Few in a worldly sense made greater sacrifice than St. Casimir, son of Casimir III., King of Poland. He so loved his reverend tutor, Dugloss, that, to be like him, he abandoned even his chance of the throne, and became a priest. St. Benedict of Umbria took a similar course, upon a smaller scale; and not all the persuasions of his nurse, who ran after him when he ran away from home, could induce him to be anything but a priest. St. Herman Joseph, of Cologne, showed how completely he had abandoned the knightly character, when, as monk, he begged the peasants whom he taught, to be good enough to buffet him well, and cuff him soundly, as it was impossible for him to have a sufficiency of kicks and contempt. St. Guthlac, the noble hermit of Croyland, evinced more dignity in his retirement, and the same may be said of St. Peter Regalati, and St. Ubaldus of Gabio. The latter was resolute neither to marry nor take arms. He liked no turmoil, however qualified. St. Vincent of Lerins did bear arms for years, but he confessed he did not like the attendant dangers—threatening him spiritually, not bodily, and he took the cowl and gained a place in the sacred calendar accordingly. St. Aloysius Gonzaga, whose father was a prince, was another of the young gentlemen for whom arms had little attraction. The humility of this young gentleman, however, had a very silly aspect, if it all resembled what is said of him by Father Caperius. “He never looked on women, kept his eye strictly guarded, and generally cast down; would never stay with his mother alone in her chamber, and if she sent in any message to him by some lady in her company, he received it, and gave his answer in a few words, with his eyes shut, and his chamber-door only half open; and when bantered on that score, he ascribed such behavior to his bashfulness. It was owing to his original modesty that he did not know by their face many ladies among his own relations, with whom he had frequently conversed; and that he was afraid and ashamed to let a footman see so much as his foot uncovered.” Whatever the soft Aloysius may have been fit for, it is clear that he was not fit for chivalry. Something akin to him was St. Theobald of Champagne, who probably would never have been a saint, if his father had not ordered him to lead a body of troops to the succor of a beleaguered cousin. Theobald declined, and at once went into a monastery.
St. Walthen, one of the sons of the Earl of Huntingdon, and Maud, daughter of Judith, which Judith was the niece of the Conqueror, only narrowly escaped being a gallant knight. As a boy, indeed, he used to build churches with his box of bricks, while his brothers built castles; but at least he gave promise of being a true knight, and, once, not only accepted the gift of a ring from a lady, but wore the sparkling diamond on his finger. “Ah! ah!” exclaimed the saucy courtiers, “Knight Walthen is beginning to have a tender heart for the ladies!” Poor Walthen! he called this a devil’s chorus, tossed the ring into the fire, broke the lady’s heart, and went into a monastery for the remainder of his days. He escaped better than St. Clarus, who had a deaf ear and stone-blind eyes for the allurements of a lady of quality, and who only barely escaped assassination, at the hands of two ruffians hired by the termagant to kill the man who was above allowing her holy face to win from him a grin of admiration. But though I could fill a formidable volume with names of ci-devant knights who have turned saints, I will spare my readers, and conclude with the great name of St. Bernard. He did not, indeed, take up arms, but when he adopted a religious profession, he enjoyed the great triumph of inducing his uncle, all his brothers, knights, and simple officers, to follow his example. The uncle Gualdri, a famous swordsman and seigneur of Touillon, was the first who was convinced that Bernard was right. The two younger brothers of the latter, Bartholomew and Andrew, next knocked off their spurs and took to their breviary. Guy, the eldest brother, a married man, of wealth, broke up his household, sold his armor, sent his lady to a convent and his daughters to a nunnery, put on the cowl, and followed St. Bernard. Others of his family and many of his friends followed his example, with which I conclude my record of saints who have had any connection with arms. As for St. Bernard, I will say of him, that had he assumed the sword and been as merciless to his enemies as he was, in his character of abbot, without bowels of compassion for an adversary whom he could crush by wordy argument, he would have been the most terrible cavalier that ever sat in saddle!
Perhaps the most perfect cavalier who ever changed that dignity for the cowl, was the Chevalier de Rancé. Of him and his Trappist followers I will here add a few words.
