Monsieur Vincent

Irish Jesuit Province

Monsieur VincentAuthor(s): Paul LeonardSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 77, No. 918 (Dec., 1949), pp. 543-548Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20516083 .

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MONSIEUR VINCENT By PAUL LEONARD, SJ.

Readers who have seen the film " Monsieur Vincent

" will welcome

this fine study of St. Vincent*s life.

IT is not surprising that the life of St. Vincent de Paul made a

great film. For it was a life with everything a director might wish for or audience desire. Drama, movement, adventure, pathos,

humour, are there in abundance. It was a long life, vivid, varied

and exciting, full of striking contrasts and lived during one of the

most magnificent and tragic periods of 17th century France. Vincent

moved in the midst of the colourful pageantry of his day. He knew,

too, the stark tragedy that was everywhere. For a while he was

almoner to Marguerite of Valois; Henry of Navarre and his Catherine

de Medici were well known to him; the beautiful, neglected Anne of

Austria counted him as her friend and adviser; when spring flowers were bursting into fragrant blossom in the gardens of St. Germain, he was called to assist Louis XIII to die. He had business with

Richelieu more than once and he sat side by side with Mazarin on the Council of Conscience; indeed, their wills touched in the

challenge of opposition. The sordid squalor of the poor he knew

'as well as the glittering world of royalty. He visited their filthy, unfurnished garrets and saw for himself the seething vice, fragrant holiness, cruelty and kindness that existed there. He knew, too, the frenzied terror of the plague-stricken: he worked among them

in the overcrowded hospitals where they died, amidst filth and

vermin, six in a bed. Prisons, also, he visited and saw there the

effects of inhuman brutality. Nor was he a stranger to the smoke

and misery of war; many a broken, mangled victim received his care. He dealt with the insane, aged and infirm. The sordid history of the foundling was only too well known to him.

Yet, more* interesting than the colourful, shifting scenes of his life, is Vincent himself. Much of the success of the film is due, not so

much to Maurice Cloche's accurate and restrained presentation of

the world of 17th century France, as to Pierre Fresnay's subtle and

striking portrayal of the character of Monsieur Vincent. He has

caught something of the lovableness, magnetism and restrained

543



IRISH MONTHLY

power of his character; he has crystallized, somehow, his spirituality and sanctity.

Winter had lost its grip on the desolate regions of the Landes

district when Vincent was born at P?uy, near Dax, on the 24th

April, 1581. He was the third child born on the little farm and

his parents, Jean de Paul and Bertrande de Moras, reared him there

in an atmosphere of frugality, peace and silent toil. He grew up alert? intelligent, responsive. His father, being ambitious for him?

thought he should go on for the priesthood. So, at about twelve, he left the farmhouse for the cloistered arcades of the Franciscan

school in the neighbouring town of Dax. There he made good progress; by doing a little tutoring in his spare time, he contributed

something towards his education. In 1596 he received Minor Orders at Dax. His father then drove a yoke of oxen to the market; with

the proceeds, Vincent set out for the University of Toulouse, where

there was a Faculty of Theology. The atmosphere in Toulouse cannot have been conducive to piety;

the thousands of students that came there from all parts of France

and from many other countries pursued more exciting interests than

their studies. Fist-fights, boisterous horseplay, and continual

rowdiness were taken for granted; bloodshed and duelling were not

uncommon. Although it was the Faculties of Arts and of Medicine

that usually distinguished themselves at these pastimes, the good

theologians did not always keep their light under a bushel. Vincent,

however, managed to go ahead with his studies without interference.

While at Toulouse his father died, his last wish being that every sacrifice be made by the family to see Vincent through his studies.

Vincent, however, would take nothing. He managed to make enough

money to pay his own way, by running a school at Buzet, a village some fifteen miles outside Toulouse. On 23rd September, 1600,

when he was but twenty years old he was raised to the priesthood at Ch?teau l'Ev?que, near P?rigueux1. He studied for another four

years and became a Bachelor of Theology. Later he acquired a

Licentiate in Canon Law from the University of Paris.

Seven years' theology and the sacred oils of ordination did not

1His Ordination at such an early age was contrary to the decrees of the Council of Trent. But the Tridentine reforms were not enforced in France till 1.615, and the procedure of early Ordinations was sanctioned in practice. Besides, Vincent was better prepared than most priests of his day.

