It was no slight task that awaited him. The two hundred and fifty penniless outcasts—of whom he was one—came to swell a crowd of more than three thousand priests and religious, living in discomfort and distress in the midst of a population far more bitterly opposed to the Catholic religion than the people of England, and in danger, from the want of occupation, and from the cessation of all outward practices of piety, of falling into disorder. Only the year before, a Catholic lady had tried to get permission to have mass celebrated in private, and the good people of Jersey had threatened to throw any priest who ventured to celebrate mass into a caldron of boiling oil; and when after some time she got a brave Irish priest to run the risk, her husband, who served his mass, held a naked sword to be ready for an attack. The Abbé Carron had not been long in the island before nine masses were said every morning in her parlor. After a short visit to London, whither he went to consult with the Bishop of Léon and the rector of his old parish at Rennes—not forgetting at the same time his promise to obtain information that would be useful at La Piletière—he settled himself to his work on the 8th of October. He opened an oratory at once, in which he said mass every day, and preached on Sunday, with some secrecy at first, but very soon, as the dispositions of the people changed, without the necessity of any precautions. He gave several courses of spiritual exercises to the clergy, by which their fervor was rekindled. He set on foot a large dispensary, in which a priest, who had been a surgeon before his ordination, made up and administered remedies, and in which another priest dispensed soup, wine, linen, and other necessaries. Then he collected a great quantity of books, and opened a library and reading-room, where the clergy could come from their over-crowded barrack-rooms to study or pray in silence and in comfort. He provided another collection of books to form a circulating library for the emigrant laity, many of whom had been hurried into exile without being able to bring anything with them; and Catholic books were, of course, unattainable at that time in Jersey. By the June after his arrival he had two schools at work for their sons and daughters, and constituted himself master of the upper division of the boys' school, but taught the catechism and explained the epistles and gospels to all the classes in each institution. These were the only Catholic places of instruction in the whole island. He was, besides, the common refuge for all the wants, spiritual and temporal, of the whole colony; he was hard at work at the composition of some of the numerous volumes which he published to increase his resources of charity; and he continued, till war broke off the communication between England and France, to direct, as far as was possible, the factories of La Piletière. Yet, with all these undertakings on hand, he was living himself in a state of almost destitution. One room served him for a second chapel, for confessional, class-room, reception-room, and bedchamber; and having no servant, he had to move and replace the tables and benches, and sweep and dust several times a day. And, with all this multifarious work, he made it a rule to read two chapters of Holy Scripture on his knees every day, to make a visit every afternoon to the blessed sacrament, to make at least half an hour's mental prayer, and to read a chapter in the Imitation, another in the Spiritual Combat, and at least fifteen pages of a manual of theology, however pressing his occupations might be. He prescribed to himself in a rule of life, drawn up in Jersey, and found after his death, to rise at four, however late he might have retired to rest; to say office after his meditation, and then to celebrate; to fast every day, never taking anything before dinner, and only milk for his collation, and on Fridays only bread; never to touch wine, and to confine himself to bread and vegetables when be dined alone; and in various other ways to deprive himself of comfort, and to bring his standard of what was necessary far below that which is usual even with the pious and charitable. The only expensive article that he retained was a watch, the alarum of which he found needful to wake him; but be promised, as soon as be had thoroughly acquired the habit of waking before four o'clock, to give this also away to his "dear friends the poor; who," he said, "shall have everything that I can deny myself." His rule of life, which contains also devout aspirations for every different act of the day, and for times of wakefulness at night, ends with this fervent petition:
"O incomprehensible and eternal treasure of my soul, the one adorable object of all the feelings, affections, and emotions of my heart, Jesus, my Jesus, my love and my all, oh! that I may love you, that I may live only to love you, and to cause you to be loved upon earth! Grant me, O Lord! days well filled, a pure life, and a happy death, that may conduct me to your bosom!"
That such a man should exercise great influence for good, and work wonders, we cease to be surprised. When his undertakings assumed soon afterward a still more extended range of responsibility in London, Bishop Douglas expressed to the Bishop of Léon his amazement and alarm, and was answered: "Reassure yourself, my lord; I have known Abbé Carron a long time, and I am accustomed to see him work miracles." Yet we should hardly, perhaps, be prepared for what he actually effected. When the republican forces under General Hoche were massed on the coast, apparently for an invasion of our territories, the English government resolved to fortify Jersey, and deemed it expedient to transfer the exiles to London. A curious proposal had just been made by the military commander, that the clergy should take up arms; which was, however, courteously refused, and the refusal courteously accepted. In August, 1796, the abbé came to London, charged with the task of finding accommodation and providing for the wants of the French colony from Jersey. Besides the herculean task of finding lodgings for most of them, he at once hired two houses in Tottenham-court road and reopened his two schools, and soon after opened two rooms for public chapels, and established again his libraries. In less than three years he had also under his care a hospital for forty aged and infirm ecclesiastics, and another for twenty-five female patients, an ecclesiastical seminary containing twenty-five students in training for the priesthood, and a Maison de Providence, on the plan of the houses of the Sisters of Charity, provided with all necessary supplies for visiting and relieving the poor. In 1799, to his two day-schools were added pensionnats—the one for eighty boys, and the other for sixty girls—all the expenses of which, in excess of the twelve or eighteen guineas per head granted by the British government, fell on the abbé. His way of returning thanks was to promise some additional work of charity. Thus, in an effusion of gratitude for the opening of the hospice for old priests, he bound himself to give a dinner to six poor old men every 28th of October; when the seminary was opened, he promised to give a dinner every 1st of December to twelve poor children, to wait on them himself, and to send them home with new clothes and bread in their hands; and when the female hospital was opened, to give a marriage portion every 25th of October to three virtuous young women.
