and M. le Grand. She was never in the least embar-
rassed, however, tucked up her petticoats and went her way; then
returned, saying she had been unwell. People were accustomed
to it.
## p. 12723 (#137) ##########################################
SAINT-SIMON
12723
Whenever money was to be made by scheming and bribery,
she was there to make it. At play she always cheated, and if
found out stormed and raged; but pocketed what she had won.
People looked upon her as they would have looked upon a fish-
fag, and did not like to commit themselves by quarreling with
her. At the end of every game she used to say that she gave
whatever might have been unfairly gained to those who had
gained it, and hoped that others would do likewise. For she
was very devout by profession, and thought by so doing to put
her conscience in safety; because, she used to add, in play there
is always some mistake. She went to church always, and con-
stantly took the sacrament, very often after having played until
four o'clock in the morning.
One day when there was a grand fête at Fontainebleau, Ma-
dame la Maréchale de Villeroy persuaded her out of malice to
sit down and play, instead of going to evening prayers. She re-
sisted some time, saying that Madame de Maintenon was going:
but the Maréchale laughed at her for believing that her patron
could see who was and who was not at the chapel; so down they
sat to play. When the prayers were over, Madame de Maintenon,
by the merest accident for she scarcely ever visited any one.
went to the apartments of the Maréchale de Villeroy. The door
was flung back, and she was announced. This was a thunderbolt
for the Princesse d'Harcourt. "I am ruined," cried she, unable
to restrain herself: "she will see me playing, and I ought to have
been at chapel! " Down fell the cards from her hands, and down
fell she all abroad in her chair. The Maréchale laughed most
heartily at so complete an adventure. Madame de Maintenon
entered slowly, and found the princess in this state, with five or
six persons.
The Maréchale de Villeroy, who was full of wit,
began to say that whilst doing her a great honor, Madame was
the cause of great disorder; and showed her the Princesse d'Har-
court in her state of discomfiture. Madame de Maintenon smiled
with majestic kindness, and addressing the Princesse d'Harcourt,
"Is this the way," said she, "that you go to prayers? " There-
upon the princess flew out of her half-faint into a sort of fury:
said that this was the kind of trick that was played off upon
her; that no doubt the Maréchale knew that Madame de Main-
was coming, and for that reason had persecuted her to
play. "Persecuted! " exclaimed the Maréchale: "I thought I could
not receive you better than by proposing a game; it is true you.
-
―――――――
## p. 12724 (#138) ##########################################
12724
SAINT-SIMON
were for a moment troubled at missing the chapel, but your
tastes carried the day. This, madame, is my whole crime," con-
tinued she, addressing Madame de Maintenon. Upon this, every-
body laughed louder than before. Madame de Maintenon, in
order to stop the quarrel, commanded them both to continue
their game; and they continued accordingly, the Princesse d'Har-
court, still grumbling, quite beside herself, blinded with fury, so
as to commit fresh mistakes every minute. So ridiculous an
adventure diverted the court for several days; for this beautiful
princess was equally feared, hated, and despised.
Monseigneur le Duc and Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne
continually played off pranks upon her. They put, one day,
crackers all along the avenue of the château at Marly, that led
to the Perspective where she lodged. She was horribly afraid
of everything. The duke and duchess bribed two porters to be
ready to take her into the mischief. When she was right in the
middle of the avenue the crackers began to go off, and she to
cry aloud for mercy; the chairmen set her down and ran for it.
There she was, then, struggling in her chair furiously enough to
upset it, and yelling like a demon. At this the company, which
had gathered at the door of the château to see the fun, ran
to her assistance, in order to have the pleasure of enjoying the
scene more fully. Thereupon she set to abusing everybody right
and left, commencing with Monseigneur and Madame la Duchesse
de Bourgogne. At another time M. de Bourgogne put a cracker
under her chair in the salon, where she was playing at piquet.
As he was about to set fire to this cracker, some charitable soul
warned him that it would maim her, and he desisted.
Sometimes they used to send about twenty Swiss guards, with
drums, into her chamber, who roused her from her first sleep by
their horrid din. Another time-and these scenes were always
at Marly - they waited until very late for her to go to bed and
sleep. She lodged not far from the post of the Captain of the
Guards, who was at that time the Maréchal de Lorges. It had
snowed very hard, and had frozen. Madame la Duchesse de
Bourgogne and her suite gathered snow from the terrace which
is on a level with their lodgings; and in order to be better sup-
plied, waked up to assist them the Maréchal's people, who did
not let them want for ammunition. Then with a false key and
lights, they gently slipped into the chamber of the Princesse
d'Harcourt; and suddenly drawing the curtains of her bed, pelted
-
## p. 12725 (#139) ##########################################
SAINT-SIMON
12725
her amain with snowballs. The filthy creature, waking up with
a start, bruised and stifled in snow, with which even her ears
were filled, with disheveled hair, yelling at the top of her voice,
and wriggling like an eel, without knowing where to hide, formed
a spectacle that diverted people more than half an hour; so that
at last the nymph swam in her bed, from which the water flowed
everywhere, slushing all the chamber. It was enough to make
one die of laughter. On the morrow she sulked, and was more
than ever laughed at for her pains.
Her fits of sulkiness came over her either when the tricks
played were too violent, or when M. le Grand abused her. He
thought, very properly, that a person who bore the name of
Lorraine should not put herself so much on the footing of a
buffoon: and as he was a rough speaker, he sometimes said the
most abominable things to her at table; upon which the princess
would burst out crying, and then, being enraged, would sulk.
The Duchesse de Bourgogne used then to pretend to sulk too;
but the other did not hold out long, and came crawling back to
her, crying, begging pardon for having sulked, and praying that
she might not cease to be a source of amusement! After some
time the duchess would allow herself to be melted, and the prin-
cess was more villainously treated than ever; for the Duchesse
de Bourgogne had her own way in everything: neither the King
nor Madame de Maintenon found fault with what she did, so
that the Princesse d'Harcourt had no resource; she did not even
dare to complain of those who aided in tormenting her: yet
it would not have been prudent in any one to make her an
enemy.
The Princesse d'Harcourt paid her servants so badly that they
concocted a return. One fine day they drew up on the Pont
Neuf; the coachmen and footmen got down, and came and spoke
to her at the door in language she was not used to hear. Her
ladies and chambermaid got down and went away, leaving her
to shift as she might. Upon this she set herself to harangue the
blackguards who collected, and was only too happy to find a
man who mounted upon the seat and drove her home. Another
time, Madame de Saint-Simon, returning from Versailles, over-
took her walking in full dress in the street, and with her train
under her arms. Madame de Saint-Simon stopped, offered her
assistance, and found she had been again left by her servants
on the Pont Neuf. It w volume second of that story; and
## p. 12726 (#140) ##########################################
12726
SAINT-SIMON
even when she came back she found her house deserted, every
one having gone away at once by agreement.
She was very
violent with her servants, beat them, and changed them every
day.
Upon one occasion, she took into her service a strong and
robust chambermaid, to whom, from the first day of her arrival,
she gave many slaps and boxes on the ear. The chambermaid
said nothing, but after submitting to this treatment for five or six
days, conferred with the other servants; and one morning, while
in her mistress's room, locked the door without being perceived,
said something to bring down punishment upon her, and at the
first box on the ear she received, flew upon the Princesse d'Har-
court, gave her no end of thumps and slaps, knocked her down,
kicked her, mauled her from her head to her feet, and when she
was tired of this exercise, left her on the ground, all torn and
disheveled, howling like a devil. The chambermaid then quitted
the room, double-locked the door on the outside, gained the stair-
case, and fled the house.
Every day the princess was fighting, or mixed up in some
adventures. Her neighbors at Marly said they could not sleep
for the riot she made at night; and I remember that after one of
these scenes, everybody went to see the room of the Duchesse de
Villeroy and that of Madame d'Espinoy, who had put their beds
in the middle of their room, and who related their night vigils
to every one.
Such was this favorite of Madame de Maintenon; so insolent
and so insupportable to every one, but who had favors and pref-
erences for those who brought her over, and who had raised so
many young men, amassed wealth for them, and made herself
feared even by the prince and minister.
## p. 12727 (#141) ##########################################
12727
ADAM DE SAINT VICTOR
(TWELFTH CENTURY)
BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN
HE Latin hymns or sequences of Adam de Saint Victor came
from that great period, the Middle Ages, so wonderful and
so misconceived. They belong to literature because they
reflect the vital motive of the time, Faith; because they are expres-
sions of the personality of their author; and because their style is
governed by delicate canons of art little understood by the modern
world of poetry-lovers.
To the strict classicist, to the man who reverences Horace and
Catullus, their rhymes are an abomination. But to one who ap-
proaches these sacred poems of the twelfth century remembering
that they were part of that greater religious poem, the daily sacrifice
of the Catholic Church, they are worthy of critical study, and they
will amply repay it. They can neither be studied nor even dimly
appreciated through the medium of translations. They are as intri-
cate and technical as the Gothic architecture of the time which pro-
duced them; they have the sonorousness and aspirational cadence,
without the simplicity, of the Gregorian chant which their music
seems to echo; and above all, they are musical.
The sequence was sung between the Epistle and Gospel of the
Mass. It was called "a prose," too, because in no regular metre;
but in the Middle Ages these sequences, which were at first merely
prolongations of "the last note of the Alleluia," were arranged for
all feasts of the Church in such profusion that much weak and care-
less "prose" crept in. The consequence was that by the revision
of the Roman Missal in the sixteenth century, only the 'Victimæ
Paschali (for Easter), the 'Veni Sancte Spiritus' (for Pentecost),
'Lauda Sion' (for Corpus Christi), and 'Dies Iræ' (in masses for the
dead), were retained. In this revision, the thirty-nine sequences of
Adam de Saint Victor disappeared from general usage. M. Félix Clé-
ment, in an enthusiastic notice of Saint Victor's poetry, regrets this,
and welcomes M. Charles Barthélemy's edition of the sequences as an
act of reparation to a genius too long misunderstood.
