A Royal Nun.
Among the pleasant alleys of Versailles, or under the stately groves of St. Cloud, or in the grand corridors of the Tuileries, might often have been seen, about the year 1773, pacing up and down together in tender and confidential converse, two young maidens in the early bloom of youth, and often by their side would sport a careless, wilful, but engaging child some eight or nine years old. These three young girls were all of royal birth, and bound together by the ties of close relationship; they were the sisters and cousin of a great king; their lineage one of the proudest of the earth; they were all fair to look upon, and all endowed with mental gifts of no mean order. How bright looked their future! Monarchs often sought their hands in marriage, and men speculated on their fate, and wondered which should form the most brilliant alliance. Could the angels who guarded their footsteps have revealed their future, how the wise men of this world would have laughed the prophecy to scorn! Yet above those fair young heads hangs a strange destiny. For one the martyr's palm; the name of another was to echo within the walls of St. Peter, as of her whom the church delighteth to honor; the third was to wear the veil of the religious through dangers and under vicissitudes such as seldom fall to the lot of any woman. Those of whom we speak were these: Clotilde and Elizabeth of France, sisters of Louis XVI., and Louise de Bourbon Condé, their cousin. Louise and Clotilde, almost of the same age, were bound together in close intimacy. We may wonder, now, on what topics their conversation would run. Did they speak of the gayeties of the court; of the round of the giddy dissipation which had, perhaps, reached its culminating point about this period? or were they talking of the last sermon of Père Beauregard, when, with unsparing and apostolic severity, he condemned the fashionable vices of the age? or were they speaking of the cases of distress among the poor who day by day trooped to the house of Mademoiselle, as Louise de Condé was called, and were there succored by her own hands? On some such theme as these latter we may be almost sure that their converse ran. The heart of Clotilde was never given to the world; from her childhood she had yearned for a cloister, and would fain have found herself at the side of her aunt, Madame Louise, who was then prioress of the Carmelites of St. Denis. To the grille of this convent Clotilde, Louise, and Elizabeth would often go; and no doubt it was partly owing to the conversation and example of the holy Carmelite princess that the three girls, placed, as they all were, in most dangerous and difficult positions, not only threaded their way through the maze safely, but became examples of eminent piety and virtue.
The elder of the three friends was Louise, only daughter of Louis Joseph de Bourbon Condé, great-great-grandson of the Great Condé, and son of the Duke de Bourbon, for some time prime minister to Louis XV. He had early chosen the army as his career, and as early won laurels for himself in the Seven Years' War. On one occasion he was entreated by his attendants to withdraw from the heat of the battle. "I never heard," said he, "of such precautions being taken by the Great Condé." His admiration for his glorious ancestor was, indeed, intense, and he devoted himself to the task of writing a history of this great man; for, though an ardent soldier, he was well educated. Men of science and genius gathered round him in his chateau of Chantilly, whither he would retire in the brief intervals of peace. At a very early age the Prince de Condé married Charlotte de Rohan Soubise, a maiden as noble in her character as her birth. She was merciful to the poor, gentle and charitable to all who surrounded her. The marriage was a happy one, but was not destined to last long. The princess died in 1760, leaving behind her a son, the Duke de Bourbon, and Louise Adelaide, of whom we have been speaking.
The little girl, thus left motherless at the age of five years, was consigned to the care of her great-aunt, the abbess of Beaumont les Tours, about sixty leagues from Paris. All the religious assembled to receive the little princess on the day of her arrival, and everything was done to please her. After showing her all the interior of the convent, she was asked where she would like to go. "Oh! take me," cried she, "where there is the most noise." Poor child! she was destined to find her after-life a little too noisy. She next chose to go into the choir while the nuns chanted compline; but before the end of the first psalm whispered to her attendant, "I have had enough." In these peaceful walls her childhood passed away. She grew fond of the convent, and gave every mark of external piety. She was wont to declare afterward that the grace of God had made little interior progress in her heart; nevertheless, a solid foundation of good instruction had been laid, which was hereafter to bear fruit. At twelve years of age she made her first communion, and then returned to Paris to finish her education in a convent there, "to prepare her for the world."
Years fled on, Louise attained womanhood, her brother married one of the Orleans princesses, and a marriage was projected for Louise with the Count d'Artois, afterward Charles X., but political differences caused the match to be broken off. Louise was not destined ever to become Queen of France. The tender friendship which subsisted between her and the Princess Clotilde was now to be broken, in one sense, by their total separation. Clotilde's heart's desire for the religious life was rudely crossed; the daughters of royal houses had less control over their fates then (and perhaps even now) than the meanest peasant in the land. A marriage was "arranged" for Madame Clotilde with the Prince of Piedmont, heir-apparent to the throne of Sardinia. She was but sixteen years of age when she had to leave France and all she loved and clung to, and set out to meet her unknown husband; for she was married by proxy only in Paris, and was received by the Prince of Piedmont at Turin. She was very beautiful, but unfortunately excessively stout, to such a degree that it injured not only her appearance, but her health. At Turin she was welcomed by a vast crowd, but cries of "Che grossa!" ("How fat she is!") struck unpleasantly on her ear. "Be consoled," said the Queen of Sardinia; "when I entered the city, the people cried, 'Che brutta!'" ("How plain she is!") "You find me very stout?" questioned Clotilde, anxiously looking into her husband's face. "I find you adorable," was the graceful and affectionate reply.
Years flew by. Mademoiselle, as Louise was now called, had her own establishment, and presided at royal fêtes given by her father at Chantilly. Thither came once to partake of his hospitality the heir of the throne of all the Russias, travelling, together with his wife, under the incognito of the Comte du Nord. A friendship sprang up between them and Louise de Condé, hereafter to be put to the proof in extraordinary and unforeseen circumstances. Little did they think as they parted within the splendid halls of Chantilly where their next meeting should be.
The license of manners that preceded the Revolution, as the gathering clouds foretell a storm, was principally to be observed in the grossness of the theatre and the corruption of literature. The theatre was a favorite amusement with Louise de Condé, and she took great delight in private theatricals, and frequently played a part. She heard Père Beauregard preach on the subject, and her resolution was instantly taken. A comedy was to be acted next day at Chantilly, but the princess renounced her part. It cost her not a little thus to throw out the arrangements for the fête; but she vanquished all human respect, and thus took the part of God against the world.
