* 
 
 p 
 
 «v 
 
HENRI DOMINIQUE LACORDA1RE 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 Madame Louise de France, Daughter of Louis XV., 
 
 known also as the Mother Terese de S. Augustin. 
 
 A Dominican Artist ", a Sketch of the Life of the Rev. 
 
 Pere Besson, of the Order of St. Dominic. 
 
 Henri Perrey ve. By A. Gratry. Translated. 
 
 S. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Prince of Geneva. 
 
 The Revival of Priestly Life in the Seventeenth 
 
 Century in France. Charles de Condren — S. Philip Neri and 
 Cardinal de Berulle — S. Vincent de Paul— Saint Sulpice 
 and Jean Jaques Olier. 
 
 A Christian Painter of the Nineteenth Century ; 
 
 being the Life of Hippolyte Flandrin. 
 
 Bossuet and his Contemporaries. 
 Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambrai. 
 
SKKN1N, TOULOUSE. 
 
HENRI DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE 
 
 Si IBfograptjical &ketc|) 
 
 H. L. SIDNEY LEAR 
 It 
 
 In la sua Voluuiade e nostra pace " 
 
 Paradiso III. 
 
 RIVINGTONS 
 
 WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXII 
 

PREFACE. 
 
 This sketch of a great man and his career has 
 been framed entirely upon his own writings — his 
 Conferences and others — the contemporary literature, 
 and the two Memoirs of him published by his 
 dearest friend the Comte de Montalembert, and 
 by his disciple and companion Dominican, Pere 
 Chocarne. I have aimed only at producing as true 
 and as vivid a portrait of Lacordaire as lay in my 
 power, believing that at all times, and specially cuch 
 times as the present, such a study must tend to 
 strengthen the cause of Right, the cause of true 
 liberty, above all, of Religious Liberty. 
 
 H. L. SIDNEY LEAR. 
 
 May 1SS2. 
 
 252615 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Secular Life .... 
 II. Issy and Ordination . 
 
 III. De la Mennais— The " Avenir "—Rome- 
 
 La Chesnaie .... 
 
 IV. Conferences .... 
 
 V. Mme. Swetchine — Preaching Order 
 
 VI. The Novitiate— La Quercia— Santa Sa 
 bina — Notre Dame— Rome— Bosco— The 
 Provinces— Nancy . 
 
 VII. Liberty — Preaching . 
 
 VIII. Chalais — Personal Influence, 1848— The 
 Republic — Politics . 
 
 IX. Private Life— The Coup-d'Etat— Fla 
 
 vigny — Oullins— Toulouse— Last Con 
 ferences .... 
 
 X. Soreze— The Academie Francaise— Death 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I 
 
 38 
 
 56 
 
 92 
 110 
 
 143 
 179 
 
 206 
 
 250 
 296 
 
SECULAR LIFE. 
 
 u /IB ION un rey, Paten perdut / " Such was the 
 heartfelt cry of a poor woman from the moun- 
 tains, one among the crowd of all ranks and ages 
 gathered at Soreze, November 28, 1861, to render 
 the last tokens of love and respect to the mortal 
 remains of one of the greatest men France has given 
 to Christianity, although they be not few. A king in 
 the world of thought, of patriotism, of influence over 
 the hearts of men ; and verily these are royalties 
 dearer to the noble soul, made after the image and 
 likeness of God, than all that this world's pomp and 
 power can give. A great part of Lacordaire's life 
 may simply be described as a reign over the hearts 
 and spirits of his fellow-creatures. But my aim is 
 not to write his panegyric, and facts will suffice to 
 set forth in true yet glowing colours the strangely 
 blended beauty and harmonies of his career. 
 
 They were wild, fierce times in which Lacordaire 
 entered into this world. His father, Nicolas Lacordaire, 
 was a doctor in the little country town of Recey-sur- 
 
 A 
 
 /< 
 
NICOLAS LACORDAIRE. 
 
 Ource, not far from Chatillon-sur-Seine in Burgundy 
 — a man of strong Liberal opinions, but seemingly of 
 the same large, generous heart which in his son was so 
 marked a feature. 
 
 It was in the year 1793 that the Cure of the town, 
 a certain Abbe Magn£, having refused to accept the 
 Civil Constitution which was then being pressed on 
 the French clergy, and being resolved to render to 
 Caesar only the things that be Caesar's, reserving to 
 God those that be His; when, surrounded by a 
 tumultuous mob, which pursued him to the very steps 
 of the altar, where he daily renewed his pledge, this 
 venerable man, while sabres and guns were pointed at 
 him on all sides, steadily made reply, " Cut me down 
 an you will j but as to a sacrilegious oath, never will 
 I take it ! " Their good angels saved them from the 
 cowardly crime of shedding the brave priest's blood, 
 but they drove him forth from the village with savage 
 execrations and threats of vengeance should he ever 
 return, and then forgot their personal spite in the ex- 
 citement of pillaging his poor presbytery. For a while 
 the brave priest wandered in the forest, then journeyed 
 to Rome; but eventually, yearning after his own 
 country and his own people, he made his way back to 
 Recey, staff in hand, knapsack on shoulder ; and while 
 fully realising the danger of his position, he felt such 
 confidence in Dr. Lacordaire and his true gene- 
 rosity of heart, that it was at his door that the Abbe" 
 
BIRTH. 
 
 sought refuge, and found it. He was kindly harboured 
 and carefully concealed, and then an altar was secretly 
 raised, where the faithful found access to the Sacraments 
 and to the Word of God. Here, on May 12, 1802, 
 the future great Dominican was born, and baptized by 
 the true-hearted confessor of the Faith to whom his 
 father had thus shown no little kindness. Four years 
 later that father died of consumption, not at Recey, 
 but at Bussieres ; and the mother (Anne Marie 
 Dugied, daughter of a Burgundian avocat) was 
 left with four young sons, of whom Henri was the 
 second. 
 
