Our readers will not grudge this extract, so touching in its simplicity. What a living picture does it give us of this remarkable family!—the elder sister’s wakeful
anxiety—the younger’s calm determination—the brother’s half-suppressed yet deeply-moved tenderness—the proud and sensitive reserve of all the three. Jacqueline’s firmness was heroic, but her heart was full of concern. She had escaped the half-authoritative, half-supplicating entreaties of her brother, and found refuge for her long-cherished solicitudes of heart in the bosom of Port Royal, and the strong counsels both of the Mère Angélique and the Mère Agnès. But after a while this did not satisfy her. When the time came to make her profession, she was anxious to do so, not merely with her own consent, but with her brother’s. And accordingly, she addressed him in the following March a remarkable letter, in which, while reminding him that she was her own mistress to do as she wished in a matter so seriously affecting her life, she yet prayed him to give her a kindly greeting in her solemn act, and to come to the ceremony of her taking the vows. The letter breathes at once the affection of a sister and the passion of a saint,—the proud firmness so characteristic of the family, with a charming sweetness, blending entreaty with command. She signs herself already “Sister of Sainte Euphémie,” the name which she adopted as an inmate of Port Royal, addressing her brother for the most part with the grave formal “you,” but now and then relapsing into the old familiar “thou,” as if she were still in the family home.
“Do not take that away,” she says, [59] “which you cannot give. If it is true that the world has preserved some impressions of the friendship which it showed for me when I was with it, please God this should not turn me from quitting it, nor you from consenting to my doing so. This ought rather to be my glory, and your joy, and that of all my true friends, as showing the strength of my God, and that it is not the world which quits me, but I that quit the world, and that the effort which it makes to retain me is to be regarded as only a visible punishment of the complacency with which I formerly regarded it, and which it now pleases God to give me power to resist. . . . Do not hinder those who do well; and do well yourself; or if you have not the strength to follow me, at least do not hold me back. Do not render me ungrateful to God for the grace which He has given to one whom you love. . . . I wait this proof of your brotherly friendship, and pray you to come to my divine betrothal, which will take place, God helping, on Trinity Sunday. I wrote also to my faithful one [her sister Gilberte]. I beg you to console her, if there is need, and encourage her. It is only for the sake of form that I ask you to be present at the ceremony; for I do not believe you have any thought of failing me. Be assured that I must renounce you if you do.”
The result of this moving appeal was to bring her brother to her side.
“He came the following day very much put out,” she says, “with a bad headache, the result of my letter, yet also very much softened, for instead of the two years which he had formerly insisted on, he wished me merely to wait till All Saints’ Day. But seeing me firm not to delay, yet willing to give him some further time to think over the matter, he melted entirely, and expressed pity for the trouble which had made me delay so long a result which I had so long and so ardently desired. He did not return at the appointed time; but M. d’Andilly, at my request, had the goodness to send for him on Saturday, and undertook the matter with so much warmth, and yet skill, that he consented to everything we wished.” [60]
Jacqueline gained her point so far; but painful
difficulties still remained, the story of which she herself has also told us. [61] While eager to be admitted to the full privileges of her vocation, she did not wish to enter Port Royal empty-handed. She thought herself free to endow it with the share of her father’s fortune which had fallen to her, and seems not to have doubted her brother’s and sister’s concurrence in this act of liberality. But they, on the contrary, were both for a time deeply offended that she should apparently prefer strangers to her own kindred. They took the matter “in an entirely secular manner.” This greatly grieved her in turn; and, balked at once in her wishes and her sisterly trust, she pictures in the most lively colours the distress she endured. La Mère Agnès consoled her in her disappointment, and sought to carry her thoughts beyond the mere chagrin which so obviously mingled with her higher feeling. Her own somewhat resentful obstinacy gradually yielded to the pure passivity of resignation—so strong in its seeming weakness—which the sister of Arnauld preached to her. At length she is content to make no further demands upon her brother. He and Madame Périer shall do as they wish; the money would not be blessed unless it came from free hearts, and was given for the love of God. She is willing even to be received gratuitously as a sister—a feeling evidently not without its bitterness. Her submission became, as may be guessed, her triumph; a result probably not unforeseen by the deeper experience of La Mère Agnès and M. Singlin.
When her brother—“he who had most interest in the affair”—at last came to see her, she endeavoured to meet him as the Mother advised. “But, with all her effort” she could not hide the sadness of her heart.
“This,” she says, “was so unlike my usual manner, that he perceived it at once; and there was no need of an interpreter to explain the cause, for though I put on the best face I could, he easily guessed that it was his own conduct which was the cause of my uneasiness. All the same, he was desirous of making the first complaint; and then I learned that both he and my sister felt themselves much aggrieved by what I had written. He dwelt on this, but could hardly go on, seeing I made no complaint on my side. Otherwise, I could have destroyed by a single word all his reasons!”
A true family trait! The result of all was, that Pascal yielded to the tender resignation of his sister what he had refused to her arguments. He was so “touched,” she says, “with confusion, that he resolved to put the whole affair in order,” and to undertake himself any risks or charges that it might involve.