The father’s reply was a very practical one. “My dear sir,” said he, “nothing of the kind. The world dislikes us because we persist in teaching, and because it knows perfectly well that all our teaching is impregnated to the core with that particular kind of Catholicity which it hates—the Catholicity, I mean, whose first principle is devotion and implicit obedience to the Holy See.”
It will be seen, therefore, from the foregoing fragment of conversation, that the Jesuits’ work in Paris is for the most part the Catholic education of the upper classes.
The fathers in the Rue de Sèvres do, in one way and another, a good deal of work, although but little, perhaps, of a character that directly identifies itself with the peculiar animus of the order to which I have alluded. They are popular as confessors, and this involves a good deal of labor.
They direct two confraternities of men, each numbering respectively upwards of two hundred members. One is for the fathers of families, and the other for young men. Each society meets in the chapel upon alternate Thursdays for Mass and instruction. Again, the Jesuits render every assistance that lies in their power to the parochial clergy; and thus the fathers become, now conductors of missions, and now Lenten or Advent preachers.
At the Rue de Sèvres are given retreats, not only to their own brethren and the secular clergy, but also, and on a large scale, to private individuals—men whom care has driven to seek refuge in the contemplation of the treasures laid up for them in heaven.
Jesuits, whose duty calls them to places en route to which Paris becomes a natural resting-place, find a haven in the Rue de Sèvres. The provincial resides here when he is in Paris; and, finally, a few men who, at a moment’s notice, are available to be sent anywhere to meet a sudden emergency, make for the time this most interesting house their home.
In a dark, narrow street in close proximity to the Pantheon—in a street that, in its unlikeness to some other parts of the city, reminds one of the Paris of history—is situated the College of S. Geneviève. This is the chief educational establishment of the order; the other being that of the school of the Immaculate Conception at Vaugirard—a village on the southwest side of Paris.
In concluding this chapter in the life of what, next to holy church itself, must ever be considered the most wonderful organization that the world has ever seen, I cannot do better than append a brief account of the character of the work done in these two houses.
The Ecole S. Geneviève, founded in the year 1854, proposes for its object the preparation of youths for admission into the various professional colleges in France. That the work is a success may be seen in the fact that, in 1872-1873, sixty-four students were actually admitted from thence to the military academy at St. Cyr, while twenty-three more were declared “admissibles”; that the same school sent sixteen boys to the Ecole Centrale, to be educated as engineers, seven to the Ecole Navale, and twenty-three to the Polytechnique; and, lastly, that, exclusive of these, many more have been admitted into other similar establishments in Paris or elsewhere. The aggregate number of students appears, from the statistics put into my hands, to exceed four hundred and fifty.
The present rector of S. Geneviève is the immediate successor of the Père Ducoudray; and it is a noteworthy fact that three out of the five men killed under the Commune were connected with the school; the other two being PP. Caubert and Clerc. The services of the last-named father must have been extremely valuable; for, previous to his admission to the Society of Jesus, he had been for many years a naval officer.