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The Apparition of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.

LIFE OF

SAINT MARGARET MARY ALACOQUE

BY RT. REV. E. BOUGAUD, D.D.

Bishop of Laval

Niw York, Cincinnati, Chicago

BENZIGER BROTHERS

PRINTERS TO THE I PUBLISHERS Or

HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE I BENZIGER'S MAGAZINE

X ^

BCANLON, S.T.D.,

mfNem

•

Co tbe ftcmovQ

m

My Mother.

TO HER UPON WHOSE KNEE, AS A LITTLE CHILD, I LEARNED TO KNOW, TO LOVE, TO ADORE

THE

SflCRED HEART.

THREE MONTHS BEFORE HER DEATH, JUNE 23, 1373, ON MY RETURN

FROM PARAY, MY MOTHER BESOUGHT ME TO RE3UME THIS IWflMTll

PREVIOUSLY UNDERTAKEN AT HER REQUEST, THEN INTERRUPTED

AGAIN TAKEN UP, AND ALMOST FINISHED IN THE MIDST OF

THE FIRST ANXIETY CONSEC - I I . • HER ILLNESS,

AND THE INCONSOLABLE SORROW OF

HER DEATH.

TO-DAY

X LAY IT ON HER TOMB AS A LAST TRIBUTE OF HOMAGE

TO THE HEART OF THAT INCOMPARABLE

TO WHOM I OWE ALL.

CONTENTS.

PAGB

Dedication 5

Introduction 9

CHAPTER

I. State of the Church in France at the Birth of

Saint Margaret Mary. 1647 17

II. Birth of Saint Margaret Mary — First Years —

Childhood and Youth. 1647-1662 34

III. Margaret's Vocation — She Enters the Visitation

of Paray. 1662-1671 54

IV. The Convent of Paray. 1671 71

V. Margaret Mary's Novitiate — God Prepares her for the Great Mission about to be intrusted to her — Her Profession. May 26, 1671-November 6, 1672 92

VI. Final Exterior Preparations — Last Finishing Stroke within. November 6, 1672-December 27, 1673 no

VII. The Aurora of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart 126 VIII. The Visitation Established to be the Sanctuary of

the Sacred Heart 142

IX. The Revelations of the Sacred Heart. 1673-1675 16c X. Almighty God Prepares the Convent of Paray to become the Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart. 1675-1678 180

XI. Mother Greyfie submits Margaret's Extraordinary Ways to a New Examination — Her Severity and her Fearlessness — Father de la Colombiere Returns to Paray — His Death. 1678-1684 . . 194

XII. The Saintly Sister among her Novices — The Secret of the Sublime Revelations Escapes her in Spite of herself — First Public Adoration of

the Sacred Heart. 1684-1685 220

7

8 Contents,

CHAPTER PAGE

XIII. The Apostolate of the Sacred Heart Begun — With

what Modesty and Zeal Margaret Mary begins to Spread Devotion to the Sacred Heart. 1686- 1689 244

XIV. The Last Grand Revelation — The King and

France. 1689 263

XV. Margaret Mary's Mission Ended — She is Con- sumed in the Flames of Divine Love — Her Holy Death. 1690 274

XVI. Devotion to the Heart of Jesus Begins in the

World — Anger of Some, Enthusiasm of Others 290

.KVII. The First-fruits of Devotion to the Sacred Heart — The Church of France Vivified in the Rays of the Sacred Heart — Beatification of Saint Margaret Mary 315

XVIII. Unexpected and Marvellous Spread of Devotion to the Heart of Jesus amid the Misfortunes of France — The Second Part of the Mission con- fided to Saint Margaret Mary Approaches its Accomplishment. 1870-1874 334

XIX. Montmartre — The Wish of St. Francis de Sales — The Visitation Order and Jansenism — The Visitandines as Reformers and Founders — The Visitandines in the Revolution — the Scapu- lar of the Sacred Heart in the Reign of Terror — The Guard of Honor of the Sacred Heart — The Consecration of the World to the Sacred Heart 356

XX. Enthronement of the Sacred Heart — Some American Associations — The Words of Pope Benedict XV., and the Decree of Canonization of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, Professed Religious of the Order of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the diocese of Autun 378

INTRODUCTION.

In the two volumes devoted to the telling of St. de Chantal's story and the origin of the Visitation, I thought I had finished my task. But a pure, sweet voice called me, that of the first of St. Chantal's daugh- ters raised to the altar, Saint Margaret Mary. She it was who was chosen by God to finish the work of St. Francis de Sales and his great co-operatrix. Both had labored together in the construction of the edifice. They dug the foundations, drew the grand plans. But the crown was wanting. It was Margaret Mary, that saintly and humble virgin, who was deputed to place it on its brow. In some way, then, the Life of our saintly Sister is a necessary sequel to the history of St. Chantal. The biography of the one illumines and perfects that of the other.

But if Saint Margaret Mary interests us as the first beatified daughter of the holy founders of the Visita- tion, we hesitate not to say that she awakens our sym- pathy from still another point of view. Hidden in the depths of her cloister, in the seclusion of a little town far from Paris, she received a first-class mission. She was deputed by Almighty God to come to the assistance of the Church in the fulfilment of a work the greatest and, at the same time, the most formidable ever accom- plished in this world.

This work, we well know, is not to remain inactive in the midst of the instability of human things, of dynasties, empires, and even whole nations, which shall sooner or later crumble into dust. Nor is it to impose on man's proud reason a collection of dogmas whose titles he has,

9

io Introduction.

indeed, the right to study, but which can regenerate him only by humbling him. This work, still more elevated, so luminous and yet so obscure, is to persuade man tha" God loves him.

Yes, one day, from the depths of His eternity, God looked upon man ; and like some great king, some powerful genius, who falls a victim to the charms of a little lisping child, that child his own, God was capti- vated. He loved man. He loved him even to passion, even to folly. He loved him so far as to make Himself man, in order to bridge those distances which, of what- ever nature they may be, are insupportable to love. God loved man even to suffer and to die for him.

Yes, He who hangs there on that gibbet, His hands and feet pierced, His Heart opened, is God ! And what is He doing there ? He is suffering, He is dying, through love ; yea, He is dying of love !

This is what the Church is commissioned to teach to man. This is the price of his regeneration. Outside this we find only feebleness of heart, shipwreck of morals. A man may indeed be an honest man ; but the folly of sacrifice, of virginity, of devotedness, of martyrdom, arises only from faith in the folly of the Cross.

This love of God for man is so great, so prodigious, that it has become a scandal to the world. It is the old and universal stumbling-block, the final reason of all schisms and all unbelief. If Arius, for example, sepa- rated from the Church, it was because he could not be- lieve that that Man who had one day appeared in Judea could, without certain equivocal expressions, without (exaggeration, be truly st3'led the Only Son of God. There was in such abasement a grandeur of love revolt- ing to the heresiarch. Nor could Nestorius admit that the Eternal Son of God had reposed in the womb of an humble virgin, that he had been nourished with her milk, and that He had called her mother ! Luther and Calvin, — why did they break anew the unity of the

Introduction. 1 1

Church ? Because they could not believe either in the tribunal of reconciliation, that is, in mercy that makes no account of ingratitude; or in indulgences, that is, in one of the most tender industries of the Saviour to supply for our ever-recurring insufficiencies ; or in the Holy Eucharist, that is, in His constant abiding with those whom He loves. Narrow hearts, which know not what it is to love ! And if in our day there are so many men that pass before the Cross wagging their head, who gaze at our altars with a smile of contempt, it is because the folly of the Cross disgusts them. Man's egotism, incapable of loving, sinks under the weight of such mysteries ; and the Church cannot draw from him this cry that would transfigure him : Et nos credidimus cha- ritati quam habet Deus in nobis: " Yes, we believe that God has love for us." '

But precisely because the work is formidable, because the Church seems at some moments to bend under the weight, God comes to her aid by some master-strokes. As, when sophists multiplied, He made a sign, and we saw appear those whom we shall call volunteers, extra- ordinary agents of the truth, a St. Augustine, a St. Thomas, a Bossuet : in like manner, when the world grew cold, and God's love was no longer credited ; when we saw degenerate purity, sacrifice, apostleship, devotedness, and martyrdom, — all those qualities that derive their origin from the heart, but from the heart transfigured by divine love, — God made a sign, and we saw arise those whom we shall call volunteers, the extraordinary agents of love. Thus, for example, when Constantine ascended the imperial throne, the early persecutions passed ; when he extended over the Church his imperial purple, he introduced with those honors, though unknown to himself and without willing it, the seeds of lukewarmness. When arise those cold-hearted doctors whom we have already cited, Arius, Nestorius,

1 I. John iv. 16.

i •* Introduction.

Eutyches, whose doctrine was at best only the denial of infinite love ; when old pagan sensualism was slowly penetrating into the Church, — at that moment the earth opened, and from her bosom came forth the instruments of the Passion of Jesus Christ : the cross on which He died, the nails that pierced His feet and hands, the crown that wounded His brow, the lance that opened His Heart. The world was providentially roused to new life by contact with those sacred trophies of the Passion.

And who was the privileged creature to whom God gave this great mission of reviving the world in the fourth century ? A woman — the pious Helena, the mother of Constantine, the imperial Liberator of the Church. It was a woman, and we can divine the cause. Ordinarily inferior to man in gifts of intellect, woman is his superior in those of the heart. She loves more, she loves better. Even in thought she never separates love from sacrifice. To love is for her self-immolation. It was, then, a woman ; and, moreover, it was a mother. That, too, we can understand.

Before the Cross, before the folly of love, man may sometimes pass wagging his head ; but the mother, never ! She takes her child in her arms, she raises her eyes to the Cross, and she says to herself : " What is there so astonishing in Jesus Christ's dying for His children ? Would / not do the same for mine ?"

It was, then, a woman, a wife, a mother, who, in the fourth century, received the mission to revivify the world by holding up to it the Cross of Jesus Christ ; and, in fact, she succeeded. The great devotion of those barbarous nations of the Middle Ages was devotion to the Cross. They even fought battles for its restitution when it had passed out of their hands. The West rose to a man to get possession of the Saviour's empty tomb. When arrived in Jerusalem, those hardy warriors, a God- frey de Bouillon, a Tancred, a Baldwin, were seen mak- ing the circuit of the. Holy City, barefoot and shedding

Introduction. 1 3

abundant tears. Some of them even expired of lo^e and sorrow when kissing the rocks of Calvary. France trembled one day with the purest emotion that had ever thrilled her soul, when St. Louis re-entered his cap- ital, bearing in his royal hands the crown of thorns that had steeped in blood the brow of Jesus Christ. During five centuries, from St. Helena to St. Louis, the world, rewarmed by contact with the holy cross on which Jesus Christ had died, could utter the conquering cry : Yes, we believe in God's infinite love for man I

But it was not difficult for an observer to see that this devotion, owing to human infirmity, would soon be in- sufficient to support a flame that had evidently begun to flicker. The Crusades became more and more an im- possibility ; in vain did the Sovereign Pontiffs urge the Faithful to rescue the profaned tomb of Jesus Christ. A symbol more touching than even the Cross had become a necessity, something that would sink more deeply into hearts. Then, in the solitude of a Belgian convent, God appeared to a privileged soul, and gave her the mission to turn all eyes and hearts to the Holy Eucharist, and to ask from the Church some new manifestations of homage for this august mystery.

And who was the favored creature predestined to revive the world in the thirteenth century, and to be what we shall call an extraordinary agent of love ? Again a woman, and this time a virgin ! However pure, however clear-sighted the heart of the mother, there is something more beautiful, more crystalline still, and that is the heart of a virgin ! And besides, the mystery of the Eucharist being the mystery of the angels, it was fitting to reserve to virginity the honors of that revelation and of that apostolate.

As nothing happens in the Church but by the breath- ings of God's Spirit, whilst the new pomps of Corpus Christi were being displayed, an unknown monk sent forth the Book of the " Imitation" the most beautiful

14 Introduction,

pages that have ever fallen from the pen of man, espe- cially Book IV., so calculated to inflame hearts with love for the Holy Eucharist. At the same time St. Thomas composed his incomparable hymns, " Lauda Sio?i% and " Adoro Te Supplex." Then Gothic cathedrals rose as if to be triumphal arches in honor of the Holy Eucharist. From their hallowed precincts came solemnly forth those beautiful processions of the Blessed Sacrament of which we know ; and the world, reanimated and trans- formed by the warmth of the devotion, began its march anew, the cry of victory upon its lips : We believe in God's infinite love for us.

Three centuries rolled by ! Suddenly there sweeps over the Church a current icy cold, freezing. Luther appeared, and denied infinite love in its most tender manifestations. Calvin followed, and suppressed the Eucharist. Jansenius arose, and, though not denying the Holy Eucharist, taught the Faithful to abstain from it with the most profound respect. Books on, or, as we should say, against, frequent Communion were written, and treasures of learning were called into play, in order to teach the Faithful that Jesus Christ established the Divine Sacrament that they might receive it as seldom as possible. Faith in infinite love grew weak through- out the world ; coldness was everywhere felt.

O my God, my God ! what art Thou now going to do ? By what ingenious device art Thou going to re- animate souls ? What secret remedy hast Thou in re- serve for times so sad ? And to what privileged soul art Thou now going to confide it?

To reanimate faith and piety, God again chose a woman, a virgin. Evidently, He wished to make none other the extraordinary agent of His love !

With divine art He prepared the chosen virgin for her mission. When her heart had become like that of an angel ; when one night she was plunged in ecstasy, immovable, recollected, her arms crossed on her breast,

Introduction. 1 5

her face strangely lighted, all aglow with interior fire, a celestial radiance, visible to her alone, arose above the altar. In it she perceived, as she tremblingly glanced through the grate, the adorable person of our Lord Jesus Christ ! When, at last, she ventured to fix upon Him her eyes moist with tears, she saw the Saviour's breast resplendent, and His Heart sparkling like a sun in the midst of flames. And hark, a voice addressed her : " Be- hold the Heart that has so loved men, even to consume itself for them /" Several times were these visions repeated, and in them were the adorable designs of God revealed to her. She saw the wounds of society healed by de- grees through contact with this Divine Heart ; and the Church, rewarmed, reanimated by the rays of this fur- nace of love, resume her triumphant, benevolent march through the world.

To add one more charm to this devotion, that is for the French heart, God gave it to His Church by the hands of France. It was to a French religious, mem- ber of a French Order, in a town of France, that He made known what He wished her to promulgate to the universal Church. And not only is it to France that the revelation is made, it is made for France. So well does it correspond on the one hand to her most noble aspirations, her most elevated sentiments ; so sweetly and efficaciously does it touch on the other her saddest wounds, that it is evident God thought of France in giving to the world the grand revelation of the Sacred Heart. Yes, He not only thought, He expressed His thought in words ; He announced it with a precision truly miraculous. In fact, in proportion as France plunged into the Sacred Heart, has she been regen- erated.

Behold of what we shall treat in the following pages, though for it we should borrow the tongues of angels or of saints. We shall, however, try what we can do ; for .not to try would be in us the blackest ingratitude.

1 6 Introduction,

Before beginning, we shall, however, premise one ob- servation. Just as we might say to a youth about en- tering upon the study of mathematics, " This book treats of infinitesimal calculus. Do not open it, for you will understand nothing in it :" in like manner, if any one believes not in the infinite love of God for man dis« played from His crib to His cross, and still shown in the Holy Eucharist, let him not open this book ! Should he do so, he will be amazed and scandalized. I am going to recount the strangest things, facts the most extraordinary, the most inconceivable, and yet the most certain, as well as the most touching : a God loving man to folly, yes, even to passion ! This God, forgot- ten, despised, betrayed, ignored by man, has not de- spaired of man. Instead of punishing him, of crushing him, as He might have done, He resolved to conquer him by force of love. And this is the story that I am now going to tell.

O Jesus, from my mother's arms to the 'ardent years of my youth, I never ceased to believe in that infinite love which is the sap, the divine sustenance, of Chris- tianity ; and now, at the age that brings to man experi- ence of the world, and, if he has been faithful, opens to him the splendors of heaven, I feel that same infinite love shining on my head with undimmed brilliancy. It is true to say, I now scarcely believe in man's love, for I believe much more in God's love ! Help me, then, O Christ, O Saviour, O Friend, and may these my last words, if they are to be my last, bear to the very depths of souls the knowledge of that love whose charm I have tasted, but of whose sweetness I shall never be able to speak !

Orleans, May 24, 1874.

LIFE OF

Saint Margaret Mary alacoque.

CHAPTER I.

STATE OF THE CHURCH IN FRANCE AT THE BIRTH OF SAINT MARGARET MARY.

1647.

" Mane nobiscum, Doraine, quoniam advesperascit, et inclinata est jam dies."

" Stay with us, O Lord, because it is towards evening, and the day is now far spent." — St. Luke xxiv. 29.

JjTLN 1647, the year in which Margaret Mary was born ,31f at Verosvres, a small Burgundian village seven leagues from Paray, Catholic France had just achieved a great victory. The latter part of the six- teenth century had been spent in expelling schism and heresy from her bosom. Freed from the bad leaven, she flourished in the seventeenth.

Joy was great in Christian homes; for never, perhaps, had France known so fearful a danger. With its doc- trine of reason's absolute independence, its contempt of authority, and its hatred of ecclesiastical rule, Protes- tantism was calculated to please a nation in love with equality, naturally rebellious, and quickly wearied of that authority of which it had so much need. On the other hand, enervated and corrupted under the frivolous reigns of Francis I., Henry II., Charles IX., and Henry III., she was only too well prepared by her depraved morality to curtail her ancient doctrines. She hesitaced a moment; and heresy, which had seduced a part of the high nobility, mounted the steps of the throne. It was

17

\ 8 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

>ne of those solemn hours that decide the future of a tvorld. Let us suppose that, after the defection of all England, of a part of Germany, Prussia, Sweden, Nor- way, and Switzerland, France, too, had proved recreant: humanly speaking, the Catholic Church in Europe would have succumbed.

Happily, if under certain forms Protestantism exer- cised a charm over France, under others it inspired in. vincible repugnance. France is a thoroughly religious nation, though led rather by the heart than the head. Into religion, as into all things else, she carries her ardent and lively nature, her love of being led rather than convinced; and in the love she bestows she conceives no limit other than that which she exacts. In this respect, Protestantism was radically incapable of satisfying France.

Protestantism is not a spontaneous growth. It only ingrafted itself on the old trunk of the Gospel as a so- called development and improvement. It established itself in a manner entirely contradictory; that is, by lopping off, by retrenching. Now, what it suppressed was precisely that which had charms for France, that which had, from the first, so completely, so lastingly, attached her to the Catholic faith.

The first dogma of Protestantism, or rather its first curtailment, was that Jesus Christ did not become in- carnate for all men ; He suffered and died only for some; His Heart is not large enough to embrace all humanity.

The second dogma of Protestantism is that, even in this narrow circle of the predestined, the mercy of Jesus Christ has limits. It does not pardon sins, it does not remit debts. One cannot weep at His feet the misfor- tune of having offended Him, nor rise up, his eyes glistening with tears, in the assurance that the love of Jesus has consumed all, purified all, forgotten all.

The third dogma of Protestantism is that the Lord

State of the Church in France at her Birth. 1 9

Joes not remain among us in the Holy Eucharist. Ac- cording to the Lutheran doctrine, He passes like a flash of lightning; whilst the Calvinists teach that He is not present at all. Neither the one nor the other believes God sufficiently loving " to make it His delight to be with the children of men." '

Viewed in the light of faith and in relation to God, Protestantism is only a half-gift, a half-love. Hence, how could it captivate a nation in which the heart pre- dominates; a nation moved more by feeling (with which in vivacity none other can compare) than by principle ? France, believing or infidel, virtuous or depraved, is never anything by halves. She is, according to the love that sways her, always in the extreme of good or evil.

The consequences of Protestantism are,besides,worthy of its principles. When Protestants admit in God only a half-love, how require of man a whole love ? Thus, scarcely had Luther and Calvin formulated their doc- trine, than one sees the spirit of heroic self-sacrifice die out like a wind suddenly lulled. Holy enthusiasm is extinguished ; no more consecrated vestals and apostles; souls that despise all for God are no longer to be found. To the rapture that produced wonders succeeds the morality that is limited to the avoidance of faults. Soon it was necessary to mask this sterility. That to which these innovators could no longer attain was despised; the religious state was suppressed, pen- ance abolished. Fearing lest man should surpass God in proofs of love, those proofs are forbidden him.

This was the finishing stroke of Protestantism in France. What ! no more religious ? Can we no longer give apostles to God? We are forbidden volun- tary sacrifice, the outward expression of love's passion Ind folly ! What ! shall we have no more tabernacles ha our churches ? Shall the living Christ go forth ?

1 Prov. viii. 31.

20 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

Shall we have of Him but a shadowy remembrance as of one belonging to far-off ages ? France felt to the core the stroke aimed at her deepest religious interests, and she rejected Protestantism as one would a restless, troubled dream.

