In the light of the current and serious concern of ebola and other viruses, it seemed wise to look to the heroines of our Visitation order who faced plagues in the past, especially our Foundress, St. Jane de Chantal.
Visitation Nuns were outstanding in their response to the Plague of 1628; in their prayers and penances, in their assistance to victims, in their fearlessness, in their personal sacrifices and in their cooperation with the authorities of the time.
The following excerpt from the Life of St. Jane Fremyot de Chantal, by Emily Bowles, is long but will give the full flavor of the Visitation Order’s deeply concerned approach in a time of great suffering and health epidemic.
May we contemporary Visitandines be as courageous as our great-souled, ancestral Sisters in the Order!
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Plague of 1628.
This grande peste was one of the most frightful plagues that had ever ravaged Europe. France, Savoy, Piedmont and Italy were all infected by it; and as pestilence without medical aid or sanitary measures would naturally create universal panic, the towns were soon deserted, and at length even the fields were left untilled. In the confusion and misery which ensued, the Visitation convents became the scene of many noble and heroic acts of courage and self-devotion.
It was then that Mother de Chastelluz called together.the Sisters at Autun, and proposed to them what the Council of Trent in such cases allows,—to leave the convent and go to a large airy house in the country, of which her sister had offered her the use. But one and all the nuns declined the privilege of breaking their enclosure; and, saying that they feared no plague except the plagues of the soul, they embraced each other, promising to nurse their own sick till death. Mother de Chantal was so delighted when she heard this account, that she wrote a congratulatory letter to the Sisters, which is still preserved at Autun.
At Moulins the pestilence gained such force that, after it had lasted only a few days, no inhabitant remained in the town but the sick and dying, and a few miserable plunderers who braved the danger for the chance of pillaging the empty houses. M. de la Coudre, the confessor of the convent, was one of the first to die, but his last utterance was a prayer and earnest blessing for the Sisters, whom he besought neither to fly from Moulins nor to be afraid. They remained, therefore, for nearly eight months, deprived of all help and comfort both of body and soul,—for it seems doubtful even if they were able to get a priest to say mass,—a state more forsaken and forlorn than it is possible for us now to realize. One good regular priest still remained at Moulins, serving the sick poor with great charity, and he went from time to time to the Sisters, begging them to pray for his poor patients and to have no fear for themselves. He touchingly told them that ‘he held his Master, being the Blessed Sacrament, every day both in his hands and on his breast, carrying Him to the sick; and that he thus bore Him round the convent walls of His dear spouses, that nothing evil might enter the enclosure of those happy willing prisoners; and that he never made this little procession without feeling sure that our Lord would preserve them; which he told them as dear sisters, that they might renew their prayers to their adorable Master.’
At Paray-le-Monial the town was even more forsaken, and a Sister in the convent was seized with the plague. She was immediately carried out to a little hut, built on purpose, at the end of the garden, and as all earnestly begged to be allowed to join her, one of the Sisters was chosen by lot to be shut up with her to be her nurse. Some idea may be gained of the state of panic from the absurd fright of the town doctor on this occasion; for he went away into the country, and could with difficulty be induced to come back as far as the ramparts, where he could just hear the Superior’s questions called out through the barred turret window. He shouted back to her that if the Sister were not bled, she must inevitably die, prescribed two or three petty remedies^ and then went away again as quickly as he could ;—nothing could induce him to go into the convent to bleed her. That same evening a young man—a surgeon or student—came to the same place on the ramparts, and shouted out that he was willing to do anything for money, and would bleed the sick Sister if they would give him a hundred crowns. He was offered a hundred francs, for which he consented to go into the convent; where he bled the Sister, taught the community how to bleed for themselves, showed them how to burn some kind of aromatic drug, and to compound certain medicines which were but of little use. This was the whole sum of the medical help these poor nuns obtained as long as the plague lasted.