There is no doubt that the almost merciless precision of Adam
de Saint Victor's rhyme had a great influence on French poetry,
## p. 12728 (#142) ##########################################
12728
ADAM DE SAINT VICTOR
although neither his rhythm nor rhyme ever reaches the monotony
of the later French recurrences; and some of the poems are most
exquisitely lyrical, artificial, and intricate, yet with an appearance of
simplicity that might easily deceive the unlearned in the metrical
modes of the twelfth century. Take for instance the sequence begin-
ning Virgini Mariæ Laudes. ' It is a marvel of skill; it has the
quaintness of an old ballad and the play on words of a rondeau. It
is modeled on the Easter sequence of the monk Notker, with, as
M. Clément says,
"extraordinary skill. " It is untranslatable: no
prose version can represent it, and no metrical imitation reproduce
its unique shades of verbiage. In the sequence Of the Holy Ghost,'
occur the famous lines which were part of the liturgy of France for
four centuries:-
"THOU who art Giver and the gift,
Who from the naught all good didst lift,
Incline our hearts thy name to praise,
And form our words thy songs to raise,-
Thee, thee high lauding. "
(Tu qui dator es et donum,
Tu qui condis omne bonum,
Cor ad laudem redde pronum,
Nostræ linguæ formans sonum,-
In tua præconia. )
---
Adam de Saint Victor was born in the twelfth century, and he
died in either 1177 or 1192. It is certain that he was a canon regu-
lar of the Abbey of Saint-Victor-les-Paris; he composed certain trea-
tises, and lived, honored and admired, for a part of his life under the
rule of the Abbot Guérin, and was regarded as the foremost poet of
his time. He drew his inspiration from the sacred Scriptures; and
he applied both the teachings and the splendid figures of the Bible
with the force and fervor of Dante. Modern hymn-writers who
seem to grow weaker every year- would do well to study the eleva-
tion and harmony of Adam de Saint Victor: he is a mine of riches.
In the 'Carmina e Poetis Christianis (Songs from Christian Poets),
etc. , by M. Félix Clément (Paris, Gaume & Co. ), and in an appendix
to M. Charles Barthélemy's translation into French of the 'Rationale
Divinorum Officiorum' (Rationale of Divine Services), the material
for a study of this poet's work may be found. An analysis of the
sequence Of the Resurrection of Our Lord,' a prose version of which
is given below, will show the skill with which it is constructed, - a
skill as technical as that of a Petrarcan sonnet. The rhythm is as
marked as the time of a military march.
-
## p. 12729 (#143) ##########################################
ADAM DE SAINT VICTOR
12729
DE RESURRECTIONE DOMINI
MUNDI renovatio
Nova parit gaudia;
Resurgenti Domino,
Corresurgent omnia,
Elementa serviunt
Et autoris sentiunt
Quanta sint solemnia.
Ignis volat mobilis,
Et aër volubilis,
Fluit aqua labalis,
Terra manet stabilis,
Alta petunt levia,
Centrum tenent gravia,
Renovantur omnia.
Cœlum fit serenius,
Et mare tranquillius,
Spirat aura levius,
Vallis nostra floruit,
Revirescunt arida,
Recalescunt frigida,
Post quas ver intepuit.
Gelu mortis solvitur,
Princeps mundi tollitur,
Et ejus destruitur,
In nobis imperium,
Dum tenere voluit
In quo nihil habuit
Jus amisit proprium.
Vita mortem superat;
Homo jam recuperat
Quod priùs amiserat,
Paradisi gaudium.
Viam præbet facilem,
Cherubim versatilem,
Ut Deus promiserat
Amovendo gladium.
## p. 12730 (#144) ##########################################
12730
ADAM DE SAINT VICTOR
TRANSLATION OF THE PRECEDING
THE renewal of the world begets new joys; all things arise with
the resurrection of the Lord. The elements obey [him] and feel how
great are the feasts of their Creator.
The mobile ether and the whirling air are set in motion. The
gliding water flows, the earth remains steady; what is light arises,
what is heavy keeps its position at the centre [of the universe]. All
things are renewed.
The heaven becomes more serene, the sea more quiet; one
breathes gentle airs; our valley is [clothed] in flowers; what [was]
dry becomes green again, what [was] cold grows warm again: after
which the spring gains color.
The ice of death is loosened, the Prince of this world is done
away with, and his power over us destroyed.
While he wished to
hold Him in whom he had not anything [cf. John xiv. 30], he lost
the power that was his own.
Life conquers death; man now recovers what he had lost before,
the joy of Paradise.
[Christ] makes the way easy [for us to travel] by removing, as
God had promised, the sword of the Cherubim that "turns in every
way" [Gen. iii. 24].
An inadequate prose translation must serve to give a faint im-
pression of the deep feeling and sublime passion of the sequence in
honor of the Holy Ghost beginning -
Qui procedis ab utroque,
Genitori Genitoque
Pariter, Paraclete,
Redde linguas eloquentes,
Fac ferventes in te mentes
Flamma tuâ divite.
DE SANCTO SPIRITU
(ON THE HOLY SPIRIT)
O THOU Paraclete that dost proceed equally from each, the Beget-
ter and the Begotten, render eloquent our tongues, make our souls
burn [glow] for thee with thy rich flame [of grace].
Love of the Father and of the Son, equal of both and [fully] equal
and like to each: thou dost replenish all things, dost cherish all
## p. 12731 (#145) ##########################################
ADAM DE SAINT VICTOR
12731
things, thou dost direct the stars and move the heavens, remaining
immutable thyself.
Bright light, dear light, thou dost put to flight the gloom of inner
darkness: by thee the worlds are purified. Thou dost destroy sin and
the blight of sin.
Thou dost make known the truth, and dost show the way of peace
and the road of justice; thou dost shun the hearts of the evil, and
dost enrich the hearts of the good with the gift of knowledge.
When thou dost teach, nothing is obscure; when thou art present,
then is naught impure: at thy presence our joyful soul exults; our
conscience, gladdened by thee, purified by thee, rejoices.
Thou dost change the elements; thanks to thee the sacraments
have their efficacy; thou dost repel injury and violence [lit. , injurious
violence]; thou dost silence and confute the wickedness of the enemy.
When thou dost come, thou dost soften our hearts; when thou dost
enter [them], the black clouds of darkness [lit. , the darkness of the
black cloud] flee. O sacred fire, thou dost inflame our breast; thou
dost not burn it, but thou dost cleanse it from [all earthly] cares when
thou dost visit it.
Thou dost instruct and arouse minds that before were ignorant
and buried in sleep and forgetfulness. Thou dost help our tongues,
and dost form the sound [of our word? ]; the grace given by thee
makes our heart inclined to the good.
O help of the oppressed, O comfort of the wretched, refuge of the
poor! grant us contempt for things of earth; draw our desires to the
love of things of heaven.
Drive away evil, remove our impurity, and make the discordant
concordant, and bring us thy protection.
Mayst thou, who didst once visit, teach, and strengthen the disci-
ples in their fear, deign to visit us; mayst thou console us if it is
thy will, and the peoples that believe [in thee].
Equal is the majesty of the Persons, equal is their power, and
common is their Godhead: thou that dost proceed from two art
coequal with both; in nothing is there inequality.
Because thou art so great and such as is the Father, may thy
humble servants [the humility of thy servants] render due praise to
God the Father, to the Son [our] Redeemer, and as well to thee!
manne Francis Egan
безин
## p. 12732 (#146) ##########################################
12732
-
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
(1567-1622)
BY Y. BLAZE DE BURY
N 1567, at the height of the League in France, -at Annécy,
in a Savoy almost French in consequence of the repeated
alliances of its sovereigns with France,- he who was to be
St. Francis de Sales was born of one of the first families of his
country. His early choice of the study of the law shows the pre-
dominance in him of reason over imagination. But what he refuses
to imagination in the field of literary "invention," he makes up to it
by the abuse of "images of style. " When it is a matter of painting
with the pen, he puts under contribution flowers, birds, streams,- all
nature. The contemporary of Florian, of D'Urfé, and of Vaugelas,
as well as their compatriot, he has neither the affectation of the sec-
ond nor the "Scudérisms" of the first; but he rushes into veritable
whirlwinds of metaphors. This abuse of metaphor, especially evident.
in his 'Introduction à la Vie Dévote' (Introduction to the Devout
Life), does not prevent him, however, from having a very definite
style, a combination which makes it possible to republish him at
the present time without any changes. In the order of psychological
subtlety, Francis de Sales is the precursor of Fénelon. His direction
of the nuns of the Visitation whom he governed, with the direction of
the most worldly women of his time, evinces his great knowledge of
women. In the 'Introduction to the Devout Life,' he excels in dis-
tributing his counsels as befits the worldly and the "regulars. " For
the worldly, he even takes part in the gallantry of the time, when
he speaks of "friendships. " He even accords that "friendship is
mutual love; and that there should be constant communication and
intercourse between persons united in friendship. ”
It was about the beginning of the seventeenth century that he
founded the Order of the Visitation, and formed in his turn, with
Madame Jeanne de Chantal, the aunt of Madame de Sévigné, exactly
such a strict friendship "for good" as those of which he proclaims the
utility, when in the 'Introduction' he says: "If the benefits that friends
give each other are false and vain, the friendship is false and vain;
but if they are true benefits, the friendship is true! "
The 'Traité de l'Amour de Dieu' is not less fertile in figurative
language than the 'Introduction. ' But it applies more especially to
religious persons. Henry IV. , and later, Louis XIII. particularly, did
## p. 12733 (#147) ##########################################
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
12733
their best to keep Francis in France; but nothing could prevail over
his love of his native land, and in spite of his constant visits to the
French court, and the direction of his "daughters" of the Visitation,
and also his strong affection for St. Vincent de Paul, the country of
his birth never ceased to be the country of his choice.