Other reasons, political and national, were added to these. Owing to circumstances in which it is permitted us to see the hand of God, France was the first-born of Catholic nations; and in consequence of circumstances still more marvellous, she found herself from her crib endowed with a genius so like that of the Church that, from the very first, their union was perfect. Time, which destroys all that is artificial, has only developed and confirmed this harmony. All the grand enterprises of France have had a religious as well as a national character. Her greatest men, Clovis, Charlemagne, St. Louis, have had a double aureola on their brow. They are as celebrated in the history of the Church as in that of France. The only hours in which our prosperity appeared for a moment to decline, were those in which we seemed desirous of separation from God. Our glori- ous epochs, on the contrary, are contemporary with our greatest services rendered the Church. So true is this, that the idea now possesses all minds that we are a priv- ileged race, a sort of royal priesthood, charged to pro- tect and defend truth, justice, and virtue, and gain for them the world's respect. Protestantism would drag us down from our unique rank. This mission that we believe to have received at Tolbiac; this title of Eldest Sons of the Church, gratefully decreed us by the Papacy; this distinctive feature of a nation the most Catholic, the freest, the most devoted, and the most in- dependent, in which we find soldiers, apostles, Sisters ot Charity; in fine, the watch we have kept as sentinels for twelve long centuries at the door of Rome, — must we renounce? Must we sheathe Charlemagne's trusty sword? France shuddered at the thought; and, with

State of the Church in France at her Birth. 21

characteristic ardor, turned once more to the old religion of her fathers !

I do not think history records a more acute, a more general emotion than that which seized upon France in 1589, at the death of Henry III. He had no children, and his only heir was a Huguenot. We have had in our hands a number of manuscripts of the sixteenth century: deliberations of parliament, municipal acts, private papers never intended for publicity; and we should never be able to recount the expressions of con- sternation therein recorded at the thought of an heret- ical king. The ardent emotion that then burst forth was subdued by the cool determination to suffer every- thing rather than accept him. What happened in Paris at the announcement of Henry III.'s death was renewed throughout France. " In place of the acclamations of 1 Vive le rot!' usual on such occasions, hats were slouched over eyes by some, or thrown to the ground by others; whilst others again, unwilling to have a Hugue- not king, clinched their fists, or grasped hands in pledge of their vow: Rather death a thousand times!" '

Then began those public prayers, those solemn pil- grimages; those processions, too noisy, if you will, but so expressive and, on the part of the people, so sincere; in fine, all those manifestations that, far better than the League, made Henry IV. understand how true were the dying words of Henry III.: "Cousin, you will never be king of France if you do not become a Catholic." The sincerity of the conversion of Henry IV. has been ques- tioned. But were it even true, which we do not believe, that he yielded to human views in the accomplishment of that great act, what better proof could we wish of the depth and invincible force of the religious current that then bore France along ?

Two-and-twenty years of the most reparative of reigns had passed, when France, after the unlcoked-for good 1 Histoire universelle de d'Aubign6, t. iii. liv \l ch. xxii.

22 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

fortune of finding so great a man in the midst of such a storm, saw him fall under the implacable dagger of the malcontents. A new cry of anguish escaped her lips, and she foifi for the second time that she was about to be ingulfeJ, that she had no longer any hope but in God. Men's passions were but lightly slumbering, and \here were no barriers to restrain them. The hostile parties were so irreconcilable that the hand of Richelieu fcould with difficulty subdue them, and so unpatriotic \hat they were ever ready to call in foreign aid. The powerful house of Austria surrounded France with a band of iron, menacing at the time her frontiers; and when, after a stormy minority, Louis XIII. reached man- hood, by one of those strokes in which Richelieu's policy was revealed, he married Anne of Austria. This was a brilliant but sterile union. No children — hence, no fu- ture! France, full of alarm, again asked herself, in the event of the king's death, into whose hands the most Christian kingdom was to fall. Prayers were offered, pil- grimages revived. The king and the queen implored the intercession of the most saintly persons — the venerable Mother de Chantal, Blessed Mary of the Incarnation, the humble Sister Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament, M. Olier, cur6 of St. Sulpice, and a host of others — that God would be pleased to send an heir to the race of St. Louis. Finally, as individual prayers did not suffice to avert perils so great, King Louis XIII. descended from his throne, went to Notre Dame, and there solemnly consecrated to the Blessed Virgin his person and his kingdom. All France ioined enthusiastically in this consecration.

Contemporaries have left us long and curious details of that solemn action; painters and engravers have rep- resented it in a thousand ways. But what is most im- portant to note is its astonishing result. The self-same year in which France was consecrated to Mary, 1637, the child was born who was to be called Louis XIV.,

State of the Church in France at her Birth. 23

and who was to reign for two-and-seventy years of the most eventful epoch of our history. Six years later, in 1643, a young captain, like Clovis of old, received on the battle-field one of those sudden lights that change the face of the world. Rocroy, realizing at last the dream so patiently pursued by Henry IV., Louis XIII., and Richelieu, snatched from Austria the preponder- ance of European power, and transferred it to France. At the same time was seen arise a phalanx of geniuses: statesmen, warriors, orators, poets, and first-class prose writers, a single one of whom would suffice for the glory of an age. Their numbers were so great, their variety so rich, that no nation, not even Greece in her palmiest days, could offer anything comparable to it. To this powerful sixteenth century, so agitated, so troubled, so devoured by detestable passions, in which grand national unity, as well as national grandeur, was at every hour jeopardized, succeeded that calm and magnificent period which saw France become the envy and admiration of the world; that period in which Bossuet spoke, Pascal thought, Fenelon wrote, Corneille and Racine sang, Fontaine smiled. Every year pro- duced a masterpiece. Enthusiastic France looked on in rapturous surprise and amazement. She produced for herself and the world a spectacle of the most mag- nificent intellectual development, moral and religious, that the world had yet witnessed. This was the result of the vow of Louis XIII., the smile of the Mother of God on the people consecrated to her honor.

But gifts, even the rarest, do not dispense a people from energetically rejecting the last dregs of poison, nor from vigilance against relapses into error. Whilst Europe contemplated with astonishment this nation, at orfe time fallen so low and agitated by convulsions so terrible, then raised so suddenly to the pinnacle of greatness, the year 1675 saw her visibly decline, and suc- ceeding years beheld her prosperity gradually diminish.

24 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

Like the patriarch who, after wrestling all night with the angel, rose up in the morning victorious though wounded; so France, from her fearful contest against Protestantism, rose indeed, but not without marks of her struggle.

The violent attacks of Protestantism against the Pa- pacy, its calumnies so manifest, the odious caricatures it scattered abroad, had undoubtedly inspired France with horror; nevertheless the sad impression remained. In such accusations all, perhaps, was not false. Mis- trust was excited, and, instead of drawing closer to the insulted and outraged Papacy, France stood on her guard against it. In vain did Fenelon, who felt the dan- ger, write his treatise on the " Power of the Pope," and, to remind France of her sublime mission and true role in the world, compose his " History of Charlemagne." ' In vain did Bossuet majestically rise in the midst of that agitated assembly of 1682, convened to dictate laws to the Holy See, and there, in most touching accents, give vent to professions of fidelity and devotedness toward the Chair of St. Peter. We already notice in his discourse mention no longer made of the " Sovereign Pontiff." The " Holy See," the " Chair of St. Peter," the " Roman Church," were alone alluded to. First and, alas! too manifest signs of coldness in the eyes of him who knew the nature and character of France! Others might obey through duty, might allow themselves to be gov- erned by principle — France, never! She must be ruled by an individual, she must love him that governs her, else she can never obey.

These weaknesses should at least have been hidden in the shadow of the sanctuary, to await the time in which some sincere and honest solution of the misun- derstanding could be given. But no! parliaments took hold of it, national vanity identified itself with it. A strange spectacle was now seen. A people the most 1 This history is, unfortunately, lost.

State of the Church in France at her Birth. 25

Catholic in the world; kings who called themselves the Eldest Sons of the Church and who were really such at heart; grave and profoundly Christian magistrates, bishops, and priests, though in the depths of their heart attached to Catholic unity, — all busied in barricading themselves against the head of the Church; all dig- ging trenches and building ramparts, that His words might not reach the Faithful before being handled and examined, and the laics convinced that they contained nothing false, hostile, or dangerous.

God keep me from saying any harm of the old French Church ! We have not forgotten that, only a century before, the bishops of England apostatized at the com- mand of Henry VITI. ; whilst, in 1793, even after the enervating effects of the eighteenth century, the French bishops and priests ascended the scaffold, or went into exile, rather than separate from Catholic unity. It is not less true that the Church of France at that period was no longer closely united with the Pope. That great luminary of the Church, as St. Francis de Sales calls His Holiness, met in France too much that was opposed to the benign influence of its rays ; conse- quently there resulted a diminution of life-giving warmth, of sap, and of fecundity. This was the first wound dealt us by Protestantism, and from it the Church of France bled for two centuries.

There was at the same time a second, perhaps a more dangerous, wound. The blasphemies uttered by Prot- estants against the Blessed Sacrament could not be heard without a thrill of horror. Was there not, how- ever, some truth in what the reformers said? Was it not the light and irreverent conduct of Catholics toward the Holy Eucharist that gave rise to those blasphemies? Would it not be better to abstain from holy Commun- ion, or henceforth to make use of it with more reserve ? Vainly did Fenelon, whose intuitive perception told him all, write his famous letter on " Frequent Commun-

26 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

ion." Vainly did Bossuet pour out his great soul in hi& admirable " Meditations on the Discourse after the Last Supper." Naught availed. Arnauld's book on " Fre- quent Communion," or rather against it, received uni- versal approbation, and began to direct the conscience of many.

Such writers did unquestionably reject with fear th* blind predestination of Protestantism ; but under the pretext of a reaction against the softness of Catholic morals, they led souls to despair. Massillon uncon* sciously headed the crusade against the mercy of God by his famous discourse on the small number of the elect ; and Pascal followed with his biting irony on the Society of Jesus, guilty only of the crime of maintaining and defending the goodness, tenderness, and mercy of God in His relations toward sinners.

All these tendencies were floating, so to say, in the air, vague and undecided, when Jansenism appeared, seized upon them, and reduced them to definitive shape. Jansenism is the most astonishing heresy that has afflicted the Church. Its doctrine is, after all, only a shameful form of Protestantism, for their fundamental principle is the same. It is the doctrine of a God whose love is half-hearted ; who came upon earth, but who had not the heart to die for all men ; who dwells, it is true, in the Holy Eucharist, though one does not precisely know why, for He wishes that we receive Him therein as seldom as possible ; who has established the tribunal of mercy and pardon, but has hedged it round with such conditions as to render it unapproachable.

In order to get a hold on the mind of the people and make these ideas familiar to them, Jansenism concealed che beautiful crucifixes of Christian ages, on which the Saviour is represented with arms widely extended to embrace all mankind, and eyes tenderly lowered to the earth to attract all souls to Himself. They replaced them by the hideous little images still found in some

State of the Church in France at her Birth. 2 7

houses, poverty-stricken and ugly, the hands of the Saviour fastened perpendicularly above His head, to en- close within them as few souls as possible, and His eyes so raised toward heaven as no longer to behold the earth. Instead of these words, so sweet to faith, engraven above tabernacles in which the God of love resides : Qiiait* dilecta tabernacula tua Do mine • (" How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts !" ') they substituted suclf words as these : " Keep my Sabbaths, and reverence mj sanctuary. I am the Lord." 2 Jansenius wrote treatises on frequent Communion, that is to say, against it ; and he made lavish use of his erudition to teach the Faith- ful to absent themselves from it as much as possible. Toward the Sovereign Pontiff this serpent-like heresy pursued the same policy. It did not deny His power, as do Protestants, but it worked with incredible skill. It knew how to do without Him, and even to disobey Hirr. with profound respect. That is to say, wherever Prot- estantism denied, Jansenism was hypocritical. Both aimed, though by different means, at the same result, namely, the diminution of divine love in souls.

There was no hope of escaping such dangers except by an energetic reaction of faith and piety. The infinite ?ove of God should have been boldly affirmed ; souls should have been urged to approach the holy table, to frequent Communion ; they should have been cast into the arms of the Sovereign Pontiff, as children more obedient, more tenderly aevotea, than ever. But this was not the case. Some allowed themselves to be Tightened by simulated austerity, and others were seduced by these grand words : " Return to the disci- pline of the primitive Church." Sentinels did not per- oral their duty, some were traitors ; and little by little Jansenism penetrated everywhere, not as a doctrine in which souls believed, but as an influence to which they yielded. The most fervent communities, the most austere cloisters, were not preserved from it. They 1 Ps. lxxxiii. 1. 8 Lcvit. xxvi. 2.

28 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

inhaled it, almost unsuspectingly, like those subtle poi- sons floating in the air, which bear with them death sometimes, disease always.

From these combined influences there resulted in France, at the end of the seventeenth century and dur- ing the whole of the eighteenth, a corruption of the true spirit of the Gospel, a kind of semi-Christianity, com- monplace and cold, utterly incapable of captivating souls. The conquering charm of Christianity, the prin- ciple of its eternal fruitfulness, is the dogma of God's infinite love for man, that grand doctrine, at once so full of mystery and yet so luminous, of a God who loves man unto passion. In the same measure as one approaches it, whether entirely to deny or merely to diminish this infinite love, one sees die out or sensibly decrease that sublime inebriation which makes virgins, apostles, and martyrs, that folly of man responding to the folly of God. The world had had a first example in the absolute sterility of Protestantism ; and France was about to offer a second, which, though less perfect, was none the less striking ; since, without absolutely denying infinite love, it was content with an unintelligible concep- tion of it.

In proportion as this quasi-Christianity spread over France, the sublime inspirations of faith and piety became weaker. During the whole of the eighteenth century there was but one new institution, that of de la Salle, a tardy scion of the great tree of which some years before it was impossible to number the new shoots. The old institutions languished, and some literally died out. In France, virgins and apos- tles, souls consecrated to God, became fewer and fewer. The old abbeys were too spacious for their inmates daily diminishing in numbers; and in revenge at not being able to people them, they pulled them down. The riches no longer necessary, since the monasteries were now deserted, were used in demolishing the old cloisters of the twelfth anri the. thirteenth centuries, so

State of the Church in France at her Birth. 29

interesting in point of art, which had been erected by saints, and embalmed with the still living traces of their footsteps. They replaced them by magnificent abbeys in the style of Versailles, that is to say, as destitute of style as of reminiscences. The same spectacle was wit- nessed in the ranks of the clergy, among whom were found some zealous priests, some men of duty, but no saints. All was mediocre, no enthusiasm, no fire. Mis- sions died out, and a sensible diminution of warmth and life was everywhere felt. As one sometimes sees a grand old tree no longer shooting its huge branches toward heaven, no longer clothed in luxuriant foliage, because of the wound at the root, so the Church of France gave signs of deep-seated disease.

This was, however, only the beginning of the trouble. Whilst within the Church pious souls grew cold, the breath of irreligion was blowing without. This half- Christianity, which had not sufficient beauty to enrap- ture souls, was still less capable of opposing the detest- able effects of Protestantism. They filtered through, if we may dare so to speak, the swaying and disjointed dikes. In the same way as Luther and Calvin tore the Creed to pieces and scoffed at the Church, Voltaire and Rousseau cut up the Gospel and mocked at Jesus Christ. By virtue of the same right, also, and supported on the same principles, Diderot, d'Holbach, Helvetius, Lamet- trie, denied the immortality of the soul, and jeered at a future life. Nothing in the intellectual, moral, or relig- ious order was respected. A spirit of universal revolt agitated France, till then so devoted to her kings. Never had there been so much said of tenderness, benevolence, philanthropy; yet never had hearts been harder. In- tense egotism dried them up. Never had men been more gracious, more amiable, more frizzed and powdered, more fascinating; but never had men so heartily de- spised one another. The one step between contempt and hatred was cleared at a single bound toward the

30 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

close of the eignteenth century. A hatred till then un- known, universal and ferocious, filled souls. The day came on which that hatred, no longer able to restrain itself, burst forth. Then fearful scenes were witnessed. Scaffolds were erected, and to them were dragged the king, the queen, the royal family, the nobles, clergy, parliament, all kinds of people. Men were drunk with blood. They massacred one another without being able to satisfy the madness that dishonored them.

But if this hatred of man for man was at the time inexplicable, if it pointed to some prodigious derange- ment in the French nature, what shall we say of the hatred of men for God ? Everything that recalled His memory was odious. They cut priests' throats; burnt monasteries, broke crucifixes, riddled statues at the church doors ; profaned altars by the most revolting ob- scenities; rolled consecrated Hosts in the dust, then cast them into the flames, and performed around them lascivious dances. Never before had the like shocked Heaven. During the early part of the nineteenth cen- tury, there were seen in our cities and villages wander ers whom the sight of such horrors had crazed.

Behold what the French nation, so noble, so generous, had become ! That old Frankish race which had con tracted with Jesus Christ so beautiful an alliance; which had received from Heaven incomparable gifts; which, magnificent in gratitude, had cast on the religion of Jesus Christ the greatest human glory ever received from any nation; whose kings esteemed themselves honored in being called the EMest Sons of the Church, — behold how it has fallen ! Love grew cold, and then, as often hap- pens, we see it totally extinguished in hatred against self and God. We behold the descendants of those sturdy Franks with cries of fury tearing out their own intestines, if we may use the expression, and France be- come an enduring example of a nation straying from its course and unfaithful to its mission.

State of the Church in France at her Birth. 3 1

Still this ebullition of hatred was not the saddest symptom. Coldness soon entered into its hatred, as once before into its love. For that Christ whom it had loved so much, it now felt only indifference. We be- hold France during the first fifty years of the nineteenth century coolly effacing His name from her laws and constitutions. Even His memory she could no longer tolerate in her official life. She banished Him from her soil; but being forced to let Him return, she inclosed Him in His churches, or, as she said disdainfully, in His sacristies, and forbade Him to appear in public. Thus unfaithful and adulterous, after an explosion of rage against Him who had so much loved her, she sought even to efface Him from her memory.

What a misfortune could such things be done with impunity! But God does not permit that. The woman who has once freely given her heart may desert the ob- ject of her choice, may throw herself into the arms of her guilty love, may be intoxicated for the moment ; but happiness has fled from her forever. Never again can she taste the peaceful charm of innocent affection; never again can she know the dignity of the wife, the honorof the mother, and those other joys so unmixed because blessed by God. Thus it is with France in her sad nineteenth century, now drawing to a close. Unfaithful to her mission, she has lived to behold her grandest gifts turned against herself. Vainly has she called science and genius to her aid. France is no longer the same. She no longer exerts a world-wide influence. She no longer rests on the same elevated plain; each day sees a new step toward the abyss. Yesterday, in the name of pretended political rights, she banished her kings and tore her constitutions into shreds. To-day, there is question as to whether she will guard the family tie, the right of property; whether, in fact, society itself shall remain standing. One catastrophe evokes another. France is quaking to her verv foundations; and we may

32 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

confidently look forward to the time in which an honest man will not find on the once generous soil of France a stone whereon to rest his head.

And yet she pursues her follies. She sows impiety broadcast. She makes use of her beautiful language, that ideal tongue, to propagate the brutalities of athe- ism and materialism. Impious and voluptuous, she dances on Vesuvius in flames. The world looks on alarmed, and asks what would become of the remnant of faith, of religion and morality, in Europe, if France were still queen of the nations.

One might have thought that, after such an abandon- ment of her sacred vocation, God would have indignantly rejected France, that He would have withdrawn her mission, and with it the gifts received for its accomplish- ment, but which have now become useless to her. But in those pitiable divorces in which man sunders what God had united, something very wonderful occasionally happens, and that is, the abandoned, the betrayed, the unloved, continues to love. He pursues the unfaithful one with a love from which love never dies. He multi- plies benefits in his eagerness to reach the heart from which he cannot sever his own. He says with the poet:

M I have lavished them upon thee, I wish to lavish them upon thee."

This was what was seen here. Knowing France, know- ing that no nation is so capable of excesses so sad ; but knowing, also, that none can compare with her in fervor of repentance, none in ardor of love, God resolved to conquer her by the force of His own tenderness. One day He appeared and, laying bare His breast, showed her His Heart, and demanded hers in return. Eighteen hundred years have rolled away since Jesus Christ died on the Cross, and no genius has yet succeeded in repre- senting Him to us in His ideal beauty. After Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, even after Blessed Angelico, the

State of the Church in France at her Birth. 33

crucifix is still a piece of art g^. a :ian any painting.