It was a turning-point in her life. It may seem to us that it was but a small sacrifice to make; but one grace corresponded to lead on to others, and from that resolution to give up theatrical entertainments Louise dated the commencement of the great spiritual graces and benefits of her after-life. That she was endowed with the courage of her race may be known from the fact that, having sustained by a fall a severe fracture of her leg, she sent for her Italian master to give her a lesson while waiting for the surgeon. This broken leg was destined in her case, as in that of St. Ignatius, to become one of her greatest blessings. She rose up from her bed determined to give herself more entirely to God's service. Naturally of a deeply affectionate disposition, Louise loved her family tenderly, but in an especial manner her only nephew, the Duc d'Enghien, then in his early youth. Day by day did Louise bring the name of this beloved boy before the Mother of Good Counsel, begging her, in her own simple words, to become his mother and protectress, and "never to suffer his faith to perish." We shall see a little later on how this prayer was answered. And now time had passed on, and the Revolution was at hand, and had even begun. After the taking of the Bastile, the Prince de Condé quitted France with all his family, and immediately set himself to organize an army for the defence of Louis XVI. Ordered by the Directory to return to France, he disobeyed, and was instantly stripped of all his vast property. The prince sold all his jewels, and bore his altered fortunes with patience and courage. Meanwhile, the Princess Louise accompanied her father and acted as his secretary. They moved about from place to place, and at Turin she was able to renew the friendship of her youth with Clotilde, who was now Queen of Sardinia, and displayed on her throne a pattern of womanly and saintly virtues. Near the Queen of Sardinia flattery could not subsist. It is recorded of her that she never pronounced a doubtful word, far less the smallest falsehood. Intercourse with this dear friend strengthened in the heart of Louise the earnest desire she had of belonging entirely to God. "I am obliged to take time for prayer from my sleep," she writes to her director. "I cannot do without it. When at table, surrounded with officers, all talking, I pray inwardly." The crime of the 21st of January, 1793, fell like a thunderbolt on the army of Condé; but, rising from his grief, the brave general instantly proclaimed Louis XVII., although that little king, whose piteous story history surely can never outdo, was still being tortured by his savage subjects. The Archbishop of Turin was deputed to escort the terrible news to Queen Clotilde. "Madam," said he, "will your majesty pray for your illustrious brother, especially for his soul?" The terrible truth flashed at once upon her, and, falling on her knees, she exclaimed: "Let us do better still—let us pray for his murderers!" Surely, in the annals of the saints, few words more truly heroic can have been recorded than this impulsive utterance of Clotilde de Bourbon. The active operations of the army commanded by the Prince de Condé made it impossible for the princess to remain any longer at her father's side; she accordingly repaired to Fribourg, a favorite place of refuge for French emigrants. No less than three hundred French priests had found a temporary asylum within its walls, and the services of the church were performed with every possible care and frequency. Among these priests the princess met one, supposed to be one of the exiled French bishops, to whom she was able to give her entire confidence, and from whom she received wise and spiritual advice. The idea of a religious vocation now began to take firm hold of her mind but her director would not let her take any step for two years, wishing in every possible way to test the reality of this call from God. No ordinary obstacles stood in the way of the royal postulant. Times had changed since those when the entrance of Madame Louise, of France, into the Carmelites had been hailed as an especial mark of God's providence over a poor community. Every convent in Europe was now trembling for its safety, and few were willing to open their doors to one bearing the now unfortunate name of Bourbon. About this time, it would seem, the princess was in communication with the Père de Tournely, founder of that Society of the Sacred Heart which was afterward absorbed into the Society of Jesus, and who was earnestly seeking to found a new order for women, and especially at this moment to gather together a community of emigrant French ladies, some of whom had been driven from their convents. The idea naturally presented itself of placing the Princess Louise at the head of such a community, but she shrank from the task. "I should fear," she said, "from the force of custom, the deference that would be paid to what the world calls my rank. The place that I am ambitious of is the last of all. What are the thrones of the universe compared to that last place?" God had other designs for her, and for the projected order an humbler instrument was to be chosen for the foundation-stone of the order of the Sacred Heart; and at this moment the foundress, all unconscious of her fate, was as yet "playing with her dolls." Louise de Condé, determined to enter a poor, obscure convent of Capuchinesses, or religious, following the rule of St. Clare, in Turin, a city which it was then hoped was likely to remain in tranquillity. Before doing so she had obtained her father's consent, and also that of Louis XVIII, whom the emigrant French had proclaimed as their king when the prison-house of the little Louis XVII. had been mercifully opened by death. The emigrants were careful to keep up with their exiled monarch all the forms and traditions which would have surrounded him had he been peaceably sitting on the throne of his fathers. It is worth while to give the princess's own words:
"Sire: It is not at the moment when I am about to have the happiness of consecrating myself to God that I could forget for the first time what I owe to my king. I have for long past felt myself called to the religious state, and I have come to Turin, where the kindness and friendship of the Queen of Sardinia has given me the means to execute my design—a design which has been well examined and reflected upon; but, before its final accomplishment, I supplicate your majesty to deign to give your consent to it. I ask it with the more confidence because I am certain it will not be refused, and that your piety, sire, will cause you to find consolation in seeing a princess of your blood invested with the livery of Jesus Christ. May God, whose infinite mercy I have so wonderfully experienced, hear the prayers I shall constantly make for the reestablishment of the altar and the throne in my unfortunate country. They will be as earnest as the efforts of my relatives for the same object. The desire for the personal happiness of your majesty is equally in my heart. I implore him to be persuaded of it. I am, etc.,
"Louise Adélaide De Bourbon Condé.
"Turin, November, 1795."
There could be no doubt of the devotion of Louise's family to the cause of Louis XVIII. Her father, brother, and nephew were all under arms for the restoration of his crown, and Delille celebrated the incident in verse:
"Trois générations vont ensemble à la gloire."
