Life of the venerable Louise de Marillac (Mademoiselle le Gras) foundress of the company of Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul

Front matter

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ON ae ae ee aes Ate rai wo yk av ae one

LIFE OF THE VENERABLE LOUISE DE MARILLAC

Preface

BY FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN, S.J.

My appreciation and love of the Sisters of Charity began before I made my first confession. We were then “somewhere in France,’ and I was allowed to accompany my bigger brothers and sisters, whose privilege it was to help Ma Seur in serving out soup twice a week to the poor of the town. For the most part the fishermen sat at tables, and bowls of soup with hunks of bread were provided for them. The women and children usually carried off their supplies in cans and baskets. Later on one of my sisters joined the Company, and, naturally enough, that fact brought me into closer touch with Louise de Marillac’s religious daughters.

I have known the Sisters now for over sixty years, and I have found them always and everywhere living on the same high plane of spiritual life. One could not discover anything more highly expressive of the word “ Catholic’ than the everyday life of the typical Sister of Charity. No work, relieving the poor, the sick, and the sad, is alien to them. When asked to minister in any form to the suffering members of Christ’s Mystical Body, I have never heard them plead, “ It is against our holy rule.”

Some few years ago I was appealing in Dublin for an x PREFACE orphanage under the care of the Daughters of St. Vincent de Paul. His Grace the present Archbishop was in the chair. Turning to him during the course of my address, I said, ‘““My Lord Archbishop, the outstanding characteristic of these Sisters is that you can switch them on to almost any good work in God’s Church, and they always get there.” At the close of my speech the Archbishop, who had put his name down fora donation worthy of his generous heart, turning to me, said, “‘ Father Bernard, switch my name on for double the sum I promised ; these are the Sisters for me.”

If before becoming a Jesuit I thought highly of the Sisters of Charity, since then I have thought ever so much more of them. I now know something more of their interior as well as exterior life. Their whole-hearted devotion to their “‘ Masters,’”’ the poor, positively lashes you into a fever heat of ambition to emulate their lovely example. Even in self-interest it is well to be the friends of the poor, for “ Theirs 1s the Kingdom of Heaven.” The Sisters are to the poor as an eye, a foot, a hand, and a heart—everything.

There is another cord which has drawn me to these Sisters who look up to St. Vincent as their Co-Founder, and it is this, that between him and my own Sainted Father Ignatius there are many points in common. Both were exceptionally magnanimous Souls with an almost instinctive dread of tethering rules. Each felt _ that the interior law of Charity ought to be rule and law enough; both alike would have no public recital of the Divine Office, nor would they sanction any distinctive religious habit, or draw up a catalogue of what works their subjects might or might not undertake. After the example of St. Ignatius, St. Vincent too made

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Obedience a very marked feature on the face of all rules, while ‘“ The Greater Glory of God” was to be the motto of both families alike, each of the two Saints describing his own as “ This least Company.” Louise insisted in her Conferences to the Sisters that their interior peace would be in the measure of their obedience.

I have called St. Vincent Co-founder with Louise de Marillac of the Company of Sisters of Charity. It is true he was so, but he might be more properly called its chief Spiritual Director. Between the Venerable Louise and her sainted Director there were no secrets apart ; both alike were inspired to found and form and fashion a company of religious women who were to fill up a gap daily yawning wider in the Church of God. Each holy soul supplied what the other had not, each complemented the work of the other, Vincent lending the results of his large experience among the poor, and Louise gathering the raw material, which her womanly hand prepared with love and care and patience, for the Saint’s inspiring counsel and direction.