And sc .ad revelation of infinite

lore. No one will s - - / . ■ - - - ::on

of Jest . -ance and fee .hat look in which

-oach was drowned in tenderness; that gesture of un- recognized love; that breast glowing like a furnace; that Heart shining like the sun ! All this will reach the

ii of beauty only in the ecstatic contemplations of the saints; and the ages as they roll on will learn from astonished humanity the grandeur of this stupendous it. Two hundred years since the apparition took place, and we a- 00 near to measure its ma-

jestic - iofls. It was bora a: a time in which

'.nee deemed herself at the pinnacle of her glory; but in whic 0 sounds the heart and reins of man,

^ady perceived the worm about to touch the flower and blight it on its stem. Unknowa, or vaguely under- n the eight* ■- - .: -. : t - : . as too sceptical

and too sensual for emotions so pure; not shown upon our altars till the nineteenth century; having need of overwhelming misfortunes to be welcomed bj' soc.

its distress, — the devotion to the Heart of Jesus will probably not reach the sublime acme of its expansion until the twentieth century, when will be drawn the ] consequences of the fatal principles that are now ruining us, and when shall occ . - " .fortunes more frightful than those we have yet experienced. Then, in that storm of consummate evil, shall arise the perfect remec . -

: .1 lift her despairing eyes to that Heart ■ which has so loved men." She will consecrate herst 1 rmAmAt^

lore, and thus arise from the abyss.

In expectation of this glorious event, we must study the genesis of the great devotion. For this we must

-.sport ourselves to Paray-le-Monial, where it was re- . pping on our way at Yen 1 na where was born the lowly virgin to whom it was first confided — its first apostie, the humble Margaret.

j4 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

CHAPTER II.

BIRTH OF SAINT MARGARET MARY. FIRST YEARS. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH.

1 647-1 662.

"Sicut lilium!"

" As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters..* — Cant. ii. 2.

" Tota pulchra es, arnica mea, et macula non est in te."

" Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in thee." — Cant. iv. 7.

5N setting out from Paray for Verosvres, one leaves on his right the little town of Charolles. He admires as he passes along the sweet and tran- quil beauty of the horizon's broad lines imperceptibly lost in the distance, and, at a turn of a high, wooded mountain, comes suddenly upon a landscape whose novelty strikes him with surprise. It is a vast amphi- theatre of granite rocks, four leagues, perhaps, by five. One might think them moulded from the molten mass of earth's first formation, and then suddenly cooled. They form against the horizon a chain of jagged mountain- peaks, rising one above the other like the tiers of an am- phitheatre. In vain has ever-fruitful nature scattered amidst these deeply embedded rocks and on their lofty summits clusters of tall oaks, and even some sombre forest pines. At every turn the granite surface dis- places the verdure, and immense blocks rising through the trees produce the effect of gigantic ruins.

If one looks back from the distant horizon, a similar scene presents itself. Deep, narrow valleys, sudden projections; ponds that seem to occupy the place of ex- tinct craters; streams of clear, sparkling spring-water,

Birth, Childhood, and Youth. . 35

the happy privilege of granite soil; and here and there in the fields enormous blocks, framed in wild broom and heath rising to the sun. Now we have the picture; and it would be sombre were it not so varied. There is in it something sublime and austere that invites one to silence and recollection. The vast horizon, the lofty mountains, the massive rocks that defy man's power to move; the sterile soil that exacts abundant sweat, and gives but poor harvests in return, — all these make felt the grandeur of God and the littleness of man. We might say that this corner of the world was created ex- pressly to awaken the desire for heaven.

In the centre of the amphitheatre and on its highest peak, rises a church, rebuilt unhappily, and now dedi cated to the Sacred Heart. This is the church of Ver- osvres. ' The village, instead of grouping around the church, is scattered in all directions. We noticed on different sides groups of houses forming little ham- lets, inhabited by husbandmen and farmers. Each of these hamlets has its name. It was in that of Lhautecour,

1 Tae new church has been rebuilt some years. Although we grant that the old one .ii which Margaret was baptized, in which she prayed, received holy Communion so frequently, and was ravished into ecstasy, needed rebuilding, yet an intelligent and Christian architect like those of the Middle Ages would have found means to enclose the most pre- cious parts of the old edifice in the new. For example, the apse with its altar and Communion-table he would have made a chapel. Instead of this, everything was destroyed, razed to the ground, not a stone preserved. Even the altar was demolished; even the baptismal font was not spared. At Assisi is shown the font in which St, Francis was baptized; in Spain, that of St. Dominic; at Siena, the spot upon which St. Catharine knelt : but here in Verosvres is found nothing suggestive of sweet reminiscences. A huge, cold church without souvenir or legend. Alas! God grant that what has been done here be not soon repeated at Ars! There, too, has been begun an immense church, which threatens the destruction of the poor old one of the venerable cure. Even a short time after his death we approached the confessional in which he passed his life, and which ought to be held sacred as a relic, and we found a missionary of Ars installed in it! Oh, how frivolous isouv age! Nothing now commands respect)

36 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoqitc.

running in a right line behind the apse of the church and within a quarter of an hour's distance from it, that Margaret Mary was born.1

Her father was Claude Alacoque. He belonged to that portion of the French nation which, in 1647, was nothing and yet was preparing to be everything; which, while waiting, was silently amassing fortune and influ- ence; which had not yet lost, thanks to God, either faith or morals. His dwelling, which is still standing, pos- sesses a certain degree of style with its two large main buildings, separated by a courtyard. The first served as a family residence. It was commonly called the " cabi- net house," because in it was the office of Mr. Alacoque, royal notary of Lhautecour. There is also to be seen the room in which Margaret was born, now transformed into a chapel and dedicated to the Sacred Heart. The beams and rafters of the ceiling are covered with alle- gorical pictures in the Renaissance style. In the middle of them is a cartouch, supported by two cupids, on which are inscribed the Alacoque arms; for this family, already ancient, had its arms. " It bore on a field of gold a red cock at the summit, and a lion, also red, at the base of the shield." a .This building was consumed by fire, traces of which are yet seen. It was rebuilt later on, but all that now remains of it is the square tower at the end of the edifice, in which Margaret Mary was born.3

1 One or Iwo documents lightly studied and only partly understood have, in these latter times, cast a shade of obscurity on this point. We shall see in a note at the end of the volume that the fact is not even to be questioned, and that a contemporaneous tradition, uninterrupted and unanimous, permits no doubt on the birth of Margaret at the hamlet of Lhautecour in the village of V6r0SVT8S.

2 " The coat-of-arms of Chrysostom Alacoque, mayor for life of Bois-Marie, bears on a field of gold a red cock at the summit, and a lion, also red, at the base of the shield" (Tome ii. p. 205).

* The tradition of the country is that the residence of Mr. Ala-

Birth, Childhood, and Youth. $7

The other building is in front, perfect and entire, the entrance through an arched gateway now closed. It is probable that it also served as a dwelling for the Ala- coque family, either after the fire had consumed part of the adjoining house, or when their increase in numbers rendered the first too small. On the ground-floor were three large rooms, with large chimney-places and planks and beams black from age. An exterior gallery, the stairs to which were formed of large blocks of granite, now disjointed and broken, led to the second story, which consisted of two spacious apartments opening on the gallery. In the first, in a corner to the east, is found a small room which is still. called the "Chamber of the Venerable." The ceiling is covered with pictures rep- resenting a hunt, in which figure a lion, a tiger, an ostrich, an elephant, etc. These pictures are of the same style and appear to be by the same hand as that which ornamented the other parts of the building. There are no paintings in the second room, but it is beautifully floored with oak carefully joined, which sufficiently in- dicates that the dwelling was not a mere farm-house.

A court separates the two buildings. The old walls may still be seen, and, strange sight ! the roofs are formed of granite flags of a single piece. The whole is surrounded by gardens terminating in a little wood, which clothes the rapid descent into a narrow valley. This was the whole extent of the property. In the cen-

coque, at least that portion of it which they called the " cabinet house," was destroyed by fire. M. l'abbe Beauchamps testified to this fact in 1 831, on the assurance of the oldest inhabitants of the country. Even before learning this tradition, it was evident to us. By a careful study of the first building, we discovered traces of fire, and saw that the re- pairs had been made with inferior materials. The square tower, in which was the saint's chamber, had been converted into a chapel. It alone escaped the flames, and it alone presents an appearance of age. It was from not having proved this fact that M. l'abbe Beauchamps and M. l'abbe Devercheres blundered in their researches. They sought, we know not where, traces of a burned house, but sought in vain!

38 Life qfSatfU Margaret Mar\ ... pu,

tre of the little valley darts up one of those immense blocks of granite with which, as we have seen above, the whole country is sown. It formed for twenty years Margaret's chosen solitude, her refuge in hours of trial, the scene of her prayer, the witness of her first ecsta- sies.

The spacious dwelling had passed into the Alacoque family in consequence of the marriage of the grandfather of the saint with Jane Delaroche,1 whose patrimony it was. Claude had received the title of eldest son, or perhaps, as was the custom, that of co-heir. He had an unmarried sister named Catharine, who lived with him. Another sister, named Benedicta. married Toussaint Delaroche, and became the mother of four children. In accordance with the custom of these patriarchal fam- ilies, she, too, dwelt with her brother. Lastly, he had a brother named Antoine. He was in Holy Orders and, at this time, cure of Yerosvres. Besides the care of his domain, the charge of which rested particularly on his brother-in-law Toussaint Delaroche, Mr. Claude Ala- coque held the office of royal notary of Lhautecour. Later on he joined thereto the title of judge for the seigniories of la Roche, Terreau, Corcheval, and Pre All this, together with the highest reputation for honor and integrity, had made Claude a man of consideration scarcely a degree below the neighboring nobility, and very much superior to the common people.

Hence we find his name on every page of the parish register of Yerosvres. There is not a marriage at Lhau- tecour in which he does not figure as witness, and, what is more extraordinary, scarcely a baptism in which he is not godfather. In the latter case, whether owing to his title of royal notary or on account of his beauti-

According to the archrres found in the Chateau D\A.udour, see that they were originally of the hamlet of Audour, parish of Dompierre-les-Ormes, and that tins' I largaret.

who married Jane Dfc . gum :: re: le :-.: Lhaateooar.

Birth. Childhood, and Youth. \ -.

t ui penmanship, his brother Antoine. cure of Verosrres in variably handed him the pea, and it was be who reg-

> .."':;- -•- '*.-. -■:*. .-. -- . .'. .". -*"i -v f.v* -«-•:-:■».*- .7 years old, married Mile. Phifiberte Laanm, then nine- teen. Both were pious and worth y of gmsf birth to a saint. Of this union, blessed by God, were i»rr serec children, four sons and three daughters,"

Margaret was the fifth child. She was bom on July c 647, feast of St- Magdalen, and was not baptized, we know not why, until three days after, the 25th, in the church of Verosrres. Her own uncle, her father's brother, M. Antoine Alacoque, cure of Verosrres, was her godfather. The godmother was Madame Margue- rite de Saint-Amour, wife of M. de Fantrieres, lord of CorcheraL' The noble family wished to give this pub- lic proof of the high esteem in which they held M. A2a-

God, who destined this holy child to rekindle in the

should first be consumed in it- As a little one, she

lt*£:t.*i '.r.Iy :'-.r >; . : C'.-:: ;--■: :**-*■: : -. 7 :~. . _- I- ±* -_.-'. *: -.: :'-- \ -. -. Z A;-:..- v - -- -."-* r-::ri; ;:'

isihUiilli rln fcwilaiM if w fililf r infM rwf iifTTini , 11I11

.:- v - ■■:": ::::: •:-. :- :^: r.::": .': _:t:; - . -..- part of Scnw Margaret Marys fife ; aoagk we axe ua^e 10 do

* Here is the baptismal register : Margaret, daogbter of M. CZaade Alacotpe. royal aofarr. and «

_;. r..---. ■-_ ■'.,- -"--, ■j-.y.z--. :j :- _-,i*-:_i-~: :-.-- -.: Verosrres, Wednesday, Jary *£, *6*7- I, Ker. Aanwae A^coqee.

rile de Sc Amour, wife of Most de Corcaeval. who ase anami'iiis. - C. Dt FArmnos. M. de St. Ajsock.

ConcfurTAi. Ajtt. Aiarnqro."

40 .Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

please Him. " From the age of two or three years," writes her first historian, " she had so great horror of even the least shadow of sin, that to curb her childish inclinations it was sufficient to tell her that it was offen- sive to God. Nothing more was necessary ; she yielded at once." *

" O my only Love," exclaims Margaret, " how in- debted I am to Thee for having prevented me from my tenderest youth, for having made Thyself Master of my heart ! As soon as I came to the use of reason, Thou didst display before my soul the deformity of sin, and this impressed me with such horror for it that the least stain was to me insupportable torment. To restrain the vivacity of my childhood, my friends had only to say that what I wished was perhaps displeasing to God. This put an end to my childish pranks." a

1 " Abridgment of the Life of Sister Margaret M. Alacoque, Relig- ious of the Visitation of Holy Mary, of whom God made use to estab- lish devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ, and who died in the odor of sanctity, October 17, 1690." Published at Lyons by Antoine and Horace Molin, 1691, the year following the death of Margaret Mary. It has been republished in our times by Rev. C. Daniel, in one vol. i2tno (Paris, Douniol, 1865).

8 " Memoire " written by the saint by order of Rev. Father Rollin, her director. Autographic MSS. belonging to the Visitation of Paray. Of the different Me moires written by the saint in obedience to her direct- ors, this is the only one that has escaped the flames, the same power forbidding its destruction. It was never finished. But as it begins with her birth and includes the revelations of the Sacred Heart, it is of inestimable value, as well for the relation itself, as for the manner in which her story is told. One feels impressed at every instant with the sublimity of a Teresa and the heart-felt and touching utterances of an Augustine. It alone suffices to prove the truth of the revelations, whilst demonstrating the beauty, sincerity, purity, and humility of the soul to whom they were made. We shall copy from it as often as pos- sible, thus giving it to our readers almost entire. It was first edited by Pere de Gallifet, at the end of his beautiful treatise on " The Ex- cellence of Devotion to the Adorable Heart of Jesus Christ." Pere Charles Daniel republished it in 1865. Many other editions appeared in the mean time, but in all were detected numerous faults. In 1867

Birth, Childhood, and Youth. 41

Her b/other Chrysostom relates a charming example in this connection. "Whilst still a child," said he, "she evinced singular marks of sanctity, fervor, and horror of sin. Once at carnival-time when I was seven years old and my little sister five, I proposed to exchange dress with her. Mine was a soldier's suit, and I had a sword with which I was going to sally forth against the farmers whom I espied approaching. Margaret replied that it would perhaps offend God and that she did not wish to do anything displeasing to Him. She had no desire either to imitate or to accompany the maskers. The child was then only five years old." 1

To this delicacy of conscience was added such a love of prayer, with instincts for penance so precocious and so astonishing, that there is no room to doubt, say her first historians, that for several centuries her like was never seen.2

the Visitation of Paray determined to publish a carefully collated edi- tion of the original. It formed part of the work entitled " Life and Works of Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque," 2 vols. 8vo (Paris, Pous« sielgue, 1867). This is the edition from which we shall cite.

1 " Process of Beatification and Canonization of the Venerable Servant of God, Margaret Ma/y Alacoque, Religious of the Visitation, B. V. M., of the Convent of Paiay in Burgundy," published by authority of the ordinary in 1 71 5; 1 vol. in folio MS. belonging to the Visitation ol Paray, approved and signed by the ecclesiastical commissaries. We have carefully studied it, and all our citations are made from th« original.

2 " Life of the Blessed by Contemporaries." They call this a "Memoire" written by two of the religious of Paray contemporary with Margaret Mary: Sister Frances Rosalie Verchere and Sister Peronne Rosalie de Farges. This "Memoire ' had been compiled for Mgr. Lan- guet, Archbishop of Sens, Vicar-General of Autun, when he was pre- paring to write the "Life of the Blessed." After using it, and the "Life" had appeared (1 vol. 4to, 1719), he returned to the Visitation of Paray this "M6 moire," which formed the basis of his work. Con- sidered henceforth useless, it remained among the MSS. in the archives of the convent. Finally, the religious of Paray published a first edition carefully collated from the original and even increased from documents preserved in their archives. It forms the first volume of the work

42 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

At the age of four and a half years, Margaret left her father's house to reside with her godmother, Mme. de Fautrieres de Corcheval, who greatly desired to have the child with her. Perhaps the increasing number of M. Alacoque's children, already seven, had inspired this noble lady with the thought of relieving the burden of so excellent a family. Perhaps, too, having no children, a privation always regretted by her, she proposed to adopt her little godchild. M. and Mme. Alacoque, having their child's interest at heart, consented. This they did all the more readily, as the castle of Corcheval was only a league from Lhautecour, and, as M. Claude was judge of that manor, as well as of Terreau, he was frequently obliged to go thither. Mme. Alacoque pre- pared her dear little daughter, and took her herself to Corcheval. Built in the far-off past, stripped of its towers by Coligny, who demolished them during the religious wars when he held possession, and restored under the reign of Louis XIII., the chateau de Corcheval still stands, joining to the massive architecture of the feudal ages the imposing appearance of the magnifi- cent castles of the seventeenth century. A high moun- tain covered with forests overshadows it, and the most beautiful trees in the world, a clump of young horn- beams three centuries old, wave their verdant branches under the very windows. The whole place breathes solitude, and here our holy child developed the rare beauty of her innocent soul. The deep shadows of the groves and forest attracted her. " My greatest desire," said she, "was to bury myself in some wood; and nothing prevented me from gratifying it but the fear of meeting men." 1

Just outside the gate of the castle, and on the very same terrace, stood the chapel, shaded also by horn- entitled "Life and Works of the Blessed," of which we are now speaking.

1 Memoire, p. 290.

Birth, Childhood, and Youth. 43

oeam-trees. Here the little girl often retired. " Here she passed long hours kneeling, her little hands joined. Far from growing weary, she esteemed no pleasure in life equal to that tasted in those moments of silent prayer, which was never discontinued but with regret."1

" I was constantly urged," she says, " to repeat these words, the sense of which I did not understand: 'My God, I consecrate to Thee my purity! My God, I make to Thee a vow of perpetual chastity! ' Once I repeated them between the twro elevations of holy Mass, which I generally heard on my bare knees however cold the weather might be. I did not know what I had done, nor what the words voiv and chastity signified." 2 She understood but one thing, and that was that these mysterious words, which hovered constantly on her lips at the most solemn moments, meant the complete gift of herself to a God whom she esteemed worthy of all gifts.

At the same time there was born in her that attrac- tion for prayer which was to make her one of the great- est contemplatives ever known in the Church. " Frorr this early age," says Pere Croiset, " the Holy Ghos\ Himself wished to teach her the fundamental point of the interior life, and bestow upon her the spirit of prayer. Whenever she could not be found on her knees in some part of the house, her friends were accustomed to look for her in the church; and there she was sure to be discovered immovable before the Blessed Sacra- ment.7'

The weak health of Mme. de Corcheval did not per- mit her to superintend, as she wished, Margaret's edu- cation; therefore she remitted that charge to two of her lady companions, who taught the child to pray, to read and write, and to study the catechism. One of these ladies was gracious and amiable, but Margaret

1 Croiset, Abr/g/, p. 3. 9 M6moire, p. 290.

44 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

fled from her. The other, though harsh and severe, failed not to attract the little pupil, who preferred the rebuffs of the one to the caresses of the other. The sequel will show that this surprising conduct was owing to one of those secret instincts which God implants in pure hearts; for later on it was discovered that she who appeared so gracious was not all that she seemed.

Horror of evil, desire of solitude, flight from men, love of purity, — behold the first impressions engraven by God in the soul of this holy child, now in her sixth year! To perfect the picture here given, we must add that from her cradle she united to all other graces a most tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin. " I had recourse to her," she says, " in all my needs, and she warded off great dangers from me. I ventured not to address myself to her Son, but I feared not to go to her. I offered her the little crown of the Rosary on my bare knees on the ground, or else I made as many genuflec- tions as there are Ave Marias, or I kissed the ground at each." l The Blessed Virgin never lets herself be out- done in love; and, from her earliest childhood, the dear little one received most signal graces.

There was no cure for Mme. de Fautriere's malady. After suffering a long time, she died in 1655, and little Margaret, then only eight years old, returned to her family. Hardly had she entered Lhautecour than to this first misfortune was added a second, though of a far more serious nature. Her father died at the close of the same year.2 Still young, scarcely forty-one years old, bearing the unblemished reputation of an honest man and a good Christian, he left a young widow and five little children, the youngest not yet six years old, a very moderate fortune, and embarrassed affairs. It appears that this excellent man knew neither how to pay his

1 Memoire, p. 290.

2 Memoire of Chrysostom Alacoque: " the said M. Alacoque having died in 1655," etc.

Birth, Childhood, and Youth. 45

debts nor to collect his dues.1 His debts were few, his creditors many. The poor widow accepted courageously the care of her five children, and resolved to retrieve her embarrassed fortune. But as this necessitated fre- quent journeys, which allowed her no leisure to devote herself to her children's education, she placed the two eldest sons for a time at Cluny; the other two with their uncle, M. Antoine Alacoque, cure of Verosvres; and our holy child was sent to the Poor Clares of Charolles.

