Monsieur Vincent. II

Irish Jesuit Province

Monsieur Vincent. IIAuthor(s): Paul LeonardSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 78, No. 919 (Jan., 1950), pp. 15-21Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20516102 .

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MONSIEUR VINCENT

By PAUL LEONARD, S.J.

II

IT would be impossible to give the rest of Vincent's life in any detail or to chronicle his activities one by one. Each is almost a chapter of contemporary French history in itself. There seems

to have been no side of human suffering he did not manage to reach and alleviate. With the poor on the de Gondi estates he began.

His example brought others to his side and finally the Congregation of the Mission was established. The galley slaves, subjects of M. de

Gondi, General of the Galleys, next claimed his attention. They were treated like animals; kept chained to their oars with a cork

gag in their mouths. The stroke was given by a whistle and it was

seen that it was kept with a whip. Mercilessly these wretches were

flogged into activity with cutting cow-hide whips and leathern

scourges. "

They were better known by the scars and wounds on

their backs "

one chronicler tells us, "

than by their faces." Before

they went on the gruesome procession to the ports, they were kept chained to damp prison walls in rags amidst vermin and lice, with no air nor sanitation,

" their only alleviation of the monotony of

existence branding and the lash."

Into this tomb-like arsenal, as well as into the appalling, over

crowded hospitals of Paris, came Vincent and his Ladies of Charity like a fragrant rush of air. His bare hands pressed theirs without fear or disgust. With tender feminine delicacy, the Ladies of Charity cleansed these outcasts of their vermin, eased their festering sores, fed them with wine and bread. Their devotion was the talk of

Paris and many among the rich and beautiful of Parisienne Society became twice beautiful at the feet of poor outcasts as was said of the

gay, charming, devoted Madame de Goussault. These good ladies, too, gave their maternal care to the abandoned foundlings.

There was no provision made for these in Paris, except a corrupt

municipal asylum. Often the children were sold; their owners would

frequently break their arms or legs, even blind them, to excite

sympathy and bring in alms. A home was secured for them and

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IRISH MONTHLY

their upkeep provided for; in one year over 4,000 children were

looked after, some 40,000 livres being subscribed for their care. At one stage it was thought that the foundling hospital could not be continued because of lack of funds. The occasion produced one of

the most touching appeals of Vincent's oratory. The appeal brought tears into the eyes of the good Ladies of Charity and they resolved to stand by the foundlings, with their hearts and purses open to

the end.

The walls of Paris could not contain Vincent's wondrous charity. During the havoc of the Thirty Years' War, Lorraine, Trois Ev?ch?s, Franche Comt? and Champagne were devastated for almost quarter of a century. Savage, lustful soldiers were continually tramping through hardened untilled fields. Plunder, butchery, fiendish bruta

lity followed in their wake. The reserves of pity and tenderness in

Vincent's heart were stirred to their very depths. Into these pro vinces he poured his peaceful soldiery of devoted selfless missionaries

who won the hearts of all by a charity that was limitless, unflagging, wonderful. The Jesuits were the only people to complain about

them. "

Your priests," wrote Father Roussel, Superior of one of

the Jesuit Houses in Lorraine where some of the Missionaries had

stayed, "are gentle and amenable in all things save in taking the

advice given them to give their bodies a little repose. They think

that bodies are not made of flesh and blood. . . ." They could not

rest these men; "

help me, recall me," wrote the heroic Father du

Coudray to Vincent, "

or else let me die with these people."

There was no form of help the ingenuity of Vincent did riot devise.

Seed and implements were sent to the peasants to get them to till

the land once more; priests were furnished with salaries to keep them among their poverty stricken people; soup kitchens were set

up, mobile medical units organized, societies to bury the dead

founded. The wonderful Daughters of Charity were in the thick

of it all, "

with the streets their cloister, the fear of God their grille, and no veil but their own modesty." He collected vast sums of money in Paris and sent them on to the ravaged districts. A certain Brother

Matthew R?gnard distributed numbers of these sums. He appears a courageous, dashing figure in this stirring chapter of Vincentian

history. There is an atmosphere of romance and charm about him.

He seems to have been a kind of Scarlet Pimpernell, always popping

up when least expected, ever evading alert bands of soldiers waiting 16



MONSIEUR VINCENT II

to rob him. His story is one of constant perils, adventure and

daring. Possessed of coolness and courage, in dangerous, breath

taking situations, he was always resourceful, thrillingly calm. For those he visited and relieved, he must have been a symbol of Pro vidence, coming suddenly from nowhere, always merciful, lavish, unexpected.

