ON CONVENTS—OMNIPOTENCE OF THE DIRECTOR.—CONDITION OF THE NUN FORLORN AND WATCHED.—CONVENTS THAT ARE AT THE SAME TIME BRIDEWELLS AND BEDLAMS.—INVEIGLING.—BARBAROUS DISCIPLINE.—STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE SUPERIOR NUN AND THE DIRECTOR.—CHANGE OF DIRECTORS.—THE MAGISTRATE.
Fifteen years ago I occupied, in a very solitary part of the town, a house, the garden of which was adjacent to that of a convent of women. Though my windows overlooked the greatest part of their garden, I had never seen my sad neighbours. In the month of May, on Rogation-day, I heard numerous weak, very weak voices, chanting prayers, as the procession passed through the convent garden. The singing was sad, dry, unpleasant, their voices false, as if spoiled by sufferings. I thought for a moment they were chanting prayers for the dead; but, listening more attentively, I distinguished on the contrary, "Te rogamus, audi nos," the song of hope which invokes the benediction of the God of life upon fruitful nature. This May-song, chanted by these lifeless nuns, offered to me a bitter contrast. To see these pale girls crawling along on the flowery, verdant turf, these poor girls; who will never bloom again!—The thought of the middle ages that had at first flashed across my mind soon died away: for then monastic life was connected with a thousand other things; but in our modern harmony what is this but a barbarous contradiction, a false, harsh, grating note? What I then beheld before me was to be defended neither by nature nor by history. I shut my window again, and sadly resumed my book. This sight had been painful to me, as it was not softened or atoned for by any poetical sentiment. It reminded me much less of chastity than of sterile widowhood, a state of emptiness, inaction, disgust—of an intellectual[1] and moral fast, the state in which these unfortunate creatures are kept by their absolute rulers.
We were speaking of habit; it is certainly there that it reigns a tyrant. Very little art is required to rule over these poor, insulated, immured, and dependent women; as there is no outward influence to counterbalance the impression that one person, ever the same person, makes on them daily. The least skilful priest may easily fascinate their natures, already weakened, and brought down to the most servile, trembling obedience. There is little courage or merit in thus trampling over the creature which is already crushed.
To speak first of the power of habit: nothing of all that we see in the world can give us an idea of the force with which it acts upon this little immured community. Family society, doubtless, modifies us, but its influence is neutralised by outward events. The regularity with which our favourite newspaper comes every morning with uniform monotony, has certainly some influence; but this newspaper has its rivals, its opponents. Another influence which exists less in our time, but is still very powerful over secluded persons, is that of a book, the captivating perusal of which may detain us for months and years. Diderot confesses that Clarissa was read by him over and over again, and that it was for a long time his very life, his joy, his grief, his summer and winter. But the finest thing of this class is, after all, but a book, a dumb, inanimate thing, which, though you may call it as animate as you please, does not hear, and cannot answer; it has no words with which it may answer yours, nor eyes to reflect your own.
Away, then, with books, those cold paper images!
Imagine in a monastery, where nothing else intrudes, the only living object, the only person who has a right to enter, who monopolises all the influences of which we have spoken, who is, in himself, their society, newspaper, novel, and sermon; a person whose visit is the only interruption to the deadly monotony of a life devoid of employment. Before he comes, and after he has been, is the only division of time in this life of profound monotony.
We said a person, we ought to have said a man. Whoever will be candid would confess that a woman would never have this influence; that the circumstance of his being of the opposite sex has much to do with it, even with the purest and with those who had never dreamed of sex.
To be the only one, without either comparison or contradiction, to be the whole world of a soul, to wean it, at pleasure, from every reminiscence that might cause any rivalry, and efface from this docile heart even the thought of a mother that might still[2] be cherished within it! To inherit everything, and remain alone and be master of this heart by the extinction of all natural sentiments!
The only one! But this is the good, the perfect, the amiable, the beloved! Enumerate every good quality, and they will all be found to be contained in this one term. A thing even (not to say a person), a thing, if it be the only one, will in time captivate our hearts. Charlemagne, seeing from his palace always the same sight, a lake with its verdant border, at last fell in love with it.
Habit certainly contributes much; but also that great necessity of the heart to tell everything to what we are always in the habit of seeing: whether it be man or thing, we must speak. Even if it were a stone, we should tell it everything, for our thoughts must be told, and our griefs be poured out from an overflowing heart.
Do you believe that this poor nun is tranquil in this life so monotonous? How many sad, but, alas! too true confessions I could relate here, that have been communicated to me by tender female friends, who had gone and received their tears in their bosom, and returned, pierced to the heart, to weep with me.
