Footnotes

1. The Duchess de Montmorency, remarkable for her virtue and her misfortunes even more than for her illustrious birth, after witnessing her husband’s execution was conveyed to Moulins as a prisoner of state. On her way, in passing through Lyons, she desired to meet St. Jane Frances de Chantal, who was there at the time on the invitation of Cardinal Richelieu, but measures were taken to prevent theinterview. The Duchess sent Madame de la Barge, her lady in waiting (says the History of the Foundation of Moulins), to express her disappointment to our Saint and to recommend herself to her prayers. On her side St. Jane Frances wrote expressing her sentiments of respect; and, depriving herself of a little portrait of our Blessed Father taken from life, which he himself had given her, she sent it to the Duchess. On the back of this miniature she wrote: “My Blessed Father, obtain for Madam the supreme love of God which will comfort and give joy to her gentle heart in all her afflictions. Amen.’ The virtuous lady looked upon this gift as a double relic and treasured it affectionately all her life,as we now do. Our holy Foundress afterwards wrote to Mother Marie Angélique de Bigny, Superior of the Monastery of Moulins, telling her to pay all dutiful respect to the Duchess and do what she could to console her. In accordance with this wish, on the day of her arrival at Moulins, November 18, 1632, Mother de Bigny put at the disposal of this illustrious lady all that was in her power to offer on the part of her monastery, and during the two years of her imprisonment at the castle an out-sister took, two or three times a week, fruit or other little things, which she accepted with pleasure, permitting the good sister to come into her private room, where few were allowed to enter. [The first lines of the above letter weve evidently written to the Duchess when passing through Lyons, but although the latter half seems to belong to a later period, no trace of the originals being discovered in the place where these fragments weve found, we have been obliged to veproduce this letter as it is published by Mother de Blonay.) and communions I will offer up to the divine Majesty for your consolation, desiring, as I do, to contribute to it. But I am sure God will make you sensibly feel His support, to which, Madam, you will respond, making your will subject to His most holy will, while you adore from the depth of your soul the decrees of His sovereign providence—decrees that are always most just and that lead to eternal happiness, wherein I feel assured all your affections and all your desires are centred. ↩