All this is but half the work Vincent accomplished, inadequately described. There was tireless activity among the clergy and religious of his day. He started retreats for ordinands in Paris and other

places, established seminaries for training of clerics, set on foot the famous Tuesday Conferences. In the campaign against Jansenism,

he was in the forefront. Ecclesiastical reform received his energies and thought. For a while, he was perhaps the most influential man on the Council of Conscience, founded by Anne of Austria, and run by Mazarin. He opposed, with unwavering courtesy always, but with inflexible fearlessness, the supple, diplomatic Cardinal, who often sought to make ecclesiastical appointments for worldly reasons. Towards the end of his life, he was sending his Missioners to work

among the slaves in Barbary and was receiving letters from others in Ireland, Scotland, Poland, the Hebrides and Madagascar.

For a great period of his life Vincent de Paul suffered great pain from ulcers on his legs. For those that knew him, it was obvious he was far from well, when in 1631, he started to make his rounds on horseback and no longer on foot. By 1649 he could not manage a horse. Reluctantly he had to climb into a carriage. Eventually he could not leave his room. Calmly he carried on; interviews, correspondence, and other business crowded his day. He grew weaker with the years till finally he had to be carried about his room. But his mind was clear and his heart was young till the very end.

When St. Louise de Marilliac was dying in the March of 1660, Vincent wrote to console her:

" You are going before, I shall rejoin

you soon." His call came in the following September. He answered it calmly from his chair near the fire where he was sitting; there

was no struggle, the last word was "

Confido" It was just after

four, his normal hour for rising; he was fully dressed. Eighty-four years he had served his Master. Each unforgiving minute he had filled with sixty seconds worth of distance run.

How did he accomplish so much ? What was his secret ? The Abb? Maynard has called him the greatest organizer of all time.

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IRISH MONTHLY

The title is a just one, but to our age, perhaps deceptive. Vincent's

organization was not based on efficiency, fuss, or strain. It was

rooted in a trust in Providence. His writings and letters are full of

warnings to go slow. Too well did he know that the Lord is not

in the earthquake or the violent rushing wind. "You should not

go so fast: God's works do not proceed in such a fashion: they

accomplish themselves." "

Whoever hurries retards the things of

God." " Mon Dieu ! Sir, how I should like you to moderate your

ardour and to weigh things carefully in the scale of the sanctuary, before resolving on them ! Be passive rather than active, and God

will bring about by you alone what all men together could not do

without Him." "

I have always heard it said that Italians are, of

all people in the world, the most deliberate and the most mistrustful

of people who go too fast. With them, reserve, patience, gentleness ?and also Time?bring all things to a successful issue; and because

they know that we Frenchmen are in too great a hurry, they leave

us standing out in the cold, and do not become really intimate

with us."

Perhaps he learnt this lesson as he drove his father's flocks over

the heather and dew-drenched mosses or along the water meadows.

Then, day after day, he had seen the fruits ripen slowly, he had

watched the golden harvest grow, first the seed, next the blade, then

the ear. God's ways are ever the same; men can only plant and

water; then they must wait; it is God who gives the increase.

After the action of Divine Providence, it was Vincent's charity that accomplished so much. His charity merits study, for it was

genuine, deep, rich in subtle shades. The Abb? Bremond has pene

tratingly remarked that "

to be really charitable, it is not enough to

have a kind heart; a clear and vivid imagination is needed also."

This sympathetic understanding, amounting almost to feminine

intuition, Vincent possessed in a rare degree. He felt deeply the

agonies of the galley slaves, the misery of the poor, the loneliness

of the foundling, the terrible uncertainty of the sick and the refugee. He could understand, too, the pique of slack nuns his zealous sisters

replaced, the resentment of the Jansenists on their condemnation;

he could sympathize with the grief-stricken Jean Frances de Chantal

in her terrible sorrows, with the scrupulous Madame de Gondi and

with the sensitive Louise de Mkrilliac, so ready to start at the least

shadow. 18



MONSIEUR VINCENT II

His very human heart knew the repugnances his Daughters felt

in their work, the temptations and sufferings his Missionaries faced

within their own souls or among the poor or miles away in isolated

lands among strange unsympathetic peoples. It was this rare delicacy of feeling that made him such a master in the art of handling souls

without covering them all over with bruises. All his conquests were

made by kindness; the few failures he had, he attributes to harsh

ness or impatience. Ever did he insist that charity conquers all. " A man is not converted by controversy but by charity and loving

kindness." "Friendliness and humility should be weapons of the

Missionaries." As he went about doing good, kindness flowed from

him as a balm, soothing suffering, softening pride, dissipating selfish

ness, exorcising bad temper. No wonder he was welcomed every

where, this kindly man, le bon monsieur Vincent \

Yet this kindness must not be confused with softness nor mistaken

as good humour or lazy affability. When the wound called for the

knife, although his touch was always gentle, he shirked no incision. " He believed," M. Henri Lavedan1 tell us,

" that begging, which

fosters idleness and encourages all the vices, was the greatest obstacle

to the salvation of the poor, he forbade them to beg, under penalty of withdrawing alms and he ordered his followers not to bestow

them in such circumstances."

