The life of S. Vincent de Paul; with an appendix, containing some of his letters

Front matter

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Chapter I

Introduction — Birth of Vincent de Paul — His early life, education, and ordination . ...

CHAPTEE II.

Vincent's captivity in Barbary — Escape — He goes to Rome — Is sent on a confidential message to Paris — Accepts the cure of Clichy, and afterwards the office of chaplain and tutor in the house of the Comte de Joigny — His first Mission . 18

Chapter III

Vincent leaves the house of M. de Gondi, and goes to Chatillon — Distress of the Count and Countess — His work at Chatillon — Return — Death of the Countess — Foundation of the Congregation of Mission Priests . 42 vi Contents

Chapter IV. Paqe

Vincent is appointed Confessor to the Convent of the Visitation, and Chaplain-general of Convents and galley-slaves — Goes to Marseilles — Visits Macon — Returns to the College des Bons Enfants— Sketch of his personal appearance and character ... 55

CHAPTER V. -Rapid

growth — Vincent accepts the Priory of S. Lazarus — Need of Missions — Method of conducting them 76

Chapter VI

Appalling state of the clergy — The Bishop of Beauvais consults Vincent — Institution of Retreats for the Ordinands — Rules, studies, and exercises of the Retreats — Vincent promotes the use of Retreats for all sorts of persons . . . . 102

Chapter X

Accession of Louis nv. — Regency of the Queen-Mother — She appoints Vincent one of a Council of six, to manage all affairs of Church patronage — His discharge of the duties of this office . . 186

CHAPTER XL

Daily life of Vincent de Paul — His humility — His dealings with and guidance of individual souls . . 207

Chapter XII

Iusurrection of the Fronde — Vincent goes to S. Germaius to try to effect a reconciliation between the Queen and Parliament — He makes a visitation tour — His illness at Richelieu — Return to Paris— His infirmities increase- Relief sent to Champagne and Picardy— Foundation of

■ the Hospital of the Name of Jesus . 282

Preface

T I "^HE authorities which have been consulted for this little book are, Vie de S. "Vincent de Paul, par Louis Abelly, Eveque de Eodez ; Vie de S. Vincent de Paul, par Collet, Pr&tre de la Mission ; L'Esprit de S. Vincent de Paul, par M. Andre" Joseph Ansart ; Vie de la venerable Louise de Marillac, veuve de M. le Gras, par M. Gobillon, revue, corrigfe, et augmented par Collet; S. Vincent de Paul, sa vie, son temps, ses oeuvres, son influence, par M. lAbbe" Maynard ; and Sismondi's Histoire des Francais.

Abelly and Collet were both contemporaries of S. Vincent's, though his juniors. Collet was himself a Lazarist, and Abelly frequented the Tuesday conferences at S. Lazarus ; their acx Preface

counts of him must therefore have been written while his memory was yet fresh in the hearts of many. The Life which bears the name of Bishop Abelly was not however really written by him. After the death of S. Vincent, his children at once set about collecting all that they could learn or remember about him; it was put together by one of their number who had been his secretary, and of late years almost his inseparable companion, and at the request of the Community the Bishop of Bodez consented to let it appear under his name. This, together with the Life by Collet, which was published soon after, has been the foundation of all later lives of S. Vincent de Paul ; but the Abbe" Maynard, while still taking them for the basis of his work, has added much interesting matter, derived from original research. The references which he gives, many of them to the National Archives at Paris, as well as to the Archives and records belonging especially to the Community of S. Lazarus, have been taken on

Preface xi

trust, without any attempt to verify them, which would have been beyond the writer's powers.

~No collection of S. Vincent's Letters has ever been published. Those which have been added as an Appendix to this volume, are a few which have been met with, here and there, in the books named above, too precious to lose, but which it seemed better to print separately, than to introduce into the body of the work.

INTROD UCTION.

r I THERE are certain characteristic features in the life of S. Vincent de Paul which have a peculiar interest and attractiveness to the English Churchman.