THE CHEVALIER DE RANCE AND THE TRAPPISTS.
De Rancé was born in 1626. He was of a ducal house, and the great Cardinal de Richelieu was his godfather. In his youth he was very sickly and scholastic. He was intended for the Church, held half a score of livings before he could speak—and when he could express his will, resolved to live only by his sword. He remained for a while neither priest nor swordsman, but simply the gayest of libertines. He projected a plan of knight-errantry, in society with all the young cavaliers, and abandoned the project to study astrology. For a period of some duration, he was half-knight, half-priest. He then received full orders, dressed like the most frivolous of marquises, seduced the Duchess de Montbazon, and absolved in others the sins which he himself practised. “Where are you going?” said the Chevalier de Champvallon to him one day. “I have been preaching all the morning,” said De Rancé, “like an angel, and I am going this afternoon to hunt like the very devil.” He may be said to have been like those Mormons who describe their fervent selves as “Hell-bent on Heaven!”
Nobody could ever tell whether he was soldier or priest, till death slew the Duchess de Montbazon. De Rancé unexpectedly beheld the corpse disfigured by the ravages of small-pox or measles, and he was so shocked, that it drove him from the world to the cloister, where, as the reconstructor, rather than the founder, of the order of Trappists, he spent thirty-seven years—exactly as many as he had passed in the “world.”
The companions and followers of the chivalrous De Rancé claim a few words for themselves. The account will show in what strong contrasts the two portions of their lives consisted. They had learned obedience in their career of arms, but they submitted to a far more oppressive rule in their career as monks. Some century and a half ago there was published in Paris a dreadfully dreary series of volumes, entitled “Relations de la Vie et de la Mort de quelques Religieux de l’Abbaye de la Trappe.” They consist chiefly of tracts, partly biographical and partly theological, uninteresting in the main, but of interest as showing what noble soldiers or terrible freebooters asked for shelter in, and endured the austerities of, La Trappe. I have alluded to the unreserved submission required at the hands of the brothers. The latter, according to the volumes which I have just named, were sworn to impart even their thoughts to the Abbot. They who thus delivered themselves with least reserve appear to have been commanded in very bad Latin; but their act of obedience was so dear to Heaven, that their persons became surrounded with a glory, which their less communicative brethren, says the author naïvely, could not possibly gaze at for any length of time:—the which I implicitly believe.
The candidates for admission included, without doubt, many very pious persons, but with them were degraded priests, with whom we have little to do, and ex-officers, fugitive men-at-arms, robbers who had lived by the sword, and murderers, of knightly degree, who had used their swords to the unrighteous slaying of others, and who sought safety within the cloisters of La Trappe. All that was asked of them was obedience. Where this failed it was compelled. Where it abounded it was praised. Next to it was humility. One brother, an ex-soldier reeking with blood, is lauded because he lived on baked apples, when his throat was too sore to admit of his swallowing more substantial food. Another brother, who had changed arms for the gown, is most gravely compared with Moses, because he was never bold enough to enter the pantry with sandals on his feet. Still, obedience was the first virtue eulogized—so eulogized that I almost suspect it to have been rare. It was made of so much importance, that the community were informed that all their faith, and all their works, without blind obedience to the superior, would fail in securing their salvation. Practical blindness was as strongly enjoined. He who used his eyes to least purpose, was accounted the better man. One ex-military brother did this in so praiseworthy a way, that in eight years he had never seen a fault in any of his brethren.
It was not, however, this sort of blindness that De Rancé required, for he encouraged the brethren to bring accusations against each other. Much praise is awarded to a brother who never looked at the roof of his own cell. Laudation more unmeasured is poured upon another faithful knight of the new order of self-negation, who was so entirely unaccustomed to raise his eyes from the ground, that he was not aware of the erection of a new chapel in the garden, until he broke his head against the wall.
On one occasion the Duchess de Guiche and an eminent prelate visited the monastery together. After they had left, a monk entered the Abbot’s apartment, threw himself at the feet of his superior, and begged permission to confess a great crime. He was told to proceed.