L ETT E R XI.
To THE SAME.
On religious enclosure and on charity towards her sister the
Prioress. .
About 1606.”
I WAS pleased to have news of you (after so much time without receiving any), my very dear daughter, from yourself: for what can anybody else tell me for certain of you or of your affairs 2 And so, my dear daughter, all human remedies have been found ineffectual for the cure of this poor limb, which gives you a pain which must wisely be converted into a perpetual penance. In truth, I have always had the impression that all these applications would succeed very ill, and that this was a blow which heavenly Providence has given you in order to furnish you a subject of patience and mortification. What treasures can you amass by this means ! Henceforth you must do so, and live as a true Rose amongst thorns.
But I am told that you were at Puits d’Orbe, with some of your daughters, and that the rest had stayed at Chastillon; that is true, for I should have guessed it. But this was for a short time, you tell me, and for a good and legitimate cause; I believe it; but believe me also, my dear daughter, that as women who have left the world ought to wish never to see it again, so the world which has left them never wants to see them again, and every little it sees of them it gets vexed and grumbles. It is the truth also that one ever loses something by going out whenever it can
(even with some temporal loss) be avoided. Wherefore, if you listen to my advice, you will go out as little as possible, even to hear sermons, since you have every right to have sometimes a preacher in your chapel, who will say things entirely appropriate to your congregation. It certainly behoves to pay attention to common report, and to do things in order to avoid the talk of the children of the world. Wherefore, said that great exemplar of religion and devotion, St. Paul,” if meat Scandalize my brother, I will never eat flesh, lest I should scandalize my brother. Content in this your honoured relatives, and I think that then you can with confidence ask their assistance to provide you good accommodation; for it seems to me I hear some of them saying, Why make a comfortable dwelling for persons who go out and about in the world 2 And their dislike for this going abroad leads them to make out the worst of its quantity and its quality. It is the ancient custom of the world to judge it lawful to talk of ecclesiastics as much as ever they like ; and it thinks that, provided it has something to say about them, there will no longer be anything to say about its own associates. Well, now, is there no way of finding the side by which to take and to preserve the heart of Madame the Prioress, our sister 2—for although, according to the world, it is for inferiors to seek the goodwill of superiors, yet according to God and the Apostles it is for superiors to go after inferiors, and to gain them. For so acted Our Redeemer, so did the Apostles, so do and will ever do all prelates who are zealous in the love of their Master. I own that I do not at all wonder that your relatives are scandalised to see what coolness of friendship there is between two sisters by nature, two spiritual sisters, two sisters in religion. It is necessary to remedy this, my dearest daughter, and not to let this temptation subsist. It may be that the wrong is on her side; but at any rate there is this on yours, that you do not win her back to your love by the continual and irresistible manifestation of that which you owe her according to God and the world. You see what liberty I take in telling you my sentiments, my dear daughter, whom I wish to be totally victorious with the victory which the Apostle announces: * Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good. If I spoke otherwise to you, I should betray you; and I neither can nor will love you save altogether paternally, my dear daughter, whom I beg Our Lord to deign to load with his graces and consolations.
* I Cor. viii. 13.
I salute very humbly all your dear company.—Yours, &c.