What we must wish for the prisoner is, that her heart, and almost her body, may die. If she be not shattered and crushed into a state of self-oblivion, she will find in the convent the united sufferings of solitude and of the world. Alone, without being able to be alone![3] Forlorn, yet all her actions watched!
Forlorn! This nun still young, yet already old through abstinence and grief, was yesterday a boarder, a novice whom they caressed. The friendship of the young girls, the maternal flattery of the old, her attachment for this nun, or that confessor, everything deceived her, and enticed her onward to eternal confinement. We almost always fancy ourselves called to God, when we follow an amiable, enchanting person, one who, with that smiling, captivating devotion, delights in this sort of spiritual conquest. As soon as one is gained, she goes to another; but the poor girl who followed her, in the belief that she was loved, is no longer cared for.
Alone, in a solitude without tranquillity of mind, and without repose. How sweet, in comparison with this, would be the solitude of the woods! The trees would still have compassion; they are not so insensible as they seem: they hear and they listen.
A woman's heart, that unconquerable maternal instinct, the basis of a woman's character, tries to deceive itself. She will soon find out some young friend, some candid companion, a favourite pupil. Alas! she will be taken from her. The jealous ones, to find favour with the superiors, never fail to accuse the purest attachments. The devil is jealous, in the interest of God—he makes his objections for the sake of God alone.
What wonder, then, if this woman is sad, sadder every day, frequenting the most melancholy-looking avenues, and no longer speaks? Then her solitude becomes a crime. Now she is pointed out as suspected: they all observe and watch her. In the day-time? It is not enough. The spy system lasts all night: they watch her sleeping, listen to her when she dreams, and take down her words.
The dreadful feeling of being thus watched night and day must strangely trouble all the powers of the soul. The darkest hallucinations come over her, and all those wicked dreams that her poor reason, when on the point of leaving her, can make in broad daylight and wide awake. You know the visions that Piranesi has engraved: vast subterraneous prisons, deep pits without air, staircases that you ascend for ever without reaching the top, bridges that lead to an abyss, low vaults, narrow passages of catacombs growing closer and closer. In these dreadful prisons, which are punishments, you may perceive, moreover, instruments of torture, wheels, iron collars, whips.
In what, I should like to know, do convents of our time differ from houses of correction and mad-houses?[4] Many convents seem to unite the three characters.
I know but one difference between them; whilst the houses of correction are inspected by the law, and the mad-houses by the police, both stop at the convent doors; the law is afraid, and dares not pass the threshold.
The inspection of convents, and the precise designation of their character, are, however, so much more indispensable in these days, as they differ in a very serious point from the convents of the oldrégime.
Those of the last century were properly asylums, where, for a donation once paid, every noble family, whether living as nobles, or rich citizens, placed one or more daughters to make a rich son. Once shut up there, they might live or die as they pleased; they were no longer cared for. But nownuns inherit, they become an object to be gained, a prey for a hundred thousand snares—an easy prey in their state of captivity and dependence. A superior, zealous to enrich her community, has infallible means to force the nun to give up her wealth; she can a hundred times a-day, under pretence of devotion and penitence, humble, vex, and even ill-treat her, till she reduces her to despair. Who can say where asceticism finishes and captation begins, that "compelle intrare" applied to fortune? A financial and administrative spirit prevails to such a degree in our convents, that this sort of talent is what they require in a superior before every other. Many of these ladies are excellent managers. One of them is known in Paris by the notaries and lawyers, as able to give them lessons in matters of donations, successions, and wills. Paris need no longer envy Bologna that learned female jurisconsult, who, occasionally wrapped in a veil, professed in the chair of her father.
Our modern laws, which date from the Revolution, and which, in their equity, have determined that the daughter and younger son should not be without their inheritance, work powerfully in this respect in favour of the counter-revolution: and that explains the rapid and unheard-of increase of religious houses.
Nothing stops the monastic recruiters in their zeal for the salvation of rich souls. You may see them fluttering about heirs and heiresses. What a premium for the young peasants who people our seminaries is this prospect of power! Once priests, they may direct fortunes as well as consciences![5]
Captation, so conspicuous in the busy world, is not so in the convents; though it is here still more dangerous, being exercised over persons immured and dependent. There it reigns unbridled, and is formidable with impunity. For who can know it? Who dares enter here? No one. Strange! There are houses in France that are estranged to France. The street is still France; but pass yonder threshold, and you are in a foreign country which laughs at your laws.
What, then, are their laws? We are ignorant upon the subject. But we know for certain (for no pains are taken to disguise it) that the barbarous discipline of the middle ages is preserved in full force. Cruel contradiction! This system that speaks so much of the distinction of the soul and the body, and believes it, since it boldly exposes the confessor to carnal temptations! Well! this very same system teaches us that the body, distinct from the soul, modifies it by its suffering; that the soul improves and becomes more pure under the lash![6] It preaches spiritualism to meet valiantly the seduction of the flesh, and materialism when required to annihilate the will!
