Chapter XXXIX: Part I: Awakening (3)

Every one knows the history of Joan of Arc, over whom more passionate recriminations have been flung at each other by rival historians than any other woman, save Mary, Queen of Scots, has provoked. The general and unbiassed verdict of the greater portion of the public in general has coincided with the national decision of patriotic Frenchmen. As a heroine, her name will go down to all ages, and she has earned her fame well, but how? Do any of her biographers say she was bold and unwomanly, a fast and dashing beauty, or a reckless adventuress? No; for they tell us she was modest in her demeanor, fond of being with and talking to little children, very sparing of her own comfort, but lavish of her poor means for others, ready and willing to keep the flocks, and to help her family in tilling the soil. Divinely warned of her coming mission, she was yet most reluctant to put herself forward, and required much pressing from her spiritual superiors to induce her to act upon the heaven-sent suggestions. It would take us too long to follow her through her unparalleled career; but one thing strikes us as foremost in all the vicissitudes of her successful military life--her extreme gravity and majesty, shielding her love of chastity. All the doctors of the University of Poitiers concurred, at the express desire of King Charles VII. of France, in a strict examination of her previous life and character, and it was chiefly her spotless reputation of virtue that inclined them to believe in her mission. During her camp life she never neglected her daily religious duties; the oldest and gravest veterans were her only companions and advisers, and after nightfall she never, on any pretext, consented to converse with a man. Before she had taken command of the army the French had been invariably beaten by the English in every encounter; after her accession to the supreme command, her countrymen were as invariably victorious. Her enemies laughed at the girl-general, but, strong in her faith, Joan of Arc overcame the scoffers. When she had taken Orleans, her first order was that all immoral women who had surreptitiously followed in the ranks of her soldiers should be summarily dismissed, as it was only to punish such licentiousness that God had allowed those great misfortunes to come upon France. Between Orleans and Rheims there were several towns and forts to be wrested from the English; Joan intrepidly attacked and reduced them, while Rheims itself surrendered without a blow. The young virgin follows the king to the cathedral, where he is crowned and anointed, and in a few days, so great is the moral influence of her undaunted and triumphant patriotism, that many other towns, and Paris itself, submit to the legitimate authority of Charles VII., and France is saved. On the principles of modern strategists, a patent of nobility, an alliance with the crown, a grant of broad estates, would have been hardly sufficient for the ambitious saviour of her country; but Joan of Arc, hardly was the king reinstated in his realm, begged leave to retire into her former solitude, insisting with mournful eagerness that “her mission was over.” She neither coveted nor asked any reward; such as were offered she refused. Against her own better judgment, but according to the king’s command, she continued to lead his armies, though she was no longer buoyed up by her former joyous confidence in the promises divinely made to her. God has tried her by the severe test of adversity, and she showed herself as eagle-spirited under her reverses as she had been in her prosperity. Betrayed by her own countrymen into the hands of her enemies, she suffered incredible indignities, but never raised her voice in self-defense, save when her honor was questioned or attacked. Solicitous only for her precious treasure of consecrated virginity, she looked death fearlessly in the face, and mounted the scaffold calling in a firm voice on God and his saints. She would be called by no title save “La Pucelle,” that is, “Joan the Virgin.” An aide-de-camp, John of Aulon, who was constantly near her during her campaigns, often said that he believed no purer woman breathed than Joan of Arc. Ventura draws attention to her extraordinary activity and bodily endurance, her long fasts and severe abnegation. He says that she was a phenomenon, but that, although her rare combination of qualities seemed almost a miracle in any single human being, yet such qualities are quite reconcilable in perfect womanhood. He says she was “brave as a warrior, and tender as a mother; wise as an old man, learned as a doctor, and simple as a child; pure as an angel, and redoubtable as a great conqueror.”[107]

Many historians thought it worth their while to treat in detail of her life and career: Fleury and Rohrbacher, in their _Ecclesiastical History_; Lebrun Charmette, in his _Life of Joan of Arc_; Jules Quicherat, in his work on her trial, condemnation, and rehabilitation; Guido Görres, in his German life of her; Voltaire, in his cowardly _Maid of Orleans_. She has been made into a representative character, and stood in Voltaire’s eyes for the Catholic Church and the Catholic tradition concerning woman. Görres mentions the eulogium pronounced upon her by an envoy of the Bishop of Spires, who plainly calls her the messenger of heaven and saviour of France.

It has been noticed that France during the middle ages was the most civilized of nations. It was because the spirit of chivalry had made greater progress among the French, and the spirit of chivalry sprang from the deeper source of religious enthusiasm. The spirit that dictated the crusades was the same that exalted woman; the respect for woman and the duty of a knight to protect the sex, even those of it who were unknown to him or those whom the fortune of war had placed in his power, were lessons learned in childhood and inculcated at the same time as fidelity to his religion and loyalty to his sovereign. In every woman a knight recognized a queen: the elder were to him the image of his mother, the younger of his sister; in every female form he reverently saw the similitude of the great Virgin, “whose Son shall be called Emanuel--God with us.” And in order that such should be the attitude of man towards woman, woman was educated in a manner that should make her _deserve_ such homage.

