Letter 858. To Mother Anne Marie de Lage de Puylaurens

Superior at Bourges. [Orleans] 20 June, 1628.

Vive > Jésus!

May Jesus reign! How I bless and thank Him for having in His goodness chosen to elect you to govern your house! ‘We must not stop to converse, when we ought to be running,’ our Blessed Father once said to a new superior. Isay the same to you, my dearest Mother. Give yourself time to reflect on God, and in Him watch over your little flock gently and vigilantly, with charity, and you will see that He Himself will guide it through your hands. Trust then with a great trust in His goodness. Do not rely upon me to give you an assistant, but, with the advice of Sister Francoise Gabrielle,? give this charge to her among the sisters whom you consider most suitable.

I have written to Paris to make inquiries as to the disposition, the health, and the circumstances of the mother of the two little Lescalopiers. I am sending you another nice Parisian girl, she of whom I wrote to you: she will bring you her contracts. Her dowry is ample. She gave our sister the Superior of Paris fifty crowns for her first six months’ pension. If on trial you find her suitable she will give a hundred crowns for her clothing. Had you settled with our sisters here, they would have sent you one who is unprepossessing exteriorly but whose heart is good. I hope, please God, to start from this the day after our feast, and to see you five or six days later, but only in passing, because I am afraid of not finding a conveyance at Bourges to take us on to Nevers. Greetings to your dear self and all our sisters, especially dear Sister Francoise Gabrielle. I commend to your care good Sister You will have to tame her gently. Yours, etc. God be praised.¹²³

Footnotes

1. Angélique Arnauld, Abbess of Port Royal, had since the death of St. Francis de Sales placed herself under the direction of Mgr. Zamet. Some years later this unfortunate abbess, who up to this time had been so justly esteemed, fell under the influence of the Abbé Saint-Cyran, and adopted his errors. ↩

2. Sister F. G. de Bally, the sister déposée, ↩

3. June.—I have just received your letter sent on from Autun. I have not time to read that of Pere ——-. You ought to send your agent to our sister the Superior of Paris to ask her what she would advise, for I, not being there, can be of no use to you. God be praised. ↩