Journal in France in 1845 and 1848 with Letters from Italy in 1847

This sermon, besides its inordinate length, was deficient in connection and choice of subjects: it was far too general. Had it been well delivered, parts would have been very interesting; but, considering that the occasion was quite unique – the death of an archbishop and martyr – it must be considered a failure. I was more than five hours and a half in Notre Dame.

Went to M. des Billiers, who conducted me to the Couvent des Oiseaux, for the Supérieure of which le Père de Ravignan had given me a letter. The Sisters of Notre Dame were founded by the Bienheureux Fourrier, for the purpose of educating. But their houses, though conducted on the same principles, are independent. This is of very great extent, – has a very handsome chapel, with oak fittings, and a rich marble altar; a very costly library, including a large collection of engravings of different schools, museum of natural history, and every thing which can contribute to the ordinary education of young ladies. Nothing that I have seen in Paris interested me more than this house; nor was I ever more struck with the advantages which la vie de communauté presents. There are here, between mères and sœurs, 116 religieuses, who are occupied in directing the education of 240 girls; at least, there were this number before the events of February: there are at present only 50; but it is just before the vacation, and a large number have been withdrawn, either from the fears of their parents, or their inability, since those events, to pay the pension. They employ, besides, sixteen masters, for music, languages, &c. The terms are 1800 francs a-year. There are one hundred pianos in the house, and every thing that I saw was on a like scale of abundance and richness. They attend Mass daily. We went to a Benediction in the chapel; and after this the aumonier conducted us all over the house, – the class-rooms, dortoirs, garden, &c. A religieuse sleeps in each dortoir; the beds have not even curtains, so that there is the most perfect surveillance. A pupil is never left with a master alone, but one of the sisters is present at the lessons. No private establishment could possibly compete with this: three millions of francs, the almoner told us, had been laid out upon it, first and last; every thing is done for the pupils by the religieuses, nor have they any servants, save for the garden. They give, besides, instruction gratuitously to a large number of poor children, separately from their pensionnaires. The almoner told us he gave two instructions to the upper, and two to the lower classes, every week. He had got together an immense collection of maps and engravings, a volume for each department of France, in order that the pupils might have pictures of all that was described to them; for which he quoted to me —

"Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures,Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus."

The great extent of this house, the number of the rooms, the perfection of all its accommodations, astonished me. The number of teachers, in comparison to the taught, is far beyond anything we have; not less difference is there in the pains taken with their religious instruction, and the moral surveillance exercised over them. But the most pleasing thought of all was, that personal interest was not the prime agent, nor an agent at all in this. These nuns acquire nothing from their pupils personally: the house, it is true, is necessarily supported by the pensions; but all that remains goes to the instruction of the poor, or the decoration of the chapel, or the advantage of future generations of scholars in the accommodations of the house. The teachers do not get rich upon the taught, not to speak of the poor who are instructed gratuitously at the same time. The number of persons engaged allows of the greatest attention being paid to any individual case requiring it, and the primum mobile is charity. How great the superiority in all points of view to any private establishment. Gain entering in changes the motive of all this: from a work of love, it becomes a profession; self-sacrifice vanishes, as personal interest appears. They have English and Irish pupils here, as well as of other nations: even some Protestants. The garden is quite sufficient for all purposes of recreation. The age of the pupils ranges from ten to eighteen or twenty. Some remain till they marry.

Accompanied M. Bonnetty to Lady – in the evening.

Tuesday, August 8. – My visit to the Couvent des Oiseaux yesterday sharpened me for that to the Dames du Sacré Cœur to-day. Le Père de Ravignan had given me a note to Madame D'Avenas. We had a great deal of talk with her, which not unfrequently took a controversial turn; and she seemed particularly well informed on such points. The congregation of Sacré Cœur was only founded, she told us, in 1800; they now have about fifty houses in France, three in Rome, others in Piemont (lately sequestrated by the state), in the United States, one at Acton, near London, – in all, about seventy. At eighteen they may commence a noviciate, which lasts two years: they can then take the vows for five years: at the end of which time, being of twenty-five years at least, they can, if they please, take the final and irrevocable vows. There are one hundred Sisters in this house, which is the old palace of the Ducs de Biron, in the Rue de Varennes, having a garden of immense extent behind it. Their scholars, before the events of February, amounted to 160: all is done for them by the sisters, who have no servants, except for the garden. They have masters for the different arts: the pension, exclusive of these masters, is 1000 francs. The Supérieure Générale of all these seventy houses resides here. They are founded uniquely for education. Some of the class-rooms are very magnificent – the old reception rooms of the palace. But, generally speaking, the house is not equal in its extent or fitting up to Les Oiseaux; but the garden is far more extensive. Madame D'Avenas walked over it with us; and amid its groves one can hardly believe that one is in Paris. Both Madame D'Avenas and M. des Billiers attacked me on the state of separation of the English Church, and the schism it had thereby incurred: this, I said, depended on the degree to which the Papal claim is true.

