Letter 1109. To the same

My dear Daughter,—I have already answered the letters you wrote me since your return from Troyes. Once more I bless God for making you suffer in His service, and I bless Him that the work for His glory has been happily achieved, to the honour of His divine Majesty and for the salvation of souls, notwithstanding all the efforts made to thwart it. We have seen your history of the foundation of Troyes. The style is simple and natural. It pleases me greatly. The only remarks I have to make are: that I think you need not have said that the Bishop of Troyes is not esteemed, but you can very well say, that because he favours religious houses he is not liked. And again, where you speak of the rudeness of those gentlemen, it ought to have been mentioned with a suave graciousness. You should also have named the sisters who were employed on the foundation. See how we are of one mind, dearest daughter, you and I, and how we treat each other with perfect frankness.

You do well to take every care of the health of your good assistant, for she deserves it. It is only nght, when she gets well, if she is able for it, to put her back as Novice Mistress, and meanwhile you will have tried the capabilities of Sister Marie Euphrosine [Turpin] for the charge. I am very glad Sister may be near you. She has no lack of fine words, and she discourses admirably on perfection; but she needs to apply herself seriously to acquire the solid virtues of humility, love of poverty, and of her own lowliness—in a word, to gain the religious spirit. As to Sister N., alack! she is indeed wholly taken up with herself;

zoo SAINT JANE FRANCES DE CHANTAL hers is also a character in which you will find plenty to exercise your charity. I have replied briefly to both; for truly, unless necessity demands it, the sisters ought to be content that I write to their Mothers; otherwise I could not exist amidst so many letters. She tells me, my sister N., that you doubt that she is quite open with you, although in truth she is so, and this even to the most unaffected plainness. I trust the charity you exercise towards her will not be without profit... .

As to the charities those superiors require of you, Iam very glad you assist them. Yet I fear their abusing your goodness and openheartedness; if they do, let me know, I beg of you. We superiors, who are but passers-by in our charge, sometimes leave a burden of debt for those who succeed us, and give occasion for complaints and discontent both to them and to the sisters. I will certainly write to our sister the Superior of Nantes about this, for she ought to settle the matter in some way before your term of office is over; she should free your house of all the charges and debts incurred by her, so that the new superior may have no cause of complaint as to such matters.

You see how it is. They want to make foundations and then other houses have to support them; and what, to me, is more regrettable, they sometimes relieve themselves in this way of troublesome sisters. I said this candidly to the Superior of Moulins, who is here at present. She sent eight sisters for the foundation of Croisic,+ and these sisters manage God knows how! The house of Nantes has to bear the whole expense of keeping them. So you see, dear daughter, when you are asked for considerable sums, you must say that you are only in charge of your house for three years and that it is neither established nor even built, and you dare not impoverish it by lending without the advice of your ecclesiastical superiors, who would not permit your giving money. Tell them they should ask help of the houses

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Now I will not say anything more to your Charity nor to those of our sisters who wish to make the vestments for our Blessed Father; but, as you say, he will, I hope, reward you for it (and this with all my heart I beseech of him) by diffusing a plenitude of his double spirit throughout your dear family, where I feel confident, by the grace of God, it will always live and reign. For the rest, Chambéry and all the country is almost free [of the plague], thank God.

As to the delay in the affair of our Blessed Father, we must indeed drink the chalice, for in the present state of his health there is no likelihood of our good Prelate (the Archbishop of Bourges) risking the journey. God can, if He pleases, preserve him for the holy work, for his heart is in it and always will be; but we must take care of all the documents, so that if possible he may come next May.

Pére dom Juste has to go to Piedmont in April, and if this business is not done before that I shall almost despair of it. But I think the delay will secure everything being quite ready, and then his Lordship of Bourges need not stay here more than three weeks or a month. We must keep the Bishop of Belley to his good intentions of coming. It is indeed God who has preserved you from the plague and in this way blessed your charity to those good fathers.

I beseech you to take all the care you can of yourself, for you are more precious than ever to me, and ycur house always dearer. So close, I beg of you, your church and your parlour, that no contagion may come through them.

Take out freely what you wish from the ‘ Answers’ and get them printed, for his Lordship [of Geneva] approves of them, and so does Pére dom Juste. I will send you a note of some things to be added; if I cannot send it to-day you shall have it another time. We have sent your letter in safety to the president. What is added, giving the opinion of our Blessed Father touching the necessity of an absolute refusal to accept abbeys or priories, ought, I think, to be put at the beginning. This may delay the printing, but there is no immediate hurry to bring it out.

I am wholly yours, my truest, dearest daughter, whom I love more than myself. May Jesus be our All. Amen.

Footnotes

1. Mother Marie Angélique de Bigny sent eight religious to found at Croisic, but nothing being ready for the new house they stayed several. months at the monastery of Nantes. Thanks to the zeal and devotedness of the Mother (de Bressand) of that house, their installation at Croisic took place on September 28 of this year, 1631. from which they were founded. After all, you ought, as you know, to represent to them the needs of your own monastery, for truly they seem to think that to be in Paris means to have money galore. And yet sometimes they do not manage as well for themselves with a gift as when it is only a loan. ↩