The silence of this sacred cloister, the austerity and continual prayer of the religious, their nocturnal devo- tions, their modesty and recollection, made an extraor- dinary impression upon Margaret. She became con- scious that this was the kind of life God desired of her. " I thought," she said, " were I a religious, I should be- come holy like those around me. I conceived so great a longing for the life that I breathed but for it. I did not find the convent in which I was, retired enough for my taste; but not knowing any other, I thought I must remain there."3 Let us note this new feature. This convent of Poor Clares, enclosed by austere grates, shrouded in silence and fervor, was not sufficiently re- tired to satisfy the craving after a hidden life already experienced by this young child. From the cradle to the tomb, that desire of hers was to go on increasing.

Hardly had she entered with the Poor Clares, when they prepared her to make her first Communion. She was only nine years old; but her angelic dispositions supplied the defect of age. The results were extraor- dinary. Margaret was gay, lively, naturally given to play and amusement; but from this day, she no longer found in them the same attraction. " This first Com-

1 We judge of this from the fact of the physician's bill sent the widow at this time. It comprised the accounts of the entire family for te? years. These accounts are at the Visitation convent of Paray.

8 Memoire, p. 291.

46 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

munion," she said, "infused so much bitterness into all the little pleasures and amusements of my age that I could find no relish in them, though I still sought them eagerly. When I desired to share my companions' games, I always felt something restraining me, something that called me apart; and I had no peace until I obeyed. The same impulse made me begin to pray, almost always, provided I was not seen, on my bare knees, or making genuflections. To be observed was for me inconceivable torment." *

A very serious illness at this time endangered the child's life, and obliged her family to withdraw her from the Poor Clares. She returned to Lhautecour, where she was surrounded with the tenderest care by her mother and brothers, who loved her dearly. They did everything to promote her cure, but in vain. " They could," said she, " find no cure for my malady till they gave me to the Blessed Virgin. They promised her, if I were cured, I should some day be one of her daugh- ters. I had no sooner made the vow than I was cured. I ever after experienced the Blessed Virgin's protection in a manner altogether marked, as of one belonging en- tirely to her." This was the first public sign of the special love of God for the holy child. She was deeply moved by it, and resolved more firmly than ever to be- long to Him without reserve.

During the solitary hours of this long illness, Mar- garet's thoughts were centred in God. She says: " I felt strongly attracted to prayer. But this attraction gave me much suffering, as I was unable to satisfy it. I knew not how to make prayer, and I had no one to teach me. I knew nothing more of it than the name, but that name itself ravished my heart."

Margaret then turned to God, and with tears conjured Him to teach her the secret. He did it with admirable goodness. " The Sovereign Master taught me how He wished me to pray, and that lesson has served me all

1 M6morte *n t r\\

Birth, Childhood, and Youth. 47

my life. He made me prostrate humbly before Him to ask pardon for everything by which I had offended Him. After having adored Him, I offered Him my prayer without knowing how I was going to make it. Then He presented Himself to me in the mystery in which He wished me to consider Him. He applied my mind to it so forcibly, ingulfing my soul and all my powers in Himself, that I felt no distraction. My heart was consumed with the desire of loving Him, and that gave me an insatiable hunger after holy Communion and sufferings." '

God was about to hear both these desires. When Margaret was brought back ill to Lhautecour, she did not notice the great change that had come over it. The efforts of her mother to retrieve the fortune of the family had not been successful. A new lease of the land had been made in the name of the minors. It was concluded not with their mother, but with Toussaint Delaroche, their uncle, who had summarily enough taken the management of affairs. His wife was installed abso- lute mistress at Lhautecour, where were already her grandmother, Mme. Alacoque, nde Delaroche, and hei daughter Catharine, who was not married. Little by little, the poor widow had been pushed aside and de- prived of all influence. Whether on account of her incapacity for business, or that the family held her re- sponsible for their straitened circumstances, she received from them only sharp words and ill-humor. Margaret tells this in ambiguous words, without mentioning names. She takes extreme precaution not to reveal the guilty; but from the restrained emotion with which, twenty years after, she spoke in less reserved language, we can under- stand what a soul naturally so sensitive and impetuous as hers must have had to suffer.

" God permitted my mother," she says, " to be deprived of authority in her own house, and to be forced to yield it 1 M6moire, p. 291.

48 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

to others. Those in charge so lorded it over her that both she and I were soon reduced to a state of captivity. It is not my intention in what I am going to say to blame those persons. I do not wish to think that they did wrong in making me suffer. Far from me such a thought, my God ! I regard them rather as instruments of whom God made use to accomplish His holy will. We had no freedom in our own house, and we dared do nothing without permission. It was a continual war. Everything was under lock and key, so that I could not even find my apparel when I wished to goto holy Mass. I was even obliged to borrow clothes. I felt this slavery keenly, I must acknowledge." The pain of such a posi- tion was still more increased by odious suspicions. " It was at this time," says she, " that with all my strength I sought my consolation in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. But being in a country-house far from church, I could not go there without the consent of these same persons; and it so happened that the per- mission granted by one was often withheld by the other. When my tears showed the pain I felt, they accused me of having made an appointment with some one, saying that I concealed it under the pretext of going to Mass or Benediction. This was most unjust, fori would have consented rather to see myself cut into a thousand pieces than to entertain such thoughts." !

" Not knowing where to seek refuge," she adds, ;< I hid myself in a retired corner of the garden, in the stable, or in some other out-of-the-way place where I could, unobserved, kneel and pour out my heart in tears before God. This I always did through my good Mother, the most Blessed Virgin, in whom I had placed all my confidence. I remained there entire days without eat- ing or drinking. Sometimes the poor villagers, pitying my condition, gave me in the evening a little fruit or milk. When I ventured to return to the house, it was

1 Memorie, p. 292.

Birth, Childhood, mid Youth. 49

with such fear and trembling as, it seems to me, a poor criminal endures when about to receive sentence of con- demnation." 1

She adds: "I should have esteemed myself much more happy begging from door to door the bread which frequently I dare not take from the table, than living in this way. The moment I entered the house, the bat- teries were opened more fiercely than ever. I was re- proached with neglecting the house and the children of those dear benefactors of my soul.3 I was not allowed to say one word. The night I passed as I had done the day, pouring out tears at the foot of my crucifix."

But this was not yet Margaret's greatest trial. She loved her mother tenderly ; consequently, she suffered fearfully at seeing her thus humbled in her own house. " The rudest cross I had to bear was my inability to alle- viate my mother's trials. They were a thousand times harder for me than my own. I dared not even console her by a word, fearing to offend God by taking pleasure in talking over our troubles. But it was in my beloved mother's sickness that my affliction became extreme. She suffered much from being left to my care and little services. Necessary nourishment was withheld from her by our jailers, and I was forced to beg from the villagers eggs and other things suitable for the sick. This was a special torment to me, for I was naturally timid, and I was frequently received very rudely." s

It is useless to add that God never abandons His

1 Memoire, p. 293.

2 No, net the children of the married domestics, as some historians ignorant of the process of her canonization have imagined. In that process we see that those dear benefactors of her soul " were the mem- bets of her own family." (Proces, p. 54.) We have named them £.bove. The children here in question were the four little ones of Toussaint Delaroche — John, Margaret (to whom our saint was god- mother), Antony, and Jane Gabrielle. The eldest was eight years old, and the youngest three.

8 Memoire, p. 293.

50 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

faithful servants in such sorrows. On one particular occasion, when her mother was ill of erysipelas in its worst form, a young village physician was called in. He bled her, but said on leaving that nothing short of a miracle could save her life. The holy child, not know- ing what else to do, ran to the church. It was the feast of the Circumcision. Margaret implored God with tears to be Himself her poor mother's physician. We do not know exactly how the thing happened, for the saint's humble recital is full of reserve. But when she returned home, she found that the swelling of her mother's cheek had disappeared ; and, contrary to all human appear- ances, the wound healed in a few days.1

Behold in what hard trials Margaret's childhood passed ! She was now scarcely fifteen. Happily, suf- fering, humiliations, and contempt are no obstacles to sanctity ; they are, on the contrary, when accepted by the soul, the most active and powerful agents thereto. Persecuted, humbled, almost driven from her home, the pious child sought refuge in God. She prayed inces- santly, and began at this tender age to practise most austere penances. Her brother Chrysostom asserts that from her earliest childhood she was not satisfied with long prayer in church. The deponent often found her praying on her knees2 in retired corners of the house. She practised, he affirmed, almost from infancy, many austerities and macerations, as fasting, iron chains, dis- ciplines, and cinctures. These last often penetrated the flesh. She slept on a plank, and passed the night in prayer. The servants of M. Alacoque declared that she sometimes forgot to go to bed, and that they often found her on her knees.

To sustain her in such trials, the Lord began to ap- pear to her. She was not astonished, for she believed that others were favored in the same way. It was or-

1 Memoire, p. 295.

9 Proc&s of 1 71 5, Deposition of Chrysostom.

Births Childhood, and Youth. 51

dinarily " under the form of the Crucified, or of the Ecce Homo, or as carrying His cross." This sight roused her soul to iove so great, that the hardships she endured, the slavery, contempt, beggary, and even the blows she received, appeared to her light and sweet. " Some- times," said she, "when they were about to strike me, I was distressed that their raised hands were stayed, and that they did not exercise upon me all their strength. I felt constantly urged to render all sorts of good ser- vices to these persons, as to the true friends of my soul. I had no greater pleasure than to do and say all the good I could of them." ]

Let no one imagine that Margaret was one of those cold, apathetic natures that feel nothing. She was, on the contrary, extremely tender and sensitive. She felt keenly the slightest want of attention, and expanded like a delicate flower under the least proof of affection. Her innate pride rendered such a life insupportable. She was gay, sprightly, intelligent, and fond of pleasure to a degree that might at any moment have exposed her to serious danger in the world. But she repeats on every page of her Memoire that it is not she that is act- ing thus, it is her Sovereign Lord, who was making Himself master of her soul, and directing her in all things.

It was, above all, to the Blessed Sacrament that she turned for consolation and strength. As soon as a free moment was hers, she ran, or rather she flew, to the church ; and once inside the door, she could no longer restrain her footsteps. Love impelled her to the foot of the altar, and she could never get near enough to the tabernacle. " I was wholly unable to recite vocal prayers before the Blessed Sacrament," said she, " and once in its presence I became so absorbed that I knew no weariness. I could have passed days and nights before it without eating or drinking. I do not know 1 Memoire, p. 295.

52 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

exactly how I employed those moments. I only know that, like a burning taper, I was consumed in its pres- ence, rendering Jesus love for love. I could not remain in the lower part of the church, and, despite the con- fusion it might cause me, I had to draw as near as I could to the altar on which reposed the Blessed Sacra- ment. And yet I did not think myself happy even there. I envied those that could communicate fre- quently, and that were free to remain long in the Sacra- mental Presence. I tried to gain the friendship of such persons, that I might enjoy the privilege ot going with them to spend some moments with Jesus Christ in this mystery." '

Margaret did not always succeed in the accomplish- ment of the desire just expressed. As we have seen, "the consent of three persons was necessary, and what one granted the others refused." On such occasions the pious child ran to hide herself in some corner of the garden, to pray and weep before God. There was one spot specially dear to her. Some steps west of the house a steep declivity, clothed with a little thicket, led down to a very deep vale. It may have been in far-off times, when our globe was a mere molten mass, a pas- sage of burning lava, or a torrent of water ; for its remains might be a monument of either. It consisted of an immense block of granite of extraordinary dimen- sions, left there by the flow, unable to drag it farther. Our holy child loved this solitary spot, which was just on the boundary of her own garden, and there she often took refuge. Protected behind, and, as it were, veiled by the thicket at the side of the house, it had directly in view the apsis containing the main altar of the church, which was less than half a mile distant. From this block of granite, however, the ground rises so rapidly to the church that one might think the distance less ; it seems to be only a few steps across the valley.

1 M^moire, p. 297.

Birth, Childhood, and Youth. 53

At night the little lamp burning before the tabernacle could be seen from the windows of the Alacoque man- sion. It was there that her Lord and Master dwelt, despoiled of glory, abandoned by creatures, a thousand times more neglected and humiliated than she could ever be. Such thoughts made her heart melt into love. Tears welled up and, leaning on the granite block, her eyes and heart riveted on the tabernacle, Margaret was lost for hours in contemplation.

54 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

CHAPTER III.

MARGARET'S VOCATION— SHE ENTERS THE VISITATION

OF PARAY.

1662-1671.

" In charitate perpetua dilexi te."

" I have loved thee with an everlasting love." — Jeremias xxxi. 3.

" Posuit signum in faciem meam, ut nullum praeter eum amatorem admittam."

" He has placed His seal upon my forehead, that I may admit no lover but Himself." — Rom. Brev, Ant. of St. Agnes.

HUS grew in the solitude of Lhautecour, beauti- ful and pure, hidden from all eyes, even from those of her kinsmen, the holy child whom God had chosen for things so great. She herself was more ignorant than others of what was being done in her. She breathed only for God. Her only ambition was " to be consumed in HLs presence like a burning taper, and so return Him love for love."

From such a life to the cloister there is but one step ; and we might expect to see Margaret take it without one regret for a world of which she knew naught but its trials, and from which she could part without even a sigh. But had such been the case, her vocation would have been void of sacrifice, would have had neither in the eyes of God nor of man its true value- It so happened that, as Margaret entered her seven- teenth year, the circumstances of her surroundings entirely changed. Her eldest brothers, having arrived at the age of manhood, took charge of the business and restored their mother to the position and influence of which she had been deprived. On the other hand, Toussaint Delaroche, who had probably died, for we no longer find mention of him, had in his ten years'

Margaret enters the Visitation of Par ay. 55

rather arbitrary, though intelligent, administration re- trieved the compromised affairs of the family. Free- dom came with this change of fortune ; and that gayety generally found where six or seven children are just stepping from childhood into youth once more shed its genial influence over the Alacoque home. In the country the young marry at an early age, especially the members of large families. Margaret was only seventeen, and already several good offers had been made her. Her eldest brother, now two-and-twenty and the head of the family, needed a companion. " All this," says our saint, "brought to our home much com- pany whom it was necessary for me to meet." Inter- course with society commenced, and more brilliantly, perhaps, than her first historians suspect. When we read the baptismal register of Margaret's brothers and sisters, we see that almost all had for sponsors the most noble lords and ladies of the neighboring castles. Margaret, we remember, had been held over the font by Mme. de Fautrieres ; and although she was dead, we cannot believe that the holy child ceased all communi- cation with the castle of Corcheval. Her brother Claude Philibert had for godmother Lady Couronne d'Apchon, widow of John le Roux, Lord of Terreau.1 One of her sisters was carried to holy baptism by Lady Gilberte Areloup, Baronne Despres. It is the same with all the others, whose god-parents belonged to the best families of Charolais. Mme. Alacoque, desirous of settling her children in life, began to bring them out a little and to receive visitors at her own house. Mar-

1 Couronne d'Apchon, widow of John le Roux, married for second husband John Areloup, a gentleman squire of the king's chamber. Baron of Saint-Peruse. By this marriage he became Lord of Terreau, She had an only daughter, Gilberte Areloup Lady of Terreau. who was married in 1640 to M. Claude de Thibaut de Noblet, Chevalier, Baron Depres, etc. Their son and heir, Pierre de Thibaut de Noblet, was by the king created Marquis Despr6s.

5 6 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

garet saw at once that she was much noticed and sought after. And what is singular and almost inex- plicable is that this young girl who had been so strong in the midst of adversity, whom neither contempt nor humiliations could daunt, scarcely beheld the world smiling upon her, when she began to adorn herself to please it. She delighted in pleasure-parties, she shortened her prayers, she remained from confession, and her soul gradually sank from the height to which it had been elevated in early childhood. " I began to see the world and to dress to please it, and I tried to amuse myself as much as I could." 1

Happily, God watched over this soul upon which He had designs so great. " But Thou, my God," she con- tinues, " hadst other designs than those that I formed in my heart. Thou didst make known to me that it was hard to kick against the powerful goad of Thy love. My malice and infidelity made me use every effort and all my strength to resist its attraction and extinguish within me its movements. But in vain ! In the midst of company and amusements, divine love pierced me with darts so inflamed that they seemed entirely to consume my heart. The pain stunned me, and yet it did not suffice to detach a heart so ungrateful as mine, f felt as if bound with cords, and so forcibly drawn that I was, at last, forced to follow Him who was call- ing me. He led me aside and severely reproved me. Alas! He seemed jealous of this miserable heart."2

Touched by such love, Margaret prostrated on the ground, begged pardon, and took a long and severe discipline. "In spite of all this," she adds, " I failed not to plunge again into vanity, and again I offered the same resistance."

One day during the carnival she masked to take part with several of her friends in a ball to which she had been invited. What tears she shed to expiate 1 Memoire, p. 299. 2 Ibid.

Margaret enters the Visitation of Par ay. 57

" her great sin," as she called it! What fasts and macerations! And still, wonderful to say, Margaret had not yet conquered herself. Still bleeding from her self-imposed discipline, she began again to smile upon the world.

It was on her return from this ball that the Lord awaited her. "That evening," she says, "as I was taking off Satan's accursed livery, for thus I term my vain adornments, my Sovereign Master presented Him- self before me all disfigured as He was during His flagellation. He reproached me, saying that it was my vanity which had reduced Him to such a state ; that I was losing infinitely precious time of which He would demand of me a rigorous account at the hour of death ; and that I had betrayed and persecuted Him after He had given me so many proofs of His love. This made so strong an impression upon me and wounded my heart so painfully that I wept bitter tears." '

Then, taking God's part against herself, jealous of seeing such love despised by so wretched a creature, feeling that there was no torment that she did not deserve and that she could not endure, Margaret un- covered her shoulders and disciplined them to blood. "To avenge in some manner on myself the injury I had done Him, I bound this miserable, criminal body with knotted cords, which I drew so tightly that I could hardly breathe or eat. I kept them on so long that they ate into my flesh. It was only by force and at the cost of cruel suffering that I could get them off again. It was the same with the little chains that I clasped around my arms. I could not remove them without tearing off with them pieces of flesh. I slept on planks, or strewed my bed with sharp sticks." But Margaret never spoke of these things. She so carefully hid her macerations that no one suspected them. Although in the flower of her age and the freshness of youth, they 1 MSmoire, p. 300.

5 8 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

saw her, without apparent cause, " suddenly grow pale and thin."1

Let us remark that, on hearing the saints speaking thus bitterly of trifling faults, which they expiated so cruelly, we are sometimes tempted to think them more guilty than they are. But in our saint's case there was nothing in her first experience of the world and its pleasures to tarnish the immaculate purity of her heart. At twenty Margaret was innocent as a child. She abhorred the idea of marriage, and the thought of the slightest sin against holy purity forced tears from her eyes. Several witnesses in the process of her canonization solemnly affirmed that she ever pre- served baptismal innocence. In default of such wit- nesses, it would suffice to open her Memoire. One cannot read it without seeing at once the embodiment of Bossuet's beautiful illustration of the pure of heart. Let us, borrowing from him, say that, from the cradle to the grave, Margaret's heart resembled those beautiful streams one comes upon among the mountains of her native Burgundy. Hidden in deep caverns, over- shadowed by the vast horizon, they offer to the traveller limpid waters whose crystalline purity is ruffled by no breath.

Protected by her innocence, Margaret would have triumphed sooner over the seductions of the world, had not the thought of her mother, whom she so tenderly loved and whom by her marriage she could extricate from many difficulties, shaken her purpose. " My relations," said she, " and especially my dear mother, urged me incessantly to marry. She wept as she told me that she saw no hope of release from her misery except in me; that she would find her consolation in being with me, as soon as I should be settled in the world. On the other hand, God's voice pursued me so vehemently that I had no peace. My vow was ever

1 MSmoire, p. 301.

Margaret enters the Visitation of Par ay. 59

before my eyes with the thought that, if I violated it, I should be punished with frightful torments."

Truly, the battle was begun; and as the contest was between the two greatest and most powerful loves on earth, the love of God and the love of a mother, it was to be terrible. " O my God!" cried out Margaret, " Thou alone wast witness of the length of the fearful combat that I suffered interiorly. I should have yielded with- out the extraordinary assistance of Thy mercy."

She continues: "The devil, taking advantage of my love for my mother, incessantly represented to me the tears she shed; told me that if I became a religious I should cause her to die of grief; and that I should have to answer for it to God, since she was entirely depend- ent on my care. This thought was insupportable, for our mutual love was so tender that we could not live apart. At the same time, the desire to be a religious and to live a life of perfect purity pursued me without intermission. All this made me suffer a true martyr- dom. I had no rest, I was constantly in tears; and having no one. to whom I could disclose my grief, I knew not how to act. At last, my love for my mother began to gain the ascendency." '

Ah, how touching is this last word! The spectacle is the same as that which we admire a thousand times in the history of St. Chantal. It is ever in souls the most noble, the purest, that lies the source of the deepest tenderness; and never do the higher, the legitimate affections more freely expand, produce more beautiful flowers, more delicious fruits, than when forced in the hot-house of a heart warmed by the love of God.