When it had reached Montferrand the priest who acted as Superior wisely judged that the experience of its ravages at Moulins and Paray-le-Monial was not to be despised; and he ordered the Sisters to go to Saint Flour, where another convent of the order had offered them shelter. Fresh trials, however, met these devoted women, even in their very act of obedience; for the unaccustomed sight of a troop of nuns on horseback or in wretched carts, and also the fact that they were flying from an infected town, struck such panic into the villages through which they passed, that every door was closed against them. They were even obliged to sleep in the woods, in the poor huts used by the charcoal burners; and when they reached Saint Flour they found the town gates shut to bar their entrance, and the populace assembled in crowds in the market place, threatening the Sisters with assault or ill usage if they were allowed to enter the town. It is not easy to think what might have been their lot, if the Bishop had not offered them the use of his own country house some miles off. There they made their quarantine; and when the townspeople became convinced that they could show a ‘ clean bill of health,’ they consented to the removal of the nuns to the Visitation convent, where their coming had been awaited with great anxiety. The two communities at last were allowed to enjoy seven months together in great peace.
At Lyons there were now two Visitation convents; one at Bellecour, lying low down between the rivers, the other at Antiquaille, on the heights of Fourvieres, the healthiest part of the town. Yet, strange to say, it was Antiquaille that was struck with sickness, and the poor Superior wrote in despair to Mother de Chantal: ‘Alas, alas, Mother! what shall I say about our poor house? Out of twenty-two Sisters, seven are already dead. And such Sisters! true pearls of virtue!’ Among those who died was one of the tour teres, a poor girl, Sister Jane. She had been born in the country, and her father and mother were so poor and ignorant that they seem not to have taught her even the simplest rudiments of Christianity.
Jane’s sole occupation as a girl was keeping sheep, and while in the fields she used to ponder on the flowers and trees, the sun, the changes of day and night, wondering how and whence they came, and what they were. Whoever made all these beautiful things, she thought, must have been a very great and wonderful Being. So thinking, she would often kneel on the grass, and say in the simplest words, ‘Thou deservest much to be loved, whoever Thou art, that didst make the earth and heaven, and me also.’ For three years this poor girl continued thus to worship God, taught by conscience only; and then she heard some one speak of the Blessed Virgin as the Mother of God. From one question to another Jane then plodded on, asking and pondering, till she learnt the chief mysteries of religion; and being exceedingly delighted with each piece of religious knowledge she gained, her whole rnind became fixed upon the thought of how happy she should be to lead some kind of life, where she need never do anything but learn and think of religion and holy things. When the plague broke out she had been two years in the convent at Lyons, springing forward with rapid steps in the path of spiritual perfection; but she was suddenly taken with the disease, and after the shortest illness, her soul took flight at once to that God who had so marvellously drawn her to Himself.
Mother de Blonay was at Bellecour, having been through her term of government; and being now in the lowest place as ‘Sceur deposee,’ she generously suggested to the Superior to ask the nuns of Antiquaille to take up their abode at Bellecour. The community accepted the noble offer, but not till the whole air around their own convent was infected by unburied corpses, and not a single Sister left who was well enough to nurse the rest. On foot then, with their veils lowered over their faces, the sad procession of nuns was seen walking through the deserted city to the hospitable gates open to receive them; where, setting aside all thought of danger, the Sisters of Bellecour cordially met and embraced those from the stricken convent, taking them immediately to the choir, where they sang office together. It is pleasant to learn that, during the whole of the time the two communities lived together, not a single case of sickness occurred among them.