When in peculiarly great difficulties, his plan, like that of many saints, was to give in alms any little money that remained, in order, as he said, "to draw down dew from heaven;" and this never failed. Rich Protestants called and left bank-notes, without giving him time to discover who they were, or sent anonymous donations. Two gentlemen in drab-colored attire astonished the pupils, trained to the most exquisite politeness, by coming in one day without removing their hats; and one of them, who turned out to be that torment of our infancy, Lindsey Murray, after seeing the whole establishment, deposited £10 in the abbé's hands. The leading Catholics were, of course, profuse in their offerings, and all ready to place themselves at his disposal. The hoarded jewels of the richer exiles melted into alms for the poor. Actors read plays for his benefit, and the great Catalani gave a concert for him. He had been encouraged at the outset by even more striking dispositions of Divine Providence. A rich Englishman, living at St. Aubin in Jersey, had entreated him to accept his house and estate and become his heir; but, as the offer involved the condition of being naturalized and abandoning France, his love for his country, that had used him so cruelly, prevented his listening to it. Soon after his settlement in London he found himself without resources, and heavily in debt. Mr. Desprez, his former rector, met him coming out of his oratory in a state of great depression, and proposed a walk in the park. It was early, and no one was to be seen. A man passed them at a rapid pace, and, when a little in advance of them, drew some packages out of his pocket, one of which fell to the ground. The abbé picked it up, and found a bundle of notes. He ran after the man, shouting to him, but in vain, to stop, and at last overtook him. The other refused to stop, and declared that the notes did not belong to him, and that he was in a great hurry. "Where do they come from, then?" was the natural question. "From there, sir," said the stranger, pointing upward. They amounted, Mr. Desprez recorded, to the value of some scores of thousands of francs. The abbé used to say that, while in England, more than a million guineas had passed through his hands. Yet he was inexorable in his rule of never receiving anything of value for himself. He refused whatever was clogged with the condition of keeping it himself.
In 1797, an amnesty for the exiles was voted, and for a week he was hoping to return to France, and had even closed his schools; but the government, who were better acquainted with the state of things, refused him a passport, and the coup d'état of the 4th of September revoked the amnesty. In November, 1799, he settled with all his establishments, except the seminary for priests, which was now not so much required, at Somers-town. They occupied ten large houses, the rent of three being paid by the government, and that of the others by himself. A French journal describes them as situated outside of London, in good air, and quite in the country.
In 1801, he might have returned to France. The famous concordat was signed on the 15th of July, and made public on the following Easter, the 12th of April, 1802. The Bishop of Rennes, who yielded, although with rather too much of protest, to the invitation from the Holy See addressed to all the old bishops to resign their sees, in order to facilitate the working of the concordat, earnestly entreated that Abbé Carron might be his successor; and the First Consul desired himself to secure him. But the articles fraudulently added by Napoleon, and against which the pope, when he became aware of them, vehemently protested, made the abbé feel it to be impossible to work satisfactorily in France while they were in force.
The schism of the Petite Eglise, or Blanchardism as it was called in England, was a terrible blow to him. More than half the bishops still in exile and many of the clergy—and among them his dearest friends—held out against the Holy See. But his fidelity never wavered, not even while the vicar-apostolic of the London district was acting timidly, and weakening the effect of Dr. Milner's more energetic measures. The organic articles were a sore puzzle and distress to him; but he would never countenance a word of disrespect to the Holy See. In a synod of bishops he was chosen by Dr. Milner for his theologian, but rejected on the ground of his being a foreigner. This firmness of his drew upon him ultimately a fierce persecution, and great attempts were made, but with only partial success, to alienate from him Louis XVIII. and the other members of the exiled dynasty, who had themselves remonstrated with the Holy See on the concordat. But no ecclesiastical dignity was ever offered him after the restoration. A storm of abusive pamphlets, anonymous letters, and slanderous reports of the worst kind fell for some time keenly upon him. Yet in his correspondence with his dear relations in Normandy, which was now resumed and carried on till war broke out again, there is no allusion to any of his trials, except that of his continual separation from them. He longs to see them; he interests himself in all the details of their families, and gives them advice and encouragement; but he has no space for his own afflictions. The only thing that disputes with them for his love —for his love of God is supreme over all—is his love of the poor. "I love you," he cries; "yes, certainly, I love you with all my heart, and all the dear ones by whom you are surrounded; but I love my poor still more; they are my numerous and best-beloved family."