W



MONSIEUR VINCENT

make Vincent a saint His halo was not fashioned in as short a

time as that. Now that the hard years of study were over, he began to think of helping his family and to sigh for sweet repose. He set

out in search of a benefice. A few appeared on the horizon, but that was all; they never materialized. In 1606, however, Fortune

graced him with her smile : a good old lady in Toulouse made a will in his favour. It consisted of a debt owed

" by a worthless scoundrel

'*

who had absconded to Marseilles. Fr. Vincent went after him? had him arrested and extracted his 300 crowns. A gentleman from

Languedoc, lodging at the same inn, suggested that they return to

Toulouse by sea rather than by land. Cheerfully Vincent agreed. With 300 crowns in his pocket and the warm July sun in the sky, his heart was gay and free as they set out over the fresh, cool waters? bound for Narbonne.

Before sunset they had passed through the fire and foam of battle and were captives in the hands of pirates, and were destined for

Tunis and slavery. Through the town of Tunis he was paraded, almost naked, before he was put up for sale. Then he was examined like an ox;

" they made us open our mouths and show our teeth, felt

our sides, examined our wounds, made us walk, trot, and run." He was bought by a sailor, then sold to "a Stagirite physician and

sovereign extractor of quintessences, a very humane and kindly man ".

In his spare time, between stoking some ten or twelve furnaces? "

in which I had as much pleasure as pain "?Vincent saw his master "

freeze or fix quicksilver into pure silver, which he sold to give alms to the poor". The benign old magician taught his observant slave **

a thousand beautiful geometrical matters "

as well as the workings of

" an artificial spring by which a skull may be made to talk '\ In

time the alchemist's fame got abroad and he was summonerl to the court of the Great Sultan Achmet I. He bequeathed Vincent to his

nephew and set out on the journey, only to die of melancholy on the

way. Soon Vincent passed out of the nephew's hands to a more

interesting master, William Gautier, a poor renegade friar who had

chosen the turban in preference to the galleys or marble quarries. Poor William, having bought freedom by apostasy, was trying to

drug the pains of remorse with the doubtful anaesthetic of three

wives and jovial country life. One of the wives, a Mahometan, **

alive to the charms of the young man '\ to quote P?re Coste, came

to fields at sundown and asked him to sing the praises of his God.

545



IRISH MONTHLY

Remembering the children of Israel, Vincent began, as he tells him

self, "with tears iri my eyes the Psalm Super flumine Babylonis, then the Salve Regina

" Apt choice indeed! His poignant render

ing, or maybe his tears, or perhaps the grace of God, or more

probably all three, touched the lady's heart. That evening she

reproached the unhappy William for abandoning such a beautiful

religion. The prodigal stirred; three months later he escaped with

Vincent "

in a little skiS "

and they landed at France at Aiguesmortes on 28th June, 1607. The following day, the Feast of SS. Peter and

Paul, the Vice-Legate, Peter Montorio, received back the child that was lost and the fatted calf was killed. Montorio was a life-long dabbler in alchemy and when he heard Vincent's story he was

thrilled. He decided to take them both to Rome, Vincent to bear

witness to the marvels of alchemy and to be found a benefice, William

to be found a monastery in which to bring forth fruits worthy of

penance. To Rome, then, they went. While the Vice-Legate made

His Holiness and the College of Cardinals gasp in wonder at the

miracle of a talking skull, Vincent, pledged to secrecy and silence, worked away at Sacred Studies and learnt to distinguish the soft

Italian sounds.

W?rm as had been Montorio's promise and great as were Vincent's

efforts, no benefice was secured. In 1608 he was back in Paris once

more, still looking for promotion. It was about this time that he

became friendly with the great Pierre B?rulle, whose teaching and

advice influenced him profoundly, but not so profoundly as some

have thought. Possibly through B?rulle, he became one of the chap lains to Marguerite of Valois, former wife of Henry IV. There he

met a learned Doctor of Theology, skilled in controversy but

tormented by terrible temptations against the Faith. Vincent offered

himself as a victim in his stead. In the mysterious designs of

Providence, his holocaust was accepted. He became tormented; the

learned doctor found peace. Only after about four years of spiritual anguish did the temptation cease, when Vincent took a vow to devote

his life to serving the poor.