What! when the law forbids to strike even our galley slaves, who are thieves, murderers, the most ferocious of men—you men of grace, who speak only of charity,the good holy Virgin, and the gentle Jesus—you strike women!—nay, girls, even children—who, after all, are only guilty of some trifling weakness!
How are these chastisements administered? This is a question, perhaps, still more serious. What sort of terms of composition may not be extorted by fear? At what price does authority sell its indulgence?
Who regulates the number of stripes? Is it you, My Lady Abbess? or you, Father Superior? What must be the capricious partial decision of one woman against another, if the latter displeases her; an ugly woman against a handsome one, or an old one against a young girl? We shudder to think.
A strange struggle often happens between the superior nun and the director. The latter, however hardened he may be, is still a man. It is very difficult for him at last not to be affected for the poor girl, who tells him everything, and obeys him implicitly. Female authority perceives it instantly, observes him, and follows him closely. He sees his penitent but little, very little, but it is always thought too much. The confession shall last only so many minutes: they wait for him, watch in hand. It would last too long, nay, for ever, without this precaution. To the poor recluse, who received from every one else only insult and ill-treatment, a compassionate confessor is still a welcome refuge.
We have known superiors demand and obtain several times from their bishops a change of confessors, without finding any sufficiently austere. There is ever a wide difference between the harshness of man and the cruelty of a woman! What is, in your opinion, the most faithful incarnation of the devil in this world? Some inquisitor? Some Jesuit or other? No, afemale Jesuit,—some great lady, who has been converted, and believes herself born to rule, who among this flock of trembling females acts the Bonaparte, and who, more absolute than the most absolute tyrant, uses the rage of her badly-cured passions to torment her unfortunate defenceless sisters.
Far from being the adversary of the confessor in this case, he has my best wishes. Whether he be priest, monk, or Jesuit, I am now on his side. I entreat him to interfere, if he can. In this hell, where the law cannot penetrate, he is the only person who can say a word of humanity. I know very well that this interference will create the strongest and most dangerous attachment. The heart of the poor young creature is wholly given up beforehand to him who defends her.
The priest will be removed, driven away, and ruined, if it be necessary. Nothing is easier to an active influential superior. He dares not venture there, is afraid of disturbance, and retires timidly. You will find neither priests nor prelates in these cases mindful of their power, as confessors and spiritual judges; nor will they refuse absolution to the tyrant of the nuns, as Las Casas did to those of the Indians.
There are, fortunately, other judges. The law sleeps, but it still lives.[7] Some courageous magistrates have been willing to do their duty.[8] No doubt they will be permitted. The nights of the guilty have been troubled; they know that every violence which is committed there, every blow given in defiance of the law, is an accusation against them before heaven and earth.Exsurge, Domine, et judica causam tuam!
[1] I have already spoken of Sister Mary Lemonnier, persecuted for knowing too well how to write and draw flowers, &c.—"My confessor," says she, "forbade me to gather flowers and to draw. Unfortunately, walking in the garden with the nuns, there were on the edge of the grass two wild poppies, which, without any intention, I lopped between my fingers in passing. One of the sisters saw me, and ran to inform the superior nun who was walking in front, and who immediately came towards me, made me open my hand, and, seeing the poppies, told me that I had done for myself. And the confessor having come the same evening, she accused me before him of disobedience in having gathered flowers. It was in vain I told him that it was unintentionally done, and that they were only wild poppies; I could not obtain permission to confess myself."—Note of Sister Marie Lemonnier, in Mr. Tilliard's Mémoire. The newspapers and the reviews in March, 1845, give extracts from it.
[2] It is often from an instinctive tyranny that the superiors delight in breaking the ties of kindred. "The curate of my parish exhorted me to write to my father, who had just lost my mother. I let Advent go by (during which time nuns are not permitted to write letters), and the latter days of the month which are passed in retirement in the institution to prepare us for the renewing of our vows, which takes place on new-year's day. But after the holy term I hastened to fulfil my duty towards the best of fathers by addressing to him both my prayers and good wishes, and endeavouring to offer him some consolation in the afflictions and trials with which it had pleased God to visit him. I went to the cell of the superior nun to beg her to read over my letter, fix the convent seal to it, and send it off; but she was not there. I therefore put it in my cell upon the table, and went to prayers; during which time our reverend mother the superior, who knew that I had written, because she had sent one of the nuns to see what I was about, beckoned to one of the sisters and bid her go and take my letter. She did so every time I wrote, seven times running, so that my father died five months afterwards without ever obtaining a letter from me, which he had so much desired, and had even asked me for on his death-bed, by the curate of his parish."—Note of Sister Lemonnierin Mr. Tilliard's Mémoire. See also theNational, March, 1845.