The king wrote back to the royal postulant:
"You have deeply reflected, my dear cousin, on the step which you have taken. Your father has given his consent. I give mine also, or rather, I give you up to Providence, who requires this sacrifice from me. I will not conceal from you that it is a great one, and it is with deep regret that I give up the hope of seeing you by your virtues become one day an example to my court, and an edification to all my subjects. I have but one consolation, and it is that of thinking that, while the courage and talents of your nearest relations are aiding me to recover the throne of St. Louis, your prayers will draw down the benedictions of the Most High on my cause, and afterward on all my reign. I recommend it to you, and I pray you, my dear cousin, to be well persuaded of my friendship for you.
"Louis."
On the 26th of November, 1798, the Queen of Sardinia took her cousin to the convent, and saw her enter on the mode of life she had so ardently desired for herself, but from which she had been severed. And here Louise began to lead at once a life of hardship and austerity. Earnest in all things by character, she threw herself into the practice of her rule, and became a model to all the novitiates. She counted the months as they passed which should bring her to her profession day; but it was not to be. God saw fit to purify her by many sufferings, by long anxieties, before she should find rest in his house. She was to be the instrument for a great work for his glory, and by many vicissitudes she was to be trained and fitted for it. The French Directory had declared war against Piedmont, the princess's presence endangered the whole of her community, and she hastened to quit their roof and take refuge temporarily at the convent of the Annonciades, from whence, as she was only a boarder, she could fly at any moment; but before leaving her convent she cut off her hair. As a witness to herself, she wrote of the firm resolution she had taken of living for God only. No one but God, she said long afterward, could tell what her sufferings were at having to leave her convent; but she adds: "The graces that God poured upon me in that holy house gave the necessary strength to my soul to bear the long trials which I had to pass through for so many years!" Few recitals are more touching than the sufferings of this poor novice, thus roughly torn away from her beloved convent. Shortly after she took up her abode with the Annonciades, a profession of one of their novices took place, and the ceremony made the poor princess feel her disappointment more bitterly. According to the custom of the order, the novice wore a crown of flowers, and her cell and her bed were both decked with them, and the sight moved Louise de Condé to tears, and, when the novice pronounced her vows, her sobs almost stifled her. She said to herself that she was unworthy to become the spouse of Christ, and therefore these obstacles had arisen; and, humbling herself at the feet of her Lord, she bewailed the follies of her life in the world, of which she took a far harsher view than those did who knew how it had been passed, and she implored him to have mercy on her and others, to attain a perfect resignation to his will.
She had not left her convent too soon. The rapid approach of the French army on Turin obliged her to quit the city and direct her steps toward Switzerland. There she hoped to find a convent of Trappist nuns who would venture to receive her; but, when she had passed Mount St. Bernard, she found that the community had not yet been able to find a resting-place in Switzerland. She travelled on to Bavaria, and was told that no French emigrant could remain in the country. Verily, it seemed as if she were destined to have nowhere to lay her head. She did not know where to turn; for war was ruling in all directions, and her name was dreaded by all who desired to keep a neutral part in the conflict. She was driven to seek refuge at Vienna, and went to board with a convent of Visitation nuns; for this order she did not feel any attraction, and she cherished the hope that the Trappist nuns, of whom she had heard would be able to find a place of refuge and receive her among their number. While thus waiting, she took, by the advice of her confessor, the three vows privately, thus binding herself as closely as possible to her crucified Lord. Her description of this action of her life gives a great insight into the beauty of her soul. Deep humility, a fervent love of God, and a child-like simplicity were her eminent characteristics. She made these vows at communion, unknown to all save God, his angels, and her spiritual guide. Then she said the Te Deum and Magnificat, which would have been sung so joyfully by her sisters had she been suffered to remain among them. "I neglected not in spirit," she adds, "the ceremony of the funeral pall, begging from God the grace to die to all, so as to live only in God and for God."
This private act of consecration was an immense comfort to her; but it by no means prevented her longing and striving to reenter a convent, and all her hopes continued to be fixed on La Trappe.
At this period an affecting meeting took place between her and Madame Royale, the only survivor of the royal victims of the Temple, the young girl born to one of the highest destinies in this world, and whose youth had been overshadowed by a tragedy so prolonged and so frightful that history can scarce furnish a parallel case. It is only extraordinary that reason had survived such awful suffering, falling on one so young and so tenderly nurtured. Is it any wonder that a shade was cast over the rest of her life, and that she was never among the light-hearted or the gay? From Vienna she wrote to Queen Clotilde: "I have had a great pleasure here in finding that the virtues of my aunt Elizabeth were well known, and she is spoken of with veneration. I hope that one day the pope will place my relation in the list of saints." It was, no doubt, a great comfort to her to speak freely with Louise of the aunt and cousin both had so fondly loved. Louise could tell Madame Royale many anecdotes of the youth of one whose end had been so saintly. We must now say a few words about the convent which the princess wished to enter.
When the order of La Trappe was suppressed in France, in common with those of other religious in 1790, the Abbé L'Estrange, called in religion Dom Augustin, was master of novices, and he conceived the idea of removing the whole community from France instead of dispersing it.