 Dr. Lacordaire had been married before, and had 
 a son born 1789 by his first marriage. In a letter 
 to Madame Swetchine, August 20, 1835, Lacordaire 
 describes the last hours of this eldest brother, who 
 had lived the quiet life of a chronic invalid : " His 
 mind was cultivated, and he had such perfect taste 
 in Art matters that in the family he was habitually 
 called 'the artist.' Horticulture was his favourite 
 pursuit; no other garden produced such marvellous 
 fruits and vegetables, or was kept with such exquisite 
 neatness and order. This was a tradition from my 
 father, whom he resembled personally more than any 
 of us, he alone possessing blue eyes, which were pene- 
 trating in spite of their sweetness. His other passion 
 was ' la chasse? He had bought some land on the 
 slope of a hill (at Aisey le Due), and had built a 
 
LACORDAIRE'S MOTHER. 
 
 pretty house. He had been in possession barely two 
 months — his life's dream fulfilled — for twenty-nine 
 years he had held his hand because he thought his 
 life too uncertain to build. At last he had gained 
 confidence, and scarcely had he laid down and risen 
 up twenty times in his house, when he laid down to 
 rise up no more." 
 
 Madame Lacordaire was one of those strong-hearted, 
 morally powerful women who are so often moulded 
 by times of danger and disaster when the weak and 
 purposeless are winnowed out by the storm. Lacor- 
 daire described her himself in three words : " Chris- 
 tian, courageous, strong." x 
 
 She was naturally undemonstrative, dignified, and 
 perhaps somewhat severe, intensely anxious to bring 
 up her sons to a high level both of faith and 
 education. The picture we gather of her in her 
 widowhood, surrounded by her four boys, is a noble 
 one; reading aloud with them the classics of their 
 language, specially Racine and Corneille ; talking to 
 them of the sovereign greatness of the Faith, of honour, 
 uprightness, and an unsullied name ; of the necessity 
 of a clear, strong will for what is good; lessons 
 stamped upon the lads by their mother's own firm, 
 decided, truthful character. The father had been a 
 man of considerable intellectual power and cultiva- 
 tion ; his varied acquirements and a singularly happy 
 i " Chretienne, courageuse, et forte. " 
 
EARL Y HOME LIFE. 
 
 manner of expression, added to a very attractive 
 manner, gave him much of that gift of fascination 
 which was so marked a characteristic of his son 
 through life. It was a great inheritance to begin with j 
 and though Lacordaire barely recollected his father, 
 he always held his memory in most loving remem- 
 brance. An old friend of the family tells how, going 
 to see the Dominican Father at the height of his 
 career, their whole conversation was concerning 
 details familiar to the elder man ; and how, when he 
 rose to take leave, Lacordaire, holding both his hands, 
 exclaimed, "Tell me more about my father!" Not 
 long before the close of his life he revisited the old 
 house at Recey, and seemed to recall the scenes of fifty 
 years past. Nothing was changed in the house ; and 
 when Lacordaire expressed his surprise at finding all 
 so unaltered, the owner answered without hesitation 
 that all was so precious to him because of the 
 memories and name it cherished, that in his lifetime at 
 least no rude hand should touch a detail. His own 
 warm clinging to these early links finds vent in many 
 of his utterances; e.g. in a Conference of 1845 at 
 Notre Dame he exclaims, " O the hearth and home of 
 Christian men ! that father's home, where from our 
 first hour we drank in with the air and light of day 
 pure love of all things holy ; verily we may grow old, 
 but we must ever return to you with a youthful heart ; 
 and were it not that the Eternal calls us forth, we 
 
AT DIJON. 
 
 could scarce comfort ourselves that we must perforce 
 depart and not watch the shadows deepening and 
 the sun going down on your beloved walls !" x 
 
 After her husband's death Madame Lacordaire 
 settled near her own family at Dijon, devoting her- 
 self to her sons, of whom Henri himself says that he 
 was the favourite, giving as the cause that the gentle- 
 ness of his character suited hers. "What hand is 
 delicate enough, discriminating, tender enough," he 
 says in his Conference on Family Life, " to manipulate 
 the wild beast just born midway between good and 
 evil, who may turn out a scoundrel or a saint ? No 
 need to seek far. His training has begun at the 
 breast which bore him. Every thought, every prayer, 
 every sigh of his mother has been a holy nourishment 
 flowing into his soul, a very baptism of honour and 
 saintliness. . . . And when our heart first wakens to 
 affection, and our mind to truth, it is beneath the 
 hand, the word, the force of a mother's love that this 
 marvel is achieved. And as childhood passes away, 
 and youth asserts its instinctive liberty ; as education 
 becomes more perilous, though not less necessary; 
 when all authority is felt as a yoke, but one refuge 
 remains, if not intact, at least respected. We can 
 still listen to truth from the mother who holds fast to 
 God; her glance has not lost all authority; her 
 reproof has not lost its power to awake remorse ; and 
 1 Conferences, xxxiv. 
 