The firmness of his character, combined with great keenness, par-
ticularly fitted him for the direction of women: and it was thus he
wrote the 'Introduction' for Madame de Charmoisy, as he founded
the Order of the Visitation and modified its regulations upon the
advice of Madame de Chantal; while at the same time this moral
collaboration aimed at the personal elevation of this eminent woman
left in widowhood! The foundation of the Visitation and the direc-
tion of souls, such were the works of St. Francis de Sales. He died
peacefully in 1622. There was nothing of the ascetic in him. While
the holiness of his Italian namesake palpitates with the "madness of
the cross," the triumph of Francis de Sales is, on the contrary,
reason wisdom the economy well understood and well combined
of worldly duties with divine obligations. He summed up in a word
his own classification of each one's rôle, when he said, "The religion
of the Capuchin is not the religion of the soldier. "
The following citations are drawn from the 'Introduction to the
Devout Life. ' The selection is made especially in view of the
worldly; and in order to show them how free our saint's morality was
from all those compromises with questions of interests, such as money
interests, with which church people are sometimes too justly re-
proached. These citations show, too, how well in his secular counsels
his morality could adjust itself to social enigmas.
Speaking of the love of riches, and the pains we should take for
the extension of our worldly fortune, St. Francis wrote: "We are
rendering God an acceptable service when we take care of the good
things which he has confided to us. This care must be greater and
sounder than that of the worldly; for they work only for love of
themselves, while we should work for the love of God. ”
Apropos of the love of the poor:-
―
-
"If you love the poor, take pleasure in being with them, in having them
visit you, in going to see them. In speech be poor with them, talking with
them as equal to equal; but with your hands be rich, sharing with them what
God has given more abundantly to you than to them. »
In another passage St. Francis wishes to show us the value of
voluntary renouncing, and the difference between accepting and choos
ing poverty:-
-
«Esau came before his father with hairy hands, and Jacob did the same;
but because the hair covering Jacob's hands was not fastened to his skin, but
only to his gloves, it could be torn from him without flaying or wounding him.
## p. 12734 (#148) ##########################################
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
12734
On the contrary, as the hair on Esau's hands grew from his skin, naturally
hairy, it could not be torn off without great pain and great resistance. The
faithful servants of God care no more for their wealth than for their clothes,
which they can put on and leave off at pleasure; but bad Christians prize it
as much as animals do their skin. "
Sometimes, too, the saint's counsels take the form of maxims or
thoughts: "Wherever there is less of us, there is more of God; pov-
erty chosen in the midst of riches is therefore most agreeable to God,
since it proves a divine election in the soul which chooses it. "—"If
poverty displeases you, it is because you are not poor in spirit, but
rich in spirit by the affection you give wealth. " St. Francis applies
his declaration that "the religion of the Capuchin is not the religion
of the soldier"; he proves it by showing the part which human love
plays in people's hearts:-
"Love holds the first place among the passions; it reigns in the heart, it
guides all its movements. Therefore forbid your heart all evil love, Philo-
thea, for it would soon become an evil heart. All love moreover is not friend-
ship; since one can love without being loved, and then there is 'love' not
'friendship. ' Friendship is a mutual love. Between people who love each
other there must be some communication. If the benefits that friends give
each other are false and vain, the friendship is false and vain; but if they
are true benefits, the friendship is true. »
Upon the harm caused by luxury, Francis de Sales is not less
explicit: "There is a great difference between having poison and
being poisoned. You may have wealth without its natural poison
going to your heart. " In the eyes of our saint, as in the eyes of
Montaigne, sadness and anxiety are the most detestable of all things.
"Anxiety arises from an unreasonable desire either to be delivered
from the ill one feels, or to attain a blessing for which one hopes.
Thus the anxious heart is like a bird taken in a net, which, strug-
gling wildly, involves itself deeper and deeper in the snare. ”
In Chapter iv. , Book iii. , upon humility, the saint says:-
"We call vain glories, those which being in us are not properly of us.
Nobility of birth, the favor of the great, are all outside of ourselves: why
should we glory in them? How many persist in vain exultation because they
have fine horses, showy clothes, beautiful furniture. Does not this show the
folly of men? Some would like to dance well, others to sing well. That is
very superficial, highly contemptible, and very irrelevant. »
St. Francis alludes very keenly to those persons who like to dis-
play their great learning, their noble traits of heredity. Acting thus,
we should be embarrassed by an examination of the qualities of which
we boast; and as there is nothing finer than honor when received as
a gift, so there is nothing more shameful when required as a right.
## p. 12735 (#149) ##########################################
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
12735
Our author reserves his highest contempt for preoccupation with rank
and honors. "The questions of precedence, of rank and honors, suit.
only petty minds. " Thus too upon false humility: "We often say
that we are the dust of the earth, but we should be very sorry to be
taken at our word. We often flee so that we may be pursued. The
truly humble man, on the contrary, speaks little of himself, and tries
to conceal his virtues. "
Although St. Francis was not a mystic, he spoke for those who are,
when, apropos of St. Catherine of Siena, he said:-
:-
"The story of the temptations with which God permitted the Evil Spirit to
assail St. Catherine's modesty is very astonishing; and nothing more horrible
can be imagined than this spiritual combat, whether it be the enemy's sug-
gestions to heart and imagination, or to the eyes by infamous representa-
tions. Although all this external evil struck only her senses, she was violently
troubled and agitated. When our Lord finally appeared to her, she said,
(Where were you, Lord, when my heart was filled with filth? Upon which
the Lord answered, 'My daughter, I was in thy heart itself. If I had not
been present, thy soul would have consented to those impressions, which would
have destroyed it. >>>
Here, apropos of gambling, is matter to satisfy the casuists, when
St. Francis affirms "playing to satisfy the company where one is, to
be perfectly proper"; and that St. Elizabeth of Hungary played thus
at pleasure-gatherings without failing at all in devotion. Moreover,
faithful in his care for the home woman, the friend of Jeanne de
Chantal particularly advises many women to consecrate themselves
to study; to "console others; and among your occupations," he adds,
"do not forget the spindle and the distaff: these humble occupations
will keep you from idleness, the scourge of homes. "
Sometimes his taste for the picturesque leads our saint to impose
anticipations of Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' upon his reader. Par-
ticularly in the passage where he advises Philothea to balance the
scales between the calls of temptation and the nobler instincts:-
"Consider on your left hand the Prince of Darkness upon a high throne;
an infinite number of sinners are around, paying him homage. Some are
transported by the spirit of rage, which makes them unchained furies of hate
and vengeance; others are weakened by the spirit of idleness, which leaves
them only leisure for vain frivolities. One group are intoxicated by the spirit
of intemperance, which renders them brutes and madmen, another swollen
with pride and insupportable; one parched with longing, another perishing
with lust; others troubled with the anxiety for gain: behold them restless, dis-
ordered, killing, persecuting, destroying each other. And now consider upon
your right hand, Jesus the Crucified, with an inexplicable tenderness of com-
passion. To obtain the liberty of these wretches, he offers his prayers and
## p. 12736 (#150) ##########################################
12736
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
his blood to God his Father. Consider the evenness of disposition, the serenity
of mind, of the servants of God. They love each other with a pure and holy
love. Even those who have afflictions are very little or not at all disquieted
by them, and lose nothing of the peace of their hearts. »
YBlaze deBury
ST. PAUL'S ADMIRABLE EXHORTATION TO THE SUPER-
NATURAL AND ECSTATIC LIFE
From A Treatise on the Love of God'
NOTH
OTHING can be more emphatic, nor more wonderful, than the
arguments employed by St. Paul to urge us to this ecstatic
life, in which man, always elevated above himself by his
actions, lives in a species of continual rapture. The words of
this great apostle are replenished with a celestial fire and a holy
enthusiasm; it is impossible not to feel their strength and energy.
They proceed from a heart burning with love; and each of us
should apply them to himself: "The charity of Christ," said he,
"presseth us" (2 Cor. v. 14). Is it not true that nothing influ-
ences the heart so forcibly as love? We are eager to return love
for love, to those whom we know to be animated with affection
for us; this ardor redoubles when the love of a superior antici-
pates that of an inferior; and if it be a powerful monarch who is
the first to love his subject, the anxiety of the latter to return
his affection must be extreme.
Jesus Christ, the only true God, the eternal and omnipotent
Divinity, has loved us to so great a degree as to die for us on a
cross: do we require any other motive to urge us ardently and
continually to correspond with such infinite and unmerited good-
ness? Our divine Master, in furnishing us by his death with so
powerful and irresistible a motive to love him, seems resolved to
extract from our hearts the most ardent affection they are capa-
ble of feeling. By thus anticipating our affections, he employs
a kind of violence which is the more powerful, as it is perfectly
conformable to our natural inclinations.
In what manner, and in what circumstances, does the sov-
ereign Friend of our souls press us? This we learn from the
## p. 12737 (#151) ##########################################
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
12737
words of St. Paul: "The charity of Christ presseth us," when
we consider the effects of his love for us, as revealed by faith.
Let us then attentively consider the benefits of our divine Savior,
let us continually meditate on them, and his love will press us.
