Letter 319. To Mother Marie Jacqueline Favre

My dearest Daughter,—I have just written to your gentlemen of Montferrand. I had not thought of doing so until I received your letter, for I think they ought duly and without dissimulation to take into consideration the wishes of your father; not to do so in this matter would be quite unreasonable.

I also had thought of our Sister to be the Superior.

So it consoled me to see by your letter that your ecclesiastical superiors intended it, though truly, if the choice had been left to me, I know very well which I should prefer; but, as you say, the world is taken by the exterior. Now, I hope our Sister [several words effaced]; but have you a sister to second her? I remember very well our Sisters M. Elizabeth and Anne Francoise; they certainly are virtuous souls. To take action is all, you see, that is now needed. My sister the Superior of Moulins! told me the other day, upon my asking her for our Sister F. J. [de Villette], that she saw very well she would not be left much longer with her, and certainly, when at Lyons, I did not see anyone more capable than she of being Superior. So, at least, I think we shall send her back there; for we must give back Sister Marie Héléne de Chastellux to Moulins, and take one to Nevers. If it is God’s will, I think it would be well for our Sister F. J. to be with you for a little while. What do you say to this, dearest daughter?

If the foundation of Turin is not very pressing, it seems to me we ought not to go there till towards the end of August. Whatdoyouthink? But we must let our masters decide. I have just written to his Lordship about it all, and asked him to tell us frankly what we ought to do, for he says nothing except that the foundation of Turin need not be till Pentecost. But I tell him that we cannot set out so soon, for we shall only get into our house about the Feast of St. John, and we ought not to leave immediately after. There is truly a great deal of grumbling about my going away, but his Lordship bids me reply that I shall return, and I tell them that I am not yet ready to go. In a word, nobody likes my leaving. I say nothing, for I know well that she who remains? is both very prudent and very virtuous. She is greatly loved and esteemed. Our sisters admire her and say that she is inimitable, but for all that it is strange how they dread my departure. If [she] my sister, the assistant, lays herself out to win the sisters and is open-hearted with them, she will do wonders, for she has virtue, wisdom, and prudence. As to business,

LETTER 319 a7

May God dwell eternally in our hearts. I recommend you [several lines illegible]|—I send you our letters open, so that, if I have made any blunders and they are not quite as they should be, you can have them rewritten, saying what you judge suitable for those to whom they are addressed, as they do not know my writing. Put, or rather, see that the heading is put, correctly.¹

Footnotes

1. Sister J. C. de Bréchard. 2 Sister Anne Catherine de Beaumont. she knows little about it, but we need not worry at that. All goes well, thank God, with our very good friends, and especially with our valiant and virtuous daughters, who are very numerous. My dearest daughter, I have already given you an answer in reference to the foundress, and that, as soon as ever I received your letter, and you replied that you could receive her again. The ecclesiastical superior of the Carmelites made no difficulty about receiving two here; and see how they have done at the convent in the town. Madame de Longueville, her son, and her daughterin-law are jointly the first founders. M. de [several illegible words]; so this is a recent example which you cannot make a mistake in following. Some time ago I wrote to his Lordship asking if we might take two in this way. He did not answer me, which means that we may, for I asked him only to answer by silence when he approved. All you have to see to is to deal with good, kindly people who do not give trouble. As to the sum of ten thousand francs, in those parts it goes farther than twenty thousand here. As regards the foundress, the father of your first } (at least, I think she was the first) came here the other day, and begged of me to ask you not any longer to dissuade his daughter from yielding to his wishes; he said that his wife had written to him saying she could no longer get either assistance or obedience from her daughter. Now this is enough to make you understand the rest—you can imagine how I answered him. See, dearest daughter, if you cannot give them some satisfaction by means of this good lady. What else is there to say? I felt inclined to be hurt at your prescribing that I should make use of a secretary in writing to you. This would be impossible to me, for God knows the place you hold in my heart—but I think my letters get lost (I wrote telling you all about our having got a house, and you say that it was M. de Mongelas who told you this)—and that would not satisfy me. We certainly have a house which will cost nearly twenty thousand crowns; but it is commodious, and, besides, they wanted thirty or forty thousand crowns for the house we had. 1 The Countess de Dalet. ↩