After many difficulties this was accomplished, and the monastery was founded at Val-Sainte, near Fribourg. The abbé now conceived the idea of founding a convent of Trappist nuns, to be composed chiefly of those religious who had been driven from their own convents, and of fresh novices. The director of Madame Louise had many doubts as to the advisability of her entering this community; but her desire for it was so ardent, and continued so long, that he withdrew his opposition; and when the community had really taken root, near that of the Trappist monks, under the title of the Monastery of the Will of God, Louise de Condé set out from Vienna and entered it. None but the superiors knew who she was—such was the simplicity of her dress, so retiring her manners, so humble were all her ways; but instead of a princess many of the religious thought her to be of lowly extraction, and wondered that Dom Augustin gave her so much of his time. With great delight she received the holy habit and began to practise the rule. The life was a hard one; the house was a great deal too small for the number of religious who occupied it; there was a great want of fresh air; and the rule and austerities were most trying. In a very few months the torrent of European war was about to pour down on Switzerland, and the whole community were obliged to take a hasty departure. Dom Augustin could see no other place of refuge for his flock than the shores of Russia, and he bade Louise de Condé use her influence with the emperor to allow them to take up their abode in his kingdom. The Emperor Paul was the same who, as archduke and under the title of Comte du Nord, had sat by the princess's side at the brilliant banquets and festivities of Chantilly. Louise wrote to him with all the grace of a French woman: "I beg the amiable Comte du Nord to become my interpreter with the Emperor Paul." The advance of the republican army was so rapid that there was no time to wait for a reply. The community were divided into different bands, and started at different times and by different routes, all agreeing to reunite their forces in Bavaria. The vicissitudes of this one journey would be enough for a good-sized volume could we go into its details. At one place she is received by the bishop of the diocese as a princess, only to be driven out by the civil authorities; at another she was lodged in a bake-house, full of dirt and smoke. She observed only it was quite good enough for her, and that she was very happy. At another time the cook neglects to cleanse the copper cooking-vessels, and the whole community are all but poisoned. When the answer came from the Emperor Paul, it was found that he consented to receive thirty of the religious only, to whom he promised support as well as protection. It was necessary, therefore, to find some place for the others, and Louise accompanied some of her sisters and the monks to Vienna, where her former friends, the good Visitation nuns, gave a refuge to another band of the Trappists. Notwithstanding all these changes, Louise as strictly as possible observed the rule of her order and the exercises of her novitiate. Being desired by her superiors to write down her thoughts on the religious life, she instantly complied, though she said afterward it was difficult to do so in the midst of fourteen persons, crowded together in a very small room, and all at different occupations. It was true they kept silent, but they had to ask necessary questions of the prioress, and among so many this necessity was very frequent.
She was now desired to set out for Russia, and thus undertake another long journey of discomfort and fatigue. People urged her to leave the order, saying that the weakness of her knee, which had never wholly recovered from the fall she had had many years before, would render it impossible for her to be useful. She replied that, if she were only allowed to keep the lamp burning before the blessed sacrament, she would be contented. So she set out for Orcha, the town named by the emperor for their reception. It proved a really terrible journey; sometimes the religious had to sleep under the open sky; they had the roughest food, and more than once were without any for twenty-four hours. But never once did the patience, sweetness, and perfect content of Louise de Condé fail; her face was always bright, for her whole soul was filled with the one thought—a desire of doing penance. The arrival in Russia did not put an end to the difficulties of either Madame Louise or her order. It was necessary to make some arrangement for the rest of the community left in Germany. The Emperor Paul finally agreed to receive fifty. Dom Augustin accordingly went to fetch them. During his absence no communication could be held with him, while various offers of help, which had to be accepted or refused, were brought to the princess, embarrassing her greatly.
After ten months of this suspense Dom Augustin returned, having made up his mind to go to America. This was a severe blow to Madame Louise; for, being still a novice, it became a grave question whether she would, in such circumstances, be right in accompanying them, and after much prayer and thought she, by the counsel of her director, decided to leave. Once more was she to be driven out into the cold world; once more her heart's desire crossed, her hopes delayed indefinitely. "I thought that God willed in his justice to break my heart, and thus arrest its impetuous ardor. I had once more to strip myself of the livery of the Lord, which had been my glory and my happiness. I did it, and did not die, that is all I can say." Before her departure she implored the emperor, and all over whom she had any personal influence, to continue their kindness to the order. In reality, it was a good thing for the order that Madame Louise quitted it, as events afterward proved. One of the very first communities allowed by Bonaparte to reenter France was this very one, and he certainly would not have done so had a Bourbon been in its ranks. It is true his favor was but short-lived, and the Trappists had again to fly to America, but their return to France had been in many ways a benefit; and in 1815 they came back again, and established themselves at Belle Fontaine and at Meillerage. The latter house has long since become celebrated. Dom Augustin reached Rome, and received many marks of approval from the pope for his long and earnest struggle in the cause of his order. He died at Lyons in 1827.
And now where was the exile to go? Where should she rest her weary head? Where and how begin life again under a new aspect? Her father, brother, and nephew were either engaged in warfare, or themselves begging shelter from distant countries; her friends were scattered, her resources scanty. A Benedictine nun who had joined the Trappist community quitted it, accompanied her, and Louise endeavored to follow under her a kind of novitiate. They took refuge at last in a Benedictine convent in Lithuania, but where the rule was not kept in its strict observance. Here she remained for two years, making all possible inquiries for a convent in which she might be received; but the greater part were destroyed, and obstacles stood in the way of entering any of those she heard of. She wished, of course, to be more than ever careful in this her third choice. Moreover, her means of acquiring information were but small; there was little communication with other countries, and few of the inhabitants spoke French. While in Lithuania Louise adopted an orphan of four years old, a child of good family reduced to beggary; she was named Eléonore Dombrousha. At last she heard of a convent at Warsaw, which seemed as if it would fulfil all her desires; and now, indeed, she had reached the place God had destined her for. Here she was to lay the foundation of the great work for which, by many sorrows, by much disappointment, he had been preparing her.
A foundation of Benedictines of the Blessed Sacrament had come from Paris to Warsaw many years before, and were still existing: they kept the Benedictine rule strictly, adding to it the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Madame Louise asked and received permission of the King of Prussia to enter his dominions. He afterward wrote as follows:
"Frederick William, by the Grace Of God King Of Prussia: As we have permitted Madame la Princesse Louise Adelaide de Bourbon Condé and Madame de la Brosièree, who arrived at Warsaw the 18th of June, to remain in the convent of the Holy Sacrament, where they seem to wish to end their days, we have in consequence given all necessary orders to the officials.
"Warsaw, 28 August, 1801."
A striking circumstance occurred while on her road to Warsaw, one of those many incidents of the time which has made the history of the French Revolution read like a romance. Having to descend from her carriage at Thorn, her eyes fell on a woman poorly clad in the street, evidently seeking employment; the expression of her face was that of suffering, but of great sanctity. The princess was so struck by it that she went up to her, and said by impulse, "Madam, were you not a religious?" "Yes," she replied, impelled to confidence by the sweet face of her who addressed her. And then Louise learnt that the lady was an exiled member of the French Sisters of Calvary, driven into exile; that her slender means had come to an end; and that very day she had come out to seek work or to beg, neither dismayed nor yet afraid, but putting her full trust in Divine Providence.
Her wants were supplied, and she would have entered the same convent as Madame Louise, but that she hoped to rejoin her own community when they should reassemble. This shortly afterward took place, and the generosity of Madame Louise furnished the means for her journey home, and she lived many years in her convent, leading a holy life, and died there in peace.