But again, what is the object proposed to our reflections ? The
words of the apostle are worthy of observation; they tend to
impress our hearts in a peculiar manner with the instructions.
they convey, "judging," said he, or considering, "that if one died.
for all, then all were dead. " And Christ died for all. (2 Cor.
v. 14, 15. ) The inference to be drawn from this truth is self-
evident: a Savior died for all: consequently all must have been
dead, since they required a Savior; and the merits of his death
must be applied to the whole human race, since it has been
endured by all.
What follows from this? We learn from the great apostle,
who says that "They who live, may not now live to themselves,
but to him who died for them, and rose again. " (2 Cor. v. 15. )
All that Jesus requires of us, in laying down his life for our sal-
vation, is that we conform our lives to his, and love him as he
loved us. What an irresistible influence must these words of the
apostle have on hearts susceptible of love!
Jesus Christ died for us; he has purchased us life by his
death; we only live because he died; he died to us, by applying
to us the merits of his death; he died in us to eradicate from
our hearts the germ of sin, which was the cause of his death
and ours; he sacrificed his life for us, to deliver us from death.
Our life then no longer belongs to us; it is the possession of
him who has purchased it by his death: therefore we should no
longer live to ourselves, in or for ourselves, but only to him, in
him, and for him.
A young girl, a native of the isle of Sestos, brought up an
eagle with all the care and attention which children usually lav-
ish on their favorites. When it had begun to follow its natural
instinct, by chasing smaller birds, it never failed to bring its
prey to its dear mistress, as if to prove its gratitude. During its
absence on one of these occasions, it happened that its young
benefactress died; and according to the custom of the time and
country, her body was placed on a pile to be burned. The eagle
returned just as the flames began to ascend; and as if penetrated
with grief at the view of this melancholy spectacle, it dropped
its prey and threw itself on the body of its mistress, covering
XXII-797
## p. 12738 (#152) ##########################################
12738
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
her with its wings as if to screen her from the fire. It remained
motionless in this position, the excess of its love seeming more
violent than the fire by which it was consumed, and died a vic-
tim to its benefactress, leaving to mankind an example of lively
and disinterested gratitude.
Does not this anecdote suffice to inflame our hearts with love?
Our divine Benefactor has watched over us from the earliest
dawn of the morning of life, even from the first moment of our
conception: we may say in the words of the Psalmist, "Thou art
he that hast drawn me out of the womb; thy paternal arms have
been the support of my tottering steps. " (Ps. xxi. 10. )
These first benefits of our divine Redeemer have been fol-
lowed by still greater: he has made us children by baptism, that
we might belong to him on the score of spiritual regeneration;
he has condescended, by an incomprehensible effort of love, to
watch over our education, to provide for our spiritual and corpo-
ral wants: in fine, he sacrificed his life to purchase ours, and left
us his adorable body and precious blood for our food. What can
we infer from all these marks of tender love, if not that "They
who live, should not now live to themselves, but to him who
died for them and rose again"? That is, every moment of our
existence should be consecrated to the love of a God who has
laid down his life for us; all our exertions, actions, thoughts, and
affections should be referred solely to his glory. (2 Cor. v. 15. )
Consider our divine Redeemer, stretched on the cross as on a
funeral pile, a bed of state to which he is about to be immolated,
and acknowledge that in this circumstance, love has indeed been
stronger than death: over which it has doubly triumphed, because
it both ordained and consummated the sacrifice, of which death
has been only the instrument; and because by inducing our
divine Savior to die for us, it has rendered the most infamous
and cruel of all deaths sweeter than even love itself.
Had we the generosity and gratitude of the eagle we have
been speaking of, we would not hesitate at this sight to cast our-
selves in spirit on the cross of our divine Redeemer, to expire
thereon with him; and embracing him by our ardent affections,
we should exclaim, I hold him, and I will rather die than let
him go. Yes, I shall expire with him, the happy victim of his
love; the sacred fire which spared not my omnipotent Creator
must likewise immolate his creature. My Savior is entirely
mine: I desire to be wholly his; to live and die reposing on his
## p. 12739 (#153) ##########################################
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
12739
bosom, that neither death nor life may ever separate me from
him.
In this consists the holy and practical ecstasy of life and
action; it is produced by love, which causes us to renounce the
feelings and inclinations of corrupt nature, elevates us above
ourselves to conform our lives and actions to the will and
inspirations of Jesus Christ.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE EXTRAORDINARY DEATH OF A GENTLE-
MAN WHO DIED OF LOVE ON MOUNT OLIVET
From A Treatise on the Love of God'
I
SHALL add to the examples I have already related, a history
which has come to my knowledge, and which, though very
extraordinary, is not on this account less deserving of belief,
since, as the apostle says, "charity believeth all things": that is,
she cannot easily persuade herself that duplicity has been used
when there are no evident marks of falsehood in what is ad-
vanced, especially with regard to the love of God for man, or of
man for God: nothing is too extraordinary to be expected from
charity, which is the queen of virtues; and which, like the princes
of the earth, takes pleasure in performing great exploits to
extend her dominion, and increase the glory of her empire.
Though the fact I am about to state is not so generally
known, or so well authenticated, as so wonderful an event seems
to require, it is, however, no less true. St. Augustine has ob-
served that miracles, however extraordinary, are never well known
in the place where they have been performed, and are scarcely
believed though related by witnesses. Yet they are not less true.
on this account; pious and upright minds easily believe whatever
does honor to religion, and are more inclined to credit these
prodigies in proportion as they are more wonderful and difficult
to believe.
A gentleman remarkable for his virtues still more than for his
bravery and illustrious birth, went to Palestine to visit the holy
places where the great work of our redemption was accom-
plished. After having prepared himself for this holy exercise
by an exact confession and a fervent communion, he went first
to Nazareth, where the eternal Word was conceived, after the
angel had announced to the ever-blessed Virgin the mystery of
## p. 12740 (#154) ##########################################
12740
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
the incarnation. Here the devout pilgrim began to penetrate by
contemplation the abyss of the mercy of God, who to rescue us
from the state of perdition to which we had been reduced by
sin, deigned to assume a human form.
He then proceeded to Bethlehem; visited the stable in which
the divine Infant was born, and kissed the earth which had sup-
ported the tottering steps of his infancy. We could enumerate
the tears he shed, in reflecting on those which had streamed so
abundantly from the divine eyes of Jesus Christ! He then pro-
ceeded to Bethabara, and entered Bethany. There, remembering
that the Son of God had taken off his garments to be baptized,
he stripped himself of his, bathed in the Jordan, and drank of its
waters to satisfy his devotion. In doing so, he imagined that
he beheld the heavens opened, that he saw Jesus Christ receiving
baptism from the hands of his Precursor, and the Holy Ghost
descending visibly on him in the form of a dove; whilst a voice
was heard from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved son, in
whom I am well pleased. " (Matt. iii.
M. de Longueville hid himself in a doorway, allowed M. de Cois-
lin to pass on, and then went quietly home to bed. Meanwhile
the duke, lighted by the torch-bearers, searched for M. de Longue-
ville all over the town; but meeting with no success, was obliged
to give up the chase, and went home all in a sweat.
He was
obliged of course to laugh a good deal at this joke, but he evi-
dently did not like it overmuch.
With all his politeness, which was in no way put on, M. de
Coislin could when he pleased show a great deal of firmness,
and a resolution to maintain his proper dignity worthy of much
praise. At Nancy, on this same occasion, the Duc de Créqui, not
finding apartments provided for him to his taste on arriving in
town, went in his brutal manner and seized upon those allotted
to the Duc de Coislin. The latter, arriving a moment after,
found his servants turned into the street, and soon learned who
had sent them there. M. de Créqui had precedence of him in
rank; he said not a word, therefore, but went to the apartments
provided for the Maréchal de Créqui (brother of the duke), and
serving him exactly as he himself had just been served, took up
his quarters there. The Maréchal de Créqui arrived in his
turn, learned what had occurred, and immediately seized upon
the apartments of Cavoye, in order to teach him how to provide
quarters in future so as to avoid all disputes.
On another occasion, M. de Coislin went to the Sorbonne to
listen to a thesis sustained by the second son of M. de Bouillon.
When persons of distinction gave these discourses, it was cus-
tomary for the princes of the blood, and for many of the court,
to go and hear them. M. de Coislin was at that time almost
last in order of precedence among the dukes. When he took his
seat, therefore, knowing that a number of them would probably
arrive, he left several rows of vacant places in front of him, and
sat himself down. Immediately afterward, Novion, Chief Presi-
dent of the Parliament, arrived and seated himself in front of
M. de Coislin. Astonished at this act of madness, M. de Coislin
said not a word, but took an arm-chair; and while Novion turned
his head to speak to Cardinal de Bouillon, placed that arm-chair
## p. 12721 (#135) ##########################################
SAINT-SIMON
12721
right in front of the Chief President, in such a manner that he
was as it were imprisoned, and unable to stir. M. de Coislin then
sat down. This was done so rapidly that nobody saw it until
it was finished. When once it was observed, a great stir arose.
Cardinal de Bouillon tried to intervene. M. de Coislin replied,
that since the Chief President had forgotten his position he must
be taught it; and would not budge. The other presidents were
in a fright; and Novion, enraged by the offense put on him,
knew not what to do. It was in vain that Cardinal de Bouillon
on one side, and his brother on the other, tried to persuade M.
de Coislin to give way. He would not listen to them. They
sent a message to him to say that somebody wanted to see him
at the door on most important business. But this had no effect.