Called on M. – , who gave me a deplorable account of the state of things here: that the chiefs of the party for the République Rouge – Louis Blanc, Caussidiere, and Ledru Rollin – were supported by General Cavaignac secretly: that the rapport just given to the Assemblée had re-awakened the most furious passions, and that a fresh insurrection might break out at any time.

In the evening called to thank the bishop of Langres for the service he has been to me in procuring for me the company of M. des Billiers, who, together with M. Farel, his Vicaire Général, returned with me and talked some time.

Wednesday, August 9. – Went with M. Farel over the Carmes, the scene of the massacre of 175 priests on September 2, 1792, among whom were the Archbishop of Arles, and the Bishop of Saintes. The Supérieur conducted us over the house and garden; he showed us the room in which the revolutionary tribunal sat; the passage through which the victims were hurried to be dispatched; and at the bottom of the garden the orangery, now a chapel, into which they fled, and which retains on its floor, and on the seat which runs along its inner wall, numerous traces of blood. There is, especially, the mark of a head on the bench, where the crown of hair is still visible, which must have been dripping with blood to have left such a trace. No spot in Paris has such interest for me as this: none is so glorious to the Church of France: none carries such an omen of future triumphs. Between this orangery and the house is a small circular piece of water, on the edge of which several likewise were massacred. In a small vaulted chamber, up stairs, are the marks of three rapiers against the wall, which the assassins, sleeping there at night, seem to have put to stand there, dropping with blood. And in this very room Madame Tallien, the Empress Josephine, and the Duchess D'Aiguillon were confined seventeen days, as appears by an inscription in pencil on the wall, asking how long liberty should be a vain name, and signed "Citoyenne Tallien, Josephine Beauharnais, D'Aiguillon." Even here the reminiscences of this house do not stop; – in the garret many of the Girondins were confined, and the walls are covered with their indignant remarks; many from the Latin poets, in heathen style, – some written in pencil, some in their blood. It is a curious contrast, as one turns away from this chamber, to see over another door one of the old inscriptions of the Carmelites remaining: – "Quod delectat, momentum est: quod cruciat, æternum est." It is, as the late archbishop said, "le monde Païen, and le monde Chrétien, vis-à-vis." He had purchased this house as a place for the encouragement of the higher studies of theology among the clergy; the design was not completed at his death, but there are about forty here, of whom twelve are masters. He has added another to the noble band of martyrs, the unequalled patrimony of this building: his heart has just been carried to the chapel, where we saw it in a glass case. Surely neither their blood, nor his, has been shed in vain. He seems to me worthy to rank with the Archbishop of Arles, who, when his name was called out by the murderers, stepped forth from amid the priests seeking to shelter him, and said, "C'est moi. Je suis celui que vous cherchez." He was struck down and massacred. The same power enabled the late archbishop, not a man careless of his life, nor of great physical courage, to present himself fearlessly among enraged combatants, and when suffering extreme tortures from his wound not even once to ask his physician for aid. If ever any sacrifice was voluntary, it was his: and this notion of making expiation with his blood for his flock seems to have given him supernatural force.

The Abbé des Billiers had got me a ticket for the distribution of prizes at the Institution des Aveugles. The crowns and books were almost as numerous as at the petit séminaire: here, however, the ceremony had an especial interest, as all the scholars had to surmount exceeding obstacles arising from their loss of sight. There were, notwithstanding, a great number of subjects for which prizes were given; and the whole was terminated by a concert, in which the boys and girls were performers. Music is one of the things in which they most excel, and the source, doubtless, to them of peculiar enjoyment – the sensations it excites may replace to them, in some degree which we cannot imagine, the loss of sight. This spectacle, however, is not without pain, as well as interest, to the beholders, as I experienced in going over the house itself a few days ago.