At last Madame Louise commenced her third novitiate, and found in her new order all that could perfectly satisfy her heart. She took the habit in September, 1801, and all the royal family of Prussia were present at the ceremony; the Bishop of Warsaw preached the sermon, and bade her glorify her convent for ever, not by the éclat of her name and of her royal birth, but by her religious virtues. The habit which she had taken, added he, and which she had preferred to all the pomps of the world, was but the exterior mark of a consecration and a sacrifice that her heart had long since made. As a novice Madame Louise redoubled her fervor and exactness in religious life, with many anxious hopes and prayers that this time the day of her profession would really come. A sorrow came upon her in the news of the death of her early and loved friend, Clotilde of Sardinia, whose soul passed to God in March, 1802, while her whole people, anticipating only the voice of the church, called her a saint. On the 21st of September, 1802, Louise made her solemn profession. "I pronounced my vows publicly," she said, "but with such feelings that I can truly say my heart pronounced them with a thousand times greater strength than my mouth." She now retook her religious name, which she had chosen twice before, Soeur Marie Joseph de la Miséricorde. The life of an ordinary good religious would have seemed sufficiently difficult for a princess, but Louise would do nothing by halves. She practised the highest virtues of her state, bearing undeserved blame without a word of excuse; she never murmured under labors; she was obedient, gentle, and humble. So anxious was she to prevent her rank being an occasion for raising her to offices of authority that she wrote to the pope these words:
"Most Holy Father:
Louise Adélaide de Bourbon Condé, now Marie Joseph de la Miséricorde, professed religious of the convent of the Perpetual Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament, order of Saint Benedict, at Warsaw, supplicates your holiness that you deign, for the repose and tranquillity of the soul of the suppliant, to declare her deprived of active and passive voice, and to dispense her from all the principal offices of the community."
The holy father saw fit to grant the request, and sent a brief on the subject to her.
"The efforts that you make to attain Christian perfection in these unhappy days," wrote Pius VII., "have filled us with joy, and make us hope that the Divine Spouse to whom you have made the laudable sacrifice of yourself will not fail to grant you his grace, in order that, by the exact and religious observation of the rules of the institute which you have chosen, you will attain the end that you proposed to yourself in embracing with so much joy this state of life. … We send you the letters of dispensation that you say are necessary for the perfect tranquillity of your mind, desiring nothing more than to remove the obstacles which could destroy your peace; and further, we give you with our whole heart the apostolical benediction, as a proof of our paternal friendship."
And now one of the sharpest sorrows of Louise de Condé's life was at hand. An event which was, even in that age of cruelties, to strike Europe with horror was to fall with bitterest force on the heart of the princess. Religious life does not extinguish the affections of the heart; it but regulates, ennobles, and purifies them; and the Duc d'Enghien was as tenderly loved by the aunt who had not seen him for many years, spent in devotion to God, as when, in the halls of Chantilly, she had watched his childish gambols. The prayer she had offered up in his childhood was continued more fervently, more constantly, as the dangers to his body and soul increased. She followed him in commiseration through the busy scenes in which his lot was cast, and she saw him brave, loyal, and honorable, a good son and a good husband. When Louis XVIII. consulted him, in 1803, in common with the other French princes, as to the answer he should return to the proposal of Bonaparte that he should renounce the throne of France, the duke wrote: "Your majesty knows too well the blood which runs in my veins to have had the least doubt as to the answer which you demand from me. I am a Frenchman, sire; and a Frenchman who is faithful to his God, to his king, and to his vows of honor." We have no space to dwell on the treachery and the cruelty of the capture and death of this young prince, one of the fairest hopes of the house of Bourbon. In vain did he even ask for a priest; but that ungranted request must have carried consolation to the heart of Madame Louise. As we read of his cutting off his hair to send to his "Charlotte," we are forcibly reminded of another prince, who was treacherously slain, sending a last adieu to another unhappy princess of the same name. To the doors of the convent at Warsaw, bearing the news, came the Abbé Edgeworth, whose mission it was to console and help the unfortunate house of Bourbon. He had attended the last moments of Louis XVI.; he had stood by him on the scaffold, undaunted by the crowd, and bade the "son of St. Louis ascend to heaven;" he had been the director of Madame Elizabeth; he had joined the hands of Madame Royale and the Duc d'Angoulême in marriage; and now he came to break the news of the last great sorrow to Madame Louise. The Mère Sainte Rose brought a crucifix to the princess, and her countenance told her the rest. Louise fell on her face on the earth, crying out, "Mercy, my God! have mercy on him!" Then she rose, and, going to the chapel, poured out her soul before Him who alone could comfort her. "Pardon the faults of his youth, O Lord!" she cried, "and remember how cruelly his blood has been shed. Glory and misfortune have attended him through life; but what we call glory—has it any merit in thy eyes? Mercy, my God! mercy!" But her prayers did not end here. From that time forward there rose up before the throne of God a constant cry for mercy for the soul of Napoleon Bonaparte, from the lips of her whose dearest earthly hopes he had destroyed. She never made a retreat afterward without devoting much prayer and penance for the redemption of the enemy of her name and race. Forgiveness of injuries was an especial characteristic of the Bourbon family, and none excelled in it more than Madame Louise.
And now another change awaited the poor princess: thick, indeed, upon her head came trial after trial. Nothing could, indeed, take from her now the happiness of being a professed Benedictine; but that she should remain peaceably in one convent for a long time was hardly to be hoped for at this period. The Lutheran Prussian government began to interfere with the government of the convent, to have a voice in the election of superiors, and, of course, to interfere, at least indirectly, with the rule. Probably the presence of Madame Louise made them take more notice of that convent than they would otherwise have done. Before quitting it, however, as this was a serious step to be taken voluntarily by a religious who has made a vow of enclosure, she wrote for counsel to the three French bishops of Léon, Vannes, and Nantes, who were then all living in London. Their united opinion was, that "the reasons were well grounded and very solid, and that the repose of her conscience and her advancement in the perfection of her state, exact this change." Having received permission from the bishop of the diocese, and the full consent of her prioress, who bitterly mourned over the thraldom in which the community were held, Louise de Condé once more went out into exile, and this time directed her steps toward England. She landed at Gravesend, and was, we suppose, the first nun since the Reformation who was received with public honors by the British authorities. In London she met her father and brother, whom she had not seen since the year 1795, and who had since that time endured so much, and who were still suffering so acutely under their recent sorrow in the execution of the Duc d'Enghien. There must have been a strangely mingled feeling of pain and pleasure in this sad meeting. After remaining a few days in London, her father and brother escorted her to a Benedictine convent at Rodney Hall, Norfolk, where a refuge had been offered to her. This community followed the mitigated rule of St. Benedict, but Louise was allowed to observe the fasts and other points to which she had bound herself by her profession of the rule in its strict observance.
