Selon mon nom, de Vénus sort ma race;
Suis-je donc son joli fils
Qui rit parmi les roses et lys?
Moi chez qui jamais se trouve la Grâce?
The pun on ‘Grace’ seemed to her a stroke of genius. She was certain that Mère Agnès could not fail to be deeply impressed with the whole communication, and to realise that Madeleine was an instrument exquisitely tempered by God for fine, delicate work in His service. Madeleine planned beforehand the exact words of Mère Agnèse’s answer:—
‘Your words have illumined like a lamp for myself and my sister many a place hitherto dark.’ ‘My dearest child, God has a great work for you.’ ‘My brother says that the Holy Spirit has so illumined for you the pages of his book, that you have learned from it things he did not know were there himself,’
were a few of the sentences. In the actual letter, however, none of them occurred. Mère Agnès seemed to consider Madeleine’s experiences very usual, and irritated her extremely by saying with regard to some difficulty that Madeleine had thought unutterably subtle and original:—
‘Now I will say to you what I always say to my nuns when they are perplexed by that difficulty.’
The letter ended with these words of exhortation:—
‘Remember that pride of intellect is the most deadly and difficult to combat of the three forms of Concupiscence, and that the pen, although it can be touched into a shining weapon of God’s, is a favourite tool of the Evil One, for amour-propre is but too apt to seize it from behind and make it write nothing but one’s own praises, and that when one would fain be writing the praises of God. Are you certain, my dear child, that this has not happened to you? Conceits and jeux d’esprit may sometimes without doubt be used to the Glory of God, as, for example, in the writings of the late Bishop of Geneva of thrice blessed memory. But by him they were always used as were the Parables of Our Lord, to make hard truths clear to simple minds, but you, my child, are not yet a teacher. Examine your heart as to whether there was not a little vanity in your confessions. I will urgently pray that grace may be sent you, to help you to a true examination of your own heart.’