[3] The preliminary confession of the nuns to the superior, easily acceded to in the first fit of enthusiasm, soon becomes an intolerable vexation. Even in Madame de Chantal's time, it was much complained of. See her letters, and Fichet, 256; also Ribadeneira, Life of St. Theresa.
[4] Sister Marie Lemonnier was shut up with mad girls: here she found a Carmelite nun, who had been there nine years. The third volume of theWandering Jewcontains the real history of Mademoiselle B. All this happened very lately, not in a mad-house, but in a convent. Since I have this opportunity of saying a word to our admirable novelist, let him permit me to ask him why he thought proper to idealise the Jesuits to this extent? who does not know that certain dignitaries of their order have become immortal by ridicule? It is difficult to believe stupid writers to be strong minds, or profound machinators. I look in vain for a Rodin, and find only Loriquets.
[5] All these people buy and sell, and become brokers. Prelates speculate in lands and buildings, the Lazarists turn agents for military recruits, &c. The latter, the successors of St. Vincent de Paul, the directors of our Sisters of Charity, have been so blessed by God for their charity, that they have now a capital of twenty millions. Their present chief, Mr. Etienne, then a procurer of the order, was lately the Lazarist agent in a distillery company. The very important law-suit they have at the present moment will decide whether a society engaged by a general, its absolute chief, is freed from every engagement by a change of generals.
[6] Did not this horrible art calculate well on the influence of the body? this art that does not awaken man's energy by pain, but enervates it by diet and the misery of dungeons! (See Mabillon's Treatise on Monastic Prisons.) The revelations of the prisoners of Spielberg have enlightened us upon this head.
[7] The affairs at Avignon, Sens, Poictiers, though the guilty parties have been but slightly punished, permit us to hope that the law will at length awake. We read in one of the newspapers of Caen: "A report was current yesterday at thepalais, that theprocureur-généralwas going to evoke not only the affair of the sequestration of Sister Marie, but also that of Sister Ste-Placide, about whose removal theavocat-général, Sorbier, wrote to the under-prefect of Bayeux, on the 13th of August last. Lastly, that of Madmlle. H——, of Rouen, whom the attorney-general (procureur du roi), of Rouen, was obliged to remove from the establishment of Bon-Sauveur."—National(newspaper), March 10, 1845.
[8] The inspection of convents ought to be shared between the judiciary and municipal magistracy, and the administrations of charity. The bar is too much occupied to be able to undertake it alone. If these houses are necessary as asylums for poor women, who earn too little in a solitary life, at least let them be free asylums like thebéguinagesof Flanders; but not under the same direction. When a woman has ended the task of the wife, she begins that of the mother or grandmother.
ABSORPTION OF THE WILL.—GOVERNMENT OF ACTS, THOUGHTS, AND WILLS.—ASSIMILATION.—TRANSHUMANATION.—TO BECOME THE GOD OF ANOTHER.—PRIDE.—PRIDE AND DESIRE.
If we believe politicians, happiness consists in reigning. They sincerely think so, since they accept in exchange for happiness so much trouble and so many annoyances; a martyrdom often that perhaps the saints would have shrunk from.
But the reign must be real. Are we quite sure that it is really to reign, to make ordinances that are not executed, to enact with great effort, and as a supreme victory, one law more, which is doomed to sleep in the bulletin of laws at the side of thirty thousand of the same kin?
It is of no use to prescribe acts, if we are not first masters of the mind; in order to govern the bodily world, we must reign in the intellectual world. This is the opinion of the thinking man, the profound writer; and he believes he reigns. He is, indeed, a king; at least for the next age. If he is really original, he outsteps his century, and is postponed till another time. But he will reign to-morrow, and the day after, and so on for ages, and ever more absolute. To-day he will be alone; every success costs a friend, but he acquires others; and I am willing to believe both ardent and numerous; those he loses were, no doubt, worth less, but they were those he loved; and he will never see the others. Work, then, disinterested man, work on; you will have for your reward a little noise and smoke. Is not that a sufficient reward for you? King of ages yet unborn, you will live and die empty-handed. On the shore of that sea of unknown ages, you, a child, have picked up a shell, which you hold to your ear, to try to catch a faint sound, in which you fancy you hear your own name.
Look on the other hand at that man, thatPriest, who at the very time he is telling us his kingdom is above, has adroitly secured for himself the reality of the earth beneath. He lets you go, as you please, in search of unknown worlds; but he himself seizes on the present one; your own world, poor dreamer! that which you loved, the nest where you hoped to come back and be cherished. Accuse no one but yourself, it is your own fault. With your eyes turned towards the dawn you forgot yourself, whilst you were peeping to catch a glimpse of the first ray of the future. You turn round when it is rather too late; another possesses the cherished casket in which you had left your heart.