In this house there were fifty choir nuns, eight lay sisters, and a large school of young ladies. Wherever Madame Louise went, she was accompanied by the Mère Sainte Rose and the little Eléonore Dombrousha, the child of her adoption. In this community Louise was greatly beloved. There was about her a sweetness and a simplicity, a self-forgetfulness and charity for others which gave her an inexpressible charm. She was truly noble in character as well as in birth. She gave that example which God intends those highly born (as we call it) to give—that of more closely resembling Him whose birth was indeed a royal and noble one. During her stay in Norfolk, the Princess Louise suffered greatly from bad health. The trials she had undergone, the anxiety of mind, her long journeys, and the severity of the observances to which she had bound herself had their effect upon her frame. More than once there was such cause for serious alarm that the Prince de Condé and Duc de Bourbon came to see her. It is probable, too, that the English climate, and especially the part of the country in which she was living, might not have agreed with her; the convent, besides, was not sufficiently large, and it was a favorable change in all respects when the community removed to Heath. Here Madame Louise met with one whose acquaintance she conceived to be one of the greatest blessings of her life.
The Society of Jesus was not as yet restored to the church; but many of its ancient members were living, and showed by their lives what had been the heavenly spirit in which they had been trained. Preeminently among these was the Père de la Fontaine, and it was to this holy man Louise became known while in England. He often said Mass at the convent, and frequently saw the princess. Under his direction, the soul of Louise made rapid progress toward perfection. He understood what God required from her, and taught her how to correspond with God. Among other valuable advice which he gave her, and which she committed to paper, the following is remarkable: "A spouse of Jesus Christ ought absolutely to avoid all communication with Protestant society. Their want of delicacy, in general, on those points which wound a heart consecrated to God in all purity, and their unbelief, often amounting to aversion, for the great sacrament of the love of Jesus Christ, are two powerful reasons for keeping at a distance from them. A truly religious soul has reason to fear presumption and all its attendant evils, if she allows herself, without real necessity, to be drawn into such dangerous intercourse."
And so the years again passed on and other changes were at hand. Prayers, penances, and sufferings such as Louise de Condé had endured, and sufferings which had been borne also in various other ways by so many holy souls among the French emigrants, had brought down mercy from God on their unhappy country and on Europe. The long war was at an end, the muskets had fallen from the soldiers' hands, and Napoleon was a captive. Louis XVIII. sat once more on the throne of his father. The fleur de lis again floated from the tower of the Louvre. Madame Royale, who had been sent out of France as a prisoner, ransomed by treaty, came back to hold the court over which her mother had once presided; the princes of the blood-royal hastened back to their places, and there was a general wish that Louise de Condé should be once more on her native soil. Ah! what a lifetime of sorrow had she passed through since she left Chantilly and her house in the Rue Monsieur, and even now she would not return to them.
No, never again could she come back to be the princess. If she returned to France, it must be as the religious to reestablish a convent of her order, and thus aid in bringing back religious life to France. It must be confessed that rarely was a person more fitted for the task. None should rule, says a proverb, but those who have learned to obey, and obedience had been a task which the princess had well studied. She had passed through three novitiates, and she had in her lifetime seen the management of eight different convents, and she had known well how to profit by the knowledge she gained. Accordingly she quitted the convent at Heath the 16th of August, 1814, and arrived in Paris just as all were preparing to keep the fête of St. Louis for the first time for many years. She resided for a time in the house of her brother, the Duc de Bourbon; but she never quitted the apartments allotted to her, and lived in the utmost retirement, waiting there only till a suitable convent could be assigned to her.
The papers of the day, after mentioning her arrival in Paris, added: "It was the on dit that his majesty proposed to revive a royal foundation in her favor, and to establish her with her sisters in a magnificent monastery which would be restored to its primitive destination. Already it was sad to think that the church of this abbey had been used for profane purposes, and the friends of religion and of art would joyfully see this edifice restored. It would be purified by establishing there the perpetual adoration, and by placing there a shining example of piety in the person of a princess devoted in an especial manner to God's service."
This edifice was the grand church and monastery of Val du Grâce, one of the chief monuments of the piety of Anne of Austria. It was then a hospital; but, as the paper went on to remark, the superb church was not of any especial use to the sick, and would be a noble one for cultured religious. However, the idea of giving Val du Grâce to Madame Louise fell to the ground. It remained a military hospital, and so continues to this day; but the sick are attended day and night by the sisters of charity of St. Vincent de Paul. And as their forms flit through the corridors, intent on works of love, and as their earnest prayers rise up in the calm morning and close of evening to heaven, the founders and the former possessors of that splendid pile are, we think, contented Madame Louise had been so long absent that she knew not a single friend in Paris. She now entered into communication with the Abbé d'Astros, vicar-general of the diocese of Paris. At her very first interview with him she felt impelled to give him her full confidence, and this at once gave her a proof that it was really the will of God she should establish a convent in the diocese, since a full accord with ecclesiastical superiors is one of the most valuable helps a new foundation can have. Still, the place for the convent remained uncertain, and the privy council to whom it belonged to settle the affair did not deem it of much importance, and put it aside for other matters. A friend of Madame Louise, the Comtesse Marie de Courson, proposed to her that they should make a novena to Louis XVI. It is unusual to pray to those whom the church has not canonized, but it is not forbidden to do so privately; and it was hard to believe that the soul of the monarch upon whom had fallen the long and bitter punishment of the sins of his ancestors was not long since in the enjoyment of perfect happiness. The novena was commenced by a certain number of earnest and fervent souls.