1. The absence of the wonderful and extraordinary in the main course and incidents of his life. His saintliness was not formed on an ascetic and contemplative model, removed from the condition or beyond the imitation of ordinary Christians. There is in it a sort of homeliness and simplicity throughout. It is not formed or matured by any great or marvellous acts ; it is not the result of some crisis in his life, something calling him out from common things, and giving a marked character to his after course. In his whole life, as recorded by his biographers, there xiv Introduction were but three incidents of an extraordinary nature, and of those three incidents to one only the word miraculous belongs, and that merely in the sense in which a marked answer to prayer is miraculous. In' general his life is simple, uniform, unbroken. It is, so to say, all of a piece. From the beginning to the end it is made up of ordinary actions done extraordinarily well — of ordinary opportunities never impetuously grasped at, never hastily seized, but never let pass, and, when once laid hold of, followed out carefully and perseveringly with eminent common sense, and what may be called worldly wisdom. There is in this evenness — this absence of the startling and wonderful — this accommoelation to and occupation with the actual circumstances of daily life, that which approves itself to our national character, which is of a practical and somewhat unenthusiastic temperament. This characteristic feature marks our religious and devotional as well as our social ways ; for it has been remarked, and we must sorrowfully confess with much truth, that " English Chris-

Introduction xv tianity is the most unsupernatural form of that institution."

S. Vincent's life is one of steady onward progress, devoted unbrokenly to one end. From first to last he is the same man, with the same dispositions, the same graces, the same manner of dealing with whatever came before him. From the time that his early piety, in the midst of the common occupations of a peasant boy, marked his suitableness for the sacred ministry and gave the direction to his after life, there is no great change.

He is Tutor in a private family ; Master of a country school ; Priest of a suburban parish ; Chaplain in a nobleman's establishment ; Minister of State, and confidential adviser of his Sovereign on the most important matters that pass through royal hands ; Founder and Director of great institutions : wherever and whatever he is, we find him diligently engaged in planning and carrying out practical works for the benefit of those intrusted to his care, and practical schemes for the remedy of evils which came across him in the xvi Introduction discharge of his various duties. But all with oue simple definite aim and end, viz. — the glory of God in the welfare of souls.

2. His life is not that of one gifted with striking intellectual powers; his successes were not the result of genius, nor of any special gifts or natural advantages of body or mind. Still less were they due to any influence of worldly position ; he had no advantages of high birth, or station, or private interest, to give him a start, and point the direction of his future career. In all these respects he was a striking contrast to his saintly contemporary S. Francis de Sales, on whom such things were so largely bestowed. Like Amos, Vincent might have said, " I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son, but I was an herdman, and the Lord took me as I followed the flock." He was a peasant, the son of a peasant. By unwearied industry and self-denial he acquired the education needful to obtain Holy Orders, and then he simply availed himself of the conditions and circumstances which belong more or less to the life of every parish priest.

Introduction xvii

He did not originate any of his great works by the direction of his own choice or will, but he simply took up and followed what was brought before him in the course of his ordinary duties, or what was laid upon him by others, to whose judgment he owed deference and submission. The four great institutions which he founded and left in active operation, and which have from that time been great instruments for abiding good in the Church, were all suggested by the needs which were brought before him, or by the crying evils of the time, with which he was brought in contact. They were dealt with first of all partially, locally, and, as might be said, bit by bit ; begun with the most unpretending machinery, they grew into their great proportions gradually, and from actual experience of their excellence and efficiency.

3. That which makes his life specially interesting to us at this day, is that those four institutions which occupied him most, in which he laboured most earnestly, and was most manifestly the instrument of good to the Church, are prexviii Introduction cisely those which during the last few years have been revived and partially organized amongst purselves. Three of them — namely, Missions, Eetreats, and the employment of religious women in the care of the poor, and other works of mercy, — may be said to have become institutions in the English Church. The fourth, for the better training and preparation of candidates for Holy Orders, has been for some years dealt with, in part, by the establishment of Theological Colleges in several of our dioceses ; but that part of S. Vincent's plan which had for its object to make the actual time of ordination a time of spiritual work, to lift the immediate preparation for it out of a mere examination into intellectual fitness, and impress upon it a deeply sacred character, has not yet found place among us.

Individual Bishops have expressed strongly their sense of the unsatisfactoriness of the three or four days of examination before the Ordination Sunday, and their wish to give a higher and more searching devotional tone to that period of very short, though closer intercourse than may

Introduction xix perhaps ever again occur, between them and their candidates for ordination. But, as yet, no systematic plan has been attempted for keeping the Ember Week free from the distractions and excitement of a mere competitive examination.

Who that has had anything to do with the conduct of Ordinations, whether as Bishop or Examining Chaplain, has not felt how much better it would be if the necessary examination into the attainments of the candidates could be gone through previously, so as to leave the Ember Week free to be spent in prayer, meditation, and spiritual exercises, to which the Ordinands might come with tranquil minds, not agitated and distracted, as they now can hardly help being, by the efforts and suspense of their examination? Who can tell the blessing that such a time of Eetreat for quiet spiritual preparation might be to those about to take upon them the sacred offices to which they are severally called? A time spent in conferences and addresses on the work of their future calling, on the spirit in which they should address them-

Introduction selves to it, and on the best methods of dealing with the difficulties and anxieties which await them in the care of souls. None, I believe, would welcome such a change in the occupation of those feAV days with more sincere thankfulness than the Ordinands themselves.