Louise, if she had had the inclination, might easily have slipped into Court circles, where she would have been a shining light, but God drew this privileged soul to His own aristocracy, the poor, for whom she was destined under God’s own guidance to set up a Society which was to be the embodiment of all the works of mercy. When we look back at the modest beginning of this gigantic Institution in the Catholic Church, we are forcibly reminded of what Our Lord tells us about the growth and evolution of the mustard seed. Louise dropped the seed into good soil, and God fostered it to blossom and ripened it into fruit a hundredfold. Meanwhile, what difficulties had to be met and what xii 7 PREFACE objections to be answered! To the old conservative world this new Society of women looked almost revolutionary ; they were not to be called nuns, they were not to wear veils, nor to live behind grilles, nor to know enclosure, nor to inhabit what were called convents. You could not tether them to any one spot, nor limit their activities to any one special work, nor confine them to any one diocese or country. Their mission field was the Catholic Church and their interests in it the greater glory of God. Humanly speaking, it looked as if this new spiritual venture might easily be condemned as a new-fangled idea which no one wanted to see realised. Speaking of its early inception, Louise wrote, ‘‘ Could anything be more contemptible in the eyes of the world than our Institute in its beginning? Some village girls engaged to carry food and remedies, who, after awhile, were assembled to live together in community without making any change in their way of life or their clothes, or in the simplicity and roughness of their country habits.” Speaking of those early days of the Institute, Louise tells us that ‘‘ We hardly dared show ourselves in the streets in the beginning.’”’ And yet St. Vincent did not hesitate to call the vocation to which these simple and humble souls were called by God as “ the greatest in the world.” Before God their work was full of wisdom ; before the world it was folly.

So that is the way God starts works which are to become integral parts of His Church and are found flourishing wherever the standard of the Cross is set up for the healing of the nations. Certainly His ways are not ours, His choice of subjects is peculiar to Himself. Take Louise as an example of what I mean. She was a young widow with a troublesome boy, and with wretched

PREFACE xiii health. And yet how splendid and glorious was the use God made of her. In His hands Louise became an instrument for the accomplishment of His designs not only for the salvation of human souls, but for the saving of countless human bodies. Three years ago, when I was in China, and had the privilege of baptizing a number of foundlings rescued by the Sisters of Charity, in response to a question I put to an elderly Sister, she told me she had herself baptized more than 18,000 Chinese derelict babies. The Sisters of Charity are the Rescue Society of the Catholic Church.

Of course Louise had the advantage of the guidance and experience of a Saint, but she was no automaton in his hands; she had the liberty of a child of God, and made uncommon good use of it, consulting her spiritual guide not at every turn, but at the cross-roads of life when she was not certain about which direction to follow. And not only was Louise a self-determining personality, but she exercised quite a fascinating influence over her spiritual daughters, to whom she ever showed herself as a tender, loving, and patient mother. St. Vincent called her the most motherly of all mothers. One fine characteristic about her I must mention. She was always accessible to all and each of her children, and if she was too ill at ease through sickness to hold much conversation, she more than made up for it by her charm of manner, sweetness of smile, and parting word of encouragement. She was no more afraid of praising her friends than Our Lord Himself was.

It was an immense advantage to this young growing Society to be in the hands of one who was herself

_ subject to so many infirmities of health. The Sisters could always rely upon a mother’s sympathy in their

XiV PREFACE troubles. And be sure of this, there are not a few souls in religion as well as outside it who are being starved and perhaps hardened for the want of a helpful word, or a genial look, or a kindly smile. Some people I know contend that religious do not need such a poor and paltry thing as sympathy; my experience on the other hand goes to show they need more of it than others. It is sometimes their trial that they do not getit. Our Lord sought as well as gave it. Then how carefully and patiently Louise trained her daughters to clinging, childlike prayer, to close union with God, to living in His presence and in that habit of recollection which anchors the soul to repose in God and creates an atmosphere of peace and contentment. She never tired exhorting her daughters to exercise great patience and charity to their clients, whether foundlings, or galley-slaves, or lunatics, or what not. Nor did she forget the bodily needs of her children ; she knew that unless the Sisters were properly, if simply, fed and nourished, they must break down and become neurotic or neurasthenic. To me the wonder is, taking into consideration the strenuous life of a Sister of Charity, that there are not oftener lapses of health. It only shows that a willing soul can do an immense amount of work for God upon very indifferent health ; indeed I am not sure that robust health is always good for any of us; it is apt to make one too self-reliant and spiritually independent. There is nothing like a few pains and aches to drive us to God for courage and help. Whatever draws us to Him is precious.