On the seventh day, at the meeting of the council, although most pressing business was that day before its consideration, a member suddenly rose, and reminding his colleagues that the request of Madame Louise had not been granted, and as if moved by an irresistible impulse, proposed that the palace of the Temple should be given to her. A sudden silence fell on the assembly, then came a movement of unanimous consent. What better spot for a convent of expiation than that consecrated by such memories—that in which such innocent victims had suffered? The heart of Louis XVIII. was deeply touched by the circumstance.
Truly, royal pomp and ceremony, gala and festivity, could never again enter those sorrowful halls. Most fitting would it be to consecrate them to God, and let an unceasing strain of prayer and praise ascend to heaven. Some doubted whether the task would not be too painful for the princess herself, and at the first announcement she did, in truth, shrink back. She had known them all so well, had loved Elizabeth so tenderly, had wept over their fates so bitterly, had prayed for them so earnestly, she missed them, now that she was once more at home; and how, then, could she bear to live for ever within those walls, which would be an eternal record of their fate.
But the first emotion passed away, and she began more fully to understand why she had been tried in the crucible of sufferings, why her vocation had been so often crossed, so hardly tried. It had been all to bring her to this, to let her found in Paris a convent of expiation. Without those trials, perhaps, she could never have borne the severity of the task, the sacrifice she must at once make on entering. She tenderly loved Madame Royale, or Madame la Dauphine, as she was now called, and it could not be expected or even wished that she should revisit a spot which must recall to her those terrible days whose memory already overshadowed her life too much; but this sacrifice Louise was ready to make, and the convent of the Temple was accepted.
Workmen were engaged to convert the old palace into a convent; the towers, in one of which the royal family had lived, were already demolished, but it was easy to perceive where they had stood. A Beautiful garden surrounded the buildings, partly in the French, partly in the English style. Water brought up from the Seine played in fountains surrounded by artificial rocks, among which a grotto was formed. This grotto was changed into an oratory to the Blessed Virgin, and another to St. Benedict and St. Scholastica. The Comte de Courson and the Abbé d'Astros directed the alterations, and all possible haste was being made, when, like wild-fire, the news ran through the world, Bonaparte had escaped from Elba, and was in France. The royal family fled, and once more the Princess Louise was to be an exile. She could not at once procure horses, so for a week, which happened to be holy week, she was hidden in the house of one of her former attendants. The Mère Sainte Rose was taken very ill, and then there was the serious difficulty of procuring passports. How little can those who live in London now, and who breakfast at home and sup in Paris, estimate the labor, the pain, the dread, which a timid person like Madame Louise would feel at having to take the weary journey to England, posting from Paris to Calais, and then a long, stormy passage, to say nothing of the dangers of being stopped on the route and taken to prison. She was obliged to set off on Easter-day. At the city gates they were stopped, and it was only by a heavy bribe that they were suffered to pass. On the way they found themselves in the midst of a popular tumult, and were obliged to leave their carriages and hide till it was over. They had a very bad passage from Calais, but at Dover Madame Louise was received with every mark of respect and esteem.
She had not the comfort of returning to the convent at Heath, for it was thought better that she should await the course of events in London, and she went to a hotel. But a serious illness was the result of the sudden shock and journey, and after her recovery she went to the country-house of a friend. All through her after-life Madame Louise had a great affection for the English, who, to do them justice, were certainly generous toward the French emigrants. She was wont to say that their generosity would win for them the grace of reconciliation with the Catholic Church. Although Napoleon's second reign lasted but a hundred days, Madame Louise did not return to France for fourteen months, partly on account of health, partly because she wished to be fully convinced of the stability of the Bourbon dynasty before she commenced her arduous undertaking.
When she reached Paris, the Temple was not yet ready. She resided some time in the Rue St. Dominique with one of her early friends. There she made arrangements with various postulants, with whom she entered the new convent on the second of September, 1816. The Abbé d'Astros blessed the house and said the first Mass in the chapel. And now, at last, she had found a home; and though after her many vicissitudes, after the disappointments and the rapid changes she had seen, she could never have felt very secure, she never again quitted these walls. She entered most diligently on her duty as superioress and as mistress of novices; for, with the exception of the Mère Sainte Rose and one other Benedictine nun who joined her, (her own community having been lost in the Revolution,) she had none but young subjects to govern. Besides this she had to superintend a large school for young ladies, so that her duties were multiplied and heavy. The account of her religious life is most touching and beautiful. Knowing, as we do, how the distinctions of rank cling round our human nature; how constantly, ever since she had been a nun, she had been obliged to remind others not to make use of that very rank; knowing also the exaggerated prestige paid under the old régime to the Bourbon race, it is wonderful to see how utterly she forgot her birth or ignored it. She was sixty years of age; she was lame and in delicate health; yet she kept the rule rigidly; was gentle to others, severe to herself; would join in the recreations of her young novices, and could be seen making fun with them in cutting the wood for the fires. She would often take recreation with the lay sisters, and also carefully instruct them. In the infirmary she would perform the most menial offices for the sick, and, in short, she was a true mother at the head of her house. "Those who neglect little sacrifices," she would say, "are not likely to make great ones." At the appointed times she would not exempt herself from the penances which the rule permitted the religious to use. The first time that she prostrated herself at the refectory door, in order that all the religious should walk over her, many of them could not restrain their emotion. Afterward the princess reproved them severely, showing them that all distinctions of worldly rank were totally contrary to the religious spirit. If the sisters brought her better food than the others, they were reproved, and forbidden to do it again; or if they tried to make her straw mattress any softer, they met the same fate. In short, to the end of her days she was thorough, earnest, single-hearted in all things.
