Chapter 1-4

AFTER having been about eight months in this house, my father withdrew me. My mother kept me with her. She was for some time very well pleased with me, and loved me a little more as she found me to her taste. She nevertheless still preferred my brother to me, which was so visible, everyone disapproved of it; for when I was ill and found something to my taste, my brother used to ask for it, and, although he was quite well, it was taken from me to give him. From time to time he caused me divers vexations. One day he made me climb upon the imperial of the carriage; then he threw me to the ground—he was near killing me. I, however, received only bruises, no open wound; for whatever fall I have suffered, I have never received a serious wound. It was your protecting hand, O my God, which supported me. It seemed that you were carrying out in me what you said by your royal prophet, that you place your hand under the righteous, that when he falls he may not be wounded. At other times he used to beat me. My mother never said anything to him for it. This conduct embittering my natural disposition, which would otherwise have been gentle, I neglected to do good, saying I was none the better for it. O God, it was then not for you alone I used to behave well, since I ceased to do so because they no longer had any consideration for me. If I had known how to make use of the crucifying conduct that you maintained over me, I should have made good progress, and, far from going astray, that would have made me return to you. I was jealous of my brother, for on every occasion I remarked the difference my mother made between him and me. However he behaved, he always did right, and I always wrong. My mother’s servant-maids paid their court by caressing my brother and ill-treating me. It is true I was bad, for I had fallen back into my former defects of telling lies and getting in a passion. With all these faults I nevertheless willingly gave alms, and I much loved the poor. I assiduously prayed to you, O my God, and I took pleasure in hearing you spoken of, and in good reading. I do not doubt you will be astonished, Sir, by such resistance, and by so long a course of inconstancy; so many graces, so much ingratitude; but the sequel will astonish you still more, when you shall see this manner of acting grow stronger with my age, and that reason, far from correcting so irrational a procedure, has served only to give more force and more scope to my sins. It seemed, O my God, that you doubled your graces as my ingratitudes increased. There went on in me what goes on in the siege of towns. You were besieging my heart, and I thought only of defending it against your attacks. I put up fortifications to that miserable place, redoubling each day my iniquities to hinder you from taking it. When it seemed you were about to be victorious over this ungrateful heart, I made a cross-battery, I put up barriers to arrest your bounties and to hinder the course of your graces. It required nothing less than you to break them down, O my divine Love, who by your sacred fire were more powerful than even death, to which my sin has so oftentimes reduced me.

I cannot endure people saying we are not free to resist grace. I have had only too long and sad experience of my liberty. It is true that there are graces gratuitous and active, which have no need of man’s liberty, since they are received even without a man’s knowledge, who knows nothing of them till he receives them. I had so feeble a will for good that the least attack overthrew me. When the occasion no longer offered, I thought not of evil, and opened my ears to grace. But on the least occasion I gave way, and shut all the avenues of my heart in order not to hear your secret voice that called me, O my God; and, far from flying the occasion, I sought it, and gave way to it.

It is true our liberty is very disastrous to us. You maintained over me, my God, a crucifying conduct to make me return to you, of which I knew not how to make proper use; for I have been in troubles from my tender youth, either through illnesses or through persecutions. The maid who had care of me used to strike me when settling my hair, and never made me turn round except with a slap. Everything was in concert to make me suffer. But in place of turning to you, O my God, I fretted and my spirit became embittered. My father knew nothing of all this; for his love for me was so great, he would not have allowed it. I loved him much, but, at the same time, I was so much afraid of him, I did not speak to him of anything. My mother often complained of me to him, but he had only one answer, “There are twelve hours in the day; she will be converted.” This harsh treatment was not the worst for my soul, although it much embittered my temper, which was very mild. But what caused my ruin was that, being unable to endure persons who ill-treated me, I took refuge with those who caressed me to my destruction.

