“My comrade and I resumed the road to Rome, after spending three days at Loretto; but God stopped me at Terni, in Umbria, to change my beggar life for a place as valet. I was begging from door to door as usual, when a venerable old man, a doctor of laws, invited me to stay with him to attend him in the house and accompany him to town. I was so weary of my beggar’s trade that I readily accepted the citizen’s offer to become his lackey; I even did the lowest tasks, for there was nothing that did not seem sweet and honorable compared to the hardships and humiliations which had made me loathe my mendicant life.
“I had been some time at Terni, but as I had not picked up enough Italian to confess in that language, I made my confession in Latin to a father of the Society of Jesus. After my confession, he questioned me as to my studies. I told him that I was in rhetoric when I allowed myself to be led astray. He manifested the regret he felt to see me reduced to so low a condition after starting so well in my education. He urged me to resume my studies; and to facilitate this he proposed, if I chose, to have me received into the college, where I would advance in science and virtue. I took his proposal ill, imagining he wished to make a Jesuit of me; but in the sequel I had every reason to believe that this wise religious merely wished to give me at first the place of a young secular who taught the lowest class in the college. Would to God I had then commenced to do so! How many sins I should have avoided! I did indeed go two days after to see the father and remind him of it, but as I did not know his name, I was stupid enough to ask for ‘the father who heard my confession.’ The scholars in the college yard to whom I put this question roared at my folly, and that was enough to send me back quicker than I came. However, I asked the doctor whom I served what kind of people the Jesuits were. He answered me carelessly that they received only persons of rank and talent, that their order was less austere than others, and that you could leave it even after taking the vows. These last traits with which he described them did not displease me. I would willingly have entered among them for a time. I was not yet fit for the kingdom of God, as I looked behind me before putting my hand to the plough.
“As I began to understand Italian, I read devotional books in that language, and among the rest one, The Lives of the Fathers of the Desert, inspired me with the desire of becoming a hermit. Thereupon, without consulting any one, I left my master’s house with the view of going to bury myself in some wilderness in France after I had visited Rome.
“As I left the city I met my doctor’s daughter, and explained my intention to her, so that they should not be alarmed at my sudden disappearance. After I had travelled a few leagues, I thought I would try whether I could live on herbs like the anchorites. I took some growing wheat, put it in my mouth, chewed it, but could not swallow it, so I fell back on my trade of beggar, which did not prevent my suffering considerably from hunger, even in Rome, for I did not know the religious houses where alms were given at stated days and hours. The novitiate of the Jesuits at St. Andrew’s is one of these charitable places, and the only one I knew. Although my would-be vocation to the eremitical life was somewhat shaken, I started from Rome intending to return to France. Retracing the same road I came by, I reached Terni, but not daring to return to my master, I retired to a soap-maker of my acquaintance, where I spent the night. The next morning he told the doctor, who was good enough to invite me back to his service. I at once accepted his offer, renouncing for ever beggary, for which I had now a greater horror than ever.
“My good master had an intimate friend called Il Signore Capitone, who some time after my return to Terni told my doctor that he would like to have me at his house as tutor to his two sons, who were studying at the college of the Society of Jesus. My master consented, and, after speaking to me, sent me to his friend. I was received with open arms, and presented the next day to our fathers, who put me in rhetoric. I was not long studying under them without feeling stimulated to imitate the virtues which I admired in these worthy servants of God. One thing prevented openness with my confessor, and it was that I could not bring myself to acknowledge my low birth, for up to this time I had boasted that my father was a procureur du roi (district attorney), and I was ashamed to unsay it or keep on saying it. Several months rolled on in this combat of nature and grace, the latter pressing me to declare my vocation, the former preventing it. However, God, wishing me to be received into the Society, prepared the occasion.
“A young ecclesiastic paid by the fathers taught one of the lower classes, but, getting tired of it, asked to be relieved. They cast their eyes on me, and promised me the same salary. The gentleman with whom I dwelt consenting, I became regent or teacher. God gave me grace to economize my earnings, and when I had a pretty good sum I divided it between the churches and the poor. I even tried to imitate at least in something the great St. Nicholas, by throwing some money one night into a house where there was a girl in want.
“Our Lord rewarded me well for these liberalities by the great grace he did me by calling me strongly to the religious state. One day among others, while they were celebrating in the church the feast of Blessed Francis Borgia, not then canonized, I was so touched by the sermon of the Jesuit father that, to follow as far as I could the example of the blessed Francis, I made a vow to leave the world and enter religion either among the Jesuits, if they were willing to receive me, or, in case they deemed me unworthy of that favor, among the Capuchins or Recollects.”
We will not follow his account of some interior struggles that followed. When the provincial of the order arrived at Terni, the accounts given were so favorable that Chaumonot was received and sent with good letters to the novitiate of St. Andrew’s at Rome. “I was twenty-one years old,” says he, “when I entered the novitiate May 18, 1632.” But he did not finish it there. A nobleman had founded a novitiate at Florence, and young Chaumonot with others was sent there six months after his entrance. The master of novices here, less austere than his former one, encouraged him to reveal the great deception that troubled his conscience.
“One of the first things I asked this second master of novices was that, to punish my pride, he should question me in public as to the condition of my parents, my coming into Italy, and how I had been employed. I hoped thus to expiate to some extent my faults, and especially the falsehood I had uttered to conceal my low birth. He consented. One day, when all the novitiate was assembled, he questioned me on all these points. God gave me grace to practise the humiliation which he had inspired, and I publicly declared who I was, how and why I had left France, and what had been my adventures in Italy. The holy man added to my avowal as I had proposed making it, another act of mortification that I had not counted on. He told me to sing one of my village songs, and for this purpose made me mount on a trunk as my stage. I tried to obey, but the music was not long. My memory could bring up only a dancing tune. I started it. After the first couplet, the father stopped me, crying: ‘Shame! what a ridiculous song! If you don’t know a better one, never sing again.’”
His joy in the abode of religion was unbounded. To find himself admitted among young men so far superior to him in all that the world esteems, gave him constant occasions for zeal and fervor. Yet his trials were not ended. The health which had stood the hardships of his gipsy life now became so impaired that there was some hesitation whether he should be allowed to take his vows.