CHILDHOOD. 
 
 when she has no other weapon left, her tears are a 
 last utterance which we cannot dare to resist. 
 Unknown to us, she works out hidden channels to 
 the very most hidden depths of our heart, and we are 
 amazed to find her there where we supposed ourselves 
 most entirely alone." 1 
 
 We all recoil from marvellous childhood in the 
 story of great men ; and it will suffice to say that those 
 who remember Lacordaire as a child describe him as 
 very beautiful, a medley of gentleness and petulance, 
 of docility and vehemence, such as many another has 
 been. His old nurse, Colette Marquet, loved to tell 
 how he used to play at being a priest, and preach to 
 any who would listen, though it must be owned the 
 much-enduring nurse seems to have been for the most 
 part the sole congregation. " Sit down, Colette, for 
 to-day's sermon will be long," he too often predicted. 
 And when the little boy's vehement oratory frightened 
 poor Colette into beseeching him to be quiet, she was 
 met with the characteristic reply, " No indeed ; there 
 is too much sin going on ! I don't mind being tired ; 
 I must go on preaching ! " And sometimes he would 
 take up his station in the open window as a pulpit 
 and read Bourdaloue's sermons aloud, with many 
 copied gestures and much declamation, to the aston- 
 ished passers by. 
 
 . Henri Perreyve published a few autobiographical 
 1 Conferences, xxxiv. 
 
FIRST CONFESSION'. 
 
 fragments of his friend, which must be quoted here 
 in reference to Lacordaire's earliest days : — 
 
 "My personal recollections begin to take shape 
 from about seven years old. Two facts have stamped 
 this period on my memory. It was then that my mother 
 put me to a little school for elementary classical 
 education, and that she took me to the parish priest 
 to make my first confession. I crossed the sanctuary, 
 and found myself alone, in a large stately sacristy, 
 with a venerable old man, altogether kindly and 
 gentle. It was the first time I had come into personal 
 contact with a priest ; so far I had only seen such at 
 the altar in an atmosphere of incense and ceremony. 
 The Abbe 1 Deschamps (that was his name) sat down 
 on a bench, and placed me, kneeling, beside him. I 
 forget what I said and what he said ; but the memory 
 of this first intercourse between my soul and God's 
 minister left an impression on me at once pure and 
 profound. Never since have I entered the sacristy of 
 Saint Michel de Dijon, or breathed its atmosphere, 
 without renewing the vision of my first confession, 
 together with that fine old man and my own childish 
 simplicity. For that matter, the whole church of 
 Saint Michel has retained a share in my reverent 
 remembrance, and I have never revisited it without a 
 certain emotion which no other church has ever since 
 awakened. My mother, Saint Michel, and my new- 
 born religion form a sort of structure in my heart, 
 
AT THE LYCAE. 
 
 the earliest, the most pathetic, and most enduring 
 that I know. 
 
 " When I was ten my mother got me a scholarship 
 in the Lycee at Dijon, and I went there three months 
 before the end of the scholastic year. Then, for the 
 first time, I made acquaintance with suffering, and 
 therein I was led to God with a vivid, warm, practical 
 impulse. From -the first day my companions turned 
 upon me as their sport or victim j I could not stir 
 without the reach of their brutal fun. For several 
 weeks I was forcibly deprived of all my food except 
 bread and soup. To escape from this ill-usage I 
 used, whenever I could, to take refuge during recrea- 
 tion time in the schoolroom, and hide myself under 
 a bench, from masters and schoolfellows alike; and 
 there alone, without protection, altogether forsaken, 
 I used to pour out my devout tears before God, 
 offering my childish miseries as a sacrifice, and 
 striving to unite myself fervently to the cross of His 
 dear Son. 1 
 
 1 In a letter of December 10, 1850, Lacordaire refers to this 
 time, saying : "I have never brought up anybody, and I can 
 hardly say I was ever brought up myself, although I had the 
 best and most perfect of mothers. But she was obliged to send 
 me to school when I was only ten ; and God knows if there was 
 one single shadow of education to be had at that school beyond 
 military discipline and the reciprocal blows of the scholars shut 
 up within four walls. Religion, morals, civilisation, disappeared 
 one after the other, and whatever good we retained must have 
 been from the impressions of our early childhood. For all my 
 
io M. DELAHAYE. 
 
 " Brought up by a mother at once so Christian, so 
 courageous, and so strong, religion had flowed from 
 her breast into mine as a pure milk; now pain 
 changed that into blood, which made it my very own, 
 and child as I was, a sort of martyr. My miseries 
 came to an end with the holidays j and when term 
 began again, either my persecutors were tired of the 
 game, or possibly my own loss of innocence and 
 simplicity achieved the exemption. Just at this time 
 there came to the Lycee a young man of twenty-four 
 or twenty-five, fresh from the Ecole Normale, whence 
 he was transferred to the mastership of an elementary 
 class. Although I was not one of his pupils, he came 
 across me and took a fancy to me. He occupied two 
 rooms in an isolated corner of the building, and I 
 was allowed to go there and work under his care 
 during part of my schooltime. There for three years 
 he lavished the most careful literary teaching upon 
 me. Although merely a scholar in the sixth form, 
 he made me read and learn by heart whole tragedies 
 of Racine and Voltaire, and even had patience to 
 hear me repeat them. Devoted to literature, he 
 sought to give me his own tastes j a thoroughly upright, 
 honourable man, he sought to make me kindly, pure, 
 sincere, and generous, and to subdue the impulsive- 
 ness of a naturally indocile nature. He was a 
 
 masters save M. Delahaye I entertained the most profound 
 indifference, enlivened by a tolerably perpetual rebellion." 
 