Like many other holy souls, Louise was at times not a little anxious about her want of devotion and fervour when lying helpless upon a bed of sickness. It then occurred to her that if any work among the Sisters for

PREFACE XV the moment was going wrong, it was most probably due to the poor use she made of suffering—in other words, she blamed herself for not taking pleasure in pain. How often one’s spirituality, when put to the test, takes that turn! Of courseit is all wrong. If pain were a pleasure and did not hurt, it would cease to be pain. If, indeed, men and women were constituted like clams and oysters instead of being organised like human beings, they might possibly feel just as happy being forced open by a knife as lying comfortably in their beds. But it happens we are no such things as “natives ’’or “ bluepoints,” but, on the contrary, creatures with nervous systems which shrink from pain almost as instinctively and sensitively as Our Lord’s system itself did. If I remember rightly, we are told of Him not that He enjoyed, but that He endured the cross. Do not let us try to achieve more than this, lest, perhaps, we may deceive ourselves, and fall into mock spirituality.

A young guardsman told me, not many weeks ago, that as he lay in hospital abroad, the one and only wish which absorbed his being was that his mother might have been in the ward with him. But he was careful to add: ‘‘ However, if she had been there, she could have done nothing better than just to leave me alone.” That’s it. When even a most holy soul is suffering, say, from such ordinary ailments as lumbago, sciatica, or a sick headache, she does quite honestly long for the close presence of Our Lord, but having said to Him: ‘“ Dear Lord, please accept every breath I inhale asan act of love for what You are in Yourself, and every breath I exhale as an act of love for what You are to me,’ she will have to settle down calmly and bravely to the rack, and it will be heroism in her if her guardian Angel can

XVi PREFACE record that, “‘ having joy set before her she endured the cross.’ Heroic Louise stuck to her cross bravely to the end, nor must we blame her htt naturally she did not like it.

Here I must remind my readers of another characteristic lesson taught by Vincent and Louise to their — spiritual daughters. Throughout the whole story of the foundation of this Institute one is struck by the beautiful trust always and everywhere manifested in the Will of God. That “‘ prudence”’ often enough euphemistic for want of energy and enterprise, I can nowhere discover in the lives of Vincent or Louise. It did not seem to them so terriblea thing tomakeamistake. They felt you could not be sure that God was going to ripen all the seed sown in every field of enterprise, but that was no excuse for not getting busy for God and then leaving it to Him to determine what seed should and what seed should not grow. But the wonderful thing is that so much has been brought to perfection by the Institution.

What the Sisters of Charity start, that they finish, the secret of their success being trust in God; in other words, they practise spiritual common sense. I love the saying of Louise that, ‘“‘God asks more confidence of us than prudence,” and this other, “It seems to me that Our Lord would always rather have us act with trust in Him than with prudence.”

_ Mathurine Guérin, Louise’s secretary, gave the following account after her death of this episode in the holy Superior’s life: ‘“‘ As she had no special funds for building the house, she began it with great confidence in God’s goodness, and she remarked that every time she required money to pay the workmen, a sum, little or big, came quite unexpectedly, so that she admired the providence of

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God. She did not, however, fail to ask for alms towards the building, and when she met with refusals she thanked God.’ She was shrewdly businesslike in dealing with man, not so with God.

Living as we do in England amidst a “‘ community of shopkeepers,” as we call ourselves, it is well at times to be reminded that religion is not a business transaction across a counter, with bill receipted and change given ; but on the contrary, that it is a love affair between two friends, One of whom is ready to give and forgive and to forget. OneisGod. Life is too overwhelming a mystery to be run upon commercial lines. You have in the end, in spite of repeated general confessions, to come back to trust, for though you may not be conscious of any guilt or stain upon your soul, you still even then have to cry out with the psalmist, “If Thou, O Lord, wilt observe iniquities, Lord, who shall stand it?”’ Personally, I do not hesitate to say that if my love of God had not shaped itself into trust, I could have worked myself into an asylum long before my seventieth birthday.

