La Grande Mademoiselle, 1627-1652

by Arvède Barine

ST. VINCENT DE PAUL

FROM A STEEL ENGRAVING

De Bérulle knew that, were he to give all the members of his community, their number would be too feeble to regenerate the vast and vitiated body of the French clergy. He could not hope to reap the harvest, but he counted it as glory to be permitted to sow the seed.

Vincent de Paul was the third collaborator of the company. It was said of him that he was "created to fill men's minds with love of spiritual things and with love for the Creator." Père Vincent was a simple countryman. In appearance he resembled the disciples of Christ, as represented in ancient pictures. His rugged features rose above a faded and patched soutane, but his face expressed such kindness and such sympathy that, like his heavenly Ensample, he drew men after him. Bernard of Cluny deplored the evil days; but the time of Louis XIII. was worse than the time of Bernard. The mercy proclaimed by the Gospel had been effaced from the minds of men, and the Charity of God had been dishonoured even by the guides sent to make it manifest. Mercy and Charity incarnate entered France with Père Vincent, and childlike fondness and gentle patience crept back into human relations—not rapidly—the influences against them were too strong—but steadily and surely. Père Vincent was amusing; it was said of him that he was "like no one else"; the courtiers first watched and ridiculed, then imitated him. When they saw him lift the fallen and attach importance to the sufferings of the common people, and when they heard him insist that criminals were men and that they had a right to demand the treatment due to men, they shrugged their shoulders, but they knew that through the influence of the simple peasant-priest something unknown and very sweet had entered France.

Vincent de Paul was a worker. He founded the Order of the Sisters of Charity, the Convicts' Mission-Refuge, a refuge for the unfortunate, the Foundling Hospital, and a great general hospital and asylum where twenty thousand men and women were lodged and nourished. To the people of France Père Vincent was a man apart from all others, the impersonation of human love and the manifestation of God's mercy. By the force of his example pity penetrated and pervaded a society in which pity had been unknown, or if known, despised. The people whose past life had prepared them for anything but good works sprang with ardour upon the road opened by the gentle saint who had taught France the way of mercy. Even the great essayed to be like Père Vincent; every one, high and low, each in his own way and to the extent of his power, followed the unique example. Saint Vincent became the national standard; the nobles pressed forward in his footsteps, concerning themselves with the sick and the poor and trying to do the work of priests. They laboured earnestly lavishing their money and their time, and, fired by the strength of their purpose, they came to love their duty better than they had loved their pleasure. They imitated the Oratorians as closely as they had imitated the shepherds of Astrée, and "the monsters of the will," Indifference, Infidelity, and Licence, hid their heads for a time, and Charity became the fashion of the day.

Père Vincent's religious zeal equalled his brotherly tenderness; he was de Bérulle's best ally. A special community, under his direction, assisted in the labours of the Oratoire. The chief purpose of the mother-house and its branches was the purification of the priesthood and the increase of religion. When a young priest was ready to be ordained he was sent to Père Vincent's mission, where, by means of systematic retreats, he received the deep impression of the spiritual devotion and the charity peculiar to the Oratorians.

Bossuet remembered with profound gratitude the retreats that he made in Père Vincent's Oratoire. But there was one at Court to whom the piety of Père Vincent was a thorn in the flesh. We have seen that de Bérulle's work was the purification of the clergy, and that Père Vincent was de Bérulle's chief ally. Mazarin was the Queen's guardian, and the Queen held the list of ecclesiastical appointments. A Council called the Conseil de Conscience had been instituted to guide the Regent in her "Collation of Benefices." The nominees were subject to the approbation of the Council. When their names were read the points in their favour and against them were discussed. In this Conseil de Conscience Père Vincent confronted Mazarin ten years. Before Père Vincent appeared men were appointed abbots regardless of their characters. Chantelauze says in Saint Vincent de Paul et les Gondis that "Mazarin raised Simony to honour." The Cardinal gave the benefices to people whom he was sure of: people who were willing to devote themselves, body and soul, to his purposes. Père Vincent had awakened the minds of many influential prelates, and a few men and women prominent at Court had been aroused to a sense of the condition of the Church. These few priests and laymen were called the "Saints' Party."