But even Margaret's heart, so long turned to God, filial tenderness was about to mislead. She began to examine the terms of her vow. She had made it when only a very little child, wholly unconscious of what she was doing: was she, then, bound by it? Could she not 1 M6moire, p. 301.

60 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

readily obtain a dispensation ? She would ask for it. Then she examined the religious state. It was too high for her; she could never reach its perfection. By em- bracing it, she would lose the liberty of performing penances and charities. By such reasoning she was strongly tempted to renounce it altogether.

Three or four years, from 1663 to 1667, passed in these terrible alternations between the world and God. At the end of this period, as Margaret was entering her twentieth year, she felt the desire of being a religious rekindle within her. " My desire became so ardent," she said, " that I resolved to execute it at any cost." She had constantly before her the beauty of the virtues, particularly of humility, voluntary poverty, and chas- tity. She read the lives of the saints with delight ; but she avoided those of the greatest servants of God, whose heroism she felt unable to imitate. Opening the book, she would say : " Let me look for a saint easy to imitate, that I may do as she did." But hardly had she begun to read before her tears flowed abundantly, on seeing that the saint had not offended God as she herself had done, or that she had spent long years in penance.1

Convinced that she could never love God as He de- serves to be loved, Margaret resolved to devote hersell to the service of the poor. She so compassionated their miseries that, had it been in her power, she would have retained nothing for herself. " When I had any money," said she, " I gave it to some poor little ones, to induce them to come and learn from me their prayers and catechism ; and they flocked to me in such crowds that in winter I knew not where to put them." For this purpose, she made use of a large room still existing and which formed part of the second building of her home. It was reached by an exterior stairway. It is in the middle of this chamber that Margaret's little cell is found.

1 Memoire, p. 301.

Margaret enters the Visitation of Par ay, 61

Sometimes when her brother saw the crowd of poor children crossing the courtyard, he would say to his sister pleasantly, i* Sister dear, are you going to be a school-mistress ?" " Ah, brother!" she would reply, " who will instruct these poor little ones if I do not?"1 Or again, her old aunt Catharine grumbled, and unfeel- ingly chased the children away. " They thought I would give to the poor all I could lay hands on; but that I would not dare to do, for fear of committing theft. I was obliged to coax and pet my mother, to obtain from her leave to give what I had. As she loved me dearly she readily granted the permission." a

Margaret was not satisfied with loving and instructing the poor little ones; she went to visit their families, especially when any of the members were ill. Delicate and sensitive, with a horror of everything unsightly, trembling in presence of a wound, never can we fully appreciate her efforts to overcome herself, or know what heroic acts she performed in this ministry. She spoke few words on the subject, but those few reveal prodigies of courage; and even under the reserve of a recital im- posed by obedience, we discover miraculous cures. " I had extreme repugnance to look at wounds. I had to begin by dressing and even kissing them, in order to overcome myself. I was very ignorant as to how I should proceed in this duty; but my Divine Master so well supplied for my want of knowledge that, although the wounds might be very serious, they healed in a short time. I had, consequently, more confidence in H.s goodness than in my own remedies." 3

In the midst of such occupations, her lively and ar dent nature still inclined to pleasure. " I was naturally given to the love of pleasure and amusement ; but I could not indulge my inclinations, although I frequently sought to do so. But the pitiful sight of the Lord, who

1 Process of 171 5, Chrysostom's Deposition. 9 Memoire, p. 302. 3 lb., p. 303.

62 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

presented Himself to me covered with the blood of His flagellation, prevented my following oat my intention:: He reproached me in words that pierced me to the heart: 'Dost thou sigh for pleasure? / never tasted any. I gave Myself up to all sorts of bitterness for thy love and to gain thy heart, — and thou dost still wish to dispute it with Me!' " At such words, Margaret desisted. Although for several days after she was filled with con- fusion, she gradually resumed her search after vanities. " One day," she says, " when I was lost in astonishment that so many defects and infidelities were not sufficient to repel my Lord, He made me this reply : * It is be- cause I am desirous of making of thee a compound of My love and mercy.' " '

" On another occasion He said to me : ' I have chosen thee for My spouse, and thou didst promise fidelity when thou didst make to Me the vow of chastity. It was I who urged thee to make it before the world had any share in thy heart, for I wished to possess it pure and unsullied by any earthly affection.' "

Who would not believe that a heart like Margaret's, so pure, indeed so angelic, endowed with such gen- erosity, would not enthusiastically respond to these tender and magnificent advances ? Nevertheless, even at this moment she hesitated ; and never, perhaps, in this terrible struggle of four years had she been more strongly tempted to yield. It was because serious events had changed the prospects of her family. Her two eldest brothers died one after the other in the prime of life. John, the oldest of all the children, he who on reaching his majority had taken charge of the business and restored to his cherished mother her position and influence, was the first taken. He died in 1663, at the age of three-and-twenty, leaving the entire charge of his affairs to his brother Claude Philibert. Two years after, September, 1665, the latter followed him to the tomb, at the same fatal age of twenty-three. There re-

1 Memoire. o, 304,

Margaret enters the Visitation of Paray. 63

mained now only Margaret and her two brothers : Chry- sostom, whom we have already met, and James, the youngest of all, who was preparing for Holy Orders Becoming thus sole proprietor of the estate of Lhautecoui and head of the family, Chrysostom thought of marry- ing. In 1667, at the early age of twenty-two, he married Angelique Aumonier, of a good family of the Charolais. It is thought that it was for this occasion the pictures which decorate the house were painted. It is at least singular that, at the period in which we see the tomb of the two elder brothers opened and the wedding of the third celebrated, we find among these allegorical paintings two coffins surmounted by weeping cupids with inverted torches, and opposite another represen- tation of cupids lighting the hymeneal flame.

Chrysostom married, and Margaret's friends deter- mined to make a last effort to induce her to do the same. Her mother, with the remembrance of past suf- ferings, did not care to remain in a house ruled by a daughter-in-law. With tears she implored Margaret to come to some decision, and to take her to live with her. At the same time the youngest son, James, who was pre- paring for Holy Orders, offered his sister half his patri- mony as a dowry. Finally, Chrysostom, now head of the family and Margaret's guardian, declared it time for her to take a partner for life. The attack was so violent that our saintly young girl was on the point of yielding. " I could no longer withstand," she said, " the importu- nities of my relatives, nor the tears of a mother who loved me tenderly, and who represented to me that at twenty a girl ought to take a husband. The devil, too, did his part. He whispered to me continually: 1 Poor miserable creature, of what are you thinking in wishing to become a religious? You will make yourself a laughing-stock to the world, for you will never per- severe. What a disgrace to take off the religious habit and leave the convent ! Where will you turn to hide

64 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

yourself after that?' I began, then, to share my mother's sentiments with regard to remaining in the world, though my horror of marriage was so great that I could not think of it without bursting into tears." l

Margaret was in this state of hesitancy when God came to her assistance. "One day,',' she relates, "after holy Communion, He made me see that He is the most beautiful, the richest, most powerful, most perfect, and accomplished of all lovers. Being promised to Him, whence came it, He asked, that I desired to break with Him ? ' Oh, remember,' said He, * if thou dost thus con- temn Me, I shall abandon thee forever ; but if thou art faithful to Me, I shall never leave thee. I will render thee victorious over all thine enemies. I excuse thy ignorance, because thou dost not yet know Me. But. if thou art faithful to Me, I shall teach thee to know Me, and shall manifest Myself to thee.' ' These words, in which are combined authority, majesty, tenderness, and the indignation that springs from love despised, pierced Margaret's heart like an arrow. She shed abundant tears, and felt new light dawn upon her soul. She renewed her vow of chastity, resolved " rather to die than violate it." On leaving the church, she an- nounced her resolution to her family, imploring them to dismiss every aspirant for her hand, however advan- tageous the offer might be.2

Margaret's tone as she uttered these words conveyed to her mother the conviction that her child meant what she said; and so she no longer insisted upon her marry- ing. " After this my mother shed no more tears in my presence; but she wept before all with whom she spoke on the subject. Those persons failed not to tell me that if I left her I would be the cause of her death; that 1 should have to answer to God; and that I could become a religious as well after her death as before it. One brother, in particular, who loved me much, did all in 1 Mfemoire, p. 305. 'Ibid.

Margaret enters the Visitation of Par ay. 65

his power to dissuade me from my design, and offered me his patrimony as a dowry. But to all such consider- ations my heart had become as insensible as a rock."

Margaret had, however, to remain nearly three years longer in the world. Her dowry was not forthcoming, the family being yet undecided. They acted slowly and sought pretexts for delay. Margaret waited patiently; but sure now of herself and of God, she lived in celestial peace.

Thinking the distractions of a pleasant city life would change her desires, she was sent to Macon, where her maternal uncle was royal notary. This uncle had a daughter who was very pious. She was on the point of entering the Ursuline convent of that city, and she made every effort to take her cousin with her. The uncle sided with his daughter, and was more insistent in the affair than was commendable. But to their im- portunity Margaret returned but one reply in which shone the elevation and purely divine disinterestedness of her vocation: " If I should enter your convent, it would be for love of you. I wish to go to a house where I shall have neither relatives nor acquaintances, that I may become a religious actuated by no other motive than the love of God." She was thus debating with her uncle and cousin, and almost ready to yield, for she could not explain to herself, and still less to others, her apparently groundless repugnance to enter- ing a Community pious and fervent, and into which she would have been so joyously welcomed, when her brother Chrysostom arrived unexpectedly to conduct her home. Her mother was at the point of death. In fact, her good and excellent mother was dying of grief. They took advantage of her state, to force upon Mar- garet the thought of the responsibility she would incur by persisting in her project. " They made me under- stand," she tells us, "that my mother could not live without me, and that I should have to answer to God

66 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

for her death. This was told me even by ecclesiastics. It caused me cruel sufferings, for I tenderly loved my mother. The devil made use of this ruse to make me believe that my mother's death would be the cause of my eternal damnation." J

Tortured in heart and conscience, Margaret cast her- self at the foot of her crucifix and watered it with her tears. There she found peace. God came to her assist- ance. He consoled her mother, enlightened her brother, and gave her kinsfolk to understand that souls must follow whither God calls.

The more Margaret thought of the religious life, the more enraptured she became with it. It was there, she thought, that she would learn to pray as she had never yet known how; that she would obey and do penance to the full extent of her desires. There, too, she would communicate frequently; and this thought roused her soul to rapturous transports. " My greatest joy was to think I should communicate frequently; for the privi- lege was now granted me but rarely. I should have believed myself the happiest creature in the world, had I been able frequently to pass the entire night before the Blessed Sacrament. On the eve of my Commun- ions, I felt my soul so abyssed in recollection that I could speak but with the greatest effort; I was wholly taken up with the sublimity of the action I was about to perform. After my Communions, I desired neither to eat nor drink, to see anyone, nor to speak, so great were the peace and consolation I felt."2

Things were still in this state, when there arrived at Verosvres, to preach the Jubilee proclaimed by Clement X. after his elevation to the Sovereign Pontificate, 1670, a religious of the Order of St. Francis. His name the old Memoires do not tell. They inform us only that he was a man of eminent piety. To this child, who was to reveal to the world the pierced Heart of Jesus Christ, 1 MSmoire, p. 307. s lb. p. 308.

Margaret enters the Visitation of Par ay. by

God sent a disciple of him who on Mt. Alvernus had received in his hands and feet and heart the sacred stigmata of the wounds of Jesus Christ. " His charity was such," says she, " that he stayed at our house over- night to give us a chance to make our general confes- sion." ' Margaret made hers with abundance of tears. Her least faults appeared to her crimes. The holy re- ligious, seeing her purity of soul, put her in the way ol communicating every day, taught her to make prayer, — an instruction she hardly needed, — and promised her some instruments of penance; for, dreading vanity, she had not dared to speak to him of the mortification she already imposed upon herself. He did more. He went at once to find Chrysostom, and roused in nim great scruples for putting obstacles in the way of such a voca- tion. Chrysostom loved his sister tenderly, but he feared still more to offend God. That same day he had a long conversation with Margaret, to find out whether or not she was really persevering in her design. Hav- ing received the energetic reply, " Yes, certainly, 1 would rather die than change my purpose," he at once took the necessary steps for her departure from home.

Shortly after, in the spring of 167 1, Margaret, accom- panied by her brother, set out for Paray-le-Monial, where there was a convent of the Visitation, in which she had resolved to conceal herself for life.

Why the Visitation? She did not know. Never had she put her foot into a convent of this Order. She con- sidered the Poor Clares of Charolles too near to Veros- vres. As to the Ursulines of Macon, she was still in- fluenced by the motives that dictated her answer to her cousin: "If I should go into your Community, it would be for love of you. I wish to go where I shall have neither relations nor acquaintances, that I may become a religious through no other motive than the love of God." Once before when her brother insisted on her

1 M6moire, p. 309.

68 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

entering with the Ursulines, she replied: "No, that will never be. I wish to go to the Holy Maries, to a distant convent in which I have no acquaintances. I wish to be a religious only for God. I wish to leave the world entirely, to hide myself in some corner in which I can forget and be forever forgotten." '

This is all Margaret knew of the reasons that in- fluenced her vocation. The rest was God's secret.

Several Visitation convents were proposed to her, Charolles, Macon, Autun, Dijon, and Paray. " As soon," said she, "as I heard mention of Paray, my heart bounded with joy, and I consented at once." She then set out with her brother for the term of her happiness, " dear Paray." On crossing the threshold, her soul was flooded with celestial sweetness, and a voice interiorly whispered: " Here it is that I wish thee to be." A short time before, seeing at Macon a picture of St. Francis de Sales, it seemed to her that the saint looked at her ten- derly. It was something of the same kind that she now experienced. Turning quickly toward her brother, she said: " Be assured I shall never leave this house." Not so judged the good people of Paray who saw her enter. She was tastefully dressed, joy was beaming on her countenance, and she was making lively gesticulations. They smiled as they glanced at her, and said: "Look! has she the appearance of a religious ?" " And indeed," she adds, " I then wore more vain ornaments than I had ever before done, and I gave expression to the great joy I felt at seeing myself all in all to my Sovereign Good."3

Margaret returned once more to Verosvres, but only to take a last farewell. It was heart-rending. Her mother covered her with tears and caresses. Margaret at first bore this last assault without even growing pale. " Never did I feel my heart so joyous or so firm. I was, as it were, insensible to the affection and the sorrow of 1 MGmoire, p. 310. s lb., p. 311.

Margaret enters the Visitation of Par ay. 69

which I was the object and the cause. Even my mother's tears affected me not, and I shed not one myself on leaving her." But as God wished that none of the beauties of nature or of grace should be wanting to this great sacrifice, Margaret had hardly left her mother, when an immense wave of bitterness swept over her soul. " It seemed to me," she said, " that my soul was being torn from my body." When St. Teresa crossed for the last time the threshold of her father's house, she felt, to use her own expression, as if her bones were being snapped and her life was slipping away from her. Again, when St. Chantal tore herself from the embrace of her old father and the caresses of her little ones, she shed such torrents of tears that the lookers-on were astonished and scandalized. Margaret Mary had the same divine honor done her. On her way from Veros- vres to Paray, she tasted the agony of agonies.

Why, we ask, did she choose the Visitation, when so many other religious houses were open to her? Now we know. Margaret Mary went not to the Visitation like so many others, because this Institute, founded recently by two admirable saints, still exhaled its first perfume, a perfume so sweet to breathe in the cradle of religious houses. She went there by reason of a higher order. God, who has not raised a mountain, dug out a valley, directed the course of a river, without knowing for what people, for what souls He was laboring, in fashioning the Visitation thought of Margaret Mary. He made one for the other. He made the sweetness, simplicity, humility, the hidden life of the Visitation that Margaret Mary on the day of her entrance might expand as in her element: and there for twenty years He worked in the soul of our holy child. He made her sweet, humble, simple, pure, so that she might one day be the loveliest of Visitandine flowers, the sweetest of Visitandine fruits. Or rather He made one for the other — the grand Order for the humble virgin; the

TO Lt/4 tfSkmt Mmrg*rrt Mmry Al*cofu*.

former to be the theatre, the latter the evangelist, ihe apostle of a groat miracle, of which m nor

the other could have the shadow of a < v>ag be-

fore, in the far-away ti de

Saks and St Chantal sublime presenter its was to take place He had sown the living germs in the foundation of the v > .. . a. He had g en to r its arms and armorial bearings a hea ied

with thorns and surmounted by a cross. These pious daughters, whom \ yea - :. ad formed in

solitude to be one day the guard of I adorable Heart, the people, though without know g why, began to call « Tkt D**gJkUr$ 0/ tkt J5few

But the humble virgin that was to cause those germs to flourish, throw light upon those early presentiments, and clothe with meaning that coat-of -arras, suspected nothing of her mission. In all thesi -irs of her

life, though the Divi. ehad already spoken to her,

there was not one word of her extraordinary vocation; not one glimmer of light on her future destiny; not a reference to the wants of that Church to which, r. . ever, she was sent as a liberating angel. She had ex- perienced but one attraction, and that had overruled 0 :her. ** Hide thyself, fly men, forget creatures. Seek a little corner, a solitude, a cloister, in which thou mayest forget all and in which, forgotten by all, thou mayest live for God alone" — such were the words spoken by the Divine Voice.

Behold the dispositions with which Margaret entered

was clothed with the habit, and eighteen months later she prostrated on the choir floor. The nuns covered her with a pall, from beneath which she rose up radi- ant; for between her and man there was raised an im

m ent of Par ay, J 1

CHAPTER IV. THE CO*VE*T OF PAKAY.

mm.

•e Ofta OfC A*fce, be ra%hfrari 0 flnnm; to v. 7 %*1 a MUM *r

- - - of Lowe cnrrrfd the dear content of Para?* mtrtidmcmg dmon Hm

' — Amn/g Smimtr, vdL L ?, 746,

T.T-vyT: AT kind of convent was this toward which

VV' ' ■••■*.-. •--. -.*

the theatre of such marvels ? What seals was she to meet therein ? What rht jcs and what traditions? What the faith and fervor of their rehgpous life?* This was the time in which the Visitation Order, for

Mother de Chantal, 1641, drew from the recent feasts of the canonization of St. Francis de Sales fresh vitality, and continued to cover the world with its pious soli- tudes. Every year saw them opened to souls weary of the world and thirsting for divine love. In 1642, Vtlle-

1 It is r To amy at the YmfMhmforeadkmtmtm'tytomm&omevcsj mmee ytats a Grcmlor .Mrrtnd to tkewhote laaia—i laxhzs C*r£»- lar 3. Ire. nSMtJ w'JZZ.'rr'r: *J mmmmWet ^ teMMPMM ii "--Jt aod dies » g^ea a ffcetdi of the fives of die Shtrii dnt dMe three yearn Heace we fee die ianuirt.wr of It is die cosnplefe kjstory of a uwut, die ycof *«~

hare, coasenneady, awst carefattr cammed aE die Circular: of Paar

>.:-.-. < -.<; •,-. -.'-*. *-. --- • •- «- -.-. ac aw nan snenajaj III these rituaajratf we <baar dns chanter, and ffcafl on to diem for ag&c

72 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

franche, Verceil in Italy, Montbrison, Agen, Avignon, the second of Rouen; in 1643, Salins, Montelimart, Li- moges; in 1644, Issoudun, Castellane, Vienne, and Tulle; in 1645, Saint-Marcellin and Soleure; in 1646, La Fleche, Avallon, and Dole; in 1647, Toulouse, Char- tres, and Saumur; in 1648, Loudun, Bourbon-Lancy, the second of Grenoble ; in 1649, Compiegne and Cler- mont ; in 1650, Abbeville and Mons, in Hainaut ; in 1651, Chaillot, Seissel, Aurillac, and Larochefoucauld ; in 1652, the second of Marseilles and the second of Aix ; in 1653, Saint-Amour and Langres ; in 1654, Varsovie, in Poland ; in 1657, Arone in Italy ; in 1659, Auxerre, Alencon, and Brioude ; in 1660, Thiers and the third of Paris ; in 1663, Bourg, Saint-And6ol, and Monaco ; in 1664, Nimes ; in 1666, Saint-Remo ; in 1667, Brussels and Munich ; in 1669, Modena and the second of Nice ; finally, in 1671, Rome. An inexhaustible current of life flowed from the tomb that had just closed over St. Chantal. And although her first daughters, they who had listened to her energetic words, had gone to rejoin her in the sojourn of light after which they had so ar- dently sighed, they left behind souls whom they them- selves had formed, inheritors of their virtues, some of whom had even caught a glimpse of the venerable coun- tenance of their holy foundress.

Among all these pious solitudes, that of Paray, in Burgundy, was recommendable for its antiquity and fervor.