FIRST COMMUNION. 
 
 stranger to religion ; he never alluded to the subject 
 to me, and I maintained a like reserve towards him. 
 Had he not been deficient in this precious possession 
 he would have been the good angel of my soul as 
 well as of my intellect ; but God, Who sent him to me 
 as a second father and true guide, was pleased in His 
 good Providence to suffer me to go down into the 
 depths of unbelief, so that I might one day more 
 wholly realise the full brightness of revealed light. 
 And so my dear master, M. Delahaye, left me to be 
 carried away, like my fellow-pupils, farther and farther 
 from all religious belief; while he kept me on the 
 highest elevations of literature and honour, where 
 he had himself taken up his post. The events of 
 1 8 1 5 deprived me prematurely of his care : he 
 entered upon office, but I have ever associated the 
 thought of him with all that has been for good in 
 my life. 
 
 "I made my first Communion in the year 1814, 
 when I was twelve years old ; that was my last 
 happiness in religion, and the last ray of mutual sun- 
 shine between my mother's soul and mine. The 
 shadows soon closed in upon me ; the chill of dark- 
 ness took possession of me; and my conscience 
 ceased to be stirred by any sign of God within 
 me. 
 
 " I was but an indifferent pupil, and no success 
 marked my early studies ; my intelligence deteriorated 
 
GODLESS ED UCA TION. 
 
 as well as my morals ; and I was going on in that path 
 of deterioration which is the retribution of unbelief 
 and the inevitable side of mere rationalism. But all 
 of a sudden the literary seeds sown by M. Delahaye 
 sprang up, and I made a great success in rhetoric, 
 and before the year was out sundry prizes came to 
 kindle my pride rather than to reward any worthy 
 work. 
 
 " A meagre course of philosophy, without breadth or 
 depth, completed my classical course, and I left 
 school at seventeen, my religion effaced, and my 
 moral life imperilled ; but nevertheless honest, frank, 
 impetuous, alive to honour, keen for literature and 
 all that is beautiful, and putting before me as my guid- 
 ing star an ideal of earthly fame. It was perfectly 
 natural. There had been nothing to sustain our 
 faith in an education where the Word of God was 
 faintly heard, without force or sequence, while our 
 everyday life was moulded upon the examples of 
 heroic antiquity. We had been kindled by the virtues 
 of the heathen world set before us in its sublimity ; 
 while the new world of Christianity was still unknown 
 to us. We were entirely unconscious of its great men, 
 its saints, its civilisation, its moral and civil superiority, 
 and of the progress of mankind under the standard 
 of the Cross. We knew but little even of the history 
 of our own country, which had not touched us, and 
 we were French by birth without any patriotic life in 
 
ACOLE BE DROIT. 
 
 our souls. Not that I mean to throw myself into the 
 war waged of late against classical education. We 
 owe our taste for the beautiful, our elevated feeling for 
 intellectual pursuits, many precious natural virtues, 
 many grand memories, many noble links to great times 
 and characters, to the classic authors ; but they did not 
 lead us high enough to reach the threshold of that 
 building which is Jesus Christ Himself, and the 
 friezes of the Parthenon concealed the dome of S. 
 Peter's from us." 
 
 At this time Lacordaire is described by those who 
 remember him as beginning very decidedly to exercise 
 the power and influence over those around which 
 became one of the most marked features of his after- 
 life. His tall, well-made figure, his handsome face, 
 with those large flashing eyes, that broad, strong 
 forehead, and that mobile, ever-changing, sensitive play 
 of expression, won the admiration even of the lads 
 around him ; and his marked success during the latter 
 part of his school-days made him a sort of hero, 
 the ideal student of his fellows. One of these re- 
 members how the externes used to climb the railings 
 before their hour for opening, and cry out as Henri 
 Lacordaire was seen passing within, " See ! see ! there 
 he is ! " 
 
 Leaving the Lyc£e, to go on in his own words, " I 
 entered the Ecole de Droit, and returned to my 
 mother's little home, with its blessed homeliness, so 
 
i 4 EARL Y FRIENDS. 
 
 loving and simple. There was no superfluity in that 
 house, rather a strict economy and a severe simplicity, 
 the aroma of a day that is past, where somewhat 
 sacred attached to the virtues of a widow, the mother 
 of four children, already growing up around her, in 
 whom she fondly hoped to leave a generation of 
 honest men at least — possibly of distinguished men. 
 Only a heavy cloud lowered upon that devoted 
 mother's heart when she realised that not one of her 
 children was really a Christian, not one of them ever 
 accompanied her to God's House or shared the sacred 
 mysteries of the Faith with her. 
 