Think not, sisters of our utilitarian age, that our ancestresses were ignorant and foolish women, swayed by the dictates of cunning priests, and kept as toys to beguile the idle hours of rough warriors. Their education, unlike our modern uniform regulations, was varied and suited to their talents; some cultivated learning, others the arts, many were skilful in medicine, especially in the use of herbs, and the treatment of wounds. The fairy embroidery that we hear so much extolled was not their only accomplishment: they could spin for all useful household purposes, and work for the poor of their neighborhood, which home manufacture was a great saving of both time and money. They were often elegant poets, and indeed frequently carried off prizes in rhyming contests. The “Jeux Floraux” of Toulouse, one of the great mediæval institutions of Provence, were established by a learned and accomplished lady of noble lineage, Clémence Isaure, herself a poetess of no little merit. The prize, we believe, was generally a golden violet, and was awarded every year to the successful competitor, whether man or woman. Tournaments owe all their romance to the presence and influence of woman, without which they would have fallen to the level of the brutal Roman games of old. The beneficial influence exerted by the women of the old feudal families, who always remained on their own estates and cultivated relations of mutual kindliness with their poorer neighbors and vassals, resulted in the unique spectacle of the Vendean insurrection, in which peasants and nobles were leagued together against the misguided satellites of “Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality.” Elsewhere, throughout France, women had become court puppets, and lived in Paris as absentees from their property, where iniquitous agents oppressed their tenants in their name; court favor and patronage, a rivalry of frivolous gossip and scandalous adventures, had displaced in their imaginations the noble but obscure triumphs of the Lady of the Manor surrounded by her “children,” as she terms her dependants; corruption, first sown by the influence of the German Reformation, then fostered by the growing infidelity of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, had insinuated itself into the world of women, and through them had spread to the whole system of society. The last spark of the spirit of chivalry shone out in the determined stand made by the Breton peasantry against the invasion of principles that held nothing sacred and taught no authority save that of force. But what a grand testimony to the influence of woman was the downfall and disorganization that followed the French Revolution, and under the ruins of which they are still half-buried! When woman wishes to take up again her ancient crown, her true, “divine right,” she has but to stretch her hand across the chasm of ’89 and the great breach of the sixteenth century, and resume, with the sacred respect of home duties and the reverence towards consecrated and voluntary chastity, the sceptre of undisputed sway so triumphantly wielded by Joan of Arc, Catharine of Sienna, Hedwige of Poland, and Mathilda of Tuscany.

Among the religious of various orders to whom the Christian world looks up with well-merited veneration is the Blessed Juliana, a Hospitaller nun of the diocese of Liege. It was through the revelations made to her in prayer, and through her repeated entreaties, that the feast of Corpus Christi was first instituted, one of the most essentially Catholic feasts of the calendar. In 1266, it was first celebrated at Liege, but its observance was discontinued in consequence of the machinations of a hostile clique. In 1264, Pope Urban IV. solemnly approved and instituted it, and commanded the great doctor Thomas Aquinas to compose an office for it. This office is the same used by the church to-day. Juliana herself was dead, but her friend and companion, Eva, had not failed to continue her work, and the Pope himself did not disdain to send her a special copy of the Bull of Institution, with a letter in which he refers the accomplishment of the great work to her and her deceased friend. Ventura gives us lists of holy prelates whose mothers formed and educated them to virtue and sanctity, but mentions especially the aid afforded Boniface, the Apostle of Germany, by his female co-laborers. Lioba, the chief of these, was a noble Saxon lady, and was educated at Winburn, in England. Eadburge, an abbess, sent Boniface many presents of clothes and other necessaries for his expedition to Germany, and also, says Ventura, many manuscript copies of the Bible to distribute them among his neophytes. Lioba was well versed in Latin, and could write verses in that language. Boniface begged her superiors to let her go to Germany, to establish, says Butler, “sanctuaries and nurseries of religion for persons of her sex in the infant Church of Germany.” Prudent, zealous, and learned, she soon founded house after house of fervent nuns, and spread the blessings of education over the hitherto barbarian lands she visited. “Kings and princes,” continues Butler, “respected and honored her.... Charlemagne often sent for her to his court of Aix-la-Chapelle, and treated her with the highest veneration. His queen, Hildegardis, took her advice in the most weighty concerns.... St. Boniface, a little before his mission into Friesland and his martyrdom there, recommended her in the most earnest manner to St. Lullus and his monks at Fulda, entreating them to have care of her with respect and honor.” She died in extreme old age in the year 779. “Her education,” says Ventura, “embraced civil and canon law, theology and philosophy, natural sciences and literature, and, in some measure, the art of government.” Rohrbacher says “that it would have been desirable had all the clergy of Germany possessed the knowledge of St. Lioba, for many of them were ignorant to the point of not knowing how to administer the sacrament of baptism.” Three centuries later, Hildegardis, a noble German lady, vindicated the claims of her sex to the most sublime of gifts. Intellectually endowed and gifted with great firmness of character, she became the mother and foundress of the monastery of St. Rupert, in the Rhine provinces, where kings and statesmen repaired to her for advice and instruction. The revelations received by her, after being most rigorously examined by a council assembled at Treves, were solemnly approved by Pope Eugene III., assisted by St. Bernard. Rohrbacher calls her “the St. Bernard among women.” Her correspondence was immense, and her writings have been collected and published with care. In the thirteenth century, Gertrude and Mechtildis, of noble Saxon descent, claim our attention. They were sisters, and both governed immense monasteries. Alban Butler says of the former: “In her youth she studied Latin, as it was then customary for all nuns to do; she wrote and conversed in that language, and was versed in sacred literature.... How much soever she gave herself up to contemplation, she neglected not the duties of Martha, and was very solicitous in attending to the necessities of every one.... Her short book of _Divine Insinuations_ is perhaps the most useful production, next to the writings of St. Teresa, with which any female saint _ever enriched_ the church.” Her prayers to the Sacred Heart show how this characteristic devotion, afterwards perfected and made public by another holy woman, Mary Margaret Alacocque, first presented itself to a woman’s mind, and found a home in a woman’s heart.

