Letter XI. To a Lady

The way not to offend God in the pleasure of the chase.

Annecy, 20th June, 16 10. You see, my dearest daughter, what confidence I have in you. I have not written to you since your departure, because really I have not been able to do so; and I make you no excuse, because you are truly, and more and more, my more than most dear daughter.

God be praised for that your journey back has been made nicely and quietly, and that you have found your husband happy. Truly, that heavenly Providence of the heavenly Father treats with sweetness the children of his heart, and from time to time mingles favourable sweetnesses with the fruitful bitternesses which merit them.

M. Michel asked me what I wrote to M. Legrand about hunting; but, my dearest daughter, it was only a little thing in which I told him there were three laws to observe in order to avoid offending God in the chase.

i°. Not to do damage to our neighbour, it being not reasonable that any one should take his recreation at the expense of another, and specially in treading down the poor peasant, who is already martyred enough otherwise, and whose labour and condition we should not despise.

2°. Not to employ in hunting the time of the chief feasts, in which we ought to serve God: and above all, to take care not to omit Mass on the days commanded.

2°. Not to spend too much on it, for all recreations, become blameworthy when extravagant.

I do not remember the rest. In general, discretion must reign everywhere.

So then, my dearest daughter, may God be ever in the midst of your heart, to unite all your affections to his holy love. Amen.

So has he, I assure you, put in my heart a most unchanging and entire affection for yours, which I cherish unceasingly, praying God to crown it with blessing. Amen, my very dear, and always more very dear, daughter.

Various Letters. 23 t

To Madame de Chantal.

Thoughts on the renewal of the year.

2&th December, 1605. I end this year, my dear child, with a desire not only great but ardent to advance for the future in that holy love, which I cease not to love though I have not yet tasted it. Thank God, my child, our heart (notice, I say our) is made for that. Ah! why are we not all full of it? You cannot imagine the sense which I have at present of this desire. O God! For what shall we live through the next year save to love this sovereign goodness better! Oh! that it may take us from this world, or that it may take this world from us; may it make us die, or else make us love his death better than our poor life!

My God! how I wish you, my child, in Bethlehem now with your holy Abbess (the blessed Virgin)! Ah! how well it becomes her to bring forth, and to nurse this little Infant! But chiefly I love her charity, which lets him be seen and held and kissed by anybody. Ask her for him, she will give him; and when you have him, steal secretly from him one of those little droplets which are in his eyes. They are not yet the rain, but only the first dew-drops of his tears. It is a marvel how good this liquor is for every sort of disease of the heart.

Do not load yourself with austerities this Lent,

"without your confessor's leave, and he, by my advice, will not load you with them. May God deign to crown your year, beginning with roses, which his blood has coloured! Adieu, my dear child; I am he who has dedicated to you his entire service.