 " Happily for me, among the two hundred students 
 who frequented the Law Schools there were some 
 dozen whose intellect had gone beyond the Civil 
 Code, who sought something higher than mere law, 
 and to whom their country, eloquence, fame, civic 
 virtue, had a more lively meaning and attraction than 
 the mere vulgarities of successful money-making. 
 They were drawn instinctively together by means of 
 that mysterious sympathy which, if it fuses vice with 
 vice, and mediocrity with mediocrity, no less welds 
 together souls of higher bent and aim. Nearly all 
 these young men owed their natural superiority to 
 their Christian faith ; and although I was devoid of 
 that, they recognised me as one of their set, and it 
 was not long before our long walks and our friendly 
 gatherings brought us face to face with the greatest 
 
FIRST SIGNS OF EIOQUENCF. 15 
 
 problems of philosophy, politics, and religion. As 
 might have been expected, I neglected the study of 
 mere law, attracted as I was by the impulses of a 
 higher intelligence, and I was but as sorry a law 
 student as I had been a sorry schoolboy." 
 
 Such may have been his own impression ; but his 
 fellow-students, and especially M. Lorain, 1 speak 
 enthusiastically of Lacordaire's share in the eager 
 discussions which were for ever arising concerning all 
 things in heaven and earth, his bursts of eloquence, 
 his exquisite power of appealing to the higher feelings 
 of his audience, his speaking looks ; of the firstfruits, 
 in short, of all that made the future preacher of Notre 
 Dame the noblest orator of his times. 
 
 " Lacordaire took his full part in all," M. Lorain 
 writes in the Correspondant? "and was at once facile 
 princeps. I can yet fancy I hear his dazzling impro- 
 visations, his ingenious arguments, his unexpected 
 sallies, his plastic power of resource; I can see his 
 bright flashing eyes, so fixed and so piercing, as 
 though his glance went down into the depths of 
 thought ; I can hear his clear, vibrating voice, quiver- 
 ing, breathless, lost to all else in the force of his 
 conviction, giving itself up without reserve to the 
 unchecked flow of his rich mind. O happy years, so 
 quickly fled ! O precious, magnificent jeux de V esprit, 
 
 1 Doyen de la Faculte de droit de Dijon. 
 
 2 Tome xvii. p. 821. 
 
16 CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 surely ye gave the promise of a matchless athlete in 
 God's cause ! " 
 
 M. Lorain goes on to speak of the papers Lacor- 
 daire read at this period (1821-22) before the 
 Societe d'^tudes Dijonnaise; such subjects as the Siege 
 of Jerusalem, Liberty, etc., being the most remem- 
 bered. " Were I permitted to describe by antithesis," 
 he goes on to say, " I should describe Henri Lacor- 
 daire as one series of remarkable contrasts. That 
 impulsive nature was capable of long, persistent, 
 stedfast work; that energetic nature was patient, it 
 united eagerness and gentleness. That lively, impatient 
 imagination was capable of grappling with deliberate 
 design ; his quick perception was combined with the 
 most sustained thought, the most continued calculation. 
 Side by side with his luxuriant youthfulness you had the 
 serious anticipation of maturity j wild fun and almost 
 childish merriment together with thoughtful meditation. 
 Combined with his ardent, passionate temperament, 
 there was a natural taste for order and method, for 
 neatness in trifles, the most refined simplicity, the most 
 studied precision and nicety. He could always stop at 
 will in the midst of his phrase, whether verse or prose. 
 The friend who ventured to intrude upon his study 
 was safe to find all in the most symmetrical order ; 
 no confusion among his books, his paper, pens, ink- 
 stand, penknife, all arranged most correctly on 
 his little black table, and carefully eschewing all 
 
SCEPTICISM. 17 
 
 uncouth angles. There was the same regularity and 
 neatness in his manuscripts, in his writing, in every- 
 thing he did or touched ; in short, there was a kind 
 of material symbolism in all of that wisdom of the 
 serpent and simplicity of the dove of which he speaks 
 in one of his Conferences, where he says that, like S. 
 Francis de Sales, he would gladly give twenty serpents 
 for one dove ! " ' This love of order clung to Lacor- 
 daire through life. In his latter days we find him 
 writing of his " reparations " at Soreze : " I cannot 
 endure any spot out of order in the house I inhabit, 
 were it a hundred feet underground." 
 
 The scepticism which at this time enthralled 
 Lacordaire, and so grieved his mother's Christian 
 heart, was almost the inevitable condition of his 
 training and circumstances. As he himself exclaimed 
 in Notre Dame, "The social condition to which we 
 have been born is a wondrous chaos. Raging storms 
 have rocked our cradle ; we have striven through a 
 thousand contradictory theories ! " 2 But it was not 
 the active danger so much as the passive which had 
 overthrown the boy's early faith. There was nothing 
 to uphold it 3 in the training offered by public schools 
 
 1 Conferences, xxviii. 1844. 2 Conferences, viii. 1836. 
 
 3 " Rien n'avait soutenu notre foi, dans une education ou la 
 parole divine ne rendait parmi nous qu'un son obscur, sans suite 
 et sans eloquence, tandis que nous vivions tous les jours avec les 
 chefs-d'oeuvre et les exemples d'heroisme de l'antiquite." 
 B 
 
BEGINNING OF PARIS LIFE. 
 
 in France, a memorable warning in these days when 
 precisely this is the danger which threatens us all. 
 But in Lacordaire's case the early training, though 
 for a time stifled and starved, was not eradicated. 
 He was no " impious tribune or democratic atheist," 
 asserts the friend already quoted. " The Deistic 
 student dabbled somewhat with Voltairian sarcasm, or 
 more correctly, with a tinge of Rousseau, who suited the 
 conscientious seriousness of his mind better. There 
 is no denying this, France was passing through that 
 stage ; but my Dijon schoolfellow never went further." 
 
