XCI.
To Mgr. André Frémyot, formerly Archbishop of Bourges (the Saint's brother).
On the Death of her Daughter-in-Law, Mme. de Chantal.[A]
Vive ✠ Jésus!
Annecy, 1633.
My very honoured Lord,
We have but to adore with profound submission the will of our good God, and lovingly to kiss the rod with which He chastises His elect. Yes, indeed, notwithstanding all the repugnance of nature, I praise and thank Him a thousand times, because He is our good God, who sends us with the same love joys and sorrows, and even for the most part causes greater profit to come to us through affliction than through prosperity. Yet is it not strange that knowing and experiencing this we should feel so keenly as we do the death of those we love?—for I own to you that upon opening the little note that announced the death of my poor dear daughter I was so overcome that had I been standing I think I should have fallen. I never remember any previous sorrow to have had the effect of this note upon me. O! my Jesus! What a climax of grief it has been to my poor feeble heart and how your trouble has added to mine! It is most natural that you should feel it as you do, and at your age too; what a sweetness and support you have lost in this daughter who so lovingly looked after your health and every want of yours. All this makes me suffer more than I can say, for whatever touches you touches me acutely. But when I reflect that by means of these privations, lovingly accepted, our good God wishes to be Himself everything to us, and that the least advance we make in His love is worth more than all the world with all its joys, and that in those sharp trials which deprive us of our sweetest pleasure He prizes above all the union of our will with His—truly, I say, when I consider these things, I find myself impelled to acknowledge that the more sorrows that come upon one the more is one favoured by God. I hope that before now you will yourself have received this light and found comfort in it. First emotions [of grief], my beloved and dearest Lord, are inevitable, and our sweet Saviour is not offended by them. But I trust that after them He will abundantly fill you with consolations; this I pray for unceasingly. Distract yourself as much as you can and let the confident hope that we shall be united in a blessed eternity fortify you. The virtuous life and holy death of our dearly loved daughter gives strong hope that in God's mercy she is already in this enjoyment. We are after all here only to prepare for future happiness, and the sooner we possess it the happier for us.
I am writing to M. and Mme. de Coulanges, to whom this terrible loss must have been a great blow. I believe they will take into their heart the poor little orphan[B] and always keep her there. Verily when my thoughts turn to her I have to hold them in. I trust that God, to whom I confide her, will be Father and Protector to her, and I give her up to the care of the Blessed Virgin with all my heart.
Our Sisters of both Convents upon this occasion have forgotten nothing. Besides their own love for the dear deceased they also felt very much for your sorrow in her loss and for mine. There is some comfort in knowing that she is to be left, with the heart of my poor son, in the care of the Sisters. Your judge of Nantua told me the other day that you are at N. I was very glad, my dear Lord, to hear it, as it will help to give you the distraction that you ought to seek.
My Lord,
Yours, etc.
[A] The young Baroness de Chantal died August 20th, 1633, and was buried in the vault at the Visitation Monastery, Rue St. Antoine.