Letter 890. To Mother Catherine Charlotte de Crémaux de la Grange

To Mother Catherine Charlotte de Crémaux de la Grange, Superior of the First Monastery of Lyons. Bourg, 8 October [1628]. Vive >» Jésus!

My very dear Daughter,—Just as we were leaving Dijon I received your dear letters of the 13th of September, and here we are arrived at Bourg. I had hoped to send a man from here to get news of you before we leave, but I can find no one to go, so I’ll send my letters to Pont-de-Veyle, from whence, they tell me, Mademoiselle de Saint-Loup will be offered her their official services. So highly was this Mother esteemed that those who received letters from her in reference to the foundation kept them as relics. It is not easy to credit the numbers who, we are told, came to see her, and their enthusiasm about her.

sure to forward them. The great danger that I know you and all our poor sisters are in is a constant source of anxiety to me, and God is my only resource, for I am powerless to help you. But I trust your preservation to His divine goodness, to which my heart unceasingly appeals in humble prayer.

Believe me, if my letters affect you, yours make me shed many a tear; but I lift up my heart out of the reach of death, amidst so many deaths, and beyond all created things. You and the beloved Sister Marie Aimée [de Blonay] do, I know, in like manner. Keep yourselves and your dear flock peacefully hidden in the bosom of the divine protection, and God will in His sovereign goodness, through the innumerable acts of solid virtue practised amidst the terrors of this public affliction, preserve and enrich you all. Should it be His holy will to strike down or take to Himself any one of you, it will assuredly but be to place her at His right hand, and give the other sisters the opportunity of practising in this life heroic charity. After all, nothing can happen to us that is not the will of our good heavenly Father; and His holy will will ever be our chief and only pleasure. This then should be our consolation and security. But it is likewise His will to neglect nothing whatever that can be done for your preservation. The things you are doing are useful. Perfume the house well, and take preservatives in the morning. To eat juniper berry is very good. Don’t open the windows, and don’t go into the air more than you can help, until the sun has purified it.

I am most anxious to know how you get in the necessary provisions, as I am dreadfully afraid that the contagion may be brought to you in that way. I have been wondering if you could not manage so that those who serve you need not come to the four.t You ought, I think, to have some one living in your gardener’s house who could undertake to get the provisions, and when she brings them, before giving them in, she should pass them over a bright fire which she might make in a street hard by, and the out-sister

} The room in a convent in which is a turning-box through which things are passed from the out-quarters into the enclosure.

could go there to fetch them. But I should not like the outsister who speaks to you at the four to go near the woman who gets the provisions. This you can manage, and it will, I think, be the best way I have also been planning where you could put the plague-stricken if God permits you to have them. They must of necessity be kept apart from the sisters. Put them in your outside oratories, or in the sheds, and isolate the quarters where they are, redoubling the perfumes and the disinfectants. Have good, bright fires made all over the house, and let all the sisters warm themselves. Make them change their clothes and shake them well, and air their beds before the fire, and make them do this at once. If I knew of any better remedies you should certainly have them, my dearest daughter.

Mademoiselle de Saint-Loup, who resides at Pont-de- Veyle, has offered us fifty loads of corn for you. Had they better be sent to you by the Sadne? and are you in need of money or of anything that it is in our power to provide? For most assuredly you shall have it from a very full heart. If you have an opportunity of sending us news of you to Crémieux, where we shall be till the 21st, or to Nessy, where we go from thence, I beg of you to let us have it: for, dearest daughter, you cannot imagine my anxiety at neither being able to hear from you nor to give you tidings of ourselves; most willingly will I send you our news, believe me, wherever I am, when it is possible.

It is a consolation to me that you have put yourselves by special vow under the protection of Our Lady and our Blessed Father; and God will, I trust, preserve you through their intercession. I get all the prayers I can for you, and, for myself, I never cease praying, and I beseech the divine Saviour of our souls to hold us all in His fatherly embrace and there to shower upon us His most perfect graces. As the Reverend Father Provincial is at Vienne, you can perhaps conveniently send him the ‘Conferences’: I should like him to see them. Tell me what you and dear Sister Marie Aimée [de Blonay] think about printing them. Shall we wait till the sickness is over at Lyons [in the town], where they tell me it is terrible, or shall we send them to Paris?

If you think they ought to be printed in Paris, can you send them there? But I should like to see them first. If I am able I shall write to you from Crémieux. Good-bye, good and dear daughter. JI am indeed wholly yours in Our Lord. May He be blessed.

P.S.—I envy your seeing the good Pére Maillan; give him my very humble and cordial respects. Should you find my little remedies good, share them with our poor sisters of the Second Monastery, and also the offers we make you. With all our hearts we want to help you both.