They sat in the Council convened for the avowed purpose of purifying the Church. When Mazarin made an ignoble appointment, Père Vincent objected, and the influential prelates and the others of their party echoed his objections. Through the energy of the "Saints," as they were flippantly called by the courtiers, many scandalous appointments were prevented, and gradually the church positions were filled by sincere and devoted men. The determined and earnest objections of so many undeniably disinterested, well-known, and unimpeachable people aroused the superstitious scruples of the Queen, and when her scruples were aroused, she was obstinate. Mazarin knew this. He knew that Anne of Austria was a peculiar woman, he knew that she had been a Queen before he had had any hold upon her, and he knew that he had not been her first favourite. He was quick, keen-sighted, flexible. He was cautious. He had no intention of changing the sustained coo of his turtle-dove for the shrill "Tais-toi!" of the Regent of France. But he was not comfortable. His little diaries contain many allusions to the distress caused by his inability to digest the interference of the "Saints." He looked forward to the time when he should be so strong that it would be safe for him to take steps to free himself from the obsessions of the Conseil de Conscience. He was amiable and indulgent in his intercourse with all the cabals and with all the conflicting agitations; he studied motives and forestalled results; he brought down his own larks with the mirrors of his enemies. He had a thousand different ways of working out the same aims. He did nothing to actively offend, but there was a persistence in his gentle tenacity which exasperated men like Condé and disheartened the frank soldiers of the Faith of the mission of Port Royal and the Oratoire. He foresaw a time when he could dispose of benefices and of all else. A few years later the Conseil de Conscience was abolished, and Père Vincent was ignominiously vanquished. Père Vincent lacked the requisites of the courtier; he was artless, and straightforward, and intriguers found it easy to make him appear ridiculous in the eyes of the Queen.[108] Mazarin watched his moment, and when he was sure that Anne of Austria could not refuse him anything, he drew the table of benefices from her hand. From that time "pick and choose" was the order of the day. "Monsieur le Cardinal" visited the appointments secretly, and secured the lion's share for himself. When he had made his choice, the men who offered him the highest bids received what he had rejected. In later years Mazarin was, by his own appointment, Archbishop of Metz and the possessor of thirty fat benefices. His revenues were considerable.

Nowhere did the Oratorians meet as determined opposition as at Court. The courtiers had gone to Mass because they lost the King's favour if they did not go to Mass, but to be inclined to skepticism was generally regarded as a token of elegance. Men thought that they were evincing superior culture when they braved God, the Devil, and the King, at one and the same time, by committing a thousand blasphemies. Despite the pressure of the new ideas, the "Saints' Party" had been difficult to organise. It was a short-lived party because Mazarin was not a man to tolerate rivals who were liable to develop power enough to counteract his influence over Anne of Austria concerning subjects even more vital than the distribution of the benefices. The petty annoyances to which the Prime Minister subjected the "Saints' Party" convinced people that when a man was of the Court, if he felt the indubitable touch of the finger of Grace, the only way open to him was the road to the cloister. It was known that wasps sting, and that they are not meet adversaries for the sons of God, and the wasps were there in swarms. François de Sales called the constantly recurring annoyances, "that mass of wasps." As there was no hope of relief in sight, it was generally supposed that the most prudent and the wisest course for labourers in the vineyard of the Lord was to enter the hive and take their places in the cells, among the manufacturers of honey. So when La Grande Mademoiselle looked upon the convent as her natural destination, she was carrying out the prevalent idea that retreat from the world was the natural result of conversion to true religion. It was well for her and for the convent which she had decided to honour with her presence that just at the moment when she laid her plans her father had one of his rare attacks of common sense—yes, well for her and well for the convent!