The little town of Paray is situated in a charming valley, encircled with mountains and crossed by fresh running water. The most beautiful vines in the world lend it their shade, and it rests at the foot of an old basilica built by St. Hugh, in the twelfth century, to test the plan to be used for the colossal church of Cluny. Born of the breath of the monks, and for that reason called Paray-le-Monial; reared under the paternal gov- ernment of the abbots, of whom, in Burgundy as well as

The Convent of Par ay. 73

on the borders of the Rhine, they say, " One lives at ease under the crosier," it has preserved even to our own day a purity of morals, a nobleness and distinction of manners, a loyalty of friendship, and a fervor of pi- ety, that the misfortunes of the times could not dimin- ish. Protestantism, it is true, appeared there for a mo- ment ; but it was, as in other parts of Burgundy, only a surprise visit, from which it quickly recovered, and soon regained its former fruitfulness. To repair the breaches made by its inroads, Paray made haste to build a con- vent in which the Ursulines might rear her children ; a hospital for the care of her sick ; a house for the Jesuit Fathers to teach again Jesus Christ ; and, finally, a con- vent of the Visitation to embalm all around with the perfume of piety. Some years later, the little town, whose population did not then exceed four or five thou- sand, witnessed one of those outbursts of faith and charity that would have done honor to the largest me- tropolis ; namely, the rejoicings occasioned by the ar- rival of the Sisters of the Visitation, September 4, 1626. In 1642, their convent was entirely rebuilt in a beauti- ful plain to the east and, as it were, pillowed on the back of the old basilica. It may still be seen in all its primitive simplicity, for it has not changed. Four large buildings form a square, which incloses a court. A cloister extends around them, its vast colonnade open- ing on a court, in whose centre plays the traditional and symbolical fountain. On the walls of irreproachable whiteness, and in the arch formed by the rising roof, may still be read sentences which St. Francis de Sales recommended to be written everywhere, that no eye might be raised without meeting a thought for the mind and food for the soul. The community-room, chapel, sacristy, and refectory open on the cloister, from the four corners of which lead stairs to the cells on the story above. That of Margaret Mary is still in existence, though now converted into a chapel. But we have seen

74 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

it in its primitive state, narrow, chalk-white, with no other furniture than a bed, a table, and a chair; no other ornament than a wooden crucifix, and a paper picture of the Sacred Heart. All the other cells are like it, simple, poor, neat. The large gardens dotted with statues and chapels surround the whole convent with verdure, silence, and peace. The sojourn of the saint here undoubtedly exhaled around it a perfume that otherwise it would not have had ; and has made it, as it were, a reliquary filled with precious mementos of the Lord. One cannot take a step without inhaling peace, fervor, forgetfulness of creatures, and the presence of God.

On Margaret's arrival, in 167 1, the convent was gov- erned by the venerable Mother Hieronyme Hersant, just then finishing her sixth year of superiority. She belonged to the Visitation of Paris, rue Saint-Antoine, where she had for mistress of novices the great and holy Mother Lhuillier. Whilst young, she had been able to open her heart and soul to the venerable Mother de Chantal, and for twenty years she had for director St. Vincent de Paul.J In such a school she had become a saint, and had, moreover, learned that science of gov- ernment and that art of directing minds which, joined to the most solid virtue, had already secured to Paray five years of fervor and progress in the spiritual life. True, she was at the time, having almost finished her six years of superiority, 1666-1672, about to leave the Sisters of Paray and return to Paris. But from her hands the government was to pass into those of Mother de Saumaise, a soul neither less tender nor less strong, who was to come from Dijon. After having governed that convent for six years, 1672-1678, she was to give place to Mother Greyfie from Annecy, 1678-1684. In this Visitation of Paray, where we are to see virtue so sublime, vocations so extraordinary, love of Rule so 1 Annee Sainte, vol. i. p. 745.

The Convent of Par ay. 75

great, courage so masculine, humility overruled the other virtues to such a degree that it would not allow the religious to feel that they were able to govern them- selves. Their fervor impelled them to seek at Annecy? Paris, and Dijon, Superiors the most capable of keep- ing them united and of advancing them in the true spirit of the Visitation. Rising higher, let us say, God, who was bringing to this cloister so rare a marvel, and through her perfecting the Visitation, completing the work of St. Francis de Sales and St. Chantal, wished to call there to direct Margaret Mary the most eminent Superioresses from the three convents in which were still existing the oldest traditions and remembrances of the holy founders.

The mistress of novices into whose hands Margaret was to be placed on her arrival was a venerable relig ious who had passed four-and-forty years of conventual life, and whose vocation dated back even to the foun- dation of the Visitation of Paray. Her father, M. de Thouvant, was one of the two founders of the convent, and she was the first of the young girls of Paray to take the veil. Contemporrry with the eight religious whom Mother de Blonay had sent from Lyons to make the foundation, — and " who were so extraordinarily favored by God; whose obedience was proof against all diffi- culties; whose gift of prayer was sublime; and, finally, whose perfume of virtue was so powerful that the people clipped their clothing to obtain some shreds as relics," ' — Sister de Thouvant had not yet finished her novitiate when St. de Chantal arrived at the convent. The saint looked at the novice, who was only sixteen years old, and, knowing by prophetic light what she would one day be, laid her hand on her head with a blessing. She earnestly recommended that they would take great care of her and moderate her fervor, " and, in particular,

1 Unedited Foundations of the Convent of Paray (MSS. in 4to, belonging to the Visitation of Parav), p. 308.

76 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

allow her to make only half an hour's prayer until she was eighteen, for fear too great application might weaken her health; adding that she foresaw that her virtues and good judgment would render her eminently serviceable to the Community." '

The saint's prophecy was fully realized. After hav- ing governed the convent of Paray twelve years as Su- perioress, 1645-1651 and 1657-1663; after having, as mistress of novices, formed the greater part of the Com- munity; endowed with the gift of sublime prayer, tender devotion to the Lord, and a deep knowledge of souls, she was going to finish her successful career by forming Margaret Mary to the religious life.

Under the administration of the venerable Mother Hieronyme Hersant, and the enlightened direction of the pious Sister de Thouvant, the convent of Paray re- cruited rapidly. A crowd of young girls, overcoming the most painful opposition, were seen hastening to bury themselves in the cloister, at the cost of the greatest sacrifices. They belonged to the best families of Bur- gundy: Catherine-Antoinette de Levis-Chateaumorand for example, who had been detained in the world by the tenderness of her mother. After. the death of the latter, she scattered so generously the treasures of her large fortune on her native province, that when the people learned her design of entering religion there was a general outcry. It was resolved to oppose her depart- ure, and even to arrest her en route y2 — Marie-Hyacinthe Courtin, as " remarkable for beauty as for virtue, and who was followed by her suitors even into our par- lors;"3— Marie-Therese Basset, belonging to one of the

1 Unedited Foundations of Paray, p. 310.

2 Abridgment of the life and virtues of our dear Sister de Levis- Chateaumorand (without date).

3 Circular of Paray, March 23, 1725. Abridgment of the virtues of twelve of our dear Sisters who died in the convent of Paray from Sep- tember 9, 1 719.

The Convent of Par ay. fj

richest families of Roanne, who saw two aspirants to her hand decide their claim by a duel, in which the loved one was slain by his jealous rival. Wounded to the heart by this blow, she sought forgetfulness and con- solation in the love of Him who cannot be taken away; ' — Madeleine de Vichy-Chamron, of the two illustrious houses of Chamron and d'Amanze, who entered the Visitation only after having refused the abbatial crosier offered her by Mgr. de Villars, Archbishop of Vienne;2 — Seraphique de la Martiniere, who, forced to remain in the world by the devotedness of her parents, fell so ill that she soon resembled a skeleton. Allowed at last to fulfil her desire, " the ardor of her fever yielded to that of divine love, which conducted her to the celestial Spouse."3 We are about to see group around Margaret Mary so many who, had they deigned to give it their heart, might have hoped everything from the world; in fine, the ladies Damas, Coligny, d'Amanze, Varenne de Gletin, d'Athose, des Escures, who might at least, since they desired to be religious, have borne the crosier of an abbess, or worn the pectoral cross of a canoness, but who relinquished all, attracted by the humility, poverty, and fervor of the humble retreat that St. Francis de Sales and St. Chantal had just opened " to the great of heart and the weak of health." There were seen even high-born ladies who thought it not sufficient if, in becoming religious, they did not descend to the rank of domestic Sisters : Frances-Angelique de la Mettrie, for example, or Claude-Francoise Chappui. granddaughter of M. de Marselison, of a very rich family of Charolais. "All the importunity of her rela-

1 Circular of December 17, 171 7. Abridgment of the virtues of our most honored Sister Marie-Therese Basset.

s Circular of February 20, 1738. Abridgment of the life and vir tues of our very honored Sister Madeleine- Victoire de Vichy de Chamron.

3 Circular ot March 23, 1725. Abridgment of the twelve, eto

yS Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

tives could not dissuade the latter from taking at Paray the white veil of the domestic Sisters, nor constrain her at the close of her life to become a choir Sister. She de- clared that her wish was to die in the white veil." l

Just because these young girls belonged to great families, and possessed a great heart, the trials of the novitiate were excessively severe. Fifty years later their remembrance made them tremble. " As they were not sparing of trials then," says the Sister who relates the entrance into religion of Rosalie Verchere, " she displayed all the generosity of her soul." " Her great piety caused her to be joyfully received to the novitiate," is written of Francoise-Marguerite d'Athose. " She en- dured the trials, which at that time were very great, with a fervor that merited for her the reception of our holy habit."2 "Her intrepid courage," it is said of Marie-Catherine du Chailloux, " consumed, so to say, the rigor of those early days, and she plunged with all the ardor of holy love into the ocean of severe trials then in force." 3 " One can say of Catherine Heuillard that she carried to the grave the fervor of her novitiate, having never had any other reproaches addressed her than that she did too much and labored above her strength." * Like words one meets on every page of the manuscripts that record the foundation of the Visitation at Paray.

How could this character of austerity, of holy and generous abandonment to the rigor of holy love, fail the novitiate, since the professed Sisters, one and all, were possessed of it? We have already seen something of it; but it would be necessary to relate the life of each member, in particular, to give a true picture of this fer- vent and generous Community. Marie-Suzanne Pie- denuz was a prodigy of austerity. " Wholly penetrated

1 Circular of April 18, 171 3. 1 Circular of March 23, 1725.

3 Circular of October 1, 1743.

4 Circular of December 17, 171 7.

The Convent of Par ay. 79

with the majesty and sanctity of God, she would have wished to abyss herself in His presence even to the centre of the earth. She appeared before Him as a criminal crushed under the weight of His justice. Her bloody disciplines diminished nothing of the ardor of her love. Loving her Divine Saviour with all the powers of her soul, yet feeling that she could not love Him as much as she desired, she looked upon herself as a reprobate, and this painful state lasted till her death." ' Catherine-Augustine Marest had yet a stronger attrac- don for penance. " This admirable daughter, although not to be imitated in her mortifications, drank wine rarely, hardly ever approached the fire, the ardor of divine love serving her at all seasons. She was clothed in winter as in summer, not thinking herself worthy even to wear that which could no longer be used by others." a " God had prevented Marie-Hyacinthe Cour- tin with His holy fear and so lively a horror of sin that, though shunning even its shadow, she dreaded to ap- proach the sacraments. Endless time was necessary for her to prepare for confession, in which, however, she failed not to be short and clear, in spite of the great scruples by which she was devoured on the score of the Office. This, joined to her great abstinence and morti- fication, reduced her to a slow decline." 3 Marie-Char- lotte Benoit was still more penitential. "Her strong and generous soul made her aim at perfection in the most vigorous manner. She did nothing by halves. She sacrificed herself and carried her severity so far that her conduct on this point is more admirable than imitable. She treated her body so harshly during her lifetime that, like St. Bernard, fearful of having short- ened her days, she was constrained at the hour of death to ask its pardon. This state of continual death makes

1 Circular of March 15, 1703.

2 Circular of April 18, 171 3. 8 Circular of March 23, 1725.

8o Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

us regard her as another St. Jerome." ' They compared Rosalie de Farges to another Elias, whose ardor and penance she possessed. We shall see her pass her entire life on Calvary in the mi dst of austerities that make one tremble.2

To this austerity, this mortification, which left their traces on the countenance of the Sisters of Paray, was joined a love for Rule carried, perhaps, to so high a de- gree in no other convent. Sister Jeanne- Aimee lay at the point of death. The Superioress found her absorbed in God, her hands clasping the book of Constitutions. To the questions addressed to her, she answered: "Ah! Mother, the Lord has made known to me that I can enter heaven only by these three doors: the observance of our holy Rules, the love of our neighbor, and humil- ity."3 " Marie Joseph Bouthier, dying at the age of twenty-one, and pained at leaving life so young, ex- claimed: 'Alas! I have only begun to live, and behold, I must die.' To reconcile herself to the sacrifice, she kissed the book of Constitutions and found therein strength to submit to the holy will of God." 4 Marie- Hyacinthe Courtin always had her Rules in her hand. By them she regulated all her actions, not wishing " to do anything more or less," which words she had taken as her device.5 The zeal with which Sister Catherine- Augustine Marest was animated, not to say inflamed, for the holy Rule, would not suffer a failure in the least point of it; Dut God made her understand, at last, that it would be more meritorious to moderate her rigor. "Attached to her Rule alone, she understood nothing of the mysteries of direction, as she herself said smiling. Her Rule, her Superioress, her ordinary confessor, suf-

1 Circular of December 17, 171 7.

2 Circular of May 14, 1743.

3 Circular of December 17, 1717.

4 Circular of March 23, 1725.

6 Circular of December 17, 1717.

The Convent of Par ay. 81

ficed for her." 1 They said as much of Sister Seraphique de la Martiniere, whose chief attraction was love of the hidden life and exact observance of Rule. " All that was high and sublime was suspected by her." 3 And in an- other place we read of Sister de Damas de Barnay: " What was singular and admirable was not for her."

Let us carefully note all these traits: that exact ob^ servance of Rule; that care of regulating their actions by the motto, " Neither more nor less;" that fear of everything high and sublime, everything singular and admirable, that sweet smile when speaking of those mysteries of direction, etc. In them we touch upon one of the most striking characteristics of the convent of Paray, the true cause of the passing opposition that Margaret was going to meet there, and which has been till now so little understood and so unfairly estimated.

Let us add that these ardent souls, so generous, so strongly attached to their Rules, were incredibly humble and obedient. " Sister Anne-Alexis was like a ball of wax in the hands of God and of those that held to her His place. It was this that made them put her into all the offices high and low, by which she was neither elated nor cast down, but always frank and cordial, and of exemplary regularity." 3 When they informed Sister de Vichy-Chamron, who had broken her abbatial crosier to enter the Visitation, that they thought of making her directress, tears filled her eyes, she trembled and swooned.4 It was the same with Mother de Levis- Chateaumorand when there was question of making her Superioress. Obliged to submit, she left at her death a written request that, contrary to custom, they would write nothing about her, but leave her memory in eternal oblivion.5 The Sisters did not obey this order.

1 Circular of December 17, 171 7. 9 Ibid.

3 Abridgment of the Life and Virtues of Sister Anne-Alexis de Mar6schalle (a small quarto of 10 pages).

4 Circular of February 20, 1738. 6 Abridgment of Life.

82 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

Would to God they had not obeyed a similar recom- mendation left by Sister Marie-Madeleine des Escures, cLt first Margaret's most intimate friend, whose affection, a little too lively, was in those first days the trial of her novitiate; later, her most zealous adversary, because, though fervent, but less enlightened than our saint, it seemed to her that the latter strayed from the Rule and the spirit of the Visitation, above which she herself prized nothing; and finally, when she saw her error, the most humble, most zealous of the adorers of the Sacred Heart and of the disciples of Margaret Mary. It is also to be regretted that the Sisters conformed so exactly to the written requests left by Sisters Angelique de Damas de Barnay, Jeanne-Francoise Chalon, de Coligny, and a number of others. Their love having led them to quit all and bury themselves in the cloister, it now led them to desire to be forgotten even by tr. 2 cloister.

It is needless to say that love for God crowned these numerous virtues and inflamed all souls. It was love a little timid, we must admit, though strong and austere after the fashion of the seventeenth century, in which generosity was unlimited, but in which tenderness should have predominated. The great devotion of Marie-Anne Cordier was to the immensity of God, and she incessantly buried herself in this abyss as a nothing that He is about to destroy.1 That of Seraphique de la Martiniere was for the infinite majesty of God. This idea she had constantly before her eyes; therefore she always worked on her knees.2 Marie-Emerentianne Rosselin was almost always buried in the contemplation of God's justice, which thought tinged her life with fear.3 It was the same with Marie-Catherine du Chail- loux, whose days were passed in terror of His judg-

1 Circular of April 18,1713. 8 Circular of March 23, 1725. 8 Ibid.

The Convent of Par ay. 83

ments. All that she heard in sermons, all that she read on the end of man, predestination, or fidelity to grace, impressed her so forcibly that she was ready to die of fright. We would be unable to rehearse all the penances she performed to obtain the peace of the children of God, which she at last possessed after hav- ing purchased it so dearly." ]

But these grand views, which have so deteriorated in

our days, and which then filled souls with so lively

respect for God, do not hinder love. Sister Seraphique

de la Martiniere, who, as we have said, always labored

on her knees, appeared inflamed with that fire of divine

love which Jesus Christ came to enkindle upon earth.

The assaults of divine love often reduced her to death,

and she complained tenderly to her God, saying: " I

can bear no more! Have regard to my weakness,

O Lord, or I shall expire under the violence of Thy

love!"2 That other Sister, Marie-Anne Cordier, who

always felt herself annihilated before the immensity of

God, had at the same time for Him a love so lively, so,

strong, so ardent, that, according to her own expression,

she would die of sorrow at not being able to die of love.3

"O Mother!" said Sister Emerentianne Rosselin, "I

long passionately to die in order to see my God;" and

her eyes, whilst saying these words, shone with so vivid

a light that in them could be read the truth of what

she affirmed.4 Sister Marie-Suzanne Piedenuz made

every day one hundred acts of the love of God;5 and

eyes filled with tears on beholding Sister Catherine

S6raphique Bouillet, a venerable old Sister, on her

knees, her hands joined, asking the little novices what

1 Circular of October i, 1743.

2 Circular of March 23, 1 725.

3 Ibid. * Ibid.

5 Ann6e Sainte, vol. v. p. 353.

84 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

she must do to love God. " For I languish with love of Him," said she, "and I cannot be satisfied." '

The two great devotions of the convent were, as we see, the Cross and the Holy Eucharist — the tomb of sacrifice and the tomb of Love Eternal. The religious went to the first to entertain and there excite that thirst for immolation, for penance, for austerity and humiliation, which devoured them. There is not one of those lives in which we do not discover that the second source of their piety was the Lord in the Holy Sacra- ment. According to the old Memoires: " They ran thither as if famished."

We begin now to discover the true features of Paray. In founding his grand work of the Visitation, the saintly Bishop of Geneva had, we remember, two lofty, prevailing ideas. They were tutelary angels far in advance of their time, and which for that reason met a thousand difficulties that stranded the one and kept the other in constant jeopardy. The first idea of St. Fran- cis de Sales was to found religious for the service of the poor. The world cried out against it, and con- strained the holy prelate to erect the grates of the cloister. Baffled in this, the saint thought of that multitude of souls who, from want of robust health, could not enter Carmel or the Poor Clares, and drew up a kind of life in which recollection, sweetness, the spirit of mortification, and amiable charity were to supply for corporal austerities, which the want alluded to rendered impossible. But here that vast tide of com- punction which swept through the seventeenth century began to swell and carry on its breast crowds to the Visitation. Paray was of this number. Behold those cloister-grates, more austere than St. Francis de Sales demanded ; those frequent disciplines, those continual fasts! See that multitude of Sisters forced to ask pardon of their body for having treated it so badly! 1 Circular of May 4, 1704.

The Convent of Par ay. 85

See them trembling before God with holy fear, over- powered by the feeling of His immensity, His awful greatness! In a word, look at that love, generous but not sufficiently tender, and you have a picture of Paray in 167 1. It was more austere than St. Francis de Sales wished, but it was not less fervent than he could have possibly desired.

Were the generous-souled inmates of this convent sad ? Listen to a remark repeated a thousand times and with perfect truth: "The more severe the Rule, the gayer the religious." In the lives of the Sisters who then composed the Community of Paray, one reads with surprise words most pleasing. There is hardly one of those religious of whom they do not say that she was a good friend;1 one of the best friends that could be found;2 a soul sincere and frank in her friendship;3 a royal heart;4 a noble and liberal heart;5 a heart the most sensible to affection and most grateful for the least service.6 Their records sing on every note of the scale of the amiability, gayety, sweetness, eagerness to give pleasure, lively and spiritual repartee, beautiful talents of all kinds.7 Marie-Therese Basset, daughter of the mayor of Roanne, understood business so well as to surprise the lawyers of her day. " She has been most useful to us," say the Memoires, "in the care of our papers; and her distinct and beautiful penmanship has been of marvellous assistance. On entering the cloister she brought with her a library so well furnished that it was for us a valuable present.8 Sister Marie-Catherine du

1 Circular of March 23, 1725.

2 Ibid.

3 Circular of November 1, 1715.

4 Circular of March 8, 1701.

' Circular of December 17, 171 7. 6 Circular of July 7, 1743.