In the convent at Valence, as soon as the pestilence declared itself, one of the Sisters, Marie Constance Orlendin, went into the chapel and offered her life to God, that the community might be spared; and the offering was accepted as it was made, for Sister Orlendin was rapidly seized with the terrible sickness and died; but ‘the plague was stayed.’ At Grenoble the like offering was made by the heroic Mother de Beaumont, who, it will be remembered, had been sent away by Mother de Chantal from the Paris convent, at Paris, and who, at Annecy, in her humility of self-rebuke, had begged leaye to make her noviceship over again. Mother de Beaumont, now Superior at Grenoble, wrote out a beautiful and hearty act of self-sacrifice, which seemed to be visibly accepted, by the sparing of the convent from sickness when absolutely girdled with raging pestilence and death, though Mother de Beaumont’s life was not taken. Another of these acts of self-sacrifice was offered by a much valued Sister at Crest, in Provence, where the plague raged with peculiar fury. Mademoiselle de Bachason, a very beautiful girl, possessed of great wealth, had endowed and entered the convent at Crest, and when the plague broke out she reproached herself for having exposed, all the community, by drawing them thither, to the danger of a painful death. She went, therefore, into the chapel, where, kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, she earnestly besought our Lord to spare the Sisters, and to strike her alone; and being firmly convinced, at the same time, that her prayer was heard, she got up and went with a radiant face to the Superior, declaring that her own death was very near, but that she had reason to trust that the rest of the community would be spared. And it came to pass as she said, for she was taken ill that very evening, and knew at once that her time was come. Very wonderful and beautiful is the narrative given of her end: ‘Then that most innocent dove began to pour forth very gr,eat thanksgivings before her Divine Spouse. All was humility, contrition, and love. “Ah,” she often said when her pains were at the greatest, “Ah, how my soul rejoices when I set before myself that as soon as it is out of this prison, the Blessed Virgin will present it to her Son, and my blessed Father will receive me I” She would not let them bring in the Capuchin Father, who exposed himself to danger in order to administer to her the sacraments, fearing lest he might bring some new harm to the Sisters; but, having been told that it was so allowed in cases of necessity, she told her sins to the Superior, who went to the window to repeat them to him, after which the good father gave the sick nun absolution from the street. She gained the plenary indulgence, and remained then in so great peace and serenity that the sweetness thereof spread itself from her to the hearts of those who waited upon her. Eight hours before she died she suffered strange pains with a very loving devotion; Jesus and Mary were her sweetest remedies. At last the long desired hour came, and in profound tranquillity, her eyes fixed on a crucifix, with a gentle smile of humble confidence, she gave up her holy soul, having been ill only five days; and, as this dear Sister said, the disease went no farther in the convent, although we were in evident danger.‘}
In the midst of these multiplied acts of unselfish sacrifice, perfect trust in God, and joyous suffering undergone for His sake, where was Mother de Chantal? Surely we know enough already of her great motherly heart to be sure that she could not fail to share the sorrows and joys of her children. And at this time she most truly both suffered and was glad; for while she could not but rejoice at the heroic virtue shown so abundantly in every one of her convents, she could not help grieving like a true mother over the loss of her ‘pearls,’ and felt to her very heart’s core the poverty, the absolute want, and the forsaken condition of her noble and beloved daughters. Her letters at this later time of her life, happily preserved, fully show her mind. ‘I have sent you three or four letters, my child,’ she says, in one of these, to the Superior of a plague-stricken convent: ‘what are you thinking about not to answer me? Do you not feel that I am upon live coals?’ Writing to another person, she says: ‘Our poor Sisters are in such need that I should like to sell even myself, if I could, to be able to help them.’
But Mother de Chantal by no means confined herself to the numerous letters in which she seemed to send her whole heart to each convent by turns. She bent the full force of her energies and capacity, and all the influence she could bring to bear from without, to gather means and help. She sent supplies of corn to Lyons,Chambery, Grenoble, and St. Flour; medicines to Crest; clothing and shoes to Cre’mieux; and a whole flock of sheep to Autun. She obtained a consultation of the first physicians in Paris, to draw up a regular body of instructions for the treatment of the plague; and while there she also besought a conference of eminent theologians, to decide whether the Sisters could conscientiously break their enclosure when threatened with the prevailing sickness. She regularly sent circular letters to all her convents, containing words such as she only could write, of encouragement, advice, and the tenderest comfort and support. During all the toil and incessant exertions for her nuns there runs through Mother de Chantal’s life at this time the continuous golden thread of humble sorrow and self-reproach, which probably availed more for their help in pleading before God than everything done by her children. For if Jane de Chantal had changed at all, it was but the change of passing ‘from strength to strength;’ she is still to be found putting herself in the last and lowest place, still reckoning herself as being nothing and worthy of nothing; and while to her eyes every one of her Sisters was practising nobler virtues and shedding the fragrance of grace around her the sinner, she herself was doing nothing, and being so unworthy, was perhaps the cause of God’s punishment to them all.