"There is no business so important," replied M. de Coislin, "as
that of teaching M. le Premier Président what he owes me; and
nothing will make me go from this place unless M. le Président,
whom you see behind me, goes away first. ”
At last M. le Prince was sent for; and he with much per-
suasion endeavored to induce M. de Coislin to release the Chief
President from his prison. But for some time M. de Coislin
would listen as little to M. le Prince as he had listened to the
others, and threatened to keep Novion thus shut up during all
the thesis. At length he consented to set the Chief President
free, but only on condition that he left the building immediately;
that M. le Prince should guarantee this; and that no "juggling
tricks" (that was the term he made use of) should be played off
to defeat the agreement. M. le Prince at once gave his word
that everything should be as he required; and M. de Coislin then
rose, moved away his arm-chair, and said to the Chief President,
"Go away, sir! go away, sir! Novion did on the instant go
away, in the utmost confusion, and jumped into his coach. M. de
Coislin thereupon took back his chair to its former position, and
composed himself to listen again.
>>>>
On every side M. de Coislin was praised for the firmness he
had shown. The princes of the blood called upon him the same
evening, and complimented him for the course he had adopted;
and so many other visitors came during the evening that his
house was quite full until a late hour. On the morrow the
King also praised him for his conduct, and severely blamed the
Chief President. Nay more: he commanded the latter to go to
M. de Coislin, at his house, and beg pardon of him. It is easy to
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## p. 12722 (#136) ##########################################
12722
SAINT-SIMON
comprehend the shame and despair of Novion at being ordered
to take so humiliating a step, especially after what had already
happened to him. He prevailed upon M. de Coislin, through
the mediation of friends, to spare him this pain; and M. de Cois-
lin had the generosity to do so. He agreed therefore that when
Novion called upon him he would pretend to be out, and this
was done. The King, when he heard of it, praised very highly
the forbearance of the duke.
He was not an old man when he died; but was eaten up with
the gout, which he sometimes had in his eyes, in his nose, and
in his tongue. When in this state, his room was filled with the
best company.
He was very generally liked, was truth itself in
his dealings and his words, and was one of my friends, as he
had been the friend of my father before me.
A MODERN HARPY
From the 'Memoirs'
THE
HE Princesse d'Harcourt was a sort of personage whom it is
good to make known, in order better to lay bare a court
which did not scruple to receive such as she. She had
once been beautiful and gay; but though not old, all her grace
and beauty had vanished. The rose had become an ugly thorn.
At the time I speak of she was a tall, fat creature, mightily brisk
in her movements, with a complexion like milk-porridge; great,
ugly, thick lips, and hair like tow, always sticking out and hang-
ing down in disorder, like all the rest of her fittings-out. Dirty,
slatternly, always intriguing, pretending, enterprising, quarreling,
- always low as the grass or high as the rainbow, according to
the person with whom she had to deal,- she was a blonde Fury,
nay more, a Harpy: she had all the effrontery of one, and the
deceit and violence; all the avarice and the audacity: moreover,
all the gluttony, and all the promptitude to relieve herself from
the effects thereof; so that she drove out of their wits those at
whose house she dined; was often a victim of her confidence;
and was many a time sent to the Devil by the servants of M. du
Maine and M. le Grand. She was never in the least embar-
rassed, however, tucked up her petticoats and went her way; then
returned, saying she had been unwell. People were accustomed
to it.
## p. 12723 (#137) ##########################################
SAINT-SIMON
12723
Whenever money was to be made by scheming and bribery,
she was there to make it. At play she always cheated, and if
found out stormed and raged; but pocketed what she had won.
People looked upon her as they would have looked upon a fish-
fag, and did not like to commit themselves by quarreling with
her. At the end of every game she used to say that she gave
whatever might have been unfairly gained to those who had
gained it, and hoped that others would do likewise. For she
was very devout by profession, and thought by so doing to put
her conscience in safety; because, she used to add, in play there
is always some mistake. She went to church always, and con-
stantly took the sacrament, very often after having played until
four o'clock in the morning.
One day when there was a grand fête at Fontainebleau, Ma-
dame la Maréchale de Villeroy persuaded her out of malice to
sit down and play, instead of going to evening prayers. She re-
sisted some time, saying that Madame de Maintenon was going:
but the Maréchale laughed at her for believing that her patron
could see who was and who was not at the chapel; so down they
sat to play. When the prayers were over, Madame de Maintenon,
by the merest accident for she scarcely ever visited any one.
went to the apartments of the Maréchale de Villeroy. The door
was flung back, and she was announced. This was a thunderbolt
for the Princesse d'Harcourt. "I am ruined," cried she, unable
to restrain herself: "she will see me playing, and I ought to have
been at chapel! " Down fell the cards from her hands, and down
fell she all abroad in her chair. The Maréchale laughed most
heartily at so complete an adventure. Madame de Maintenon
entered slowly, and found the princess in this state, with five or
six persons.
The Maréchale de Villeroy, who was full of wit,
began to say that whilst doing her a great honor, Madame was
the cause of great disorder; and showed her the Princesse d'Har-
court in her state of discomfiture. Madame de Maintenon smiled
with majestic kindness, and addressing the Princesse d'Harcourt,
"Is this the way," said she, "that you go to prayers? " There-
upon the princess flew out of her half-faint into a sort of fury:
said that this was the kind of trick that was played off upon
her; that no doubt the Maréchale knew that Madame de Main-
was coming, and for that reason had persecuted her to
play. "Persecuted! " exclaimed the Maréchale: "I thought I could
not receive you better than by proposing a game; it is true you.
-
―――――――
## p. 12724 (#138) ##########################################
12724
SAINT-SIMON
were for a moment troubled at missing the chapel, but your
tastes carried the day. This, madame, is my whole crime," con-
tinued she, addressing Madame de Maintenon. Upon this, every-
body laughed louder than before. Madame de Maintenon, in
order to stop the quarrel, commanded them both to continue
their game; and they continued accordingly, the Princesse d'Har-
court, still grumbling, quite beside herself, blinded with fury, so
as to commit fresh mistakes every minute. So ridiculous an
adventure diverted the court for several days; for this beautiful
princess was equally feared, hated, and despised.
Monseigneur le Duc and Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne
continually played off pranks upon her. They put, one day,
crackers all along the avenue of the château at Marly, that led
to the Perspective where she lodged. She was horribly afraid
of everything. The duke and duchess bribed two porters to be
ready to take her into the mischief. When she was right in the
middle of the avenue the crackers began to go off, and she to
cry aloud for mercy; the chairmen set her down and ran for it.
There she was, then, struggling in her chair furiously enough to
upset it, and yelling like a demon. At this the company, which
had gathered at the door of the château to see the fun, ran
to her assistance, in order to have the pleasure of enjoying the
scene more fully. Thereupon she set to abusing everybody right
and left, commencing with Monseigneur and Madame la Duchesse
de Bourgogne. At another time M. de Bourgogne put a cracker
under her chair in the salon, where she was playing at piquet.
As he was about to set fire to this cracker, some charitable soul
warned him that it would maim her, and he desisted.
Sometimes they used to send about twenty Swiss guards, with
drums, into her chamber, who roused her from her first sleep by
their horrid din. Another time-and these scenes were always
at Marly - they waited until very late for her to go to bed and
sleep. She lodged not far from the post of the Captain of the
Guards, who was at that time the Maréchal de Lorges. It had
snowed very hard, and had frozen. Madame la Duchesse de
Bourgogne and her suite gathered snow from the terrace which
is on a level with their lodgings; and in order to be better sup-
plied, waked up to assist them the Maréchal's people, who did
not let them want for ammunition. Then with a false key and
lights, they gently slipped into the chamber of the Princesse
d'Harcourt; and suddenly drawing the curtains of her bed, pelted
-
## p. 12725 (#139) ##########################################
SAINT-SIMON
12725
her amain with snowballs. The filthy creature, waking up with
a start, bruised and stifled in snow, with which even her ears
were filled, with disheveled hair, yelling at the top of her voice,
and wriggling like an eel, without knowing where to hide, formed
a spectacle that diverted people more than half an hour; so that
at last the nymph swam in her bed, from which the water flowed
everywhere, slushing all the chamber. It was enough to make
one die of laughter. On the morrow she sulked, and was more
than ever laughed at for her pains.
Her fits of sulkiness came over her either when the tricks
played were too violent, or when M. le Grand abused her. He
thought, very properly, that a person who bore the name of
Lorraine should not put herself so much on the footing of a
buffoon: and as he was a rough speaker, he sometimes said the
most abominable things to her at table; upon which the princess
would burst out crying, and then, being enraged, would sulk.
The Duchesse de Bourgogne used then to pretend to sulk too;
but the other did not hold out long, and came crawling back to
her, crying, begging pardon for having sulked, and praying that
she might not cease to be a source of amusement! After some
time the duchess would allow herself to be melted, and the prin-
cess was more villainously treated than ever; for the Duchesse
de Bourgogne had her own way in everything: neither the King
nor Madame de Maintenon found fault with what she did, so
that the Princesse d'Harcourt had no resource; she did not even
dare to complain of those who aided in tormenting her: yet
it would not have been prudent in any one to make her an
enemy.
The Princesse d'Harcourt paid her servants so badly that they
concocted a return. One fine day they drew up on the Pont
Neuf; the coachmen and footmen got down, and came and spoke
to her at the door in language she was not used to hear. Her
ladies and chambermaid got down and went away, leaving her
to shift as she might. Upon this she set herself to harangue the
blackguards who collected, and was only too happy to find a
man who mounted upon the seat and drove her home. Another
time, Madame de Saint-Simon, returning from Versailles, over-
took her walking in full dress in the street, and with her train
under her arms. Madame de Saint-Simon stopped, offered her
assistance, and found she had been again left by her servants
on the Pont Neuf. It w volume second of that story; and
## p. 12726 (#140) ##########################################
12726
SAINT-SIMON
even when she came back she found her house deserted, every
one having gone away at once by agreement.
