Letter 219. To Mother Mane Jacqueline Favre

My most dear Daughter,—There is truly plenty of subject for mortification in this new persecution,? which we must bear with resignation; but we should feel confident that our good God will procure His glory from out it all, and draw our unique Father and dear Lord from this furnace as untarnished as the sun. I own I feel somewhat upset at the way in which those who allowed themselves to be carried away by their overheated passions neglected to foresee what would happen, and now their fault is only

They tell me that your parlour is very much frequented; so is ours, but I think it is without prejudice to recollection, or to exactness to duty; otherwise, where so many people of all sorts come, we should not be able to go on at all. I truly have an ardent desire that God and the observance should be preferred to any human respect.

Once more, what else can I say to you, my best of daughters, but that blessed are the souls who are satisfied with God alone, and who desire no created thing save what divine Providence and superiors wish. This is the only claim I wish my heart to possess, and if I do not act up to it, I pray God to have pity on my weakness, and to take me out of this life and lodge me in Purgatory.

Nothing is changed for the Superior at the end of the year, so, having nothing of greater value, I send you my rosary as a New Year’s gift with permission from our Congregation; and, without its permission—I mean to say without having asked it—I send you my heart. It is all yours, etc.¹

Footnotes

1. Madame du Tertre, a young lady of quality and of great beauty, who, upon being left a widow at the age of twenty-two, gave herself up to dissipation and worldly pleasures. Falling under the influence of St. Francis de Sales, she renounced her life of vanity and entered the Visitation, to which Order she soon brought great trouble. She died penitent. * M. de Foras, after he had been rejected by Francoise de Rabutin Chantal, married Mademoiselle de Beau. This marriage having displeased his parents, they cast the blame on St. Francis de Sales, as if he had negotiated it, and the Saint, though he had had nothing whatever to do with it, had to bear the brunt of their furious invectives. It is to these calumnies that St. Chantal here alludes. attributed to simple-mindedness. God be praised, my daughter, but thanks to His grace I have, notwithstanding, preserved holy peace amidst it all. I feel keenly this stain thrown on an unblemished name, yet none the less do I love to see the livery of the great Saviour upon the shoulders of His worthy servant, who is thereby more honourably adorned than are kings by their royal mantles. Write and give me, I beg of you, all the news of this best of Fathers. ↩