The advantages are so obvious, and so readily acknowledged by all concerned, that probably something of the sort would ere now have been attempted if it were not for the practical difficulties attending it. They are considerable, but surely they need not be insuperable. The increased length of time to be spent in the Cathedral city, or other place appointed for the ordination, and the consequent increased expense of board and lodging, would, of course, be a serious hindrance to most of the candidates ; and here, as in so many other ways, we feel our sore disadvantage in the loss of our Eeligious Houses. No S. Lazarus opens its hospitable doors, and puts its spacious rooms at the disposal of the candidates. But we may observe that even S. Lazarus would not have been able to do all without help ; and

Introduction xxi when we read of one lady contributing 1000 francs at every ordination — that is (as the custom then was, in the Diocese of Paris), five times a year — for five years, the thought arises, whether, amongst our good laymen who have so often shown their willingness to help liberally the goodworks of the Church, there might not be some who, if they knew the need, and felt the incalculable benefit there might be, would undertake to do something of the same kind.

After all, this is not a difficulty which it would require any great effort to surmount. The chief and most serious difficulties are of another kind. They would require careful consideration beforehand. But a Bishop who had a clear conviction of the blessed results which might be attained, would neither be deterred from trying, nor fail in the main object sought. There would be failures in particular points, particulars which, after a first trial, would need changing and adjusting; there might be disappointments, dissatisfaction, and complaints at first; but where all had, more or less sincerely, one common end xxii Introduction in view, that end could not fail to be, in a measure, attained. No doubt it would be an anxious experiment, but each ordination would strengthen a Bishop's hands, and give that confidence which is the result of assured conviction and proved success. This is a subject which might profitably occupy the attention of our Church Congresses and Diocesan Synods. If once adopted and successfully carried out in any one diocese, it would be almost certain to spread, and our whole Church would, we may hope, soon feel the good effects.

This short sketch does not profess to give anything like a complete history of all S. Vincent de Paul's good works. Probably it would not be far from the truth to say that the half has not been told here. The writer has rather sought to describe with some fulness those principal undertakings to which his life was devoted; and they have been treated with more of detail than might otherwise have seemed desirable in a book intended for general reading,

Introduction with the thought, that to many amongst us such details might be interesting, as furnishing hints for our practical guidance, in our endeavours to employ the same or like agencies. But, after all, the chief profit to be" derived is from the study of his own character, in the wonderful saintliness to which he attained, under ordinary circumstances, with ordinary gifts, by a faithful correspondence with the grace of God. It is true that S. Vincent de Paul rose to great distinction, and played a very prominent part in his generation, and has left an honoured name behind. Nevertheless they were not what are accounted extraordinary or brilliant gifts which brought him to such honour. His life is the triumph of unworldliness, humility, a constant recollection of the presence of God, and a single eye to His glory. These things, under God, made him great as well as good ; but the graces themselves are the portion of His saints for ever, whether known or unknown, whether great in the world's eye, or insignificant and lowly, whether in a palace, as Madame Louise, — on a throne, like S. Francis de Sales, — xxiv Introduction or with those who never rise in the world above the obscurity of their condition. In this true nobility of the city of God, there are no distinctions of earthly rank and greatness. " He taketh up the simple out of the dust, and lifteth the poor out of the mire, that He may set him with the princes, even with the princes of His people " (Psalm cxiii. 6, 7).

E. F. W.

ROWNHAMS,

October 1873.

Chapter I

INTRODUCTION : BIRTH OF VINCENT DE PAUL ; HIS EARLY LIFE, EDUCATION, AND ORDINATION.

~| TABDLY ever, perhaps, in the history of the Christian Church, had more wide-spread corruption prevailed, and the spiritual life sunk to a lower ebb, than in the Church of France during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The self-indulgent and too often scandalous lives of the Clergy had brought the holy office of the Priesthood into almost universal contempt; that a man of any birth or position in the world should take holy orders was looked upon as a degradation only to be endured for the sake of some considerable emolument attaching to it, which might serve as an excuse for the disgrace in the eyes of the world. And this feeling was increased in men's minds when they saw the too common abuse, by which the lucrative benefices of the Church were disposed of, not to do the work for which the pious authors of those rich endowments intended them — for the glory of God and the good of souls — but bestowed by Court favour or intrigue, on most unworthy ecclesiastics, not unfrequently even upon laymen and children.