She was very
violent with her servants, beat them, and changed them every
day.
Upon one occasion, she took into her service a strong and
robust chambermaid, to whom, from the first day of her arrival,
she gave many slaps and boxes on the ear. The chambermaid
said nothing, but after submitting to this treatment for five or six
days, conferred with the other servants; and one morning, while
in her mistress's room, locked the door without being perceived,
said something to bring down punishment upon her, and at the
first box on the ear she received, flew upon the Princesse d'Har-
court, gave her no end of thumps and slaps, knocked her down,
kicked her, mauled her from her head to her feet, and when she
was tired of this exercise, left her on the ground, all torn and
disheveled, howling like a devil. The chambermaid then quitted
the room, double-locked the door on the outside, gained the stair-
case, and fled the house.
Every day the princess was fighting, or mixed up in some
adventures. Her neighbors at Marly said they could not sleep
for the riot she made at night; and I remember that after one of
these scenes, everybody went to see the room of the Duchesse de
Villeroy and that of Madame d'Espinoy, who had put their beds
in the middle of their room, and who related their night vigils
to every one.
Such was this favorite of Madame de Maintenon; so insolent
and so insupportable to every one, but who had favors and pref-
erences for those who brought her over, and who had raised so
many young men, amassed wealth for them, and made herself
feared even by the prince and minister.
## p. 12727 (#141) ##########################################
12727
ADAM DE SAINT VICTOR
(TWELFTH CENTURY)
BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN
HE Latin hymns or sequences of Adam de Saint Victor came
from that great period, the Middle Ages, so wonderful and
so misconceived. They belong to literature because they
reflect the vital motive of the time, Faith; because they are expres-
sions of the personality of their author; and because their style is
governed by delicate canons of art little understood by the modern
world of poetry-lovers.
To the strict classicist, to the man who reverences Horace and
Catullus, their rhymes are an abomination. But to one who ap-
proaches these sacred poems of the twelfth century remembering
that they were part of that greater religious poem, the daily sacrifice
of the Catholic Church, they are worthy of critical study, and they
will amply repay it. They can neither be studied nor even dimly
appreciated through the medium of translations. They are as intri-
cate and technical as the Gothic architecture of the time which pro-
duced them; they have the sonorousness and aspirational cadence,
without the simplicity, of the Gregorian chant which their music
seems to echo; and above all, they are musical.
The sequence was sung between the Epistle and Gospel of the
Mass. It was called "a prose," too, because in no regular metre;
but in the Middle Ages these sequences, which were at first merely
prolongations of "the last note of the Alleluia," were arranged for
all feasts of the Church in such profusion that much weak and care-
less "prose" crept in. The consequence was that by the revision
of the Roman Missal in the sixteenth century, only the 'Victimæ
Paschali (for Easter), the 'Veni Sancte Spiritus' (for Pentecost),
'Lauda Sion' (for Corpus Christi), and 'Dies Iræ' (in masses for the
dead), were retained. In this revision, the thirty-nine sequences of
Adam de Saint Victor disappeared from general usage. M. Félix Clé-
ment, in an enthusiastic notice of Saint Victor's poetry, regrets this,
and welcomes M. Charles Barthélemy's edition of the sequences as an
act of reparation to a genius too long misunderstood.
There is no doubt that the almost merciless precision of Adam
de Saint Victor's rhyme had a great influence on French poetry,
## p. 12728 (#142) ##########################################
12728
ADAM DE SAINT VICTOR
although neither his rhythm nor rhyme ever reaches the monotony
of the later French recurrences; and some of the poems are most
exquisitely lyrical, artificial, and intricate, yet with an appearance of
simplicity that might easily deceive the unlearned in the metrical
modes of the twelfth century. Take for instance the sequence begin-
ning Virgini Mariæ Laudes. ' It is a marvel of skill; it has the
quaintness of an old ballad and the play on words of a rondeau. It
is modeled on the Easter sequence of the monk Notker, with, as
M. Clément says,
"extraordinary skill. " It is untranslatable: no
prose version can represent it, and no metrical imitation reproduce
its unique shades of verbiage. In the sequence Of the Holy Ghost,'
occur the famous lines which were part of the liturgy of France for
four centuries:-
"THOU who art Giver and the gift,
Who from the naught all good didst lift,
Incline our hearts thy name to praise,
And form our words thy songs to raise,-
Thee, thee high lauding. "
(Tu qui dator es et donum,
Tu qui condis omne bonum,
Cor ad laudem redde pronum,
Nostræ linguæ formans sonum,-
In tua præconia. )
---
Adam de Saint Victor was born in the twelfth century, and he
died in either 1177 or 1192. It is certain that he was a canon regu-
lar of the Abbey of Saint-Victor-les-Paris; he composed certain trea-
tises, and lived, honored and admired, for a part of his life under the
rule of the Abbot Guérin, and was regarded as the foremost poet of
his time. He drew his inspiration from the sacred Scriptures; and
he applied both the teachings and the splendid figures of the Bible
with the force and fervor of Dante. Modern hymn-writers who
seem to grow weaker every year- would do well to study the eleva-
tion and harmony of Adam de Saint Victor: he is a mine of riches.
In the 'Carmina e Poetis Christianis (Songs from Christian Poets),
etc. , by M. Félix Clément (Paris, Gaume & Co. ), and in an appendix
to M. Charles Barthélemy's translation into French of the 'Rationale
Divinorum Officiorum' (Rationale of Divine Services), the material
for a study of this poet's work may be found. An analysis of the
sequence Of the Resurrection of Our Lord,' a prose version of which
is given below, will show the skill with which it is constructed, - a
skill as technical as that of a Petrarcan sonnet. The rhythm is as
marked as the time of a military march.
-
## p. 12729 (#143) ##########################################
ADAM DE SAINT VICTOR
12729
DE RESURRECTIONE DOMINI
MUNDI renovatio
Nova parit gaudia;
Resurgenti Domino,
Corresurgent omnia,
Elementa serviunt
Et autoris sentiunt
Quanta sint solemnia.
Ignis volat mobilis,
Et aër volubilis,
Fluit aqua labalis,
Terra manet stabilis,
Alta petunt levia,
Centrum tenent gravia,
Renovantur omnia.
Cœlum fit serenius,
Et mare tranquillius,
Spirat aura levius,
Vallis nostra floruit,
Revirescunt arida,
Recalescunt frigida,
Post quas ver intepuit.
Gelu mortis solvitur,
Princeps mundi tollitur,
Et ejus destruitur,
In nobis imperium,
Dum tenere voluit
In quo nihil habuit
Jus amisit proprium.
Vita mortem superat;
Homo jam recuperat
Quod priùs amiserat,
Paradisi gaudium.
Viam præbet facilem,
Cherubim versatilem,
Ut Deus promiserat
Amovendo gladium.
## p. 12730 (#144) ##########################################
12730
ADAM DE SAINT VICTOR
TRANSLATION OF THE PRECEDING
THE renewal of the world begets new joys; all things arise with
the resurrection of the Lord. The elements obey [him] and feel how
great are the feasts of their Creator.
The mobile ether and the whirling air are set in motion. The
gliding water flows, the earth remains steady; what is light arises,
what is heavy keeps its position at the centre [of the universe]. All
things are renewed.
The heaven becomes more serene, the sea more quiet; one
breathes gentle airs; our valley is [clothed] in flowers; what [was]
dry becomes green again, what [was] cold grows warm again: after
which the spring gains color.
The ice of death is loosened, the Prince of this world is done
away with, and his power over us destroyed.
While he wished to
hold Him in whom he had not anything [cf. John xiv. 30], he lost
the power that was his own.
Life conquers death; man now recovers what he had lost before,
the joy of Paradise.
[Christ] makes the way easy [for us to travel] by removing, as
God had promised, the sword of the Cherubim that "turns in every
way" [Gen. iii. 24].
An inadequate prose translation must serve to give a faint im-
pression of the deep feeling and sublime passion of the sequence in
honor of the Holy Ghost beginning -
Qui procedis ab utroque,
Genitori Genitoque
Pariter, Paraclete,
Redde linguas eloquentes,
Fac ferventes in te mentes
Flamma tuâ divite.
DE SANCTO SPIRITU
(ON THE HOLY SPIRIT)
O THOU Paraclete that dost proceed equally from each, the Beget-
ter and the Begotten, render eloquent our tongues, make our souls
burn [glow] for thee with thy rich flame [of grace].
Love of the Father and of the Son, equal of both and [fully] equal
and like to each: thou dost replenish all things, dost cherish all
## p. 12731 (#145) ##########################################
ADAM DE SAINT VICTOR
12731
things, thou dost direct the stars and move the heavens, remaining
immutable thyself.
Bright light, dear light, thou dost put to flight the gloom of inner
darkness: by thee the worlds are purified. Thou dost destroy sin and
the blight of sin.
Thou dost make known the truth, and dost show the way of peace
and the road of justice; thou dost shun the hearts of the evil, and
dost enrich the hearts of the good with the gift of knowledge.
When thou dost teach, nothing is obscure; when thou art present,
then is naught impure: at thy presence our joyful soul exults; our
conscience, gladdened by thee, purified by thee, rejoices.
Thou dost change the elements; thanks to thee the sacraments
have their efficacy; thou dost repel injury and violence [lit. , injurious
violence]; thou dost silence and confute the wickedness of the enemy.