In the middle of her anxieties and exertions in Paris, the Bishop of Annecy, fearing that the capital would soon be visited by the plague, wrote to her and ordered her to return immediately to Annecy, without stopping at any of the houses in her road that were infected with disease. This was a cruel order to Mother de Chantal; but she strictly obeyed it, passing by the very gates of some of her convents, racked by the double anguish of not being able to see her daughters, and of knowing how deeply they too would feel the disappointment . All that she could do was to beg diligently, as she went along, for ‘her poor plague-stricken Visitations.’- Near Paray-le-Monial Mother de Chantal wrote to her daughter Francoise, at Alonne, begging her to help the poor nuns whom she herself might not even see. ‘My very dear child,’ she says,’we are come here, six miles from Paray, to learn some news of our poor Sisters. I have sent to their confessor, their only help next to God, and he tells me that four of the Sisters are now out of danger. Poor Sister Mary Margaret is dead; will you make it known to the convents, that she may be prayed for. As for the other Sisters, they are destitute of every human aid, except that of the good priest, who goes through the villages seeking what he can for their sustenance, and whose life is risked in consequence, for he has been almost killed already;’ probably it was thought that he carried infection with him. ‘If this good man should take the disease, one cannot see what would hinder our poor Sisters from dying of hunger. Besides that, they are in very great and evident danger of the disease like every one else in the town, and even more, for the burial ground for the plague-stricken is behind their house. Add to this, that it is impossible, humanly speaking—according to the opinion of the neighbourhood—that the town can be purified, as no arrangements have been made for that, and the bodies of the dead remain unburied in the houses. See what danger these poor daughters are in, and will be in; they have written to me, and the confessor tells me that they have no means of obtaining help. They are destitute of all aid. They still, however, have a little of your money left, and some corn and wine, but very little. Certainly, my dearest child, you must, if you please, provide for their wants.’
To urge her request still more earnestly, Mother de Chantal went to pay a visit to Francoise at Alonne. From her house she wrote to Mother de Chastelluz at Autun, earnestly begging her to leave the convent and go to the priory at Meiere, of which Abbe’ de Toulonjon had offered the community the use. ‘Do believe, my child,’ she added, ‘ that we will serve you in all that is in our power, heartily and without reserve. There is a great fear at Autun of letting any one into the town, and people would like you to arrange some means by which you might be spoken to, and by which you might receive and return things over the town wall, which is to the right hand of your garden. See if this can be done, and let us know in every way what you wish of us while I am here. Ah, my God! what a great mortification it is not to see you and our poor Sisters, whom I dearly salute with yourself !’
From some cause not mentioned, it was found impossible to establish the communication over the town wall, and Mother de Chastelluz obtained leave to go near the road along which Mother de Chantal was to pass, and wait for her in a field, where she intended to stand at some distance and against the wind. But when Mother de Chantal saw her standing in the field, she could not contain herself, and making the sign of the cross, she exclaimed, ‘Let us meet in God’s name!’ then, almost running towards Mother de Chastelluz, she kissed her, and made her get into the carriage. At this unexpected step, Francoise, who had her little girl Gabrielle, six years of age, with her, was terribly frightened. ‘If I had not been certain that my mother was a Saint,’ she says, ‘I should have been ready to die of fear.’ Poor Madame de Roussillon, to whose chateau Mother de Chantal then went on, was in the same state, and going down on her knees openly said: ‘Madame, if your sanctity did not put me out of fear, I should tremble and leave the house to my sister; but I am confident that no evil will happen to any one: give me the help of your blessing.’ And it seems that no harm came to any of the party.