* See the above-mentioned Circulars, along with others already quoted or from which we are going to quote.

* Circular of December 17, 171 7: see her detailed Life.

86 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

Chailloux wielded a not less able pen. It was she who wrote the Annales of the convent of Paray, " a work that immortalized her among us."1 Sister Anne-Alexis de Mareschalle wrote charming verses. " She possessed a joyousness of heart that was reflected in her countenance and entered into her conversation, always gay and holily jo37ous. She also wrote very beautiful couplets to animate herself to fervor ever new."2 Sister Marie- Suzanne Piedenuz did better still, for she composed a great number of poems and canticles. She transposed into verse the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin, consisting of one hundred and fifty Psalms, composed by St. Bonaventure.3 Madeleine-Victoire de Vichy-Chamron also cultivated poetry. The time passed in her cell was so agreeable that, far from being wearisome, she always found it too short. She composed spiritual canticles full of energy and fervor. Some of the poems then written in the convent of Paray have been preserved. They are not inferior to those cited by M. Cousin com- posed at the same epoch by Mile, de Bourbon, Mile, de Rambouillet, Mile, de Bouteville and Mile, de Brienne at the chateau of Chantilly.4 Margaret Mary is about to join this choir of voices sweet and pure, and our dear little country-girl will warble melodiously as they.

" A chased and panting fawn, I seek the flowing stream. The hunter's flying dart Has pierced my inmost heart."

Let us now bring an artiste to the front. Marie- Anne Cordier covered the convent with her pictures. Seizing the brush herself, she painted the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, the ceiling azure sown with golden stars, which produced a lovely effect. Again, she in-

1 Circular of July 7, 1743. 8 Circular of March 9, 1733.

3 Annee Sainte, vol. i. p. 353.

4 Cousin, La Jeunesse de Mme. de Longueville, p. 217

The Convent of Par ay. 87

spired painters and sculptors with her own ideas, with which workmen even the most expert were charmed. She had the altar-piece made, she herself furnishing the idea to a very skilful sculptor. She had made, also, some figures in copper representing the mysteries of the Passion. They were placed in a corridor leading to the infirmary, at the end of which was a Calvary. She had, in fine, painted all around the Blessed Virgin's chapel the mysteries of her life.1 The chapel of the Sacred Heart, however, she had not the happiness of thus embellishing. Whether she was suffering at the time or other reasons intervened we do not know, but that honor was reserved for Marie-Nicole de la Faige des Claines. Born of a great family, the recipient of a brilliant education, she had, perhaps, a more exquisite talent. She, also, it was who painted the first picture representing the Sacred Heart surrounded by angels.' Another Sister, Frangoise-Eleonore de Vichy-Chamron, succeeded so well in small crayons " that some of her work, after exciting the admiration of Mgr. Cardinal de Bouillon, was sent by him not only to his noble rela- tives in Paris, but one also to the Holy Father, Pope Clement XI. His Eminence assures us that it was hon- ored with a place in the breviary of His Holiness, who praised its delicacy very much." s

Whilst some of the nuns charmed thus the leisure hours of their cloistered life, warming their heart by devout poetic effusions and beautiful paintings, others plied the needle. Through a spirit of devotion for the ornamentation of the holy altar; or through a peniten- tial spirit of labor; or again, after the pestilence, through the necessity of supplying their own wants, they busied themselves in similar occupations, in all which, how- ever, they showed themselves most expert, and per-

1 Circular of April 18, 171 3. 3 Ann6e Sainte, vol. ix. p. 727. 3 Vie et (Euvres, vol. i. p. 482.

88 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

formed wonders. Francoise-Marguerite d'Athose, we are told, " was one of the most skilful in weaving laces of gold and silver, which we made at that time for a merchant of Lyons." ' When Sister Madeleine de Vichy-Chamron took the veil, she was attired in a magnificent dress of cherry-colored moire with under- skirt of silver moire, which she afterward devoted to the altar. With the assistance of her dear Sisters, she embroidered it beautifully in gold and silver. Their skilful fingers succeeded so well that their work was long used as our most beautiful ornaments.8 Sister de Vichy-Chamron had as friend and rival in this sort of work Catherine-Augustine Marest, who employed her time and extraordinary talent in making laces of point a la reine to trim albs and surplices. She was also remarkably skilful in making gold and silver laces to be sold in Lyons, and the result of her labor was so suc- cessful as to furnish the necessary funds to erect in the church the chapel of St. Francis de Sales.3 They praise the exquisite tapestry of Sister Marie-Catherine du Chailloux, wrought in her early religious days; for later, through humility, she asked and obtained per- mission to make a vow to employ her time in shoe- making. With the same hand that had arranged the Annales of the convent, she for forty years made the shoes of its inmates.4 It was the same sentiment of humility that induced Madeleine de Vichy-Chamron to abandon her embroidery in gold and silver for the cloth- factory that the Sisters of Paray had established in their house to defray the expenses of their convent, desolated by the pestilence. She passed many years there making

V

1 Circular of March 23, 1725.

2 Circular of January 20, 1738. Those beautiful ornaments have not perished. Splendidly restored, they were used at the feast of the Beatification.

3 Circular of December 17, 1717*

4 Circular of July 7, 1743*

The Convent of Par ay. 8$

cinctures with a little loom or frame, and spinning the woof of the stuff with which the frames were covered.

When Mme. de Maulvrier expressed astonishment at seeing a girl of her birth in so low an employment, she received the beautiful reply that, low as it was, it was far too honorable for her.1 She had in this work as teacher and mistress Sister Anne-Alexis de Mareschalle, who had been the first to learn the art from a cloth- weaver and his wife, very poor, plain people, " under whom she suffered much in acquiring her knowledge of spinning and weaving." But nothing could daunt her. She had the establishment of this cloth-factory at heart, and she afterward devoted seventeen years to it.2 Another brave soul devoted to this humble and labo- rious work was Catherine-Augustine Marest, a skilled point-lace maker. She remained long years in the fac- tory, turning her great wheel with recollection that edified the beholders, and strength that no fatigue nould overcome, looking upon herself the while as the dolt of the house. Thus did Mother Greyfie smilingly call her. Not that Sister Catherine was wanting in spirit. She possessed the gift of repartee, the most lively and the most spiritual, along with judgment the very best. It was in allusion to the labors with which she overburdened herself that she received the charac- teristic epithet.3

To possess a picture true and complete of the convent of Paray, we must add that from the first days was established in it a boarding-school to which the great families of the Charolais, of the Maconnais, of the Autunesse hastened to send their daughters, too happy at being able to confide them to women like Mother de Levis-Chateaumorand, Sister Marie-Catherine du Chail- loux, Sister de Vichy-Chamron, Sister d'Athose, Sister

1 Circular of February 20, 1738.

2 Circular of March 23, 1725.

3 Ibid.

90 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

de Damas, Sister de Coligny, and so many others, so pious, so distinguished in gifts of mind and heart, who in abandoning the world had not parted with their charms nor dispossessed themselves of their talents. We shall mention only one of these little boarders, Marie-Madeleine de Chaugy, whom St. Chantal found there on her last visit,, whom she took with her to Annecy, and whom later on we know as so great a religious and so brilliant a writer.

Such was the convent of Paray. It was one of the most fervent of the Grder, one of the most generous. They called it " dear Paray," and " the Tabor of Supe- rioresses," on account of the sweet union and perfect obedience of the Sisters. God visibly blessed this house, though none knew as yet His mysterious de- signs upon it. Finally, when all was ready, May 25, 1671, the doors of the sanctuary opened, and the King of Love entered " dear Paray" to introduce therein His well-beloved.1

Margaret was then twenty-three years old; and, although no correct likeness has been left us of her, we may picture her to ourselves from what we know of her appearance by hearsay. She was tall, a little above the ordinary height, and her constitution delicate. Her expressive face was lighted up by soft, clear eyes, and her manners were gay and graceful,2 her whole air agreeable and vivacious.3 Add to this great intelli- gence, a judgment solid, keen, and penetrating, a noble soul and a great heart,4 and we have the portrait of Margaret Mary on her entrance at Paray. Her features

1 Abridgment of the life and virtues of our very virtuous Mothei Margaret-Hieronyme Hersant, Superioress of the convent of Paray. (Ann6e Sainte, vol. i. p. 742.)

s Visit made at the parlor to Margaret Mary by P6re Leau, S.J. (Vie de la Bienheureuse, by Pere Daniel, p. 352.)

3 Deposition of Mother Greyfie.

4 Vie de la Bienheureuse, par P. Croiset.

The Convent of Par ay. 91

bore the impress of the most lively piety, but she had not yet " that incomparable recollection,1 that meek and humble exterior,2 that; air of lowliness even to the centre of her nothingness"3 by which later on she was distinguished. The Sisters extended to her that tender and maternal welcome that all young girls, after tearing themselves from the embraces of their families, received upon their arrival at the convent. They surrounded her with kindness and affection; but none suspected the treasure with which God had just enriched their humble convent.

1 Deposition of Sister Anne-Alexis de Mareschalle.

2 Visit made to the parlor by the Rev. Fathers Villette and Croiset.

3 Circular of March 23, 1725.

92 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

CHAPTER V.

MARGARET MARY'S NOVITIATE— GOD PREPARES HER FOR THE GREAT MISSION ABOUT TO BE ENTRUSTED TO HER— HER PROFESSION.

May 25, 1671-November 6, 1672.

"Ecce venio ad te quern amavi, quem quaesivi, quem semper optavi."

" Behold, I come to thee whom I have loved, whom I have sought, whom I have always desired." — Rom. Brev.y Ant. of St. Agnes.

HE first word addressed to Margaret by the ven- erable Mother Thouvant, the day after the entrance of the former at Paray, will ever remain celebrated. Margaret, inflamed with the desire of giving herself en- tirely to God, went to ask her mistress by what means she should do so, imploring her especially to teach her the secret of making prayer. Mother Thouvant replied: " Go place yourself before God like canvas before a painter" — words brief but full, in which Margaret dis- covered the whole secret of prayer.1 To kneel at the Lord's feet, to contemplate Him, to allow His holy image to be impressed upon us; and for that end to present Him a soul simple, recollected, pure like those beautiful silver plates on which, thanks to the discov- eries of modern science, only the perfect image can be

1 The expression une toile d'attente, which may be translated " pre- pared canvas," was current in the convent of Paray as one of its most ancient traditions. In 1628 one of its religious foundresses fell ill. During her fearful torments she was heard to cry out: " O sweet hand of my Spouse, sketch ! sketch !" The Superioress asked her what she meant by those words. " Ah, Mother," she answered, "I mean I am before God as canvas under the hand of a painter. I am supplicating Him to delineate in me the perfect image of my crucified Jesus." (Ann6e Sainte, vol. x. p. 313.)

Her Novitiate and her Profession. 93

depicted, — behold the true method of prayer. Mar- garet went to prostrate herself at the Lord's feet, and to fulfil the word of her instructress. " As soon as I knelt before Him," she said, " my Sovereign Master made known to me that my soul was the canvas on which He desired to paint the features of His suffering life; of that life which He passed until its consummation in love, silence, and sacrifice. But perfectly to produce these features, He had first to purify it from every stain, from every affection to earthly things, from love of self and of creatures, to whom I was still greatly inclined." l From this moment Margaret felt enkindled within her so ardent a desire for suffering that rest was no longer hers. One thought possessed her soul, and that was how should she crucify herself for a God who had allowed Himself to be crucified for love of her. To no purpose had she guarded inviolably the white robe of baptism; to no purpose had she at the age of three made a vow of virginity, and renewed it at six; to no purpose at twenty-three had she placed between her- self and the world the impenetrable cloister-grate: all this was too little for the flame now kindled within her. Her life, though so pure, filled her with horror. She burned to wash in her tears and bathe in her own blood, that by so doing she might purge from her veins the last vestige of sin. O tears of Margaret Mary! blood- stained scourges, avenging whips, insatiable thirst for humiliation and penance; holy industry to purify and adorn her soul for the coming of the Spouse! How shall I describe you? St. Francis de Sales himself was necessary to interpose limits to the young postulant's ardor. One day he had smilingly said to his daughters gathered around him that if, in order to assume aus- terities contrary to their Rules, they ever forgot the spirit of moderation and sweetness in which he desired them to live, he would return and make so much noise

1 Memoire, p. 313.

94 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

in their dormitories as to make them readily understand that they were acting against his will. Margaret knew something of this. "My blessed Father," said she, " reproved me so sternly for going beyond the limits of obedience that I have never since had the courage to repeat the offence." " Ah, what, my daughter," 9aid he to me, " do you think to please God by trespassing the bounds of obedience? Obedience, 2nd not the practice of austerities, sustains this congregation." '

But if St. Francis de Sales could interfere to moderate this thirst for immolation and penance which awoke in Margaret's heart stronger than ever on the day she crossed the threshold of the convent door, he had only to bless and encourage another desire that appeared at the same time: that of casting herself headlong, as she said, into obedience, humility, self-contempt, and the attain- ing, as perfectly as she could, the perfection of his holy Institute. To be a religious only by halves horrified her. And, indeed, it is scarcely worth one's while to leave the world for so little! The daughters of St. Francis de Sales were styled at that time " The Holy Maries" and Margaret resolved to be, in the full sense of the word, a holy Mary. We shall soon see whether or not she suc- ceeded.

Three months passed in those first efforts, at the end of which the nuns gave her the holy habit, on the feast of St. Louis, August 25, 1671. No details of this cere- mony have been preserved. Her sister-novices tell us, however, in their deposition that her countenance breathed but modesty and humility, and that a joyous light played on every feature.2 This was but a feeble indication of what was passing in the depths of her heart; for on this same day the Lord showed Himself to her as the true Lover of her soul, as the One whom she had chosen above all others, as the One that would indemnify

1 Memoire, p. 314.

2 Process ot 171 5, Deposition ot Sister Contois.

Her Novitiate and her Profession. 95

her for all that she had left for Him. " My Divine Mas- ter," she said, " let me see that this was the time of our betrothal, and, like the most ardent of lovers, He made me taste what was sweetest in the sweetness of His love." " Indeed," she adds, " His favors were so excess- ive that they frequently transported my soul, and ren- dered me incapable of acting. This caused me so deep confusion that I dared not show my face."1 Torrents of tears flowed at times from her eyes, and again her countenance sparkled like a star. She was, for the most part, so absorbed that she seemed to be no longer or. earth. This state was so noticeable that the Sisters, astonished, began to say to themselves: "What is this little novice about? What is going on within her?"

What was passing in Margaret's soul none knew at that time. It was only long after that obedience, more powerful than humility, wrested from her the secret of the wonders with which she was honored in those first days.2 She had, indeed, hardly taken the habit when she received from God an extraordinary grace, one very rare in the lives of the saints. The Lord began to ap- pear to her, not from time to time and from afar, as we read in the life of St. Catharine of Siena and of St. Teresa, but in a constant and ever-present manner.3 " I saw Him," she said, " I felt Him near me, and I understood Him much better than if I had seen and heard Him with my corporal senses. Had it been by the latter, I should have been able to distract my atten- tion, to turn away from it; but not having any part in it, I could not prevent this kind of communication."

1 Memoire, p. 314.

2 Memoire of Mother Greyfie on the life and virtues of our pious Sister Margaret Mary. This Memoire, of thirty pages, is very pre- cious. We shall frequently quote from it.

3 It would seem, at first sight, that this admirable privilege was not conferred on Margaret Mary till after her profession. She does not, in fact, mention it until this time. But in two other places she says ex- pressly that she enjoyed it even before that event.

96 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

il He honored me," she adds, " with His conversation sometimes as a friend, sometimes as an ardently loving spouse, or as a tender father full of love for his only child, and in many other ways." '

There were in this rare and marvellous privilege, in this Divine Presence, less seen than felt, though con- tinual and penetrating, two diverse aspects, like two poles, that the Lord showed her in turn. Margaret Mary, not knowing how to define them, called one the sanctity of justice, the other the sanctity of love. The first, the sanctity of justice, made her tremble at the sight of His infinite Majesty. He impressed on her words cannot say what sentiment of annihilation, which made her long to hide in the depths of her own noth- ingness. She dared remain only on her knees before this awful Majesty. A number of witnesses deposed at the process of canonization that when alone, working, reading, or writing, she always knelt on the ground as if overwhelmed with respect before the invisible presence of an invisible Being. "She was so united to God," said Sister Marie-Nicole de la Faige, " that, whether working, writing, or reading, she was always on her knees with such recollection as one might expect to see in church." The deponent adds that several times she beheld her for three or four consecutive hours in the same position, on her knees, immovable, absorbed in God; and she was often found bathed in tears.2 "I was often witness of the fact," said Sister Marie Cheva- lier de Montrouan, an Ursuline and an old pupil of the Visitation of Paray, " that Sister Margaret Mary always worked on her knees. Her recollection was such that curiosity often impelled me to gaze at her a long time, and I used to invite my little companions to come look at her. This they did, though unperceived by her,

1 Memoire, p. 319.

9 Process of 1715, Deposition of Sister Marie-Nicole de la Faige des Claines.

Chapel in Novitiate of Paray-le-Monial in which St. Margaret Mary began her religious life.

Her Novitiate and her Profession. 97

so absorbed was she in God." ' " This union with God," says another witness, " was such that one might say she preserved it even in sleep." 3

But working on her knees through respect for the in- finite Majesty that everywhere accompanied her, was in Margaret the least of the effects of the sanctity of justice. She would have wished to annihilate herself before that Presence; and she would have desired that every fibre of her being might be destroyed, since she saw not one that was pure. Not being able to effect this, she tried, at least, to immolate and sacrifice herself. " If we had not snatched the scourge from her hands," says Mother Greyfie, " her blood would have never ceased to flow."3

Behold what the sight of that which she called "the sanctity of justice" produced in her! If the Lord then depicted under her view " the sanctity of love," it was as if He enkindled a star before her a thousand times more brilliant. The sight of justice and of the Divine Majesty may be supported; but not that of infinite love. To be loved on earth, to be loved by a being noble, elevated, distinguished ; to be faithful- ly loved, loved devotedly, — oh, what enchantment! But to be loved by God — and loved even to folly! Mar- garet's heart dissolved at the thought, and, like St. Philip Neri and St. Francis Xavier, she cried out to God: " Withhold, O my God, these torrents that ingulf me, or enlarge my capacity to receive them ! " '

But the benign Saviour was not satisfied with accom- panying the young novice at every step, darting on her at every turn rays of His love and justice. He appeared to her from time to time visibly. He spoke to her, en- couraged her in her difficulties, consoled her in her sacrifices, and reproved her for her faults. One day when

1 Process of 171 5, Deposition of Sister Marie-Nicole de la Faige des Claines. i Ibid. 3 Mother Greyfie's MSmoire.

• MSmoire of Mother Greyfte. p. Xl*i

98 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

she was yielding to some little negligence, " Learn," said He to her, " that I am a holy Master, who teaches sanctity. I am pure and cannot suffer the least stain." This was said in so stern a tone that there was no sor- row, no suffering she would not have preferred.1 An- other day when she seated herself to say her Rosary, He appeared and darted upon her a glance in which was mingled so much love and anger that, twenty years after, she trembled with fear and happiness at its re- membrance. Again, she tells us: " Once I yielded to an emotion of vanity in speaking of myself. O God, how many tears this fault caused me! — for when next alone He reproved me with: * What art thou, O dust and ashes, and in what dost thou glory, since thou hast of thyself naught but nothingness ? That thou mayest never lose sight of what thou art, I shall place before thy eyes a picture of thyself.' And then He allowed me to see what I am. The sight filled me with surprise and created in me such horror of self, that if He had not sustained me, I should have swooned with grief. It was by suffering such as this that He punished the least emotion of self-complacency. This forced me to say to Him sometimes: 'Alas, O my God, either let me die, or hide from me this picture! I cannot behold it and live. The sight inspired me with hatred and vengeance against myself; whilst, on the other hand, obedience did not permit me to perform the rigorous penances that they suggested. I cannot express all that I suffered." 2

If, however, the Lord was severe toward faults against the virtue of religion, faults against respect before the Blessed Sacrament, for defects of uprightness, of purity of intention, of humility, nothing could equal His in- flexible severity when there was question of faults against obedience, apart from which the greatest virtues become crimes; the most costly sacrifice, fruits of cor-

1 Me moire of Mother Greyfie, p. 323. 8 Memoire, p. 330.

Her Novitiate and her Profession. 99

ruprion deserving only His wrath. " You deceive yourself," said He to her, " in thinking to please Me by such actions and mortifications. I am much more pleased to see a soul take some little alleviation through obedience than to overwhelm herself with austerities and fasts by her own will."1 "All this the Lord said to me so frequently, so distinctly, in terms so precise, under figures so touching,, that I determined," said she, "to die rather than trespass, however little, the limits of obedience." 2

Tender and good to this soul as toward all others, though operating in her a little more, since she was destined for a grand and perilous mission, the Lord formed her Himself. He aided her to ascend rapidly the first degrees of perfection, and fitted her gradually to receive in humilit)' and entire self-forgetfulness His divine communications. " Nothing was difficult to me," she writes, "because at this time Jesus steeped the severity of my sufferings in the sweetness of His love. I frequently besought Him to withdraw that sweetness from me, that I might taste the bitterness of His anguish, the pangs of His death. But He bade me submit to His conduct, and said that I should see later how wise and able a director He is who knows how to guide souls when, forgetful of self, they abandon them- selves to Him." 3

Whilst things were thus going on in the soul of Mar- garet Mary, the Sisters, who saw only the exterior, be- gan to experience astonishment and alarm. In vain did the humble novice try to hide the graces with which she was inundated. They could not be concealed What most astonished the Sisters was, not only the long hours that she passed on her knees in the choir or in her cell, her face radiant, her eyes full of tears, but the state of constant abstraction from which it was necessary to arouse her. Her work fell from her hands,

1 M6moire p. 324. 9 Ibid. 3 Ibid., p. 325.

IOO Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

and she forgot everything. The poor child's soul was in heaven, and she knew but imperfectly how to con- duct herself on earth.