While this state of things existed among the Clergy, it followed of necessity that the people were sunk in sin and ignorance. The sheep of the flock were not likely to be cared for by shepherds such as these, who ate " the fat and clothed themselves with the wool," but were at no pains to instruct them even in the first principles of the faith, or to feed their souls with the Word and Sacraments of the Gospel; so that, of the rural parts of the country, it might almost be said, that " darkness covered the land, and gross darkness the people.''

In the towns, and amongst the educated, there was more light, but it was too often "light without love." Luxury and unblushing vice prevailed among the rich ; spiritual works of mercy for the souls of men were almost unknown, and the duties of charity were commonly considered to be fulfilled by an occasional alms to the beggars who thronged the streets ; while large-hearted, systematic, selfdenying charity was rarely to be met with.

Some noble exceptions no doubt there were : some in all ranks, from the highest to the lowest, ecclesi-

Introduction astics and lay people, who by the grace of God kept faith and purity amid the widespread corruption ; but the witness of history is too clear and consistent to leave room for doubt as to the general condition of things, and as we gaze upon the melancholy picture, we cannot wonder that the crying evils of the times should have stirred men's spirits, and roused in them a burning indignation; and that those whose eyes were opened to see how the holiest things were abused and profaned, should have yearned to right the wrongs which they beheld. And while we feel that their impatient and over-eager attempts to do so brought about the unhappy schism by which western Christendom has ever since been rent asunder, and the sad effects of which meet us at every turn, we must not forget how great the provocation was, nor how much of the grievous sin they have to answer for, who by their evil lives brought such scandal upon the Church and loosened her hold upon her children. Eather, with aching ,hearts, let us confess the wrong on both sides, as has been done by a thoughtful writer of our own day, and pray unceasingly for the fulfilment of the hope expressed in the following noble passage : —

"It is undeniable that Priests and Popes, deaf to the voice of conscience, and without excuse, have themselves too often been found wanting when it depended upon them alone to implant a purer life ; or, by the scandalous aims of their own lives, they have even extinguished the glimmering wick, where they ought to have revived the flame.

" Hell has swallowed them up. Catholics must never shrink from such avowals, and they never have shrunk from them. Indeed it would be utterly vain to attempt to elude them, since Protestants furnish in themselves a perfectly irrefragable proof of the manifold neglects into which the people had fallen in the fifteenth century. Never could such a doctrine as theirs have sprung up, still less could it have spread so widely, if individual teachers and Priests had fulfilled their vocation. Verily the ignorance cannot have been small which could find attraction in such a system of faith as that of the Keformers. Protestants may safely estimate the greatness of the evils which at that time weighed down the Church, by the greatness of the errors into which they fell.

" This is the ground upon which Catholics and ^Protestants will one day in great measure meet, and hold out their hands to one another. Consciencestricken both must confess, We have all been wrong ;

Introduction it is the Church only which cannot err. We all have sinned ; she alone is faultless upon earth. This open confession of common guilt will be closely followed by a happy reconciliation. In the meantime we still smart under the inexpressible pain of the wound which was then inflicted, a pain which can only be alleviated by the consciousness that the wound has become an issue, through which are carried away all the impurities which men have introduced within the pale of the Church."1

The spirit of lawlessness which Protestantism let loose, on the one hand, and on the other, the almost fiendish cruelty which made the extirpation of heresy a cloak for the commission of the most horrible crimes, frightfully increased the miseries of those times ; and in France especially, almost incessant civil wars, embittered by the religious element which at that time was so largely mixed up in them, added all their horrors to the unhappy condition of the people.

Such was the state of things when God, who had already rekindled the light, and quickened the life of His Church elsewhere, by the gifts and graces bestowed upon a St. Charles Borromeo, a St. Philip Neri, a St. Theresa, and, almost contemporaneously, a St. Francis de Sales, was pleased to raise up, in

a peasant's cottage, in an humble and unknown corner of this distracted land, His faithful servant, Vincent de Paul, and to make of him an instrument of wonderful efficacy for repairing the breaches of His Church, healing her wounds, pouring new life and vigour into her inner being, and causing the withered and apparently well-nigh blighted tree to blossom again, and bear almost unexampled fruits of charity and good works.