Nor again was his charity mere philanthropic benevolence.

Humanitarians, Communists and others are liable to grapple Vincent

to their hearts with hoops of steel. But he is not of their kin. Nor,

of course, was he like the clergyman satirized by Bernard Shaw,

anxious to keep the minds of the poor on heaven and off bread and

butter or trade unions. He stands in the golden middle way. He

sought for material relief for the poor, and to secure them a measure

of freedom and comfort. But his plan for them was not merely to get them to work ease out of pain through labour and endurance.

He never got absorbed in health statistics, mass averages, slum

clearances and ten-year plans and forgot about living suffering

individuals. In their agonizing misery he came to them personally,

and the first consolation he offered them was the consolation of

Christ. "Do you think, my Daughters,'* he exclaimed ta the

Daughters of Charitv. "

that God merelv expects you to bring to

1 Heroic Life of Saint Vincent de Paul Translation by Rev. J. Leonard, CM.

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IRISH MONTHLY

His poor a morsel of bread, a scrap of meat, some soup and

medicine ? Oh ! no, no, no, my Daughters. He expects you to

provide for the needs of the soul as well as those of the body; they are in need of the heavenly manna; they are in need of the Spirit

of God, and where will you find it, so that you may communicate it to them? In Holy Communion, my Daughters, in Holy Com

munion. . . ."

The height and depth of Vincent's charity is almost as limitless as the diversity of his activities. The danger, for the biographer, is

not to see the man for his works and virtues. A philosopher is more at home with such a life. The entrancing problem of the

One and the Many is there to put him completely at his ease. Was

there any link running through Vincent's varied activities to keep them together in some kind of unity? There was, I think, and it

was devotion to the Person of Our Lord. With him, love was

always the compelling motive; the kernel of his life was Christ. All

his works, diverse as they were, were directed towards the relief

of the poor. It was with them he started. Hostels, conferences

of charity, visitations, alms, were his answer to their need. Then

he perceived that their spiritual state was worse still, because of

ignorant, slack or corrupt pastors. The renewal of the clergy by Retreats, Conferences, Seminaries was his cure. But priests,

religious and nuns will not lead fervent lives unless Superiors and

Bishops lead holy ones, so the work of the Council of Conscience

and the appointment of good Bishops became the desire of his

heart. All his life, whether in the Palace with Louis or Richelieu, or in the Council chamber with Mazarin or in the elegant Parisienne

drawing rooms, it was of the poor he was thinking. But he was not

thinking of them only because they were poor. He was thinking of them because he realized that, in serving them, he was serving Christ Himself.

This serving of Christ in the poor was, if one who is not of his

spiritual family can judge accurately in such a matter, the essence

of his spirituality, the secret of his life. In one of his letters to the

shy, beloved Anthony Portrail, there is a passage almost Pauline

in its continued, affectionate reiteration of his Master's Name: "

Remember, Sir, that we live in Jesus Christ by the death of Jesus

Christ, that we should die in Jesus Christ by the life of Jesus Christ, 20



MONSIEUR VINCENT II

that our life should be hidden in Jesus Christ and filled with Jesus

Christ, that to die like Jesus Christ, we must live like Jesus Christ." This love of Our Lord is the final explanation, too, of all his tireless

energy and perseverance. "

If you only look at the poor," he told his Ladies of Charity,

" they will inspire disgust, see Jesus Christ

in them and you will be attracted and charmed." Vincent always followed this advice. His very work became a source of refreshment and energy for him. For contact with Christ always invigorates, stimulates, enthrals. "Thou hast sent forth Thy fragrance and I have drawn my breath and pant after Thee," wrote St. Augustine, *'I have tasted Thee and am hungry after Thee. Thou hast touched

me and I am all aflame for Thy embrace." For Vincent the taste,

fragrance and touch of Christ was to be had among the poor. The

taste of Christ always refreshed him, His fragrance ever enthralled

him, His touch ever consoled him. "

I see, I touch Him through their dirt and miseries," he tells us in, perhaps, the most moving

words he ever wrote, "when I bring them round me and love them, it is He whom I love and honour. When I dress their wounds, I am kissing His. When I tend them, I heal myself."

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, And have not charity,

I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy

And should know all mysteries and all knowledge, And if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains,

And have not charity, I am nothing.

And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor,

And if I should deliver my body to be burned, And have not charity. It profiteth me nothing.

I Corinthians XIII.

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Monsieur Vincent. II