My father, seeing I was grown, placed me for Lent with the Ursulines, in order that I should have my first Communion at Easter, when I should complete eleven years of age. He placed me in the hands of his daughter, my very dear sister, who redoubled her cares that I might perform this action with all possible preparation. I thought only, O my God, of giving myself to you once for all. I often felt the combat between my good inclinations and my evil habits. I even performed some penances. As I was almost always with my sister, and the boarders of the grown class with whom I was, although I was very far from their age, were very reasonable, I became very reasonable with them. It was surely a murder to bring me up ill, for I had a natural disposition much inclined to good, and I loved good things; a reasonable conduct suited me. I let myself be easily won by gentleness, and my sister, without using harshness, made me unresistingly do all she wished. At last, on Easter Day I made my first Communion (after a general confession) with much joy and devotion. Until Pentecost I remained in that house, but as my other sister was mistress of the second class, she required that in her week I should be in her class. The utterly different manners of my two sisters cooled my first fervour. I no longer felt this new ardour, O my God, that you had made me taste in my first Communion. Alas! it lasted but a short time, for my troubles returned. I was withdrawn from the convent.

My mother, seeing I was very tall for my age and more to her taste than usual, only thought of bringing me out, making me see company, and dressing me well. She took a regrettable delight in that beauty you had given me, O my God, only that you might be praised and blessed for it, and which has yet been for me a source of pride and vanity. Numbers of proposals were made, but as I was only twelve years old, my father would not listen to them.

I greatly loved reading, and I shut myself up alone almost every day in order to read in quiet. What finished in gaining me entirely to God, at least, for a time, was that a nephew of my father (whose life is written in the account of foreign missions under the name of M. de Chamesson, although his name was De Toisei) visited us on his way to Cochin China with the Bishop of Heliopolis. I was not at the house, and, contrary to my usual practice, I had gone to walk with my companions. When I returned he had already gone. They gave me an account of his sanctity, and the things he had said. I was so touched, that I was near dying of grief at it. I wept all the rest of the day and the night. I got up in the early morning and went to visit my confessor in great trouble. I said to him, “What, my Father! shall it be said that I am the only one in my family to be damned? Alas! aid me to save myself!” He was greatly astonished to see me so afflicted, and did his best to console me; for he did not, believe me so wicked as I was, because at my worst time I had docility, and obeyed very exactly. I was careful to confess often, and since I went to him my life was more orderly. O Love, how many times had you knocked at the door of my heart, which did not open to you? How many times have you frightened it by sudden deaths! but that made only a passing impression. I returned at once to my infidelities. You caught me this time, and I can say you carried off my heart. Alas! what grief did I not feel at having displeased you! what regrets! what sobs! Who would not have believed, at seeing me, that my conversion would have lasted as long as my life? Why did you not take this heart, O my God? I gave it to you so truly. Or, if you did take it then, why did you afterwards let it escape? Were you not powerful enough to retain it? But perhaps you wished, in leaving me to myself, to make your mercy shine forth, and that the depth of my iniquity should serve as the trophy to your goodness. I made a general confession with a great feeling of sorrow. I told, it seems to me, all that I knew with torrents of tears. I became so changed I was not to be recognized. I would not have committed the least fault voluntarily, and they found nothing for absolution when I confessed. I disclosed even the smallest defects, and God gave me the grace to conquer myself in many things. There was only a remnant of the hastiness I had trouble to conquer. Whenever through this same hastiness I had given trouble to any of the servants, I asked pardon for it, in order to conquer at the same time my anger and my pride, for anger is the daughter of pride. A very humble person does not give way to anger, because nothing offends him. As it is pride which dies last in our soul, hastiness is also externally that which perishes last; but a soul truly annihilated can no longer find anger in herself. She would require to make an effort to be vexed, and though she should wish it, she would feel clearly that this anger would be a body without a soul, and that it would have no correspondence with the central depth, nor even any emotion in the more superficial part.