The sovereignty of ideas is not that of the will. We can only get possession of the will by the will itself: not general and vague, but an especial and personal will, which attaches itself perseveringly to, and really commands, the person, because it makes it in its own image.
Really to reign, is to reign over a soul. What are all the thrones in comparison to this kingly sway? What is dominion over an unknown crowd? The really ambitious have been too shrewd to make a mistake! They have not exhausted their efforts in the extension of a vague and weak power, which loses by being extended; they have aimed rather at its solidity, intensity, and immutable possession.
The end thus settled, the priest has a great advantage which no one else possesses. His business is with a soulwhich gives itself up of its own accord. The great obstacle for other powers is, that they do not well know the person acted upon; they see only the outside, but the priest looks within.
Whether he be clever, or only of an ordinary stamp, still, by the sole virtue of hopes and fears, by that magic key which opens the world to come, the priest opens also the heart, and that heart wishes to lay itself open; all its fear is lest it should conceal anything. It does not see itself entirely; but whenever it is at a loss, the priest sees his way clearly, and penetrates into it, by the simple method of obtaining revelations from servants, friends, and relatives, and comparing them together. With all this enlightening he forms a mass of light, which, concentrated upon the object, renders it so thoroughly luminous, that he knows not only its present existence, but its future state, deciphering, from the very first day, in its instinct and sentiment, what will be its thoughts on the morrow. He, therefore, truly knows this heart, both by sight and foresight. This rare science would remain inexplicable without a word in explanation. If it knows its subject to this degree, it is because it is its own work. The director creates the directed; the latter is his work, and becomes in time one and the same man. How is it possible the former should not know the ideas and wishes which he himself has inspired, and which are his own? A transfusion takes place between the two in this incessant action, in which the inferior, receiving everything from the other, goes on gradually losing his personality. Growing weaker and more idle every day, he thinks himself happy in no longer having a will of his own, and is glad to see that troublesome will, which has caused too many sufferings, die away and be lost. Even so a wounded man sees his blood, his life-blood flowing away, and feels himself the easier.
But who is to make good within you, and fill up the void left by this draining away of moral personality, by which you escape from yourself?—In two letters—he.
He, the patient, cunning man, who, day by day, taking from you a little of yourself, and substituting a little of himself, has gently subtilised the one, and put the other in its place. The soft and weak nature of women, almost as yielding as that of children, is well adapted for this transfusion. The same woman seeing ever the same man, takes without knowing it, his turn of mind, his accent, his language, nay more, something of his gait and physiognomy. She speaks as he does, and walks in the same manner as he. In only seeing her pass by, a person of any penetration would see thatshe is he.
But this outward similarity is but a weak sign of the profound change within. What has been transformed is the intimate, most intimate part. A great mystery has been effected, that which Dante callstranshumanation; when a human person, melting away without knowing it, has assumed (substance for substance) another humanity; when the superior replacing the inferior, the agent the patient, no longer needs to direct him, but becomes his being.Heis, the other is not; unless we consider him as an accident, a quality of this being, a pure phenomenon, an empty shadow, a nothing.
Why did we just now speak of influence, dominion, and royalty? This is a much higher thing than royalty—this is divinity. It is to be the god of another.
If there be in this world an occasion on which we may become mad, it is this. The thought of the man who has reached this point, in whatever humility he may cloak himself, is that of the pagan: "Deus factus sum!" I was a man, I am God!
More than God. He will say to his creature, "God had created you so, and I have made you another person; so that being no longer His, but mine, you are myself, my inferior self, who are only to be distinguished from myself by your adoring me."
Dependent creature, how could you have helped yielding?—God yields to my word when I make Him descend to the altar. Christ becomes humble and docile, and comes down at my hour, at my sign, to take the place of the bread that is no more.[1]
We are no longer surprised at the furious pride of the priest, who, in his royalty of Rome, has often carried it to greater extremes than all the follies of the emperors, making him despise not only men and things, but his own oath, and the word which he gave as infallible. Every priest being able to make God, can just as well make odd even, or things done things undone, things said things unsaid. The angel is afraid of so much power, and stands back respectfully before this man to see him pass.[2]
Go, boast to me now of your privations and mortifications! I am indeed much touched by them!—Do you think, then, that through that plain robe and meagre body, ay, in that pale heart I do not see the deep, exquisite and maddening enjoyment of pride, which composes the very being of a priest? What he carries within his robe, and broods over so jealously, is a treasure of terrific pride. His hands tremble with it: a bright ray of delight gleams in his downcast eyes.