In 1807, the popularity of the French clergy was so great, and had so increased the favorable feeling toward Catholics generally, that he thought it time to build a regular church. Hitherto he had officiated in the largest room of one of the schools. The impossibility of raising 4000l. for the purpose was soon surmounted by one to whom nothing was impossible that the glory of God seemed to require. So the church in the Polygon soon rose, and was crowded at once on its being opened; and he added to his other labors the task of giving sermons in English, which it cost him immense pains to elaborate and learn by heart. As his little flock of exiles, who were now making their way back to France diminished, his ministry both among the French settled in London and among the English increased. He made it a rule to visit all his sick—of whom he had a large number—at least once a week, and those seriously ill every day. He visited one daily, and often twice a day, for six months together. His poor schools were enlarged and admitted English as well as French Catholics. His records of conversions became more and more numerous; and each cost him weeks, and generally months, of careful preliminary instruction. He was constantly engaged in writing, and published twelve or thirteen different works in London. He was carrying on also a correspondence with many Protestants and sceptics; to whose difficulties he was never weary of replying. Part of his correspondence with one alone extended to twenty-seven letters, mostly of eight or ten pages each. How he could multiply himself sufficiently for all that he was doing is one of those mysteries which we find in the lives of saints alone. When the demands of the émigrés on his purse were less heavy, he began to distribute soup and coals to the poor Catholics of London; an express prohibition from government preventing him from extending this charity to Protestants, for fear of conversion. As the war went on, immense donations both of money and of all kinds of necessaries were made by him to the increasing crowds of French prisoners.
In April, 1814, Louis XVIII., who had been nearly seven years in England, and under whose patronage the abbé's pensionnats for the children of the émigrés had acquired a sort of title to be deemed royal institutions, returned to the throne, vacant by the banishment of Napoleon to Elba; and the abbé only waited for the royal commands respecting the young French nobility under his care to terminate his twenty-two years of exile. On the 14th of July he said mass for the last time at Somers-town, and set off at five in the morning, to escape any attempts of his flock to prevent his departure. He left England, after all the hundreds of thousands of pounds that had passed through his hands, as poor as he had come to it, and was beholden to his friends the Jerninghams for part of the expense of the journey. A solidly built chapel and two poor schools, containing a hundred children, with all necessary appliances, were his legacy to the Catholics of England. What were his feelings toward those whom he was leaving, and those whom he was expecting to see again, how the sight of France affected him, and what were his intentions for the future, we must leave him to express, by extracting some portion of one of several letters which be wrote on landing:
Calais, Sunday, July 17, 1814.
"Ursula, my dearly loved sister, daughter, and friend—I arrived here last night, after a difficult passage. Here I am, then, on the precious soil that gave me birth. .... Ah! my dear ones, if I could clasp you all in my arms, my heart would be less bruised, less in anguish than it is! Alas! I have lost Somers-town, for me a land of benediction; and in my own country, I look for France in vain. In twenty-four hours, what have I not seen already! This holy day of rest made a working day; not a shop that is not open; not a street-vender that is not crying his wares. What a sight! How it pierces any heart that retains the faith! ... All the difference between the twenty-two last years and those that it may please the Lord to add to me will only be in the outward utterance of my feelings. I was silent, and I loved; I shall speak, but I cannot love more. Oh! what a pure and innocent enjoyment it will be to bless your children and your grandchildren, and to chat together about the days of our youth! I so need some distraction, some nourishment to my poor heart. But do you know the way to procure it the most delicious nourishment? It is to assure me that you wish to live and breathe only for God and for his love; for this is the true life of man—to have a sinner's awe and a child's love for the most tender and compassionate of fathers. If it were granted me to gain him some hearts before dying, this would be a balm that would heal all my wounds. Ah, my child, if you knew what angelic souls I have left on the soil of my second country! Excellent Christians, you are not heard of on earth; but what a festival is in preparation for you in heaven! The love of God for ever! Let us talk of this love; let us act in everything for the sake of it; let us act only through it. To live without loving is to languish; to live without loving is to die. Ah! let us live to love, and let us desire death in order to love still more. Let us live to get love for what is alone supremely lovable, our dear Master, our best of fathers. By his side, and in his bosom, all pains lose their bitterness; and how much of it do they not lose! He forgets nothing that can embellish our crown; and to suffer for so good a Master has its own special charm; suffering love is the best love. Adieu, my beloved child; your father will always love you, as the old curate of St. Germain loved you, and—to end with that sweet title—as the Missioner of Somers-town loved you."