 His law course ended, " my mother, in spite of 
 her very straitened means, resolved to send me to the 
 Bar at Paris. She was stimulated by her maternal 
 anticipations of my success j but God had otherwise 
 ordered things, and she, not knowing it, sent me to 
 the gate of Eternity." 
 
 In a letter written shortly afterwards (1824) he 
 speaks of himself as floating between truth and error, 
 equally friendly to both, confusing them unknowingly. 
 The soil was ready for God's seed. " Paris did not 
 dazzle me," he writes. " Accustomed to a laborious, 
 strict, and honest life, I went on living as I had done at 
 Dijon, with this painful difference, that I had no longer 
 any fellow-students or friends, nothing but a vast soli- 
 tude, where no one cared for me, and where my soul 
 preyed upon itself, without finding either God or Creed 
 therein, nothing save the lively pride of hoped-for fame." 
 
THE BAR. 19 
 
 M. Riambourg, President of the Cour Royale de 
 Dijon, had promoted Lacordaire's legal start in Paris 
 by an introduction to M. Guillemin, Avocat au Conseil; 
 and in this lawyer's office he worked on, as he says, 
 with "patient fervour," following the Bar, poor and 
 lonely, leading a dull life for a man of twenty, without 
 any external amusements or agreeable connections, 
 devoid of taste for the outer world, unattracted by 
 the theatrical excitements which were so powerful for 
 most of his contemporaries, without any great eager- 
 ness, as he himself said, for anything in the surrounding 
 sphere unless a vague, not powerful, longing after fame. 
 Some seasons of success in the Cours d' Assises slightly 
 moved him, but not to any great extent. M. Guille- 
 min, himself a Royalist and a Catholic, introduced his 
 Liberal, sceptical pupil to a Society called des Bonnes 
 Etudes, composed of young men who were both 
 Catholic and Royalist, hoping thereby to influence 
 him; but alike from both points of view he felt strange 
 among these companions. 
 
 " An unbeliever from my school-days, I had become 
 a Liberal while at the Ecole de Droit, although my 
 mother was devoted to the Bourbons, and had given 
 me the name of Henri in honour of Henri IV., the 
 cherished idol of her political faith. But all the 
 rest of my family were Liberals, and I was so 
 myself instinctively; so that scarcely the faintest 
 echoes of public affairs reached me before I followed 
 
2o LONELINESS. 
 
 my generation in the love of liberty, as, unhappily, 1 
 had already followed it in ignorance of God and of 
 the Gospel." 
 
 M. Guillemin's hopes of converting the talented, 
 solitary youth were not fulfilled j he made no friends, 
 and received no light from his connection with the 
 Society. There he remained in his little room at the 
 top of a house in the Rue Mont Thabor, oppressed, 
 lonely, controlling by strength of character and habit 
 of self-domination the restlessness of his unsatisfied 
 longings ; not indeed realising why he was unsatisfied, 
 and striving to throw himself into the monotonous 
 work, which he already felt was not his true vocation. 
 
 " This vivid imagination and this enthusiasm which 
 consume me," he wrote, "were not given me to be stifled 
 by the frost of law, to be crushed under all its realism. 
 But I am kept in my present position by force of 
 reason, which tells me that trying all things and chang- 
 ing condition is not to change one's nature. ... 1 
 am continually distraught by the struggle within me 
 of two opposite principles ; cold, hard reason reacting 
 upon an ardent imagination, and causing more disen- 
 chantment than the latter had caused illusion." ■ 
 
 With reference to this crucial period of Lacordaire's 
 life, his friend Pere Chocarne remarks forcibly : " One 
 needs to remember what that epoch was in order to 
 understand how it told upon Henri Lacordaire. We 
 
 1 Lorain, Corrcspcmdcuit. 
 
STATE OF FRANCE. 21 
 
 had not then, as now, a France come to her pre- 
 cocious maturity through paths strewn with dispersed 
 illusions and cruel experiences, or turning aside through 
 weariness. All was youthful then, full of enthusiasm 
 and vigour j keen for the present age, its poetry, its 
 liberty. The heart of France had been crushed 
 beneath a weight of bloody memories and humbled 
 pride — thanks to the ruin and defeat brought by the 
 first part of the century — and her long-repressed 
 energies were bursting forth before the first bright rays 
 of liberty and life, rays which assuredly gave birth 
 more to blossom than to mature fruit ; but all the same, 
 there were fair flowers and a noble life. A man such 
 as Henri Lacordaire could not be indifferent to the 
 season of universal outburst in which he first came to 
 Paris; not in vain could he hear the triumphant 
 harmonies which celebrated the awakening of a nation, 
 or behold the grand spectacle of social reconstruction 
 into which enthusiasm, hatreds, aspirations, regrets, 
 the wildest, most generous dreams were cast wholesale. 
 Those whose tendencies led them to foster the more 
 hidden, interior, mental revolutions were met by in- 
 toxicating visions from the prairies of America, such 
 as flew to the brain of our youth and made them well- 
 nigh delirious. Henri tasted of this cup like the rest, 
 but he was able to stop himself short of folly ; and 
 while his imagination wandered amid the enchanted 
 solitudes of the New World, his patient pen persisted 
 