Oh! with what fervour he hates everything that is an obstacle to him, everything that prevents his infinity from being indeed infinite! How does he desire with all his infinite heart to annihilate it! Oh! how diabolical it is to hate in God!
A great suffering is connected with this great enjoyment of being the god of another soul: all that is wanting to complete this divinity causes horrible pangs. You cannot be surprised if this man pursues with an insatiable ardour the absorption of a soul which he hopes to assimilate. You may easily understand the real and profound cause of this strange avidity, which wants to see and know everything, both the trivial and the important, the principal and the accessory, the essential and the indifferent, and which, not satisfied with enveloping it outwardly, tries to reach the bottom, and probing lower and lower in the very depth, would attain the essence. Suppose even this to be reached, still it will cry out for—more! Alas! it may ever acquire more, and again more; but something will ever remain beyond. Who can measure a soul? It preserves in its recesses, unknown to itself (and to you also), both space and depth. That soul which seemed to you already acquired, and which you thought in your entire possession, hides behind it, perhaps, a world of liberty which you can never reach.
This is humiliating, gloomy, nay, almost despair. Horrible suffering! not to have all, is, for a god, to have nothing.
Then, even then, in their very pride, an ironical voice is heard, scoffing at their pride; it is the voice of desire, which it had silenced till now: "Poor god," says she, "you are no god; it is your own fault; I told you so before. Come, leave off your school-divinity, and yourdistinguoof the corporeal and spiritual natures. To possess, is to have all. He alone has possession who can both use and abuse. For the soul to be really thine, one thing is still wanting—the body."
[1] "Origen thinks that the priest must be a little God, to do an act that is beyond the power of angels." Father Fichet (a Jesuit), "Life of Madame de Chantal." p. 615. If you require a more serious Jesuit than Fichet, here is Bourdaloue: "Though the priest be in this sacrifice only the substitute of Jesus Christ, it is nevertheless certain, that Jesus Christsubmits to him, that Hebecomes his subject, and renders him, every day upon our altars,the most prompt and exact obedience. If faith did not teach us these truths, could we think that a man could ever attain to such an elevation, and be invested with a character that enables him, if I may say so, tocommandhis sovereign Lord, and make Him descend from heaven?"
[2] One of the new priests, under the orders of St. François de Sales often saw his guardian angel. Having arrived at the church-door, he stopped. They asked him the reason: he answered ingenuously, that "he was accustomed to see his guardian angel walk before him, and that this prince of heavenhad then stopped and stood aside, out of respect for his character, giving him the precedence."—Maupas du Tour, Life of St. François de Sales, p. 199.
DESIRE.—ABSORPTION AND ASSIMILATION CONTINUED.—TERRORS OF THE OTHER WORLD.—THE PHYSICIAN AND THE PATIENT.—ALTERNATIVES.—POSTPONEMENTS.—THE EFFECTS OF FEAR IN LOVE.—TO BE ALL-POWERFUL AND ABSTAIN.—STRUGGLES BETWEEN THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH.—MORAL DEATH MORE POTENT THAN PHYSICAL LIFE.—IT CANNOT REVIVE.
Let us a pause a moment at the brink of the abyss that we have just had a glimpse of, and before we descend into it, let us know well where we are.
The unlimited dominion, of which we spoke just now, could never be sufficiently explained by the power of habit, strengthened by all the arts of seduction and captation; it would be especially impossible to understand how so many inferior men succeed in obtaining their ends. We must repeat here what we have said elsewhere:If this power of death has so much hold upon the soul, the reason is, that it generally attacks it in its dying state; when weakened by worldly passions, and crushing it more and more by the ebb and flow of religious passions, it finds at last that it has neither strength, nor nerve, nor anything that can offer resistance.
Which of us has not known, in his life, those moments when violent activity having ruffled our hearts, we hate action, liberty, and ourselves?—when the wave that bore us upon its gentle but treacherous bosom retires suddenly and harshly from beneath, leaving us upon the dry strand—where we remain like a log? Never could the soul, thus stranded, be set in motion again, if it were not, independently of its will, floated off by the waves of Lethe. A low voice then says, "Move not; act no more, do not even wish; die in will."—"Happy release! wish for me! There, I give up to you that troublesome liberty, the weight of which oppressed me so much. A soft pillow of faith, a childish obedience is all I now want. Now I shall sleep happily!"