It may be gratifying to many women to learn that the city and University of Oxford have for patroness, and in mediæval times honored as such, the Saxon maiden, Frideswide, whose church and monastery, after having undergone many vicissitudes, are now known as Christ Church College. Ursula, the virgin martyr of Cologne, is, according to Butler, “patroness of the famous College of Sorbonne, and titular saint of that church. Several religious establishments have been erected, under her name and patronage, for the virtuous education of young ladies. St. Ursula, who was the mistress and guide to heaven to many holy maidens whom she animated to the heroic practice of virtue, is regarded as a model and patroness by those who undertake to train up youth in the sentiments and practice of piety and religion.” The Ursuline institutes for the education of girls are renowned throughout Europe, and even to this day are powerful auxiliaries of the church in the training of youth. Later ages have not been behind in emulating the sixteenth century, which, seven hundred years after the death of Ursula, so nobly commemorated her triumphs in the institution of the Ursuline Order. The Nuns of the Visitation, and still later those of the Sacred Heart, have continued the work of Christian education up to the present day.

The beginning of the twelfth century leads us to Delphina and her husband Elzear, both of Provençal descent, and holding high office at the court of Naples and Sicily. Butler says of them that “no coldness for so much as one moment ever interrupted the harmony or damped the affections of this holy couple. The countess [Delphina] was sensible that the devotions of a married woman ought to be ordered in a different manner from those of a religious person.... The care with which she looked into the economy of her house was a sensible proof of the interior order in which she kept her own soul. Nothing was more admirable than her attention to all her domestics, and her prudent application to the preservation of domestic peace.”[108] These two devoted followers of Christ were always ready to assist and protect the poor; they lived together in perpetual virginity, and gave themselves up entirely to their self-imposed duties of charity. King Robert of Sicily showed his esteem of Elzear by making him his son’s governor. In this office he exercised his influence as irreproachably as he had done in other positions, and the counsels of his wife were ever at hand to assist and cheer him. At his death his widow retired into a monastery.

Another remarkable woman of the middle ages was Catharine of Genoa, who towards the latter end of the fifteenth century became a model for her sex in each of the states of life to which women are called. As a virgin, a wife, and a widow, her life was perfect in its sincere subordination to the will of God. Her marriage was unhappy, and she suffered much from her husband’s brutality, his extravagance and licentiousness. She trusted to a higher power than the civil courts for her vindication and reward, and after her husband’s death gave herself up to active works of mercy. She devoted herself to the care of the sick in the great hospital of Genoa. Of this house, says Butler, she lived many years the mother superior. Her charity could not be confined to the bounds of her own hospital; she extended her care and solicitude to all distressed sick persons over the whole city, and employed proper persons with indefatigable industry to discover, visit, and relieve such objects. Here we see a woman governing and managing a most important national institution, guarding its temporal interests, and watching over its spiritual relations with the utmost care and most delicate discrimination; showing a talent for government which would do good credit to the best men, and preserving withal the greatest humility and modesty both of thought and demeanor. Does the church deny the sex any legitimate opening for its energies? Judge for yourselves, sisters, and answer impartially. Does she not, on the contrary, enable it to do that which, outside her, is next to impossible? Cannot a woman wearing the distinctive badge of one of her orders pass unmolested where no other woman however pure, however earnest, could go without at least risk of insult; and does she not invest with the dignity of an organized association efforts which, made singly, would be barely removed from Quixotism?

We have long delayed speaking of Catharine of Sienna, the St. Teresa of mediæval times, one of the most energetic and wonderful women the world ever produced. Ventura calls her a “missionary and apostle,” and Butler says that her influence was so great that no one ever approached her who went not away better. She was only eighteen, when, after suffering the hardships of her humble home during her childhood, she took the veil in the Third Order of St. Dominic. The most hardened sinners could not withstand the force of her exhortations; thousands flocked from distant places to hear or only see her, and were converted by her words or example. At the earnest suit of the citizens of Pisa, she went to their town, and it is related that the confessions of those she reclaimed from evil courses were so numerous that the priests of the town had much trouble to attend to them. The Florentines and Perugians having, in 1375, leagued together against the Holy See, the Pope, Gregory XI., who at that time was living at Avignon, sent an army into Italy and interdicted the rebellious principalities. The country fell into such intolerable confusion that, to end the chaotic state of things, the Florentines submitted to the Pope. They first sent for St. Catharine, who was met at the city gates by the chiefs of the magistrates. The negotiations were entrusted to her, and the ambassadors who followed her to Avignon received orders to sign and confirm whatever decision she should make. The Pope and cardinals received her at Avignon with great marks of distinction; and the Pontiff said after his conference with her: “I put the affair entirely into your hands, only I recommend you the honor of the church.” The heads of the church were seemingly not afraid to trust the gravest issues in a _woman’s_ hands!