22 SPIRIT OF THE TIME. 
 
 in its daily toil of copying papers and drawing up con- 
 sultations." ' One of his Conferences in 1848, treat- 
 ing of man as a social being, draws freely upon 
 Lacordaire's own early mental experiences. " We have 
 been told," he says, " that society is a purely human 
 institution, the source of all our woes, and that our 
 decadence began together with our civilisation. 
 Which of us in early days has not imagined himself 
 wandering at will amid the solitudes of the New World, 
 with no roof save the sky, no drink save the waters 
 of unknown rivers, no food save the unsown fruits of 
 the earth or the wild game that he himself had shot ; 
 no law save his own will, no delights save the conscious- 
 ness of his independence and the excitements of a 
 boundless life on a soil which owned no master? 
 Those were our dreams. . . . Our soul burst forth 
 from its oppression into such ideal regions, and came 
 back painfully to the monotonous burden of reality. 
 Was this true? Was this effort to rush forth from 
 society an aspiration towards the primitive condition 
 of creation, or was it merely a rebellion against the 
 established order of God's Providence ? Sirs, it was 
 a rebellion, a burst of egoism impatient of the limits 
 fixed for us by universal communion with our fellow- 
 men, a striving to wrest the universe to the purposes of 
 our own individuality ! " 2 Yet though he described 
 himself as the " child of an age which scarce knows 
 1 Vie Intime, vol. i. p. 36. 2 Conference?, li. 
 
CRA VINGS FOR FRIENDSHIP. 23 
 
 how to obey, born and bred in independence," he had 
 self-command enough to plunge into no heroics ; and 
 while crying out, " Where shall I find a heart that can 
 enter into mine, and that will not stare because the 
 very name of Great Greece makes me shiver and weep ! 
 The mind of these men is not made to understand 
 mine ; it is sowing on polished marble ! " he was never- 
 theless calm, self-reliant, and doubtless far more than 
 he knew shielded by the influences of his early religious 
 education. 
 
 Always a passionate friend by instinct, and 
 destined to form friendships of the noblest, deepest 
 character, it was the want of any friend that should 
 satisfy his ideal that tried him most at this period. 
 " I was very young; God had perished in my soul. . . . 
 I beheld this capital, where curiosity, imagination, 
 and thirst for knowledge led me to suppose that I 
 should read all the secrets of the world. But its weight 
 crushed me." x Paris was at that time, he said, a vast 
 desert to him ; he craved to people it with friendships. 
 There is a most characteristic letter written at this 
 period to a young friend, which gives us a very 
 living portrait of the writer. 
 
 " Paris, November 10, 1823. 
 
 "My dear Confrere, — When I saw you this 
 morning I felt more than ever how far off we are 
 from each other, and I saw sorrowfully that our 
 1 Speech before the Cours d'Assises, January 31, 1831. 
 
24 LETTER TO A FELLOW-STUDENT. 
 
 meetings would be passing, and would fail gradually 
 to take that intimate form which long habit and 
 mutual sympathy in heart and mind establish between 
 men. Yet I must own one of my favourite notions, 
 one which had been most attractive to me in looking 
 forward to my life in Paris, was the hope of attaching 
 myself closely to you. I was disposed to comfort 
 myself for the loss of friends who would be afar, by 
 the thought that I had found some one who would 
 replace their everyday friendship by the welcome 
 kindliness which every one needs both to give and to 
 receive. I told myself gladly that you, like them, 
 held those religious principles which I value without 
 having as yet accepted them ; that you too held 
 sound political principles without the addition of that 
 bitterness and littleness which sometimes dishonour 
 truth ; that you too are pure in taste and morals. I 
 loved the living likeness of my friends in you, and I 
 augured happily for my future life that I seemed thus 
 destined always to come across people worth more 
 than I am. So the prospect of your friendship 
 peopled this vast desert of Paris to me, and I looked 
 to you as the complement of my life. But we are so 
 far apart, that if we do not take care our souls will 
 travel on in parallel lines without ever touching ; and of 
 a truth there are so many lovable but unknown 
 people in the world that it is a great mistake to let 
 go such as actually come in our way. Moreover, 
 
SELF- FOR TRAITURE. 2 5 
 
 the time during which we can hope to win friends 
 will soon be past ; in riper years men are more 
 easily drawn together by interest than by affection ; 
 the spring of one's heart slackens as youth departs. 
 As we are both young, and you can understand me, 
 as you know me well enough to appreciate both the 
 good and the bad in me, I offer you a friendship 
 which will be lasting, begging you to give me yours 
 in return. Well, then, I have a mind to describe 
 myself to you, so as to give you a firstfruit of confidence 
 — the handsel of affection. 1 
 
 " Two rival principles are for ever struggling within 
 me, and sometimes make me very wretched : a chill 
 reason meeting a fiery imagination, the one dis- 
 enchanting more than the other had enchanted me. 
 No one could be guilty of more follies than I on one 
 side of my being, unless I were withheld by a mental 
 process which makes me see things from all sides. I 
 have watched the working of this world's material 
 interests, and without having ever drunk deeply of its 
 
 1 The whole of Lacordaire's life was in keeping with this 
 early view of friendship — a full revelation of self, its faults and 
 weakness. " On veut bien se mettre a nu devant une ame qu'on 
 aime," he writes to Henri Perreyve, February 2, 1854. "Si vous 
 m'aimiez bien, vous entendriez ma reponse a travers l'espace;" 
 and, " II est si doux de s'humilier devant ce qu'on aime ! Et si 
 l'orgueil nous retient, si nous voulons etre un theatre meme 
 devant notre ami, l'aimons nous? II est certain que la confi- 
 ance est le premier element de l'amitie," etc. October II, 1859. 
 