At Chalon-sur-Saone Mother de Chantal met with her nephew, the son of poor Margaret de Neufchezes, who had just been appointed Bishop of the diocese; and the whole population seem to have vied with one another in doing her honour. It was shown, indeed, in what we should consider rather too demonstrative a manner; for, after the Carmelite and Benedictine nuns had besought her to visit them, the Ursulines asked her to dine with them in their* refectory, where they actually cut off a great piece of her veil. When Mother de Chantal took her veil off at night and found what had been done she grieved bitterly, and as soon as she could the next morning besought the Bishop to let her leave Chalons immediately, saying, with probably a spark of what her dear departed father had of old called her ‘ soudainete] that’ the nuns did such unreasonable things to show their esteem for her that she could not bear it.’ The Bishop was not at all of the same way of thinking, for he quietly replied: ‘My dear aunt, the more you think they have ill done, the more inclined I am to think they have done well.’ And instead of allowing Mother de Chantal to slip away as she wished, he insisted on her receiving every visitor who called in the great reception room of the Bishop’s house; so that she had an enormous leve’e of all kinds and degrees of the townspeople, but characteristically sat as close to the wall as she could, that no one might cut off any more pieces of her veil. All her skill, however, was useless; and it is recorded that, as long as Mother de Chantal remained at Chalons her veil and habit lost some fragments of stuff every day. Towards the end of 1628 she reached Annecy in time to bury one of the Sisters who had just died, though not of pestilence, as the pure mountain air still preserved the town from disease. It is easy to discern from her letters that the perils she had passed through and the scenes she had witnessed had deeply impressed Mother de Chantal with a fresh conviction of the nothingness of life and all that it can give. In a letter to the Superior at Lyons she says: ‘We shall die here as well as at Lyons; for the day before yesterday we buried one of our Sisters,—a treasure, a perfectly pure soul; and I believe, in the goodness of our well beloved Lord and Spouse, that she flew straight to heaven like a pure white dove. Ah, my child, how little it matters of what sickness we die, if we do but mount to that blessed eternity! O, holy Mother of God’s children, when shall we rest in thy bosom and undying arms? My child, our souls ought to pine away with this desire. But no, I am wrong; let us meekly wait for the hour which the heavenly Bridegroom has appointed to crown us with this happiness; and while waiting, let us only desire one thing, which is to please Him by fulfilling His holy will.’4 It was not long before the dreaded pestilence invaded even this secluded spot among the Savoy mountains. During the Carnival of 1629 the Bishop mournfully prophesied that the folly and frivolity of the inhabitants would soon be punished. He had been praying at the grave of Francis de Sales, when he was met on returning home by a crowd of ridiculous and perhaps dissolute masks, and then he said to some of those with him, that before many days God’s anger would visit the town. His words came true even more quickly than he thought; and in a day or two it was rumoured that the well known terrible plague spots had been found upon many bodies both of the dead and the living. Just at this juncture, while the whole town seemed breathless with the expectation of what was coming upon it, the mother house at Annecy reelected Mother de Chantal its Superior, wisely thinking that there never was a time when they had greater need of their mother’s presence and counsels among them. It was well that they did so; for the Visitation was on the eve of its greatest trial. News of the outbreak of the pestilence at Annecy quickly flew abroad, and from all sides letters poured in, begging Mother de Chantal to leave the old mother house and seek safety in some as yet wholesome town; but at the same time great exertions were made to collect money; and large sums were sent her to distribute according to their greater needs. The Prince and Princess de Carignano even urged her to leave Annecy, and said, if she refused, they should ask the Duke of Savoy himself to interfere, and order her to go. They little knew the determined courage and loving heart which burst out in reply: ‘O, forgive my frankness; but I am not brave enough to forsake my flock, for whom I ought always to be ready to sacrifice myself.’
Mother de Chantal stayed at her post; and amid the panicstricken and suffering neighbourhood the convent at Annecy seemed a true haven of peace. She occupied herself first with writing a circular letter to the Superiors of all her convents, in which she gave full instructions concerning the rule, under the idea that it might be the last time she could give them advice. The copy of this letter sent to Mother de Blonay at Lyons is preserved at Annecy. Having thus discharged her duty to the order, Mother de Chantal gave herself up altogether to helping and comforting the sick poor by whom the convent was surrounded, and for whom, although she might not visit them, her heart seemed to find eyes and ears which passed through the enclosure walls, and discerned the wants of all. Again, as of old time at Bourbilly and Monthelon, she distributed with unsparing hand corn, medicines, comforts, and money, and had soon bestowed upon the town poor all the considerable sum that she had received from France; next she put herself and her nuns upon short commons, and stinted even the allowance of coarse black bread, till both money and food were gone. But after a while the generous measure which she ever filled for Christ’s poor was repaid in the royal fashion of His promise—’ heaped up, pressed down, and running over.’ Twelve measures of corn given her by a priest increased to sixteen, and lasted until a fresh supply was sent in, while the provision of wine in the same way multiplied, and far outlasted its natural limits.*
But Mother de Chantal was not satisfied with giving temporal or temporary relief. She stirred up the Bishop’s heart and kindled anew the earnest zeal of a few devoted priests, so that for ten long months they toiled incessantly between the dead and the living. She sent for the syndic and some of the leading people of Annecy to the convent, and excited them to such heroic charity that these noble men stayed in the town throughout the course of the plague, and spent their days in helping and comforting the sick and burying the dead. The syndic himself said that this unwearied mother sent him about two dozen Agnus Dei, with the assurance that no one who would wear one about him should be struck with the disease; and he added that, having distributed them among his fellow labourers, they also shared his confidence, and not one of them fell ill. The Bishop himself, John Francis de Sales, acknowledged the help given by her prayers in very strong words: ‘O my noble mother!’ he exclaimed, ‘you are my Moses, and I am your Joshua. So long as you hold up your hands to Heaven I and mine shall fight against the woes of our people.’