Catharine exerted all her powers of persuasion to induce Gregory XI. to return to Rome, and after her departure wrote urgent letters to him on this subject. Twice, both at Avignon and at Sienna, learned prelates and doctors disputed with her, vainly trying to find her wanting either in learning, in sincerity, or in humility. They were obliged to confess themselves in the wrong. She had many disciples, both men and women, one of whom, Stephen, the son of a senator of Sienna, became her secretary and afterwards a Carthusian monk. The Pope commissioned her to go to Florence, and try once more to pacify the troubles which the insincerity of the government of that state was always rekindling. “She lived some time in that factious place,” says Butler, “... and showed herself always most undaunted, even when swords were drawn against her.” At length she effected the long-wished-for reconciliation, though not under Gregory, but his successor, Urban VI. Some of his discourses have been collected, and compose the treatise _On Providence_. When Urban VI. had been elected, there followed a great schism, during which anti-popes usurped the chair of Peter, and the whole Italian peninsula was violently distracted. She wrote to several countries and princes in Urban’s favor, and also to the Pope himself, entreating him to restrain his somewhat hasty disposition for the sake of the peace of the church. Many treatises and other writings of hers are still extant. She died at the early age of thirty-three in 1380, in Rome, where Urban had called her to help and advise him. She predicted the schism and other calamities, and whether this gift be ascribed, as reverent believers would wish, to the favor of God who allowed her a prophetic vision of the future, or, as the hard-headed philosophy of modern times would dictate, to the superior discrimination of an extraordinary woman, it is equally an honor to her and a title to especial and enthusiastic remembrance. Another woman concurred in the work of St. Catharine of Sienna, Bridget of Sweden, to whom we have already referred. She too prophesied the coming disasters of the church; she too pressed Gregory XI. to go back to Rome. Catharine was once commanded to harangue the Sacred College, in order to procure peace and unity among them. “This unique example,” says Ventura, “showed the powers of eloquence and the depth of the wisdom of this young Christian heroine.” As a means to reunite Christendom and perhaps avert what she prophetically foresaw, she urged upon Gregory XI. the advisability of inaugurating a new crusade, and, when told in amazement that first the Christians themselves would have to be reconciled, answered with consummate tact and prudence: “Holy Father, the expedition will be so popular that in itself it will unite them. Few men are so depraved as to be unwilling to serve God by means to which they are passionately attached. To separate the burning brands is virtually to quench the fire.”

She traced a plan of pacification as the basis of the policy she wished the Pope to adopt, urging the necessity of peace, and adds, “Let it not be a supine, weakling peace, but, on the contrary, an active, organizing state of things, in which bad and mercenary pastors will be summarily punished and all scandals swept away.” The vigorous foresight of this woman is a greater marvel than her holiness. In her we have a noble example of the heights of intellect to which the grace of God can lead a woman’s nature, and we might almost close our argument with this crowning figure of the moral Joan of Arc of Italy. Yet, lest we be met with the objection that all this greatness is part of a lost system, and that a new dispensation has superseded the church’s championship of the sex, we must, in justice to our own times, recall a few of those facts which since the Renaissance have repeatedly testified to the recognized influence of woman in political and social spheres.

Take, for instance, Isabella of Castile, the protectress and friend of Christopher Columbus, the great queen to whom Spain first owed the proud position of mistress of the seas and queen of the New World.

Columbus had offered his services to several kings and governments; it was a _woman_ who alone treated his projects as sublime realities and had faith in the future he prophesied. When he returned from his first expedition, it was she who received him with greater honors than those rendered to the old Spanish nobility; it was she who upheld him in his new speculations and furnished him the means to prosecute further discoveries. Long before he had gained her favor, it was again a woman whose intelligent appreciation had encouraged him in weary labors, his mother-in-law, Madame Peristiello, herself the widow of a famous navigator, the discoverer of the Islands of Madeira and Porto Santo.

Isabella governed her hereditary dominions of Castile herself, while her husband, Ferdinand of Aragon, administered his own; but not long after their marriage, so persuaded was he of her superior talents for government, that he gave up his kingdom to her care. The final expulsion of the Moors from Catholic Spain was her conception, was carried out by her personal influence, and owed its success mainly to her inspiring presence among the Christian besiegers of Granada. The great Captain Gonsalvus of Cordova, who seconded her most admirably in her gigantic undertaking, was sought out and patronized by her on account of the genius she discovered in him; the great legislator, Cardinal Ximenes, owed his elevation to her, and was forced by her to accept the great dignities which were to enable him to reform and aggrandize the country. Fernando Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico, was likewise her special _protégé_, and indeed no better proof could be had of the omnipotence of her personal influence in Spain than the fact that after her death these great men were either forgotten or, worse still, persecuted. Without the queen’s knowledge, Ferdinand had listened to the detractors of Columbus, and degraded him from his post of viceroy over the newly discovered lands in America. Isabella indignantly interfered and had him reinstalled in his dignities, but when, shortly after, his protectress died, he was again imprisoned, and fell the victim to Ferdinand’s ingratitude. As to Gonsalvus of Cordova, he then, after the queen’s death, was disgraced, and sent, under a pretext of hypocritical regard, to occupy the post of a viceroy at Naples.