Thursday, August 10. – M. Farel took me to the Dames de la Visitation, Rue d'Enfer. As they are cloitrées, we could not see their house, but we conversed a little with the Supérieure. M. Farel said smilingly to her that they looked to the prayers and intercessions of the visitandines for the maintenance of public tranquillity; and when the affairs of the Church did not go well, it was because the visitandines did not do their duty. Vraiment, the Supérieure replied, not displeased at the remark; and then she sent for four English sisters, with whom I had a long talk. Three of these English sisters had been converted, one, eight years ago, from a state of utter unbelief; the other two, six and three years ago, being members of the Church of England. The fourth was born a Catholic. None had any distinct idea of the Church of England. They all expressed themselves delighted with their condition. There are several months of trial before admission to the noviciate, which lasts at least a year and a day, after which they may take the final vows. They told me it not unfrequently happened that persons wishing to remain, and having apparently all the dispositions suitable for the religious life, were refused by the superiors, but that their judgment had never been known to have been deceived in those whom they accepted: a special light was given them to that end. The primary object of their order was prayer and intercession, and they received among them persons labouring under various bodily infirmities, who would not be accepted elsewhere; their rule was not severe as to bodily austerities. Their founder, S. François de Sales, had assured them that the number of infirm persons they admitted would never be so large as to diminish the efficacy of the order. They likewise had schools attached to their houses; but no nun was occupied more than two hours a-day in school. They have about 180 houses – one in England, at Westbury, near Bristol; some in the United States. The number in each house was thirty-three, but in the great towns they passed this number. Before the events of February they had sixty pupils. I observed that the not knowing or not considering the careful attention paid to the subject of vocation was the cause of many prejudices in England against the religious orders. One of the four, a novice, said, when she came to visit her sister, before her conversion, she had the greatest dread of entering the house, but she had found it quite different from what she expected. We had a great deal of conversation about late conversions, that of Mr. Newman especially. I said, Roman Catholics in England seemed to me to commit a great fault, and especially converts. The moment they had left us, it seemed their object to depreciate to the utmost the Church of England; instead of allowing what we undoubtedly possessed, and pointing out with charity and kindness the particulars in which they presume us to be deficient, they delight to condemn us en masse, in the most harsh and insulting manner. I noticed the Tablet as instinct with this spirit; and when this came from men who for years had been fighting on our side, it was the more offensive. It was in strong contrast with the charity and kindness one met with in Roman Catholics abroad.

Called on Lady – , who had asked me to dine with her to-morrow. She spoke to me seriously on a subject which, she said, had been much upon her mind. Living for a long time among Roman Catholics, she had come to the knowledge of a vast number of answers to prayer addressed through the Blessed Virgin to God. Without rejecting evidence which on any other subject she should admit to be conclusive, she could not refuse her belief to the efficacy of these prayers, and yet her whole mind revolted from addressing an invocation to the Blessed Virgin. Moreover, she believed that, in the minds of the ignorant and superstitious in the Roman Communion, the Blessed Virgin was an obstacle to their approaching God, – they stopped with her. And yet these prayers were undoubtedly answered. Did God then vouchsafe a reply to the love which evidently dictated these prayers? To her Protestantism seemed to have called forth the manly virtues, independence and self-possession; whereas Catholicism developed itself in far greater tenderness of spirit and affection. She showed me a passage from Padre Ventura, strongly setting forth the paternity of God the Father and the maternity of the Blessed Virgin in parallelism, and compassionating those who held either without the other. But to Protestants the Blessed Virgin was a merely historical being, having no present existence; they did not mean to dishonour her, but they simply never thought about her.

I said it appeared to me that the Intercession of the Saints for the Church on earth and its particular members could not but be an essential part of the Communion of Saints, and this once being granted, the pre-eminent position of the Blessed Virgin accounted for the effects wrought by her intercession; that those who had carried her power to the highest yet made it a simply intercessory power. "Monstra te esse matrem" was the highest exhibition of her authority. When the mind comes to reflect upon her, and the position she holds, so unapproachable by any other creature, it can hardly fail to come to these results. The greater tenderness and devotion of spirit discernible among Roman Catholics must be on account of their so vividly realising the Communion of Saints, and this specially in the case of the Blessed Virgin. We must not reason from the ignorant and superstitious members of the Roman Church, any more than from the apathy and utter deadness of heart and irreverence apparent in so many of our own people. The cultus of the saints may be idolatry to those who do not realise the ineffably higher office of our Lord. I can conceive their asking, What good can the bones of dead men do? But when the reality of Christ's presence in the tabernacles of their flesh is felt, I could not see how the grace and glory bestowed by the Head upon his members detracted from Himself, as the source and giver of it. The Communion of Saints, therefore, would account for the answers given to prayers for the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. But how could the Saints know of the prayers made to them? I said I saw no difficulty in the view of divines, that those who enjoyed the vision of God, beheld in Him the needs and requests of their brethren in the flesh.

Lady – has an odd notion of the soul slumbering till the Resurrection, which, I said, she must allow me to say, was simply false doctrine.