Trust is love in repose, and we ought, as Louise reminded the Sisters, ‘‘ to take delectation init.” And the beauty of it is, it requires no learning or cleverness, but only that child-like simplicity and ingenuousness which Our Lord has reminded us He loves to see in those who call Him Friend. If you want to know how to put your trust in God, my advice to you is, study the life of any community of Sisters of Charity. And if you would learn how to delight in spending yourself upon the poor, get leave to accompany a “‘cornetted”’ Sister into the slums of some populous town. You, too, would then soon discover that Our Lord makes His sacred presence in a very special way felt when you are bent on errands of b

Xvill PREFACE mercy in some slum-warren. If reverently I may say it, you feel He is patting you on the back, and that He is giving lightness and elasticity to worn-out limbs and weary feet.

What happened to Sister André in St. Vincent’s day is not a very uncommon experience among workers in the poorer quarters of our cities in our own time. Sister André on her death-bed was asked by the Saint if there was anything in her past religious life to cause her anxiety. ‘“‘No, Father, none at all,” came the ready reply, “unless it be that I took too much pleasure in serving the poor.’’ Such is the wine-like delight that springs out of social intercourse with nature's gentlefolk —the poor, that one almost dreads later on to hear the word: “‘ You have already had your reward.”

I wish that space permitted me to refer to the “‘ Ladies of Charity,” but in the course of this interesting volume you will discover that the Sisters of Charity might never have been heard of at all in the history of the Church, if it had not been for the Confraternity of Ladies whose work was in a very special way prepared and helped by the Sisters, who we are told had “‘ come into the general scheme, providentially ordained, whereby God has given us a means of doing by their hands what we are unable to do by our own.”” So wrote St. Vincent to M. de la Fosse when referring to the relations of the Sisters to the Ladies of Charity. If girls of the leisured classes only recognised more fully the spiritual aids to life that are to be found in the good works of the Ladies of Charity, there would be no keeping them from becoming energising and enterprising members of it in their own particular districts. It would then flourish everywhere.

Before closing this preface, the defects of which may

PREFACE X1X perhaps be excused as I have had to write it from a sick bed, let me again remind my readers that the source and origin of the Sisters’ enthusiasm for the poor is their enthusiasm for Jesus Christ. There is no one but needs some strong prop on which to lean in days of distress with all his weight and might. When you become a religious, God withdraws these natural supports one by one in order to teach the consecrated soul how to lean upon His arm only for support, and how to draw from His heart only for comfort and courage. To a Sister of Charity Our Lord is not only Master and Saviour, but also Model, Friend, and Spouse. With the Apostle she can say, “I live now, not I, but Christ liveth in me.’ She lives the Christ-life, she thinks the Christ-thought, she says the Christ-word, she does the Christ-action and finally evolves the Christcharacter. Consequently, as He lived and toiled and bled and died in order to save human souls, so is the Sister of Charity prepared as His bride, herself to do no less. She is charged like a battery with the fires of enthusiasm, and can only be held in check by the reins of obedience from spending herself and being spent in the service of her poorer brothers and sisters.