One of Isabella’s biographers, Desormeaux, says that “_to_ the graces of her sex the queen of Castile added the greatness of a _hero_, the profound and able policy of a _minister_, the views of a _legislator_, the brilliant qualities of a _conqueror_, the honesty of a _good citizen_, and the uprightness of a perfect _magistrate_.” Ventura quotes this with these italics. Rohrbacher calls her a _true king_, drawing attention to her indefatigable zeal in seeing to all affairs herself, and in constantly encouraging her troops by her presence on horseback among them. He repeats her praises in almost the same words as Desormeaux. Innocent VIII. granted her the formal title of “Most Catholic Majesty”; Cardinal Ximenes said that the world would never see again a sovereign so inflexibly just; Peter of Anghiera, the professor of the palace-school for the youth of the nobility, lamented her as “the refuge of the good, the sword raised against the guilty, the mirror of rigid virtue.”

Placed at the beginning of modern times, on the threshold of the church’s momentary eclipse, and of the decadence of public morality all over Europe, she stands out in bold relief a champion of the church, which, in proud gratitude to her sex, has been her champion in return.

St. Teresa, whom all ages and creeds agree in accepting as an extraordinarily gifted woman, was another of the shining lights of Spain at this time. She too was a Castilian; her influence was no less widely spread than that of Isabella, and, if anything, it has lasted longer and more visibly. One of the greatest orders of the church acknowledges her as its reformation, and, for all practical purposes, even as its foundress. The Carmelite Friars speak of her as “our holy mother,” as the ancient Benedictines speak of Benedict as “our father.” The writings of St. Teresa are among the most important spiritual treasures of the church. Her health was for many years a grievous trial to her, and her temptations, as recounted by herself, seem to have been neither light nor few. In the reform so urgently needed among the lax followers of the Order of Carmel, she was systematically opposed by many influential persons and superiors of her own as well as of the opposite sex. After a sort of novitiate of twenty years of unceasing efforts to attune her soul to the practice of mental prayer, she began her agitation in favor of reform under disappointing circumstances, but, triumphing with time over many of her opponents, at last procured the assistance of powerful colleagues. Many of these were women. In 1562, she was established in a convent where the reform was first practised. Butler says, “The perfection and discretion of her rule eclipsed all former reformations of her order.” She next founded two monasteries for men according to the reform. At Medina del Campo, at Pastrana, at Durveo, she founded communities of men; at Valladolid, Avila, Salamanca, Alva, of women. It is impossible to enumerate her many other foundations. When her co-laborers, the priests Gratian, Marian, and others, gave up all for lost on account of the ceaseless opposition they encountered, she alone remained firm and hopeful, saying, “We shall suffer, but the order will stand.” She also said that the cross was “the secure and beaten road” to lead their souls to God. Women are proverbially called weak, and said to be unwilling to forego luxuries or court trials; yet how Teresa vindicated her sex in her heroic resolve to “let justice be done, though the heavens fall”! Her contemporary, Bishop Yepez, tells us that her deportment was not less agreeable than edifying, that her prudence and address were admirable, and speaks no less of her gracefulness, dignity, and charms than of the gravity, modesty, and discretion of her conversation and carriage. Truly a most _womanly_ woman, who could take upon her man’s responsibility without forfeiting the beautiful attributes of her sex. Like in this to the Catholic Church, Catholic womanhood has _all_ that is claimed by women outside the church, and not only that, but she adds far more, just as the church holds whatever truth is held by the different sects, and infinitely more beside. Teresa died in 1582, having lived to see sixteen convents of Carmelite nuns, and fourteen of friars, founded and successfully organized. The impress of her noble work is undying; she had the talents of the unhappy Luther, but dedicated them to a worthier cause, and, now that the same number of centuries have passed over their respective graves, the woman’s name is universally honored even by her conscientious opponents, while the man’s is execrated in many a community whose original constitution was derived from his teachings.

In the same century as Teresa lived another great reformer and Christian agitator, St. Cajetan, of Thienna, who owed to his admirable mother his enthusiasm and ardent zeal for holy things. He showed by his foundations how highly he esteemed woman’s virtue and integrity; one of his chief aims being to establish refuges for fallen women, and asylums for those whose honor was endangered through poverty and destitution. But one of his greatest works would never have been accomplished if a noble and wealthy woman had not generously taken its fulfilment upon herself: namely, what is called in Catholic Europe the “_Mont de Piété_,” an untranslatable and most touching synonym for our more repulsive pawn-shops. These institutions were established to counterbalance the shameful system of usury in vogue at the time, and were so controlled by the state that the needy masses should be benefited by them instead of being duped. To the Countess of Porto is Italy indebted for these much-needed reforms. Mother Ursula Benincasa, the foundress of an order called the Theatine Hermits, was, according to Ventura, the bulwark of orthodoxy in the kingdom of Naples. She was the first to unmask the heresiarchs Bernardin Ochino and Peter Vermillo, who had begun to preach Protestantism under the cloak of reform. St. Philip Neri examined her and encouraged her in her labors, and the city of Naples reveres her as its protectress.