The convent was indeed like some citadel of secret strength during all this long affliction of the neighbourhood. Through the desolate grass-grown streets, trodden only by the mournful funerals of the dead or the seekers for corpses yet unburied, the convent bell struck its silvery note of peace, calling the Sisters to prayer, as if life and death were indeed merged in that blessed eternity on which their souls were fixed. The sound of prayer and the holy office went on as usual, and none of the daily occupations were ever intermitted; there was no change in the convent, except that certain exercises were added, which the Sisters heartily and cheerfully took upon themselves, for the staying of the terrible plague. With this intention the Sisters fasted daily by turns upon bread and water, and besides public penances in the refectory, they added sharp and cruel disciplines in their cells. Almost daily they formed in a little procession, and went through the cloisters barefooted and with cords round their necks, stopping at each of the oratories to implore forgiveness and health for Annecy, and altogether taking a public discipline while the Miserere was said. Not one of the Sisters— had there been one so minded—could well have flinched from these prayers of intercession, when she beheld their mother on her bare knees in these processions, exclaiming aloud, with her eyes full of tears, ‘Forgiveness, forgiveness, O Lord! Pardon the sinners!’ The disease, as it turned out, never reached the convent; if it had, the nuns had resolved not to expose their confessor to danger, as the sick Sister would have made her confession to him at a distance, and he would have placed the Blessed Sacrament for her between two small slices of bread, which the nun waiting upon her would have taken to her as reverently as possible.
When she came afterwards to speak of this time, during which the convent had no communications of the ordinary kind with the world outside, Mother de Chantal used to say that she had never known such peace, and that but for the sufferings of the people, she would have wished it to last for ever. At length the plague ceased; it gradually left Savoy, Turin and Italy, and by the end of 1631 it was rare to hear of a case. It helped very mainly to the carrying into execution of the idea which, as we have seen, was in the minds of the founder of the Visitation from the first. During the whole course of the plague, throughout the long terrible days of weeping and praying and doing sharp penance for the people, one thought and sorrow filled Mother de Chantal’s mind: this was her old, long relinquished, but ever living desire that religious women should visit and serve the poor with their own personal labour. She had submitted to the enclosure, almost forced on Francis de Sales; and the history of the rapid and wonderful development of the Visitation shows how providential was this change of plan. But Jane de Chantal’s heart was unchanged, and to be barred from the sick and dying in their time of this supreme affliction, and that no religious women should ever be seen in the streets of the suffering and plague-stricken town, was to her so acutely touching and painful that she says herself she was obliged to drive the thought from her, lest it should weaken her and destroy her peace. It was singular that at the time of both these great pestilences that broke over France, Mother de Chantal was in Paris, was constantly seeing St. Vincent de Paul, and was under his direction. It can well be imagined how the force and enthusiasm of her grand character must have stirred up to new energy the gentle and prudent ‘Saint of the Poor/ and as it had lain under the surface of her life for twenty years, the thought and wish for the institution of nuns to visit and comfort the poor must have taken shape in many earnest and burning conversations with ‘ Monsieur1 Vincent.’ Two facts at least are certain: in 1634, soon after the scourge of the plague had died out, the ‘daughters’ of St . Vincent de Paul were embodied in their first modest shape. And St. Vincent himself so entirely ascribed the first idea of their creation to the Visitation foundress, that he himself often called the Sisters of Charity ‘ Madame de Chantal’s legacy.’
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