If our Catholic debutantes will only peruse the volume to which these words are a preface, I venture to think that thousands more of them would pause on the threshold of the world of Society and Fashion, and plead frequently and fervently to be called by God to become His spouses with the daughters of Louise de Marillac. Some of these giris would, I know, answer me, “‘ Father, I am not called to any such life”’ ; to which I answer, ““Why do you not then ask to be? “Ask and you shall receive.’’’ Others again will say, xx PREFACE

“‘ Father, I am not worthy to be made use of by God for such beautiful work.’ To them I answer, “In Our Lord’s hands did not clay and spittle bring sight to the blind? Surely by an effort of will you might live up to such a blend as that? In God’s hands even if you can yourself do nothing, He, unless you resist, can in and through you do whatever He wills. When I am in the pulpit, what inspires me with hope, as a preacher of the Word, that God is going to make use of me, is not only the fact that for the moment I have the monopoly of the Word, but more especially the fact that Our Lord must be longing much more than I could be to do good to His people seated around me. Of course we are all unworthy. If we waited till we were worthy, we should have to give up the sacraments, prayer, and even all hope itself of salvation. Just give yourself, with all your faults huddled on your back, to our dear and blessed Lord, and be sure He will not withdraw to let you fall. Beneath you, you will feel the ‘ Everlasting Arm.’ ”’

A niece of mine about to become a Sister of Charity, © asked me what she could do, being so unworthy, to fit herself for the vocation which it was her ambition to embrace. My advice to her was this, “‘ Dear child, be in the hands of God as clay in the hands of the potter. Leave it to Him to shape you into the vessel of election for which He designs you. If only you fling yourself - at His feet, giving yourself to Him entirely, He will in turn give Himself to you entirely.’ The child went her way, was taken up by God, was shaped into the character He wanted, and now, having been made perfect in a short time, she is in possession of Him entirely and for ever.

On one occasion, in a conference St. Vincent exclaimed :

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“‘ My Sisters, if we could see the state of the soul of a Sister of Charity who works wholly for God, we should be rapt in admiration; we should see it shining like the sun. Wecould not look at it without being dazzled. But we shall see it in Heaven.” To-day, God, Our Lord, beholds more than thirty thousand daughters of His servant, the Venerable Louise de Marillac, carrying forward in all parts of His Church, to those who need them most, her mission of Hope and her message of Mercy.

And pray observe how attractive the Sisters make religion. They show the hand-worker that it is worth while. God Almighty has no better advertisement for His spiritual wares among the poor than the presence in their midst of these white-winged Sisters who minister like Angels of Paradise to the temporal and spiritual wants of God’s poor. These Sisters are, as Pius X. once said to me of them, “‘ so patient, so gentle, so charitable.” They have learned from their intimacy with their Divine Master in prayer how to please and not to hurt His fellow-workers in the slums.

The Sisters know our Lord’s own feelings were so finely attuned to His own highly organised Nature that He was as much pained, say by the studied rudeness of Simon, the Pharisee, as He was pleased by the thoughtful kindness of Magdalen, the penitent. To-day, they argue, Jesus is still as truly Man as Heistruly God. Therefore they resolve to teach others like themselves never to hurt but always to please the Man-God.

This in summary is the religion of the Daughters of Venerable Louise, and they pass it on through the Ladies of Charity to all their clients.

In conclusion, let me say that there can be no finer monument erected to the holy Foundress’ sacred memory

Xxil PREFACE than her Communities living and energising wherever they possess an open house; nor can there be stronger witness to her sanctity than the lives themselves of these spiritual daughters who, living by her rule, sustained by her example, and encouraged by her conferences, are to be seen like Our Lord, “going about doing good ’’—Saviours of the people.

BERNARD VAUGHAN, S.J.

FEAstT oF ALL SAINTS, 1916.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

THAT, so far, no Life of the Venerable Louise de Marillac has been written in the English language is not due to lack of material. Gobillon, her first biographer, wrote of her whilst her memory was still green, his book being published in 1676, sixteen years after her death. This Life owes its special interest to the fact that its author was Rector of the parish of St. Laurent, in which the holy foundress spent the last ten years of her life; it may therefore be looked upon as based on first-hand knowledge. It is, however, short, and leaves much of her history untold. These gaps have been filled up during the last century through the indefatigable labours of a member of the company, Sister Marie de Geoffre de Chabrignac, who devoted upwards of thirty years to collecting, sifting, and cataloguing all the documents contained in the Archives of the Mother-house in Paris and elsewhere relating to the history of the venerable superior. Amongst the treasures which she unearthed were 726 letters of Louise to her Daughters and other correspondents.