One of the best known and best loved saints of modern times is St. Francis of Sales. One of his most popular works is his _Introduction to a Devout Life_--the most useful, readable, and intelligible manual of devotion ever written for persons living in the world. Yet this would never have been written save for a woman, to whom were addressed the letters from which it was subsequently compiled. He treats in this work almost exclusively of the duties of women, and chiefly of women of the higher classes--those of whom it is said by too many, in their excessive severity, that they are debarred by the circumstances of their life from real Christian work. St. Francis’ _Treatise on Divine Love_, a longer work, is modelled much on the same plan. The woman whose soul he thought worthy of inspiring these efforts was Madame Jeanne Françoise de Chantal, the grandmother of another gifted and well-known woman, the charming Madame de Sévigné. Her domestic life, during the years of her happy and holy marriage, was a model of severity and order. Regular hours were assigned for everything in her household, every duty and employment discharged with, great order, and the spiritual and moral welfare of her servants attended to with the minutest solicitude. Butler says that order is an indispensable part of virtue; and what is more worshipped (in theory!) among our modern women-reformers than this very quality! But here we have it exhibited in a saint: is it the less attractive for that? When her husband was absent, she refrained from visiting and entertainments, and was at all times conspicuous for shunning, as far as the duties of her position would allow, all useless and frivolous occupations. Again, we have Butler commending her for this, and adding that “to make a round of amusements and idle visits the business of life, is to degrade the dignity of a rational being and to sink beneath the very brutes.” Is this not the language held by the modern advocates of a reform among women? Thus we see that, in everything to which reason points, the church not only stands up for the rights of woman, but also that her ministers and exponents have even forestalled the “newly discovered movement,” both by word and example, many centuries ago. Jeanne Françoise de Chantal lost her husband after several years of marriage, and gave herself up to the care and education of her children. To this task, which she superintended with the gravest diligence, she applied herself for several years, until her eldest daughter’s marriage. Then she entered the religious life, leaving her son under the guardianship of her father, but retaining herself the privilege of still superintending his studies. Her Congregation of the Visitation soon after became a regularly constituted order, and she and some companions, under the auspices of St. Francis of Sales, took their solemn vows at Annecy, in 1610. In the same year, she stayed for several months at Dijon, arranging family affairs and watching over her son’s studies. She also founded convents in nine or ten prominent towns in France, and, between 1619 and 1622, governed the convent in Paris, where she at first met with and overcame serious difficulties. Her son, whose marriage had been her special care and work, was killed in 1627, in the religious wars then desolating France, and her daughter-in-law and son-in-law (the husband of her eldest daughter) died not long after. Her fortitude under these trials was worthy of the Roman and Spartan matrons of old, and her tenderness for those more bereaved than herself, a model of Christian grace. Her aptitude for directing souls was very remarkable, and her bravery in tending the body in sickness no less so. During the pestilence at Annecy her efforts were ceaseless, and her prayers for its cessation full of fervent belief. In 1638, the Duchess of Savoy sent for her to Turin to found a Convent of the Visitation, and treated her (to her great mortification) with the greatest honor. The same happened in Paris, where a royal mandate had also summoned her. It is impossible to calculate the influence this energetic woman has had upon the modern destinies of Catholic Europe, both during her busy and fruitful life and since her death, when the houses of her order have multiplied to an enormous extent, and for some time monopolized almost entirely the education of the upper classes of women. If they no longer hold the first place among such institutions, another order, no less useful and especially designed for this one end, has successfully taken up their work, the Congregation of the Sacred Heart.