There are persons who, because they are filled with an unction of grace and a very sweet peace from the commencement of the passive way of light and love, believe themselves to have attained this; but they are much deceived, as they will easily discover if they will carefully examine two things. The first that, if their natural character is very quick and violent (for I do not speak of apathetic temperaments), they will remark that from time to time they have outbursts in which trouble and agitation have some part, and which at that time are even useful to humiliate and to annihilate them; but when the annihilation is effected, all this disappears and becomes as if impossible. Moreover, they will experience that oftentimes there arises in them certain movements of anger, but the sweetness of grace restrains and arrests them by a secret violence, and they would easily escape if they gave it some free course. There are persons who think themselves very gentle, because nothing opposes them. It is not of those I am speaking, for the gentleness which has never been tried is oftentimes a mask of gentleness. Therefore those persons who by themselves appear saints are no sooner tried by opposition than one sees in them a strange number of defects, which they thought dead, and which were only asleep because nothing waked them up.

I shut myself up all day to read and pray; I gave all I had to the poor, taking even the house linen to make up for them. I taught them the Catechism, and, when my father and my mother were absent, I made them eat with me, and helped them with great respect. At this time I read the works of St. Francis de Sales and the Life of Madame de Chantal. It was there that I learned that people prayed. I begged my confessor to teach me to do it, and, as he did not do so, I endeavoured to do it by myself the best I could.

I could not succeed in it, as it then appeared to me, because I could not imagine anything, and I was persuaded that without forming to one’s self distinctions and much reasoning one could not pray. This difficulty for a long time causes me much trouble. I was, however, very assiduous at it, and I earnestly begged God to give me the gift of prayer. All that I saw written in the Life of Madame de Chantal delighted me, and I was so childish I thought I ought to do all that I saw there. All the vows she had made I made also; as that of aiming always at the most perfect, and doing the will of God in all things. I was not yet twelve years of age; nevertheless I took the discipline according to my strength. One day, when I read she had placed the name of Jesus on her heart, in order to follow the counsel of the Bridegroom, “Place me as a seal upon thy heart,” and that she had taken a red-hot iron on which was engraved that holy name, I remained very afflicted at not being able to do the same. I bethought me of writing this sacred and adorable name in large characters on a morsel of paper; with ribbons and a big needle I fixed it to my skin in four places, and it continued for a long time fixed in this manner.

My only thought was to become a nun, and I went very often to the Visitation, to beg them to be willing to receive me; for the love I had for St. Francis de Sales did not allow me to think of other communities. I used then to slip away from the house to go to these nuns, and I urged them very strongly to receive me; but although they were extremely desirous of having me, and regarded it even as a temporal advantage, they never dared give me admittance into their house, as well because they much feared my father, who was known to love me specially, as because of my extreme youth—I was then hardly twelve years old. There was then at our house a niece of my father, to whom I am under very great obligations. She was very virtuous, and fortune, which had not been favourable to her father, placed her in some sort of dependence on mine. She discovered my intention and the extreme desire I had to become a nun. As my father had been absent for some time, and my mother was ill, and I was under her care, she feared being accused of having encouraged this idea, or at least of having entertained it; for my father so greatly feared it that, although he would not for anything in the world hinder a true vocation, he could not without shedding tears hear it said I should be a nun. My mother would have been more indifferent. My cousin went to my confessor to tell him to forbid me going to the Visitation. He dared not do this out and out, for fear of setting that community against him; for they believed me already one of theirs. When I went to confession he would not absolve me, on the ground that I went to the Visitation by myself and by roundabout streets. In my innocence I thought I had committed a frightful crime, for absolution had never been refused me. I returned so afflicted my cousin could not comfort me. I did not cease weeping till the next day, when at early morning I went to my confessor. I told him I could not live without absolution; I begged him to grant it to me. There was no penance I would not have performed to obtain it. He gave it to me at once. I still, however, wished to be a nun, and I urgently begged my mother to take me there, but she would not for fear of vexing my father, who was absent, and she always put it off till his return. As I saw I could gain nothing, I counterfeited the writing of my mother, and I forged a letter in which she begged those ladies to receive me, making excuse, on the ground of illness, for not bringing me herself. But the prioress, who was a relative of my mother and well knew her writing, discovered at once my innocent deceit.