The name of S. Vincent de Paul is familiar to us in connexion with the Order of Sisters which he founded for active works of mercy among the sick, the poor, and the ignorant; but his other great foundation of Mission Priests, now commonly called Lazarists from the name of their convent, is not so generally known ; and perhaps most English readers are hardly aware of the immense work which he was the means, under God, of accomplishing for the improvement of the clergy. Feeling deeply that no really abiding good could be hoped for among the people, while their teachers and guides were themselves ill instructed, and men of corrupt lives, he set himself to effect their reformation by various means, such as the careful preliminary instruction and preparation of the candidates for Holy Orders, the founding of ecclesiastical seminaries for their eduga-

Birth 7

tion and training ; the institution of Retreats and spiritual conferences for the clergy, whereby the faith and devotion which are too easily dulled by contact with the world, even though it be in the retirement of a country parish, might be rekindled, and thus the scandals caused by a corrupt and worldly-minded Priesthood might be removed.

Some idea, though necessarily a very imperfect one, of the unwearied zeal with which he wrought, and of the wonderful success with which it pleased God to bless his labours, manifested in the true reformation which was brought about by his exertions, will, it is hoped, be gathered from the short sketch which follows of the life of this saintly man.

It was on Easter Tuesday, the 24th of April, in the year 1576, that Vincent de Paul was born, in the little village of Pouy, near Dax, a small town and seat of a bishopric, situated on the edge of the Landes of Bordeaux, not far from the base of the Pyrenees.

His parents, Jean or Guillaume de Paul, for both names are given by biographers, and Bertrande, nie, de Moras, were peasant farmers, owning a little land and cultivating it by their own labour. Both appear to have been persons of blameless character, who, • amid the general corruption, led lives of innocence and uprightness. They had six children, four boys and two girls, and all took their share in the labours of the field. Vincent was the third ; from his earliest childhood he was employed like the rest in the work of the farm, and his special charge seems to have been, like David's, to keep his father's sheep and lead them to pasture.

It is said that on the open plain where much of his time was spent in charge of the flock, there stood an aged oak hollowed by the decay of centuries. This tree was his shelter from rain, his protection from the heat of the sun, his watch-tower from whence he kept guard over his sheep, and in the hollow trunk he had arranged for himself a little oratory, where when quite a child he spent much of his time in prayer.

In spite of his lowly employment there were not wanting in the little shepherd boy, signs of unusual intelligence, marking him out as destined to be something more than a herdsman, and his father resolved to give him such an education as might fit him for the Priesthood.

The worthy peasant's thoughts on this subject do not seem to have risen above the level of his times. His chief motive in coming to this resolution was the hope that his son Vincent might eventually be-

Early Life, etc. 9

come possessed of some benefice, the income of which might be employed by him in enriching the other members of his family.

Jean de Paul did not live to see his son in holy orders ; if he had, he would have been disappointed in this expectation ; for Vincent from the first looked upon the revenues of the Church as only held in trust by her ministers for the service of God and the poor, and believed that for an ecclesiastic to employ them in enriching his own family was a sin and abuse which could never bring a blessing.

It was not without a struggle that he made this the rule of his life, as we learn from his own words in a conference in which he was dwelling upon the need of detachment from all earthly ties in those who would attain to the perfection of the priestly character. To illustrate his meaning, he spoke of a visit which he had paid to his native place, thirty-six years before, and of the trial it had been to him. " Having spent," he says, " eight or ten days among my relations, to instruct them in the way of salvation, and to lead them to lay aside all desires of wealth, in which I went so far as to tell them that they must expect nothing from me, that if I had chests of gold and silver I would give them nothing, because an ecclesiastic who possesses anything, owes it to God and the poor ; the day I left them, it was such grief to me to leave my poor relations, that I did nothing but weep all along the road; I wept almost without ceasing ; and after these tears came the thought how to help them, and put them in a better condition ; to give this to one, that to another. Touched with the thought of them, I was in my mind dividing all I had amongst them, and even what I had not. I tell it to my shame, and because perhaps God permitted this, to make me understand better the importance of the evangelical counsel of which we are speaking. I was for three months a prey to this importunate desire to advance my brothers and sisters ; it was a continual weight upon my poor spirit."

This touching confession would not have been needed to convince us that it was in no selfish or unloving spirit that Vincent all his life long refused to do anything to enrich his own family ; his whole life and character forbid the thought of any want of tenderness and affection towards those who were bound to him by natural ties.

From his earliest years Vincent had been remarkable for charity, and a readiness to help the distressed to the utmost of his power. It is on record that when as a boy he took his father's corn to the mill