VIII. WHO SHE WAS—WIFE AND MOTHER
The would-be disciple passed many days in observing more carefully than he had hitherto done the rare persons among whom fate had brought him; and he became the subject of a moral phenomenon which modern philosophers have despised,—possibly out of ignorance.
The sphere in which he lived had a positive action upon Godefroid. The laws which regulate the physical nature under relation to the atmospheric environment in which it is developed, rule also in the moral nature. Hence it follows that the assembling together of condemned prisoners is one of the greatest of social crimes; and also that their isolation is an experiment of doubtful success. Condemned criminals ought to be in religious institutions, surrounded by prodigies of Good, instead of being cast as they are into sight and knowledge of Evil only. The Church can be expected to show an absolute devotion in this matter. If it sends missionaries to heathen or savage nations, with how much greater joy would it welcome the mission of redeeming the heathen of civilization? for all criminals are atheists, and often without knowing they are so.
Godefroid found these five associated persons endowed with the qualities they required in him. They were all without pride, without vanity, truly humble and pious; also without any of the pretension which constitutes devotion, using that word in its worst sense. These virtues were contagious; he was filled with a desire to imitate these hidden heroes, and he ended by passionately studying the book he had begun by despising. Within two weeks he reduced his views of life to its simplest lines,—to what it really is when we consider it from the higher point of view to which the Divine spirit leads us. His curiosity—worldly at first, and excited by many vulgar and material motives—purified itself; if he did not renounce it altogether, the fault was not his; any one would have found it difficult to resign an interest in Madame de la Chanterie; but Godefroid showed, without intending it, a discretion which was appreciated by these persons, in whom the divine Spirit had developed a marvellous power of the faculties,—as, indeed, it often does among recluses. The concentration of the moral forces, no matter under what system it may be effected, increases the compass of them tenfold.
“Our friend is not yet converted,” said the good Abbe de Veze, “but he is seeking to be.”
An unforeseen circumstance brought about the revelation of Madame de la Chanterie’s history to Godefroid; and so fully was this made to him that the overpowering interest she excited in his soul was completely satisfied.
The public mind was at that time much occupied by one of those horrible criminal trials which mark the annals of our police-courts. This trial had gathered its chief interest from the character of the criminals themselves, whose audacity, superior intelligence in evil, and cynical replies, had horrified the community. It is a matter worthy of remark that no newspaper ever found its way into the hotel de la Chanterie, and Godefroid only heard of the rejection of the criminals’ appeal from his master in book-keeping; for the trial itself had taken place some time before he came to live in his new abode.
“Do you ever encounter,” he said to his new friends, “such atrocious villains as those men? and if you do encounter them, how do you manage them?”
“In the first place,” said Monsieur Nicolas, “there are no atrocious villains. There are diseased natures, to be cared for in asylums; but outside of those rare medical cases, we find only persons who are without religion, or who reason ill; and the mission of charity is to teach them the right use of reason, to encourage the weak, and guide aright those who go astray.”