When thou dost come, thou dost soften our hearts; when thou dost
enter [them], the black clouds of darkness [lit. , the darkness of the
black cloud] flee. O sacred fire, thou dost inflame our breast; thou
dost not burn it, but thou dost cleanse it from [all earthly] cares when
thou dost visit it.
Thou dost instruct and arouse minds that before were ignorant
and buried in sleep and forgetfulness. Thou dost help our tongues,
and dost form the sound [of our word? ]; the grace given by thee
makes our heart inclined to the good.
O help of the oppressed, O comfort of the wretched, refuge of the
poor! grant us contempt for things of earth; draw our desires to the
love of things of heaven.
Drive away evil, remove our impurity, and make the discordant
concordant, and bring us thy protection.
Mayst thou, who didst once visit, teach, and strengthen the disci-
ples in their fear, deign to visit us; mayst thou console us if it is
thy will, and the peoples that believe [in thee].
Equal is the majesty of the Persons, equal is their power, and
common is their Godhead: thou that dost proceed from two art
coequal with both; in nothing is there inequality.
Because thou art so great and such as is the Father, may thy
humble servants [the humility of thy servants] render due praise to
God the Father, to the Son [our] Redeemer, and as well to thee!
manne Francis Egan
безин
## p. 12732 (#146) ##########################################
12732
-
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
(1567-1622)
BY Y. BLAZE DE BURY
N 1567, at the height of the League in France, -at Annécy,
in a Savoy almost French in consequence of the repeated
alliances of its sovereigns with France,- he who was to be
St. Francis de Sales was born of one of the first families of his
country. His early choice of the study of the law shows the pre-
dominance in him of reason over imagination. But what he refuses
to imagination in the field of literary "invention," he makes up to it
by the abuse of "images of style. " When it is a matter of painting
with the pen, he puts under contribution flowers, birds, streams,- all
nature. The contemporary of Florian, of D'Urfé, and of Vaugelas,
as well as their compatriot, he has neither the affectation of the sec-
ond nor the "Scudérisms" of the first; but he rushes into veritable
whirlwinds of metaphors. This abuse of metaphor, especially evident.
in his 'Introduction à la Vie Dévote' (Introduction to the Devout
Life), does not prevent him, however, from having a very definite
style, a combination which makes it possible to republish him at
the present time without any changes. In the order of psychological
subtlety, Francis de Sales is the precursor of Fénelon. His direction
of the nuns of the Visitation whom he governed, with the direction of
the most worldly women of his time, evinces his great knowledge of
women. In the 'Introduction to the Devout Life,' he excels in dis-
tributing his counsels as befits the worldly and the "regulars. " For
the worldly, he even takes part in the gallantry of the time, when
he speaks of "friendships. " He even accords that "friendship is
mutual love; and that there should be constant communication and
intercourse between persons united in friendship. ”
It was about the beginning of the seventeenth century that he
founded the Order of the Visitation, and formed in his turn, with
Madame Jeanne de Chantal, the aunt of Madame de Sévigné, exactly
such a strict friendship "for good" as those of which he proclaims the
utility, when in the 'Introduction' he says: "If the benefits that friends
give each other are false and vain, the friendship is false and vain;
but if they are true benefits, the friendship is true! "
The 'Traité de l'Amour de Dieu' is not less fertile in figurative
language than the 'Introduction. ' But it applies more especially to
religious persons. Henry IV. , and later, Louis XIII. particularly, did
## p. 12733 (#147) ##########################################
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
12733
their best to keep Francis in France; but nothing could prevail over
his love of his native land, and in spite of his constant visits to the
French court, and the direction of his "daughters" of the Visitation,
and also his strong affection for St. Vincent de Paul, the country of
his birth never ceased to be the country of his choice.
The firmness of his character, combined with great keenness, par-
ticularly fitted him for the direction of women: and it was thus he
wrote the 'Introduction' for Madame de Charmoisy, as he founded
the Order of the Visitation and modified its regulations upon the
advice of Madame de Chantal; while at the same time this moral
collaboration aimed at the personal elevation of this eminent woman
left in widowhood! The foundation of the Visitation and the direc-
tion of souls, such were the works of St. Francis de Sales. He died
peacefully in 1622. There was nothing of the ascetic in him. While
the holiness of his Italian namesake palpitates with the "madness of
the cross," the triumph of Francis de Sales is, on the contrary,
reason wisdom the economy well understood and well combined
of worldly duties with divine obligations. He summed up in a word
his own classification of each one's rôle, when he said, "The religion
of the Capuchin is not the religion of the soldier. "
The following citations are drawn from the 'Introduction to the
Devout Life. ' The selection is made especially in view of the
worldly; and in order to show them how free our saint's morality was
from all those compromises with questions of interests, such as money
interests, with which church people are sometimes too justly re-
proached. These citations show, too, how well in his secular counsels
his morality could adjust itself to social enigmas.
Speaking of the love of riches, and the pains we should take for
the extension of our worldly fortune, St. Francis wrote: "We are
rendering God an acceptable service when we take care of the good
things which he has confided to us. This care must be greater and
sounder than that of the worldly; for they work only for love of
themselves, while we should work for the love of God. ”
Apropos of the love of the poor:-
―
-
"If you love the poor, take pleasure in being with them, in having them
visit you, in going to see them. In speech be poor with them, talking with
them as equal to equal; but with your hands be rich, sharing with them what
God has given more abundantly to you than to them. »
In another passage St. Francis wishes to show us the value of
voluntary renouncing, and the difference between accepting and choos
ing poverty:-
-
«Esau came before his father with hairy hands, and Jacob did the same;
but because the hair covering Jacob's hands was not fastened to his skin, but
only to his gloves, it could be torn from him without flaying or wounding him.
## p. 12734 (#148) ##########################################
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
12734
On the contrary, as the hair on Esau's hands grew from his skin, naturally
hairy, it could not be torn off without great pain and great resistance. The
faithful servants of God care no more for their wealth than for their clothes,
which they can put on and leave off at pleasure; but bad Christians prize it
as much as animals do their skin. "
Sometimes, too, the saint's counsels take the form of maxims or
thoughts: "Wherever there is less of us, there is more of God; pov-
erty chosen in the midst of riches is therefore most agreeable to God,
since it proves a divine election in the soul which chooses it. "—"If
poverty displeases you, it is because you are not poor in spirit, but
rich in spirit by the affection you give wealth. " St. Francis applies
his declaration that "the religion of the Capuchin is not the religion
of the soldier"; he proves it by showing the part which human love
plays in people's hearts:-
"Love holds the first place among the passions; it reigns in the heart, it
guides all its movements. Therefore forbid your heart all evil love, Philo-
thea, for it would soon become an evil heart. All love moreover is not friend-
ship; since one can love without being loved, and then there is 'love' not
'friendship. ' Friendship is a mutual love. Between people who love each
other there must be some communication. If the benefits that friends give
each other are false and vain, the friendship is false and vain; but if they
are true benefits, the friendship is true. »
Upon the harm caused by luxury, Francis de Sales is not less
explicit: "There is a great difference between having poison and
being poisoned. You may have wealth without its natural poison
going to your heart. " In the eyes of our saint, as in the eyes of
Montaigne, sadness and anxiety are the most detestable of all things.
"Anxiety arises from an unreasonable desire either to be delivered
from the ill one feels, or to attain a blessing for which one hopes.
Thus the anxious heart is like a bird taken in a net, which, strug-
gling wildly, involves itself deeper and deeper in the snare. ”
In Chapter iv. , Book iii. , upon humility, the saint says:-
"We call vain glories, those which being in us are not properly of us.
Nobility of birth, the favor of the great, are all outside of ourselves: why
should we glory in them? How many persist in vain exultation because they
have fine horses, showy clothes, beautiful furniture. Does not this show the
folly of men? Some would like to dance well, others to sing well. That is
very superficial, highly contemptible, and very irrelevant. »
St. Francis alludes very keenly to those persons who like to dis-
play their great learning, their noble traits of heredity. Acting thus,
we should be embarrassed by an examination of the qualities of which
we boast; and as there is nothing finer than honor when received as
a gift, so there is nothing more shameful when required as a right.
## p. 12735 (#149) ##########################################
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
12735
Our author reserves his highest contempt for preoccupation with rank
and honors. "The questions of precedence, of rank and honors, suit.