I took leave of M. Bonnetty afterwards. M. Farel took me to the establishment of S. Nicolas, for the education of orphan and other children, and their apprenticing to various trades, Rue Vaugirard, 98. This has been set on foot and conducted for about twenty years by Monsignor de Bervanger. He has collected out of the streets of Paris a thousand gamins, whom he receives at a small pension – twenty francs a month for orphans, twenty-five for other children; lodges, boards, instructs, and teaches them a vast number of trades. Of these he has even at present seven hundred: but the Revolution of February has cost him a diminution of three hundred. Five hundred of the garde mobile, who lately saved Paris, have been brought up by him. He observes that the difficulty for children destined to live by manual labour is how to join elementary studies, especially that of religion, with their apprenticeship to a trade. Without religion a workman does not find in all his life rule for his conduct, consolation in his toils, or hope for the future. Thus establishments uniting these advantages answer a deep need of society, and this has been the chief aim of the Œuvre de S. Nicolas since its institution in 1827, i. e., to succour orphans, to give them a love of virtue and labour, and prepare them, by the practice of religious duties, to become not merely good workmen, but good Christians. For this purpose an hour and a quarter is given every day, except Thursday, to the study and explanation of the Catechism, the Gospel, and Sacred History. The pupils are arranged in fourteen divisions, according to their age and intelligence. They are taught by priests approved by the archbishop – these are ever among them, not only in their work and studies, but at their recreations, instructing them to be content with the position assigned to them by Providence, and to bless Him amid the most painful toils and privations, out of regard to an eternal recompense – sentiments which the example of these priests in surrendering themselves to so charitable and self-denying a life must be very powerful in inspiring.

The children are specially instructed and prepared for their first communion and confirmation.

The establishment has within it twenty-five ateliers for pupils whose parents or guardians desire to leave their children till the end of their apprenticeship; for the children only attend these workshops on an express request. Care will be taken to put to good Christian masters the children not able to profit by this advantage. A great number of those brought up here are already set at the head of these workshops. Their younger brethren will find with them the same religious usages, and as it were the same family.

They are occupied in these workshops eight and a half hours a day. They have a class two hours every day, except their friends desire them to pass this time in the workshop, to perfect themselves in their employment. If their work should be suspended, they attend the classes.

The apprenticeship lasts two, three, or four years, according to the trade. When finished they may remain in the establishment; and what they earn beyond their maintenance may be deposited in a savings' bank. The parents can select for their children what trade they like, after considering their tastes, physical powers, and intelligence. Though these workshops are an increase of charge to the establishment, yet, as it does not seek to make a pecuniary speculation, the payment for the children in them is no larger than for the youngest, though their board is more expensive. Moreover, those who work require a larger amount of food.

All the earnings of the apprentices belong to the masters of the workshops, who have thus an interest in their progress, and in conforming themselves to the rules of the house, from which they are liable to be dismissed. On their side, they provide the tools. They have no power to inflict punishments, but report to the brethren.

The studies comprehend reading, writing, arithmetic, and orthography; the elements of French grammar, geography, and history; analysis of grammar and logic; book-keeping, linear-drawing, practical geometry, vocal music, the most complete instrumental music, gymnastics, and swimming; such primary instructions in natural philosophy, chemistry, and natural history, as are applicable to daily life; mensuration and horticulture.

The children do not remain in study more than two hours and a half following, nor occupied on the same subject more than from half an hour to an hour and a half. Those not in the workshops have eight hours of class and study, excepting the youngest, who have only six, as they rise later. Each class has from fifty to seventy scholars at most.

There is a small examination several times a year.

The food is prepared by sisters of charity. It is wholesome and plentiful, and shared by the masters. There is breakfast, dinner, and supper, besides the goûter.

Sisters of charity take charge of the infirmary, kitchens, refectory, linen, and washing: "they know that all holiness which isolates us from those who have need of our assistance is false."

Most careful provision is made for the cleanliness of the children. Warm water is supplied in winter; baths at all times. Every child is supplied yearly with a pair of summer and winter pantaloons new; those of the year preceding become every day's clothing.

House-work, in which the brethren have aid from the children out of class time, is paid to them. Long experience shows how much better for the children this is than when it is made a punishment. Moreover, some children have such need of motion, that great harm may be done them if it be refused them.

"All which appears low to the eyes of men, is an object of emulation among religious, whose vocation aims at the most perfect conformity with the counsels and example of our divine Saviour. Like Him, they dare to touch the Leper banished from man's society; like Him, they despise Pharisaic censure. They would deem themselves unworthy to belong in so privileged a manner to the service of a crucified God, if their heart was under the influence of human opinion, if regards even to their health, which a sensitive conscience often shows them to be superfluous, could arrest them in the accomplishment of their labours."

The brethren sleep in the dormitories among the children. One of them invariable keeps watch in these dormitories, which are lighted. The most careful and rigorous surveillance is exercised. The eldest rise at 5½; the youngest at 7. In winter they go to bed at 8; in summer at 8¾.

Good marks are given to the children, which three times a year are exchanged for books, &c. Marks of conduct, work, and application, for each week, are hung up in the parloir. So likewise the places obtained in the compositions of the week; and the notes of three months, which are sent to friends. Pupils who constantly maintain themselves on the table of good conduct for three months are entitled to a reward. There is a solemn distribution of prizes every year before the short vacation, on the Sunday following 15th of August.

Extraordinary recreations are provided at times; as in summer a long promenade, in which the pupils take with them a day's provisions.