But such people do not sleep, they only dream. How can they, nervous and trembling with weakness, expect to repose? They lie still, it is true; but they are also plunged in dreams. The soul will not act, but the imagination acts without her; and this involuntary fluctuation is but the more fatiguing. Then, all the terrors of childhood crowd upon the patient, and more steadfastly than they did upon the child. The phantasmagoria of the middle ages, which we thought forgotten, revives; the dark infernal region of hell, which we had laughed away, exacts a heavy interest, and takes a cruel revenge: this poor soul belongs to it. What would become of her, alas! had she not a spiritual physician at her bedside to succour and encourage her? "Do not leave me, I am too much afraid!"—"Do not fear; you are not responsible for all this: God will pardon you these disordered emotions; they are not yours; the devil stirs thus within us."—"The devil! ah! I felt him; I thought, indeed, this violent and strange emotion was foreign to me. But how horrible to be the sport of the malignant spirit!"—"I am here; be not afraid; hold me fast; go straight on; the abyss, it is true, is gaping wide, on the right and on the left; but, by following the narrow bridge, with God's assistance, we shall walk along this razor-edge to Paradise."
Great, indeed, is the power to be so necessary, ever called and desired! to hold, as it were, the two threads of hope and fear, which drag the soul at pleasure. When troubled, they calm her; when calm, they agitate her: she grows more and more feeble, and the physician is so much the stronger; he perceives it, and he enjoys it. He, to whom every natural enjoyment is forbidden, feels a gloomy happiness, a mawkish sensuality, in exercising this power; making the ebb and the flow, afflicting in order to console, wounding, healing, and wounding again. "Oh! let her be ill for ever! I suffer, let her suffer with me. It is at least something to have pain in common."
But they do not gather these sighs, and support the languid head with impunity. He who wounded, is wounded in his turn. In these outpourings of the heart, the most simple person often says, without knowing it, things that inflame the passions. He draws back, as if indignant and angry, before the scorching flame that a gentle hand has applied without being aware of it: he endeavours to conceal his emotion under a well-feigned pious anger; he tries to hate sin, but he only envies it.
How gloomy he seems that day! See him ascend the pulpit. What ails this holy man of God? People see too plainly; it is the zeal of the law that devours him—he bears all the sins of the people. What thunder and lightning in his discourse! is it the last judgment? every one flinches. One woman, however, has received the whole force of the thundering denunciation; she grows pale, her knees no longer support her; the blow struck home: for he who knows her inmost soul found too easily the terrible word, the only word that could strike and touch her to the quick. She alone felt it; she finds herself now alone in the church (the crowd no longer exists for her), and alone she sees herself falling into the infernal dark abyss. "Father, reach me your hand! I feel I am sinking!"
Not yet, it is not yet time! She must struggle and fall still lower, then rise a little to sink lower still. Now, she comes to him every day more grieving, and more pressing. How she prays and insists! But she will not yet get the comforting word: "To-day? No, on Saturday." And on Saturday he puts her off till Wednesday.[1] What! three days and three whole nights in the same anxiety? She weeps like a child. No matter; he resists and leaves her, but he is troubled even in resisting her. In thus humbling thisbelle madame, he tastes a secret pleasure of pride; and yet he thinks himself that he has been too harsh towards her: he loves her, and he has made her weep!
Cruel man! do you not see that the poor woman is dying? that she is becoming weaker at every burst of grief? What is it you want? her downfall? But in this prostration of strength, in this terror of despair and abandonment of dignity, is there not already a complete downfall? No; what he wants till now, is, that she may suffer as he does, resemble him in sufferings, and be his partner in his woes and frenzy. He is alone; then let her be alone. He has no family; he hates her as a wife and mother; he wants to make her a lover, a lover of God: he is deceiving himself in deceiving her.
But in the midst of all this, and fascinated as she is, she is not, however, so blind as you might believe. Women, even children, are penetrating when they are afraid; they very soon get a glimpse of what may comfort them. This woman, whilst she was dragged at his feet as a frightened yet caressing suppliant, did not fail to notice, through her tears, the emotion she excited. They were both in emotion together—this is to be an accomplice. They both know (without, however, knowing it clearly, but confusedly through instinct and passion) that they have a hold upon each other, she by desire, and he by fear.
Fear has much to do with love. The husband in the middle ages was loved by the wife for his very severity. His humble Griselda recognised in him the right of the paternal rod. The bride of William the Conqueror, having been beaten by him, knew him by this token for her lord and husband. Who has this right in our age? The husband has not preserved it—the priest has it and uses it: he ever holds over woman the rod of authority; he beats her submissive and docile with spiritual rods. But he who can punish, can also pardon; the only one who can be severe, he alone has also what with a timid person is accounted supreme grace—clemency. One word of pardon gains for him instantly, in that poor frightened heart, more than the most worthy would obtain after years of perseverance. Kindness acts just in proportion to the severities and terrors that have preceded it. No seduction is comparable to this.