Sorrows did not fail to follow her into her peaceful retreat. The assassination of the Duc de Berri, her near relative, filled her with grief, recalling too vividly the horrors that had darkened her younger days. She was comforted, however, by a visit from the venerable Père de la Fontaine, who came to console her. "The Lord has covered him with the mantle of his mercy," said the old friend, and those simple words calmed her. Could there not, indeed, be hope for the soul of him whose first thought on receiving the death-blow was to say, "Pardon my murderer"? The Père de la Fontaine had returned to Paris after the peace; and when the Jesuits had been restored to their place in the church, and had communities in France, he often visited the Convent du Temple, and was by Madame Louise and many others esteemed a saint. The princess told her sisters that, being once in great spiritual perplexity and suffering, the father passed by her on his way to the altar, and as his shadow fell on her all her intense sufferings disappeared. In 1821, this holy man died, and at the request of Madame Louise the Jesuits sent her some account of his last hours. The writer described the strong emotion felt by all who were present when the old man, on his dying-bed, begged pardon for all his faults, for his breaches of the rule, and renewed his vows—vows which he had so faithfully kept in exile and solitude, when his beloved order had been suppressed. He had lived on in faith and in prayer, and God had allowed him to see the society restored to the church, so that, like Simeon, he could depart in peace.
Next came the illness of the princess's father, the Prince de Condé. She had always been tenderly attached to him, and the sorrows they had gone through together had naturally deepened the affection. He lay dying at Chantilly, and mutual friends begged Madame Louise to go to him. The ecclesiastical superiors would give her dispensation, they said; she was a princess, no ordinary nun. She firmly refused. "If our holy father the pope orders me to go, as a child of the church I will obey; but never will I ask for a dispensation which should give a precedent for breaking enclosure." Outwardly she was calm before her sisters, but her stall in the choir was bathed with tears, so deeply did she suffer for and with the father whom she loved. Her prayers went up unceasingly, and there is proof that they were heard.
The Prince de Condé died with dispositions of most humble penitence, and, when asked if he forgave his enemies, exclaimed: "I am sure of my salvation, if God will pardon me as freely as I pardon them." The last words on his lips were Credo in Deum. Perhaps the sacrifice made by his daughter in not assisting his dying hours had won for him the grace of a good death. The fortune which came to the princess on her father's death was devoted to the erection of a conventual church; the first stone was laid in May, 1821, in the name of Madame la Dauphine, by one of her ladies of honor. Mgr. de Guilen, then coadjutor of Paris was present, and Mgr. Trayssinous preached the sermon. "This place is holy ground," said he; "holy because of the extraordinary misfortunes and the heroic virtues which it witnessed in the time of our impious discords. Within these walls there wept and suffered barbarously those who should have been more worthy than all others of veneration and love. Within these walls most noble victims of the popular fury were delivered up to inexpressible anguish. O days of blood and tears! O terrible and cruel scenes! O lamentable crime! which I dare not recall, which every heart in France would fain banish from his memory, and from the pages of our history. But no; we are all condemned eternally to bear the shame to posterity. Religion, at least, will have the glory of having done all that it could to expiate it, and to reconcile the people who were so unfortunately guilty with Heaven. Here day and night are crying at the foot of the altar consecrated virgins, innocent and voluntary victims of crimes which are not their own. Here prayers, fastings, vigils, and austerities, and the sighs of contrite and humble hearts, are perpetually ascending up to the throne of justice, but also of divine mercy, to draw down on the royal family, and on the whole of France, grace and mercy. Thus does religion avenge herself of her enemies, by expiating the past, sanctifying the present, and preparing the future. … And who will raise this building? She who, concealing the beautiful name of Condé under that of Soeur de la Miséricorde, has buried in this cloister all the éclat and grandeur of the world. In whose name has the first stone been laid? In the name of all that is most touching in suffering, in courage, in goodness, and dearest to France—in the name of the royal orphan of the Temple."
Another death awoke considerable emotion in the heart of Madame Louise. On the barren rock of St. Helena the proud heart of the great conqueror wore itself out. The hand and the brain that had worked such endless woe to her and hers were for ever still. Far from her all thought of triumph and rejoicing. Instantly she had Masses offered for him, and never omitted daily to supplicate in her private prayers that he who had given her no rest on earth might now have eternal rest given to him.
And now her long and troubled life was hastening to its close. She had been tossed about, indeed, on a troubled sea, seldom in port, yet happy and peaceful amid the conflict; and now eternal peace was at hand.
The bells of the new church were blessed in October, 1822, the King and Madame la Dauphine being godfather and godmother. The church was consecrated, in August, 1823, by the Archbishop of Paris. Louise, looking round, might have seen her work completed, the community established and flourishing, the church finished in which the adoration of the altar could be worthily carried out. The next day she made a false step, and fell down. Slight as was the accident, fainting fits constantly followed, and she was never well afterward. She suffered most from her head, but would not give up her ordinary duties, or lie by. Gradually her strength failed. On December 23d, she fainted on the stairs, was carried to bed, and was attacked by fever and sickness. Still she struggled on with her duties. On the last day of the year, she would hold the "chapter of peace"—a custom of her order to which she was much attached, when the religious ask mutual pardon of each other for any want of charity during the past year, and when the prioress has to address them on this beautiful subject; and she would not let her illness interfere with the feast of Holy Innocents, a gala-day in the convent, when the youngest novice becomes prioress for the day, and innocent mirth is in the ascendant; and she assisted at the clothing of two novices in January, 1824. She showed by her manner on this last occasion that she believed it to be the last ceremony at which she should be present. She saw each of her sisters in private, and took leave of them with tender affection. She suddenly became worse, and lost the use of speech, but not consciousness. She received extreme unction from the Archbishop of Paris. The community, all in tears, surrounded her bed. The archbishop remarked, it was like the shower of rain which, at the prayer of St. Scholastica, came down to prevent St. Benedict from leaving her too soon. The dying nun understood the allusion, and smiled. He bade her bless her children, and her hand was raised for her, and placed on the head of one of her religious, for she could not move it herself.
A few days afterward she recovered her speech, and she received the viaticum, and answered the questions of the priest with a firm tone, "I believe with faith." Her death-agony was very long, and, when her brother came to see her, she could not speak. The desire of seeing her once more overcame the repugnance that Madame la Dauphine had to reenter the Temple, and she was about to set out thither when the king, fearing the consequences for her, forbade her to go. The last smile of Louise de Condé was given to a picture held before her of a dove bearing a cross and flying to heaven. Perhaps she said inwardly words which would have been very suitable: "I will flee away and take my rest." Shortly afterward she expired. She was in the sixty-seventh year of her age, and the twenty-second of her religious profession. And thus ended a life of which it may truly be said that it was "stranger than fiction."