The seventeenth century gave birth to another institution even more perfect than that inaugurated by the Baroness de Chantal, that of the Sisters of Charity. This is perhaps the only Catholic foundation against which the malice of the church’s opponents--of all shades of belief and unbelief--has never dared to raise its voice. Not the most improbable tale of scandal has been hurled at these women; not the remotest trace of a sneer has ever been pointed at them; infidels on their death-bed, philanthropists who scouted the Catholic ideal, soldiers on the field of battle, physicians whom they outdo in zeal in the worst hospitals--all are agreed on the unimaginable and gigantic heroism of the Sisters of Charity. They alone, of all nuns, are allowed to walk the streets of London without the least concealment of their distinctive dress, and all over the world there is not a queen whose royal robes are more respected than the simple peasant-like costume of the daughters of St. Vincent of Paul. Louise de Marillac was the saint’s first great helper in this noble work. Their rule is one that might serve women of the world, so entirely spiritual and interior is its nature. “Let them have,” it says, “the houses of the sick for their monastery, the rooms of the poor for their cell, the parish church for their conventual chapel, for grating the fear of God, and holy modesty for their veil.” The Countess of Soigny, who assisted St. Vincent in his missions among the agricultural poor in 1616; Madame de Goussault, who suggested to him the formation of an organized body of ladies to attend regularly on the sick of the present hospital in Paris, the Hôtel Dieu; Madame de Polaillon, who herself supplemented his labors by visiting the sick, and teaching the ignorant country population herself, under the disguise of a peasant woman, and who finally took upon herself to found, under his direction, the Institute of Mercy for the reformation of abandoned women; the Queen-Regent, Anne of Austria, who nominated him to a post of great moral influence, and consulted him in all ecclesiastical affairs; Mesdames de Marillac, de Traversai, and de Miramion, who were the life and soul of his immortal Foundling Institution--these and many others, of all classes and all ages, were the real and earnest fellow-laborers to whose zeal, under God, he owed the success of his many admirable enterprises. Whatever amelioration the lot of man has undergone has always been traceable either to a woman’s suggestion or at least her practical co-operation. One woman, whose name should not be forgotten in the catalogue of Vincent of Paul’s spiritual lieutenants, is that of Marie de Gournay, the wife of a small wine-seller, a most holy and discreet woman. M. Olier, a priest of that age, has left us her panegyric in glowing terms: “All the good which is done at this time passes, so to speak, through her hands; all the great undertakings of our day are somehow referable to her. Although her birth and position are obscure, yet she is the counsel and the light of the most illustrious persons in Paris.” He then names the great ladies of the court who ask her advice in spiritual matters, and adds: “There are no apostolic men, no missionaries, who fail to go to her for instruction. Father Eudes, a famous preacher, consults her frequently. The General of the Oratorians does the same. Mademoiselle Manse, whom God has inspired to go out to Canada to help in the propagation of the faith there, undertook this work only after receiving Marie de Gournay’s approbation. She it is who directs M. de Coudray, who is working for the Levant missions and the defence of the church against the Turks.... A certain counsellor of state takes her advice in all things, and has worked in consequence much to the benefit of the church. The chancellor of the kingdom, according to her persuasions, is very zealous in the extirpation of heresy and the defence of the church. I pass over many names as illustrious as these, the position of their bearers precluding me from mentioning them.” M. Olier’s own conversion was due to her predictions and timely warnings, and through his vocation her influence was greatly spread in the work of reforming the ecclesiastical seminaries of France. The historian Rohrbacher only mentions her as a power on the side of religious reform. The College of Vaugirard and the Seminary of St. Sulpice, now the two foremost educational institutes of Paris, were the fruits of her prayers and counsels.

The end of the reign of Louis XIV. was remarkable for the happy and beneficial rule of a woman, his wife, Madame de Maintenon, whose rigid virtue and wise influence were boons no less prized by the nation than by the sovereign. Before her marriage with the king, she was the queen’s true and loyal friend, and exercised the influence she even then possessed over Louis XIV. wholly in his consort’s favor. She never would accept gifts from him, and indeed told him plainly that he had not the right to give her anything. The great institution in which she was interested, and which owed its foundation to her, was the Free School of St. Cyr, for the daughters of poor gentlemen. It was in this school that many of the heroines of the French Revolution were educated. Fénelon avowed that he looked to her as the king’s conscience. Racine wrote at her suggestion his masterpiece, _Athalie_, and broke through the senseless tradition which deified and consecrated in poetry crimes which, told in prose, would have made any modest _man_ or woman blush. Fénelon’s determined stand against the king’s encroachments on religious liberties left him without a friend in the fickle court of Versailles; Madame de Maintenon boldly ranged herself on his side and exerted all her influence in his favor.

We have come so near to the days of our fathers that we must stop, as on the confines of well-known and well-worn subjects. The heroic and _manly_ character of Maria Theresa, the fortitude of Louise de France, the Carmelite nun, the calm bravery of Marie Antoinette and Madame Elizabeth, are facts too well known to need repetition. Perhaps it may not be so with the origin of the Propagation of the Faith, which was begun at Lyons in 1822 by a few humble working-women, instinct with the spirit of Martha, and undeterred by the first obscurity of their good works. We might mention women who have influenced literature and made a name that will never be forgotten--Eugénie de Guérin, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, Countess Ida Hahn-Hahn, and many others; especially of late the charming authoress of the _Récit d’une Sœur_. Is it necessary to speak of the numberless convents where girls of all classes are thoroughly educated, and in which the teachers, were they men, would shine as college tutors and holders of professional chairs? In fact, if we had time and space to go through the modern world, as we have explored the ages of our ancestors, we should find no less vitality among women, no less determined championship of the sex on the part of the church. Let us end by a tribute to one of the noblest works of charity ever undertaken, that of the Little Sisters of the Poor, the earthly guardian angels who live in such evangelical poverty that, when they have _begged_ the _remains_ of rich men’s tables to feed their infirm and aged charges, they humbly and cheerfully make their own scanty meal from the _refuse_ of these very remains. In days when luxury has _created_ wants destructive to human strength and health, let us honor above all these heroines of charity who live as the angels, and almost make us forget that their bodies are still under the law of the flesh and require fleshly sustenance.

With this picture of the very _ne plus ultra_ of charity, let us close our catalogue of woman’s perfections in the kingdom of grace, knowing well that we leave many an act of heroism unrecorded, many a sacrifice “hidden with Christ in God.”

We have seen what the church has done for woman: we have seen what woman has done for and in the church. It is at the sex’s option to continue this mission. The cultivation of its highest faculties is a duty it owes to the church and society. Mothers will be doubly mothers if they develop their sons’ moral nature, as they are bound to do, through the education of their own; the wife is solemnly bound to become truly her husband’s “helper, like unto himself”; daughters and sisters have a work to do in their homes far above the preparation of a meal or the smoothing over of domestic troubles; all women, of whatever age, class, or mental calibre, have their _vote_ to give in the great election that will decide the victory of the church or the world. If women vote for vice, the world of men will be bad; if for virtue, society may be regenerated: theirs is the casting vote, the decisive move. Let it be upward, sisters--let it be God-ward!