How can that man be resisted, who, to force one to love him, can entice by the offer of Paradise, or frighten by the terrors of hell? This unexpected return of kindness is a very dangerous moment for her, who, conquered by fear, with her forehead in the dust, expects only the fury of the thunderbolt. What! that formidable judge, that angel of judgment, is suddenly melted! She, who felt already the cold blade of the sword, feels now the warmth of a kind friendly hand, which raises her from the earth. The transition is too great for her; she had still held up against fear, but this kindness overcomes her. Worn out by her alternate hopes and fears, the feeble person becomes weakness itself.
To be able to have all, and then abstain, is a slippery situation! who will keep his footing on this declivity?
Here we find again, in the path of desire, the very point at which we had just now arrived by the path of pride.
Desire, despised at first by pride, as brutal and coarse, turns sophist, and puts before him the terrible problem at which love, mingled with dread, flinches, and turns away his sight. He sees without daring to look, he puts up his hand before his eyes, but with his fingers apart, like theVergognosaof the Campo-Santo.
"Are you sure you possess the heart entirely, if you have not the body? Will not physical possession give up corners of the soul, which otherwise would remain inaccessible? Is spiritual dominion complete, if it does not comprehend the other? The great popes seem to have settled the question: they thought popedom implied empire; and the pope himself, besides his sway over consciences, was king in temporal matters."
Against this sophism of the flesh, the spirit still struggles, and does not fail to answer, "That spiritual conquest, as soon as it is completed in this manner, ceases to be spiritual; that this ambitious conqueror, the spirit, cannot have all without perishing at the moment of victory."
The flesh is not embarrassed; but taking refuge in hypocrisy, makes itself of no importance, and becomes humble to regain its advantage: "Is then the body so important that we should trouble our heads about it? A simple dependent of the soul ought to follow wherever she goes." The mystics are never behindhand, in this matter, in their insults to the body and the flesh. The flesh is the brute animal, says one, which we must cudgel. "Let her pass," says another, "through any muddy brook: what does it signify to the soul that rides above, sublime and pure, without deigning to look down?"
Afterwards comes the vile refinement of the Quietists: "If the inferior part be without sin, the superior grows proud, and pride is the greatest sin: consequently the flesh ought to sin, in order that the soul may remain humble; sin, producing humility, becomes a ladder to ascend to heaven."
"Sin!—But is it sin? (depraved devotion finds here the ancient sophism:) The holy by its essence, being holiness itself, always sanctifies. In the spiritual man, everything is spirit, even what in another is matter. If, in its superior flight, the holy should meet with any obstacle that might draw it again towards the earth, let the inferior part get rid of it; it does a meritorious work, and is sanctified for it."
Diabolical subtlety! which few avow clearly, but which many brood over, and cherish in their most secret thoughts. Molinos is forgotten, but Molinosism still exists.[2]
Besides, false reasonings are hardly necessary in the miserable state of dreaming in which a soul lives, when deprived of will and reason.
Beside herself, and out of her senses, having lost all connection with reality, ever buried in miracles, intoxicated with God and the devil, she is weakened to death: but the excess of this weakness is yet strong enough to give poison and fever in return; terrible contagion—you thought that this morally dead person would toil after you, but it is you who will follow her: she will bear away the living.
Here end the subtleties with which desire had been satisfied. A horrible light breaks upon them, and sophistry finds no longer any clouds to darken it. You see, then, when it is too late, that you have done more than you wanted. You have destroyed precisely what would have served you; for each of these suppressed powers, the will, the mind, and the heart, which now are no more, would have been for you, had they remained alive. But, alas! they are crushed, faded, and void. The essence of existence once destroyed, no longer feels; it can neither attach itself to anything, nor be captivated by anything. You wanted to bind it fast, but you have stifled it. Now you would wish her, whose life is annihilated, to be alive, or at least to revive. That is a miracle beyond your power. The thing you see, is, and ever will be, a cold shadow, without any life to answer you. Do what you will, you will find no responsive throbbing. This will be your despair. You can feign everything, and say everything, except one word, which we defy you to pronounce without grief—the sacred name of love.
Love! why, you have assassinated it! In order to love, you must have a person; but what was a person you have made a thing. Proud man! you who every day summon your Creator to descend upon the altar, you have inverted the order of creation: you have destroyed a being.
You, who, out of a GRAIN OF CORN, can make a GOD, tell me, was it not also a god that you held just now in that credulous and docile soul? what have you done with that interior god of man, that we call liberty? You have put yourself in its place; in the place of that power, by which man is man, I see nonentity.
Well! that nonentity shall be your torment. You will probe it in vain; however low you penetrate, you will find but a void, nothing, neitherwillnorpower. There everything that could have loved has perished.