only petty minds. " Thus too upon false humility: "We often say
that we are the dust of the earth, but we should be very sorry to be
taken at our word. We often flee so that we may be pursued. The
truly humble man, on the contrary, speaks little of himself, and tries
to conceal his virtues. "
Although St. Francis was not a mystic, he spoke for those who are,
when, apropos of St. Catherine of Siena, he said:-
:-
"The story of the temptations with which God permitted the Evil Spirit to
assail St. Catherine's modesty is very astonishing; and nothing more horrible
can be imagined than this spiritual combat, whether it be the enemy's sug-
gestions to heart and imagination, or to the eyes by infamous representa-
tions. Although all this external evil struck only her senses, she was violently
troubled and agitated. When our Lord finally appeared to her, she said,
(Where were you, Lord, when my heart was filled with filth? Upon which
the Lord answered, 'My daughter, I was in thy heart itself. If I had not
been present, thy soul would have consented to those impressions, which would
have destroyed it. >>>
Here, apropos of gambling, is matter to satisfy the casuists, when
St. Francis affirms "playing to satisfy the company where one is, to
be perfectly proper"; and that St. Elizabeth of Hungary played thus
at pleasure-gatherings without failing at all in devotion. Moreover,
faithful in his care for the home woman, the friend of Jeanne de
Chantal particularly advises many women to consecrate themselves
to study; to "console others; and among your occupations," he adds,
"do not forget the spindle and the distaff: these humble occupations
will keep you from idleness, the scourge of homes. "
Sometimes his taste for the picturesque leads our saint to impose
anticipations of Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress' upon his reader. Par-
ticularly in the passage where he advises Philothea to balance the
scales between the calls of temptation and the nobler instincts:-
"Consider on your left hand the Prince of Darkness upon a high throne;
an infinite number of sinners are around, paying him homage. Some are
transported by the spirit of rage, which makes them unchained furies of hate
and vengeance; others are weakened by the spirit of idleness, which leaves
them only leisure for vain frivolities. One group are intoxicated by the spirit
of intemperance, which renders them brutes and madmen, another swollen
with pride and insupportable; one parched with longing, another perishing
with lust; others troubled with the anxiety for gain: behold them restless, dis-
ordered, killing, persecuting, destroying each other. And now consider upon
your right hand, Jesus the Crucified, with an inexplicable tenderness of com-
passion. To obtain the liberty of these wretches, he offers his prayers and
## p. 12736 (#150) ##########################################
12736
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
his blood to God his Father. Consider the evenness of disposition, the serenity
of mind, of the servants of God. They love each other with a pure and holy
love. Even those who have afflictions are very little or not at all disquieted
by them, and lose nothing of the peace of their hearts. »
YBlaze deBury
ST. PAUL'S ADMIRABLE EXHORTATION TO THE SUPER-
NATURAL AND ECSTATIC LIFE
From A Treatise on the Love of God'
NOTH
OTHING can be more emphatic, nor more wonderful, than the
arguments employed by St. Paul to urge us to this ecstatic
life, in which man, always elevated above himself by his
actions, lives in a species of continual rapture. The words of
this great apostle are replenished with a celestial fire and a holy
enthusiasm; it is impossible not to feel their strength and energy.
They proceed from a heart burning with love; and each of us
should apply them to himself: "The charity of Christ," said he,
"presseth us" (2 Cor. v. 14). Is it not true that nothing influ-
ences the heart so forcibly as love? We are eager to return love
for love, to those whom we know to be animated with affection
for us; this ardor redoubles when the love of a superior antici-
pates that of an inferior; and if it be a powerful monarch who is
the first to love his subject, the anxiety of the latter to return
his affection must be extreme.
Jesus Christ, the only true God, the eternal and omnipotent
Divinity, has loved us to so great a degree as to die for us on a
cross: do we require any other motive to urge us ardently and
continually to correspond with such infinite and unmerited good-
ness? Our divine Master, in furnishing us by his death with so
powerful and irresistible a motive to love him, seems resolved to
extract from our hearts the most ardent affection they are capa-
ble of feeling. By thus anticipating our affections, he employs
a kind of violence which is the more powerful, as it is perfectly
conformable to our natural inclinations.
In what manner, and in what circumstances, does the sov-
ereign Friend of our souls press us? This we learn from the
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words of St. Paul: "The charity of Christ presseth us," when
we consider the effects of his love for us, as revealed by faith.
Let us then attentively consider the benefits of our divine Savior,
let us continually meditate on them, and his love will press us.
But again, what is the object proposed to our reflections ? The
words of the apostle are worthy of observation; they tend to
impress our hearts in a peculiar manner with the instructions.
they convey, "judging," said he, or considering, "that if one died.
for all, then all were dead. " And Christ died for all. (2 Cor.
v. 14, 15. ) The inference to be drawn from this truth is self-
evident: a Savior died for all: consequently all must have been
dead, since they required a Savior; and the merits of his death
must be applied to the whole human race, since it has been
endured by all.
What follows from this? We learn from the great apostle,
who says that "They who live, may not now live to themselves,
but to him who died for them, and rose again. " (2 Cor. v. 15. )
All that Jesus requires of us, in laying down his life for our sal-
vation, is that we conform our lives to his, and love him as he
loved us. What an irresistible influence must these words of the
apostle have on hearts susceptible of love!
Jesus Christ died for us; he has purchased us life by his
death; we only live because he died; he died to us, by applying
to us the merits of his death; he died in us to eradicate from
our hearts the germ of sin, which was the cause of his death
and ours; he sacrificed his life for us, to deliver us from death.
Our life then no longer belongs to us; it is the possession of
him who has purchased it by his death: therefore we should no
longer live to ourselves, in or for ourselves, but only to him, in
him, and for him.
A young girl, a native of the isle of Sestos, brought up an
eagle with all the care and attention which children usually lav-
ish on their favorites. When it had begun to follow its natural
instinct, by chasing smaller birds, it never failed to bring its
prey to its dear mistress, as if to prove its gratitude. During its
absence on one of these occasions, it happened that its young
benefactress died; and according to the custom of the time and
country, her body was placed on a pile to be burned. The eagle
returned just as the flames began to ascend; and as if penetrated
with grief at the view of this melancholy spectacle, it dropped
its prey and threw itself on the body of its mistress, covering
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her with its wings as if to screen her from the fire. It remained
motionless in this position, the excess of its love seeming more
violent than the fire by which it was consumed, and died a vic-
tim to its benefactress, leaving to mankind an example of lively
and disinterested gratitude.
Does not this anecdote suffice to inflame our hearts with love?
Our divine Benefactor has watched over us from the earliest
dawn of the morning of life, even from the first moment of our
conception: we may say in the words of the Psalmist, "Thou art
he that hast drawn me out of the womb; thy paternal arms have
been the support of my tottering steps. " (Ps. xxi. 10. )
These first benefits of our divine Redeemer have been fol-
lowed by still greater: he has made us children by baptism, that
we might belong to him on the score of spiritual regeneration;
he has condescended, by an incomprehensible effort of love, to
watch over our education, to provide for our spiritual and corpo-
ral wants: in fine, he sacrificed his life to purchase ours, and left
us his adorable body and precious blood for our food. What can
we infer from all these marks of tender love, if not that "They
who live, should not now live to themselves, but to him who
died for them and rose again"? That is, every moment of our
existence should be consecrated to the love of a God who has
laid down his life for us; all our exertions, actions, thoughts, and
affections should be referred solely to his glory. (2 Cor. v. 15. )
Consider our divine Redeemer, stretched on the cross as on a
funeral pile, a bed of state to which he is about to be immolated,
and acknowledge that in this circumstance, love has indeed been
stronger than death: over which it has doubly triumphed, because
it both ordained and consummated the sacrifice, of which death
has been only the instrument; and because by inducing our
divine Savior to die for us, it has rendered the most infamous
and cruel of all deaths sweeter than even love itself.
Had we the generosity and gratitude of the eagle we have
been speaking of, we would not hesitate at this sight to cast our-
selves in spirit on the cross of our divine Redeemer, to expire
thereon with him; and embracing him by our ardent affections,
we should exclaim, I hold him, and I will rather die than let
him go. Yes, I shall expire with him, the happy victim of his
love; the sacred fire which spared not my omnipotent Creator
must likewise immolate his creature. My Savior is entirely
mine: I desire to be wholly his; to live and die reposing on his
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bosom, that neither death nor life may ever separate me from
him.
In this consists the holy and practical ecstasy of life and
action; it is produced by love, which causes us to renounce the
feelings and inclinations of corrupt nature, elevates us above
ourselves to conform our lives and actions to the will and
inspirations of Jesus Christ.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE EXTRAORDINARY DEATH OF A GENTLE-
MAN WHO DIED OF LOVE ON MOUNT OLIVET
From A Treatise on the Love of God'
I
SHALL add to the examples I have already related, a history
which has come to my knowledge, and which, though very
extraordinary, is not on this account less deserving of belief,
since, as the apostle says, "charity believeth all things": that is,
she cannot easily persuade herself that duplicity has been used
when there are no evident marks of falsehood in what is ad-
vanced, especially with regard to the love of God for man, or of
man for God: nothing is too extraordinary to be expected from
charity, which is the queen of virtues; and which, like the princes
of the earth, takes pleasure in performing great exploits to
extend her dominion, and increase the glory of her empire.
Though the fact I am about to state is not so generally
known, or so well authenticated, as so wonderful an event seems
to require, it is, however, no less true. St. Augustine has ob-
served that miracles, however extraordinary, are never well known
in the place where they have been performed, and are scarcely
believed though related by witnesses. Yet they are not less true.
on this account; pious and upright minds easily believe whatever
does honor to religion, and are more inclined to credit these
prodigies in proportion as they are more wonderful and difficult
to believe.
A gentleman remarkable for his virtues still more than for his
bravery and illustrious birth, went to Palestine to visit the holy
places where the great work of our redemption was accom-
plished. After having prepared himself for this holy exercise
by an exact confession and a fervent communion, he went first
to Nazareth, where the eternal Word was conceived, after the
angel had announced to the ever-blessed Virgin the mystery of
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the incarnation. Here the devout pilgrim began to penetrate by
contemplation the abyss of the mercy of God, who to rescue us
from the state of perdition to which we had been reduced by
sin, deigned to assume a human form.
He then proceeded to Bethlehem; visited the stable in which
the divine Infant was born, and kissed the earth which had sup-
ported the tottering steps of his infancy. We could enumerate
the tears he shed, in reflecting on those which had streamed so
abundantly from the divine eyes of Jesus Christ! He then pro-
ceeded to Bethabara, and entered Bethany. There, remembering
that the Son of God had taken off his garments to be baptized,
he stripped himself of his, bathed in the Jordan, and drank of its
waters to satisfy his devotion. In doing so, he imagined that
he beheld the heavens opened, that he saw Jesus Christ receiving
baptism from the hands of his Precursor, and the Holy Ghost
descending visibly on him in the form of a dove; whilst a voice
was heard from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved son, in
whom I am well pleased. " (Matt. iii.