FOOTNOTES:

[107] _Donna Cattolica_, p. 295.

[108] _Lives of the Saints._

MISS ETHERIDGE.

While I was spending a summer in a pleasant town in Connecticut, I became very much interested in an invalid lady, who used to be drawn past my window in one of those small vehicles which seem both chair and carriage. The lady did not look ill by any means. She sat erect, and gazed about her with a lively air, betokening good health and spirits. She was always richly dressed, and wore her silks, velvets, and laces with the air of one well used to such raiment. Many of those meeting her bowed with deference, which she returned with courteous grace and a high-bred manner. Sometimes she would stop her little carriage while a friend chatted with her, and seemed always to make herself very agreeable, as I judged from the pleased faces of her listeners. Frequently I would see ladies and gentlemen walking by the side of her carriage as her maid slowly pushed it along. I met her very often in my walks, and sometimes I strolled a little way behind, observing this stately dame, so afflicted and yet so favored apparently by fortune and misfortune.

She was a very handsome woman of about fifty years of age. Her silver-gray hair was abundant and beautiful, crowning her with a dignity beyond the power of any artificial adornment to bestow. The carriage of her head was proud and erect. Her features were clear cut and handsome, and the delicate tint of her complexion seemed almost to belong to youth. She appeared to me like a fine picture of a court dame in some bygone time, because, with all the air of style investing her, she was not dressed in the fashion of the day. In this was shown a fine, nice taste; whatever was her infirmity, it seemed to place her so removed from the frivolity of her sex that an affectation of fashion in her attire would have been unbecoming.

Being so much interested in this lady, I made inquiries, and soon learned much of her former history. She was a Miss Etheridge, afflicted with incurable rheumatism, of that kind which renders the victim almost helpless. She could not stand on her feet or change her position without the help of others. She could only imperfectly use her hands, and yet her health was good and her intellect vigorous. She had been, only a few years before, an active, energetic woman, remarkably self-reliant and helpful to others. She had been a beauty and belle in her girlhood, and always a woman commanding the homage and respect of all who knew her.

But now, what a sad ending of a favored life! “Bound with chains,” she said to me, for, waving ceremony in view of her great affliction, I called upon her and cultivated an acquaintance which I never regretted. Debarred as she was from all occupation, she was very fond of society. Her hands, once very beautiful, as former portraits showed, were now so distorted and weakened as to be unable to hold any but the lightest books or pamphlets for reading, and that not very long at a time. So, in her luxurious apartments, surrounded by every alleviation that wealth could bestow, this lady passed many lonely hours and days--hours of intense weariness of both body and mind. Sitting in her massive, high-backed chair, she looked like a fine picture and showed no sign of her infirmity; yet how her poor limbs ached from the mere lack of change of posture, only those similarly affected can tell. An intimacy sprang up between us so easily that I was often present at times when her attendants moved and dressed her; and then it was that I became aware of the extent of torture to which she was subjected by the mere moving of a limb. Much of her time she passed lying in her bed, from an intense dread of the severe ordeal of being moved. I have passed hours sitting by her bedside, reading to her and in conversation with her, and by this means came to know much of her state of mind and religious feeling.

I admired the fortitude and patience with which she bore her burden, yet it did seem to me quite as much Spartan endurance as Christian meekness or acceptance of the will of God. Hers was a heroic nature, with some pious yearnings uncultivated. She chafed like a caged lioness, but was too proud to whine or repine in any cowardly fashion. She was an Episcopalian of the firm, old-fashioned type that eschews both Ritualism and Evangelicalism. To be as the bishops and clergymen of her family, who had supplied the church of her affections for generations with clerical stock, seemed to her just the right medium, and in clinging to this standard she simply starved her soul. She knew me to be a Catholic, a “Roman Catholic”--for she also claimed to be a Catholic, an “Anglican Catholic,” as I also had once done. I, being a recent convert, felt enthusiastic even while timid on this subject. I had passed through the ordeal of estrangement from friends, been exposed to misunderstanding of my motives and all the whips and stings to which those who take this step are subjected, too recently not to be very sensitive about laying myself open to the charge of endeavoring to proselyte another. I loved Miss Etheridge and her society too well to risk her displeasure, or by speaking overmuch of my own faith to give any handle for her relatives to turn against us. She, on her part, was too truly polite to ever make any unpleasant allusions to the subject. And yet how much I longed for her to know what a sure trust and support she _could_ have if she only _would_! When I heard her involuntary moans, my prayers went up for the intercession of the Mother of Sorrows, again, and yet again. And I knew all the time that _that_ intercession she rejected with scorn. Nothing I could have said to her would have been so unwelcome as a prayer to the Blessed Virgin in her behalf. Yet I did ask that tender intercession, and I believe the All-Pitying Woman above was touched with compassion for the proud, suffering woman who would not ask her aid.

On one occasion, when our conversation had drifted along to the subject of the next life, she remarked that to _her_ the bliss to be desired was to be “unchained--‘delivered from the body of this death.’”

“My dear friend,” said I, “if you die before I do, my regrets will be tempered by the thought that your ‘earthly clogs’ are cast off.”