Her Superiors were still more disquieted than the Sisters. From the very first, Mother Thouvant, the mistress of novices, thought it her duty to inform Mar- garet that her manner of acting was not in accordance with the spirii of the Visitation, and that if she did not change she could not be admitted to profession.1

The words threw Margaret into great desolation of soul, and she did her best to change her manner of life. But how accomplish it? "This spirit," she said, " had already acquired such ascendency over mine that I could no longer control it, any more than my other powers which I felt absorbed in it."2

What the venerable Mother Thouvant desired, and very justly too, of one so young and inexperienced was the exterior renunciation of extraordinary lights, and the practice of prayer according to the simple way in which the other novices were instructed. Margaret did not hesitate to obey, but her efforts were fruitless. " I made," she said, " every effort to follow the method of prayer taught me, along with other practices; but my mind retained nothing of all those teachings. The beautiful points of prayer vanished, and I could neither learn nor retain anything but what my Divine Master taught me. This made me suffer greatly, for His opera- tions in me were frustrated as much as possible, and I had to resist Him as much as I was able."3 It was like Jacob's wrestling with the angel. Margaret Mary came forth bruised and wounded, though having gained more and more the heart of her mistress by her admirable obedience.

To assist her in her efforts, and to aid her to over- come, if possible, her state of absorption, which was what the Community most remarked, Margaret Mary 1 M6moire, p. 314. 8 Ibid., p. 20. * Ibid., p. 320.

Her Novitiate and her Profession. I o I

was given as aid to Sister Catherine-Augustine Marest, the infirmarian, who had instructions to keep her con- stantly employed, and not to allow her a moment's rest. This Sister Marest was one marvellously well chosen for her work. She was " incomparable in strength of body and mind;" greatly given to the active life, very little to the contemplative; caring little for the mysteries of direction, as she pleasantly said; know- ing only her Rule, nothing more, nothing less; but nobly observing that Rule even to heroism. To all this she joined a love of God, not tender nor contem- plative, but warm and ardent. She was a true Martha with whom was now associated a true Mary. And it turned out just as we read in the Gospel. Martha complained of Mary, who, transported, in spite of her- self, with excessive joy, constantly relapsed from the activity imposed upon her into the sweet sleep of contemplation.1 If permitted to enter the choir to hear the subject of meditation read, scarcely was it over before Margaret Mary was instructed to go sweep the corridors, clean the cells, weed the garden, etc. Over- burdened with work, and longing for that prayer which she had not been allowed to make, she went to her mis- tress to beg time to resume it. But the latter repri- manded her sharply. She told her that it was strange she knew not how to unite prayer and labor, and sent her to other occupations more numerous and more over- whelming.

But these Sisters did well. The Lord, who was en- riching -Margaret Mary's soul, reigned supreme Master in it and, in spite of every obstacle, inebriated it with delight. Pacing the corridors, broom in hand, whilst the Sisters were sweetly kneeling at the foot of the holy altar, Margaret Mary had ever before her eyes the in- visible Object of her love. She contemplated Him, she listened to Him, she lived under the charm of the per

' Circular of December 17, 171 7. Annee Sainte, vol. ii. p. 242.

102 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoquc.

petual vision granted her by her Celestial Spouse. Work- ing, she sang:

" The more they contradict my love,

The more that love intlames. By day. by night, they torture me,

But cannot break my chains. My Lover's love's of such a kind,

The more I suffer pain. The closer does He my poor heart

Unto His own enchain." '

The anniversary of her admission to the habit was now approaching, August 25, 167:, and yet she was not called to her holy profession. The embarrassment of the Community increased every day. The Sisters admired her virtues; her unbounded humility; her obedience; her love of Rule, so much the more striking as it seemed to lead her in the most extraordinary ways; and her charity, which placed her at the service of all. She was not very skilful in ordinary domestic ways, but she was so good, so eager, that whilst thanking her for services badly rendered, the recipient could not fail to be touched by her goodness of heart. Mother Hersant did not hesitate to say that Margaret Mary was called to extraordinary sanctity;2 and from two or three circum- stances it could be seen that she was capable of the most heroic sacrifices. Once, for example, she struggled against a natural repugnance till she fainted. Again, being tenderly attached to Sister Marie-Madeleine des Escures, one of the companions of her novitiate, she was warned interiorly that this sweet union saddened the jealous love of her Divine Master: and she resolved to disengage her heart from it. For this three months of battle were necessary, so affectionate was she by nature. But in this point, as in all others, she triumphed; for neither repugnances nor sympathies were capable of daunting her courage. Nevertheless, although it is ' Memoire, p. 315- ' Process, p. 71.

Her Novitiate and her Profession. 1 03

customary at the Visitation for the profession to take place one year and one day after the date of reception, August 25, 1672, rolled by without Margaret Mary's having had the happiness of pronouncing her holy vows. "I have learned from many old Sisters," says one of the witnesses, " that her profession was deferred only on account of her extraordinary ways; for, as to the rest, they esteemed her a saint." ' " I have heard from the Superioress and mistress of novices, who conferred to- gether about the Blessed One," says Sister Jeanne- Marie Contois, " that she would one day be a saint. But she was so extraordinary that perhaps she was not intended to live out her life at the Visitation." 2 " Mar- garet Mary," says a third witness, " was an example of fervor. All had an excellent opinion of her, though all did not approve her extraordinary ways." 3 " The Blessed One," says a fourth witness, " was astonish- ingly fervent during her novitiate. But her extra- ordinary ways made us fear."4 All the Sisters spoke in like manner. They reveal to us the very just pre- cautions taken by the monastery in which suddenly appeared one of the rarest phenomena of sanctity: an humble girl whose life was already in heaven, who was everywhere accompanied by the visible presence of God ; who in the midst of her Sisters was wholly absorbed, her eyes suffused with tears; her countenance now sparkling like a star, or cast down as if in utter annihila- tion; admirably obedient, and yet incapable of obedi- ence; avaricious of extraordinary penances, and so eager for suffering that her Superiors knew neither how to moderate nor how to satisfy her. Assuredly, if any convent would have hesitated, for the chances of error are great in things so delicate, how much more the Visi- tation, to which St. Francis de Sales so much recom- mended humility, simplicity, love of the hidden life, and

1 Process, p. 70. 9 Ibid., p. 68.

3 Ibid., p. 72. 4 Ibid., p. 73.

104 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

in which he had supplicated the Sisters to conform simply and purely to the Rule with no innovations! One day, after his holy Mass, he knelt with St. Chantal at the foot of the altar, and both supplicated God never to send to the Visitation any extraordinary grace. Thus the idea gradually took possession of the Order that the Visitation was not called to brilliant gifts; that it was to live hidden and obscure, like an humble little violet, and leave to others exceptional favors and great missions. Such thoughts as these gave rise to their de- lay in allowing Margaret Mary to pronounce her vows; but, on the other hand, when they fixed their eyes upon her, why were they not reassured ? Had there ever been a vocation more supernatural, more disinterested ? Who but God had led Margaret to the Visitation, of which she knew nothing? Who enabled her to over- come every obstacle? If God willed to make this gift to the Visitation, why should the Visitation refuse it? The Spirit breatheth where it will. Love is the master. And already what signs that the Spirit breathing on Margaret was truly the Spirit of God, and that she was conducted by His divine love!

Finally they decided, and after three months' reflec- tion she entered her great retreat, October 27, 1672, to prepare for her holy vows. What pen could portray Margaret's silence, recollection, profound union with the Lord during this blessed time? From the second day, abstraction became such that, in order to moderate a little the intensity of the love that consumed her,' the Superioress sent her into the field to mind an ass and its foal which had been purchased for the use of a sick Sister. Orders were given the holy novice to see that the animals did not enter the kitchen-garden by which the field was surrounded, and that the enclosure was protected. Margaret, in consequence, passed the day in running now after the ass, now after the foal, both

1 Contemp., p. 37, note.

Her Novitiate and her Profession. 105

strongly tempted by the garden-herbs. The fervent nov- ice would unquestionably have much preferred being on her knees at the foot of the holy altar; but she was where God wished her to be, and what more could she desire? "If," said she simply, " Saul found the king- dom of Israel when seeking his father's asses, why should I not obtain the kingdom of heaven while run- ning after these animals?" She did, indeed, find it; foi it was in this place, in the midst of these humble occu- pations, that, kneeling in a little cluster of hazel-nut trees which have survived the wreck of time ' and which are still pointed out to the pilgrim, that she received one of the greatest favors of her life. She has, however, given it to us in terms too brief and, above all, too ob- scure. " I was so contented in this occupation," she said, " and my Sovereign kept me such faithful company, that the running did rot disturb me. It was whilst thus employed that I received favors greater than I had ever before experienced. It was then that He made known to me particulars of His holy Passion and death never before communicated to me. But to write them would be interminable. Their number makes me sup- press all. I shall only say that it was this communica- tion that filled me with such love for the cross that I cannot live one moment without suffering. But this suffering must be in silence, without relief, consolation, or compassion. I long to die with the Sovereign of my soul, overwhelmed by crosses of all kinds, by oppro- brium, forgetfulness, humiliation, and contempt.2

The end of this retreat corresponded to its com- mencement. Never did greater delights inebriate a soul. Margaret Mary knew all the sweetness of love, the most tender, most ardent, most divinely consoling.

1 This cluster still exists. On the enormous roots that support it are nourished the strong green branches. Their leaves are distributed to pilgrims.

2 Memoire, p. 322.

io6 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

All was, however, mingled with the assurance of future crosses that would equal in bitterness the sweetness she had just tasted from the divine caresses. .

At last, November 6, 1672, in the present chapel of the convent of Paray, at the grate still in existence, Mar- garet Mary pronounced her holy vows. The details left us of this ceremony are as meagre as those of her taking the habit. But better than these, we know perfectly the sentiments that filled her heart, and the graces with which she was inundated. The Lord appeared to her and said: "Up to this moment I have been only thy Fiance. I shall henceforth be thy Spouse." He prom- ised never to leave her, but to treat her as His spouse, which promise He began at once to fulfil " in a man- ner," she says, " that I feel incapable of expressing, and of which I shall only say that He spoke to me and- treated me as a spouse of Tabor." ' Margaret, touched to the depths of her soul, in a transport of love wrote with her blood a total consecration of herself to the Lord. This act concludes in words that recall the sub- lime cry of St. Teresa or of St. Catharine of Siena:

" All in God, and nothing in self! All to God, and nothing to self! All for God, and nothing for self!"

She subscribed herself: " His unworthy spouse, SisUsr Margaret Mary, dead to the world."2

1 Memoire, p. 318.

2 "We must here express a deep regret. That sacred relic of the soul and the blood of Saint Margaret Mary is probably lost forever. It was in the possession of the worthy Mother Baudron, Superioress of the hospital of Paray, at the beginning of the Revolution. She knew well its value, and refused to part with it even for one instant. She consented to lend it only on the entreaty of an aged confessor of the faith, M. 1'Abbe Jean Gaudin, cure of Vaudebarrier, arch-priest of Charolles. He asked for it in the same spirit that led St. Hugh when dying to have exposed at his bedside the relics of St. Marcel, pope and martyr. M. Gaudin diec' in the odor of sanctity, but what has be-

Her Novitiate and her Profession. 107

We must recall those words of hers just read above that we may comprehend the true beauty of the voca- tion given her by God. In the day of her youth the Lord had said to her : " I shall be to thee the most beau- tiful, the richest, most powerful, most perfect of all lov- ers." 1 On the day of her entrance to the novitiate, He added: " This is the day of our betrothal." 2 Now there is only one step more. " Until this time I have been thy Fiance; from this day I wish to be thy Spouse." This is the whole religious life; for in the cloister as in the world, " It is not good for man to live alone." God, who has made us for an infinite love, has placed in us its hid- den sources. At six years it begins to spring or gush deeply and tenderly. We go out of ourselves to find some soul in sympathy with our own. Noble emotion, given by God and worthy of Him, whence are born family ties with all its joys! But in the multitude of souls devoured by the want of human sympathy, who are they that look above the earth ? Human hearts are not deep enough for them, human love not sufficiently strong nor beautiful. They have scarcely seen the world, and yet they despise it. They have not yet tasted the cup of love, and still they put it far from them. Not that they are destitute of sensibility and ten- derness; on the contrary, no heart is so insatiable as theirs; but not for created things they yearn — beaming and radiant they fly to offer their heart to Jesus Christ. Twenty times I have had this sight under my eyes. I have seen girls, young and charming, tearing themselves from the embraces of father and mother, abandoning at twenty the hopes and illusions of life; and it was from the greatness of their emotion at parting, the keen ten- derness of their adieux, that I discovered the beauty of

come of the sacred blood whose presence enabled him to die so well ?" {Histoire Populaire de la Bienheureuse, par M. 1'AbbS Cucherat, al moner of the hospital of Paray, p. 84.)

1 Memoire, p. 305. 2 Ibid., p. 314.

108 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

their heart and the power of the attraction that drew them. Three or four months pass, and behold, they reappear at the choir-grate for the sweet ceremony oi the taking of the habit. Look at them! No tears dim their eyes. Arrayed as young brides, ornamented with jewels and diamonds that they accept for one instant for the pleasure of casting them off publicly and tramp- ling them under foot, their brow bespeaks serenity so pious and so divine that I have never seen its like in an earthly union. They know to whom they give them- selves! And when, after twelve months of a second and definite trial, they reappear at the grille for the last time, to pronounce the irrevocable vows; when their voices are raised in the silence of the holy assembly to say: " O ye heavens, hear what I say, and let the earth listen to the words of my mouth ! It is to Thee, my Jesus, that my heart speaketh /" — it is not only joy, it is enthusiasm that makes their heart beat, and that betrays in the tremu- lous tones of their voice the divine passion that con- sumes them.

But who, then, is this Being, dead on a gibbet more than eighteen hundred years, and who still excites such enthusiasm? Who is this invisible Lover hidden from all eyes, who every day snatches from our side and from our very heart beings the dearest, the purest, the most charming, the most suited to enchant and console our life? Who is He? It is He who said to Margaret at the age of twenty: "I shall be to thee the most tender of lovers;" who said to her on the day of taking the habit: "This is the day of our betrothal;" who at her profession added: "Till now I have been thy Fiance; henceforth I wish to be thy Spouse." He, in fine, who made such promises is alone able to accomplish them. Whilst human loves perish one by one; whilst flowery wreaths fade on the brow of the young bride; whilst all other love deceives, because, alas! it promises more than it can give, and thus an inevitable melancholy tinges

Her Novitiate and her Profession. 109

every earthly union, — Jesus Christ, on the contrary, throws around souls consecrated to Him a charm that is incessantly renewed. Young, intrepid, and valiant hearts that have left all for Him, that can no more de- tach themselves from Him, He unites to Himself by sorrow as well as by joy; and, as He is a crucified Spouse, whether He inebriates with consolations or overwhelms with sufferings, He rejoices them all the same.

1 io Life of Saint Margaret Mary A la cogue.

CHAPTER VI.

FINAL EXTERIOR PREPARATIONS. LAST FINISHING STROKE WITHIN.

November 6, 1672— December 27, 1673.

" Ego dormio, et cor meum vigilat."

" I sleep, but my heart watcheth."' — Cant. v. 2.

" Satiabor cum apparuerit."

" I shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall appear." — Psalm xvi. 15

HE year following the profession of Sister Mar. garet Mary resembled the first days of spring- time when, after a long and silent preparation, nature suddenly bursts forth perfumed and blossomed under the influence of a genial dew. Thus it was in the soul of our saintly professed. From the day of her sol- emn vows, so rapid was her increase in virtue that the Whole community was astonished and touched. The rapidity of this progress was understood later, for only some months then separated us from the grand revela- tions of the Sacred Heart. But before that moment it was easy for observant minds to see with what delicacy God was preparing all things, that when He should speak His voice might be heard. The day after the Ascension, 1672, four or five months before Margaret Mary's pro- fession, the venerable Mother Hersant, having completed her six years of government, was recalled to Paris. She had not definitively decided Margaret's vocation, though she had given her the habit and declared that she would some day attain extraordinary sanctity. She was re- placed by Mother Marie-Francoise de Saumaise, whom God had chosen to be the first confidant of His intimate

Final Exterior Preparations. 1 1 1

communications to our saint. Born at Dijon, in 1620, she was at this time fifty-two years old. Descended from an old parliamentary family, she had inherited their distinguished manners and solid judgment. The latter was remarked even in her early childhood by the venerable Mother de Chantal, who predicted that she would some day be one of the best Superioresses of the Order. Though never having exercised that charge,, she arrived at Paray marvellously well prepared to fulfil it. She was possessed of good judgment and great decision of character. With a just mind, firm and clear, she was full of ardor, tempered, however, by ex- ceeding kindness and the rarest modesty. To these qualities she added a perfect knowledge of the Visitan- dine Rules, and one not less profound of God's workings in souls. To acquire the first science she had been in a grand school, that of the venerable Mother Brulard, Superioress of Dijon. She belonged to the old parlia- mentary family of Brulards, in which honor and justice, talent and business qualifications were hereditary with virtue.1 And, as to the second science, she had ac- quired it at a still higher school, one altogether in- comparable— that of Mother Anne-Seraphine Boulier, Superioress of Dijon, who has left on prayer and the love of God pages truly sublime, which disavow not her claims to being countrywoman of Bossuet.2 Thus prepared by that tender and delicate hand which does

1 Annales du Monastere de la Visitation de Dijon, published by M. l'abbe Colet, Vicar-General of Dijon (present Bishop of Lucon), Dijon, 1854, chap. xvii. and following. Mother Brulard 's grandmother was that Mme. Brulard, wife of the first President of the Parliament of Bourgogne, who was the intimate friend of Mme. de Chantal, and one of the dearest spiritual daughters of St. Francis de Sales.

2 Vie de la Venerable Mere Anne-Seraphine Boulier, died Superi- oress of the Visitation of Dijon, Sept. 1, 1683. Mgr. Colet has given this Life in the continuation of the Annales, p. 271. He has also given those pages of profound mysticism known under the name of " Avis de la Venerable Mere Anne-Seraphine Boulier," Annales, p. 393.

H2 Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque.

all with sweetness and strength, Mother de Saumau** had hardly crossed the threshold of the convent of Paray when her eyes were fixed on this humble and fer- vent novice, then in the eighteenth month of her novi- tiate, and whose extraordinary ways made her the sub- ject of so much inquietude. Mother de Saumaise was not slow to recognize in Margaret Mary the character- istics of the Spirit of God, and it was she who decided her admission to the holy profession of vows. She first took a precaution which most significantly reveals her prudence and faith. Margaret, distressed at the hesita- tion of the community, breathed out her sorrow at the feet of her Divine Master, and said to Him: " Ah, Lord, Thou wilt, then, be the cause of my being sent away!" The Lord reassured her, and charged her to say to her Superioress not to fear. Mother de Saumaise, animated with holy confidence, replied: "Very well; ask the Lord as an evidence of His promise to render you useful to the community by the practice of all our Rules. The Lord answered that she would be useful to the commun- ity in a way they should see later on. And laying down Himself the great law that preserves from all illusion, He promised to adjust His favors to the spirit of the Rules and the judgment of Superiors, to whom He wished her to be submissive in all things.1 We are now to see Mother Saumaise directing our saint in the midst of her perplexities and trials; recognizing the