A new life now commenced for him. He started to visit the sick

regularly, to give alms to the poor. He turned over to the Brothers

of St. John of God a personal gift of 15,000 livres for the running of their charity hospital. He retired from the court of Marguerite and

set himself serving the parishioners of Clichy as their devoted Cur?.

546



MONSIEUR VINCENT

Providence soon intervened once more. He was recommended by B?r?Ue to take up a post in the noble household of the de Gondis.

They were good people, these de Gondis, one of the great families

in France, with illustrious and noble ancestors. "Between their fathers and their children ", Bougaud2 tells us,

** Philippe de Gondi

and his pious wife were as doves between vultures." Vincent's

duties seem to have been the tutoring of the younger vultures, the de Gondi children, the spiritual direction of the household in general and of the mistress of the household very much in particular. Accord

ing to the judgment of a pious aunt, the Marquise de Maignelay, the children were

" veritable devils ". Their good mother, it seems,

was even more of a handful. Earlier biographers describe her as

44an angel" and "pious"; Bougaud adds discreetly that she was

somewhat scrupulous. Modern biographers are not quite so reserved, With some asperity Mr. Theodore Maynard3 classes her among "

those spiritual hypocondriacs who always need someone at hand

to feel their pulse ". The more moderate judgment of P?re Coste *

is, that although it would be harder to find a more virtuous woman, "

her tendency to scrupulosity entailed even more suffering on her

confessor than on herself."

When the de Gondis journeyed around their vast estates, Vincent

usually went with them. Once when at Folleville in 1617 he was

called to attend one of the poor on the estate, who was dying. He was considered by all a very good man, but he thought it better to

make a General Confession. He admitted afterwards to the countess

that his soul had been heavy with sin. "

If this good man ", thought the countess,

" is in such a state, what about the other poor wretches

on our estates. How bad they must be?and their clergy, literally, too ignorant to absolve them." Vincent always considered that day as the birthday of the Congregation of the Mission.

Despite the widening possibilities of work on the de Gondi estates,

he felt himself too confined with the Countess and her children. He

left the de Gondi household to become parish priest of Ch?tillon

les Dombes in Bresse, a hard, unweeded corner of the vineyard.

Immediately his coat was off, and he was loving God among his

parishioners, as he always said He should be loved, "

at the expense

3 Historie de Saint Vincent de Paul. Paris 1889. 5 Apostle of Charity. George Allen & XJnwia.

ALife and Works Saint Vincent de Paul. 3 Vols. Translated Rev. J, Leonard. CM.

547



IRISH MONTHLY

of his arms and in the sweat of his brow." The slack clergy were

reformed, the church renovated, the hospital rebuilt, children were

instructed, converts made. It was here in Ch?tillon that he founded the first Conference

of Charity, from which his Daughters of Charity, with the help of the unknown, self-sacrificing St. Louise de Marillac, later originated.

Before Mass one morning, he recommended to his parishioners a destitute family, all of whose members were sick. In the evenings, on his way to visit the family, he passed streams of people and good ladies

** sitting on the roadside to refresh themselves

" When

he entered the sick household he found them almost snowed under with food and drink. He saw immediately the generosity of his parishioners and the need to direct that generosity, so, to let him finish the story himself,

" I proposed that they should club together

to make soup, each on her own day, and not only for them, but for all who might afterwards come, and that is the first place where the confraternity of Charity was established ". A humble beginning !

But that is what Vincent preferred. "

God always gives far greater blessings ", he wrote later to a confr?re, Bernard Codoing, anxious to start a mission with a splash,

" to humble than to splendid

beginnings."

During all this time, Madame de Gondi was inconsolable without her confessor. Letters were multiplied, strings pulled and tears shed. Eventually, after consulting B?rulle, Vincent returned to the

H?tel Gondi on the Christmas Eve of 1617, "

the nicest Christmas

present" Mr. Theodore Maynard comments with malicious irony, " that Madame ever received."

He was back, however, on his own terms; he would evangelise the

poor on the de Gondi estates. Be it said in praise of Madame de Gondi that she helped him everyway she could and she herself devoted herself most heroically to caring for the sick.

(To be concluded)

548



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Monsieur Vincent