Letter XL. To Mother de Chantal

Superiors not to be guided by the human spirit, and not to be too eager to escape temporal anxieties.

1622, about June*

I AM back and in health, my dearest Mother, but without leisure to make you a long narration; it will suffice if I answer the principal questions which you have asked me. I believe, my dear mother, because I see, that all superiors want to have troublesome and eccentric sisters removed from their monasteries, for it is the nature of the human spirit only to be pleased with pleasing things; but I am entirely of your opinion that one should not open the door for a change of monasteries to those sisters who desire it, but only to those who without desiring it are for some other reason sent by superiors; otherwise the slightest unpleasantness which happened to a sister would be capable of disquieting her and making her change; and instead of changing themselves they would think they had sufficiently cured their trouble when they changed their monastery.

I am glad that you are lodged as you desire. I have answered Madame de Monfan's and Madame de Dalet's letters, written to me while I was at Turin; I have seen how these two ladies exercise our superioress at Paris, but I see no remedy except patience and confidence in God.

M. Sanguin wrote me a long letter, and got the * The French has no date. [Tr.]

Duke de Nemours to write to me, on the difficulties made about his daughter, but I have nothing to answer except that superiors on the spot must decide the matter, and not I, who can only get information from the statements of the parties, and who, moreover, am not a competent judge. I am much more scandalised with the contests which are going on between our sisters, the superiors of Moulins and of Nevers, for a certain thousand crowns which I would rather have at the bottom of the sea than in the minds of these daughters. Is it possible that persons brought up in the school of the folly of the cross are so attached to the prudence of the world that neither one nor other will yield, and that each can appeal to so many points of law? You must, however, try to stop the one who has the less right, provided that the spirit of the world still permit her to let herself be judged wrong; but I do not think this can be done before your arrival. The one at Nevers has not written to me about it, but the complaints of the one at Moulins prove that the idea of strict justice is deeply fixed in the mind of both one and the other.

I have almost the same aversion to the great desire which superiors have that their houses should be relieved by means of foundations; for all this springs from the human sense and the difficulty which each one has to carry her burden. It seems then to me to matter very little whether the house of, Montferrand or that of Moulins be relieved by the foundation of Eiom.

I am very glad of the satisfaction which you find in our Sister Francoise Augustine, and our Sister Parise, as also I am very sorry that the spirit of our Sister Valeret could not accommodate itself to the Institute.

LET. XLI.] Later Letters to Visitation. 245

God grant her the grace of attraction to a vocation conducive to her salvation.

I have already written to yon on the subject of the benefactresses, whom I would not, as you would not, like to be in great numbers; but still this must be arranged with charity and discretion. As to Mile, de Vigny, since she is such a good soul as you say, she may be granted what she wants, but in future you must not receive benefactresses who want to make so many conditions.

The number of sick in the house at Paris is a great presage of the blessing which God desires to give there, although the flesh is averse to it. I should indeed have liked a longer life for Madame the first president's lady, my dear daughter, but we must stop short and without a word before the decree of the heavenly will, which disposes of its own according to its greater glory. I am consoled by the sweet edification which she has left in the good example of her life: it was indeed wholly dedicated to the service of God, as I have known ever since I had the advantage of knowing her. I think the pious houses of Dijon and Burgundy will have lost much by this death, but it rarely happens that one profits without another's loss....