A second Life of Louise de Marillac by the Comtesse de Richemont appeared in 1894. Though Mme. de Richemont did not avail herself of Sister Marie de Geoffre’s researches, under the impression, it is said, that a Life embodying them would be given to the world by a member of the company, yet her biography contributes much to our knowledge of the holy foundress.

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XXIV AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Finally, in the year 1897 Mgr. Baunard, at whose disposal all the above-mentioned invaluable materials were placed, brought out what may be considered the standard Life of the Venerable Louise de Marillac. The author of the English biography has availed herself largely of the works of her predecessors, more especially of that of Mgr. Baunard, from which she has not hesitated to quote freely, while she has also borrowed from St. Vincent de Paul’s biographers Abelly and Maynard. She wishes to record her gratitude to the community at the English Mother-house of the company at Mill Hill, and to Fr. Byrne, C.M., for the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul and other works which they have kindly placed at her disposal in order to facilitate what has truly been to her a labour of love.

Chapter I

Ancestry, parents, and birth of Louise de Marillac—Her education— Death of her father—She marries Antoine Le Gras, secretary of Marie de Medicis—Birth of a son—Correspondence between Louise and her uncle, and the Bishop de Belley—She suffers from severe spiritual trials—Whit Sunday sees her fears set to rest—lIllness and death of Antoine Le Gras . ‘ pp. 1-21

CHARTER If

Louise starts a new life under M. Vincent’s direction—She moves from the Marais to a less fashionable quarter—She divides her time between prayer and work for the poor—Notes of retreats made by Louise—Her act of consecration to God and the service of the poor—Michel Le Gras goes to college—M. Vincent begins to employ Louise in his philanthropic works—The Associations of Ladies of Charity—The “‘ Pilgrim of Christ” . pp. 22-38

CHAPTER tT

Vincent de Paul’s early life—He is providentially made aware of the spiritual destitution of rural parishes—Also of their material wants—He founds Associations of Charity and the Congregations of Priests of the Mission—Louise starts on her first tour of inspection of the Associations—Rural districts of France in 1630 —Outbreak of plague in Paris—Louise resumes (1631) her labours in the country—She starts catechism classes—Her work at Beauvais is attended with great success ° ° . PP- 39-59

XXV

XXVi CONTENTS

CHAPTER IV

Trials of Louise—Her uncle, Marshal Louis de Marillac, is arrested on

The

The charge of embezzlement—He is found guilty and suffers extreme penalty of the law—Michel is imprisoned—He dies at Chateaudun —M. Vincent’s letters of sympathy to Louise—He dissuades her from taking any share in efforts to mitigate these sentences— Louise continues to labour for the good of souls—Her anxieties about her son . : : : : ‘ : pp. 60-72

CELA PARE IR a foundations laid of the Company of Sisters of Charity—The first Sisters are chosen from the peasant class—M. Vincent’s definition of the type—Marguerite Naseau, a heroine of Charity—Her death of the plague—Louise asks to be allowed to gather the Sisters together in a community—M. Vincent at first refuses—He afterwards consents—Louise makes a beginning of four Sisters on 29th of November, 1633—Trying nature of first recruits—Louise gives them a rule of life—M. Vincent explains and comments on it in a conference—The occasion a memorable one—It marks an entirely fresh departure in the Church . A PP- 73-94

CHAPTER VI

H6tel Dieu of Paris—Its shortcomings—Mme. Goussault and other charitable women attempt to remedy them—A Committee is formed with M. Vincent as president—His instructions to them— Louise’s share in the work, which embraces the spiritual as well as the material succour of the patients—The plague breaks out in the hospital and claims victims amongst the lady visitors and company—Louise spends some months inspecting Charités in the country—Her house becoming too small for increasing numbers, she leaves it for one at La Chapelle . ; Pp. 95-114