26 FORES HAD WINGS. 
 
 pleasures or intoxications, I am convinced that every- 
 thing under the sun is vanity, the result of this same 
 imagination which knows no limit save the infinite, 
 and this reason which analyses whatever it comes in 
 contact with. 
 
 " I have a very religious soul, and a very sceptical 
 mind ; but as it is in the nature of the mind to yield 
 to the soul, probably some day I shall be a Christian. 
 I am calculated alike to live in solitude and to plunge 
 into the whirlpool of human events ; liking quietness 
 when I think of it, liking excitement when I am in 
 the midst of it. Sometimes making a castle in the air 
 of a country parish ; saying good-bye to such a thing 
 directly I reach the Pont Neuf ; kept where I am by the 
 belief that to change my position would not be to 
 change my nature, and that there are some needs 
 which this world can never satisfy. I possess great 
 activity, and so ready a power of conception that I 
 often misuse it. I have loved men, but never yet 
 women, and I shall never love them in the ordinary 
 way. I believe that my epitaph might be, ' He had 
 faults, but he was worth as much as many another.' 1 
 
 "Here, dear , is a sketch of myself. See if it 
 
 suits you, and believe that I shall love you all my life 
 with a frankness and sincerity which may bring some 
 grains of happiness into your life. That is always 
 worth something ! " 
 
 1 "II eut des defauts, mais il en valait bien un autre." 
 
RESERVE OF CHARACTER. 27 
 
 It is remarkable that this hopeful friendship came 
 to nothing, and he says of himself that he lived on 
 alone, without any cheering sympathy. To a certain 
 extent this may have been owing to the extreme 
 reserve, and sometimes almost chilling silence, which, 
 paradoxical as it may seem, formed part of Lacor- 
 daire's external side. His most cherished friend, 
 Montalembert, alludes to this in later years, speaking 
 of the passionate taste for order and neatness already 
 mentioned : " It was stamped upon his most trifling 
 habits of life, as will be witnessed by all admitted to 
 the cell where he used to receive friends, disciples, 
 above all, young men, with such effusion j but where, 
 nevertheless, some had no resource than to gaze hope- 
 lessly around when he received them with that freez- 
 ing silence, which no one knew how to put forward 
 more boldly than himself in respect of indiscreet or 
 inquisitive visitors." l Later on he himself said, 
 "When any one puts a quarter of a mile between 
 himself and me, I put ten thousand, and think no 
 more of him." 2 
 
 But this was not said in any spirit of resentment 
 or pride. Quite the contrary \ it was applied to those 
 who calumniated or injured him. With regard to 
 such men, as Montalembert says, he " raised alike 
 against the pettinesses of jealousy a more formidable 
 
 1 "Ce silence glacial dont personne n'a pousse l'audace aussi loin 
 que lui " (Montal. p. 181). ' Correspondant. 
 
28 LEGAL ELOQUENCE. 
 
 opposition, a strong rampart of silence." There was 
 no real coldness or hardness in his character ; in fact, 
 nothing strikes one through his after-life so much as 
 its warm, impulsive love and tenderness ; but in earlier 
 days, especially while he would have given up almost 
 everything to win affection, he was too undemonstra- 
 tive to let it appear. " It is a strange thing," he 
 wrote, " people think me hard ! At the moment I 
 am most touched I am taken to be cold ! They do 
 not discriminate between the real and the fictitious man 
 in me ; what I am and what I appear. I cannot, like 
 Sterne, weep before the public ; I am ashamed of tears." 1 
 We must then, especially in these early years, keep 
 the real and fictitious man in mind while looking at 
 Lacordaire's life ; nor can one doubt that this moral 
 solitude was the mould in which the future apostle of 
 Christianity was being formed. Disappointed in his 
 yearnings for friendship and sympathy, he worked on 
 at his, not wholly uncongenial, profession. Speaking 
 was a natural gift, and he enjoyed exercising it. " I 
 was amused by my pleading this morning," he writes. 
 " The cause was detestable, but I wanted to feel sure 
 that I could speak before the Bench without any 
 nervousness, and that my voice would be strong 
 enough ; and this trial has convinced me that the 
 Senate of Rome would not alarm me, though I don't 
 know how I contrived to say anything ! " He was 
 1 Correspondent. 
 
SUCCESS AT THE BAR. 29 
 
 then under the authorised age for a barrister, but that 
 mattered little. " If I were to be summoned before the 
 Conseil de Discipline," he said, " it would be a fine 
 opportunity for making a great speech, and that's all ! 
 A young barrister who was condemned by the Council, 
 after having argued successfully, might boast of his 
 condemnation ! " 
 
 That Lacordaire was successful is undoubted. 
 Berryer declared that if he was watchful over his 
 exceeding facility of speech he would become a lead- 
 ing advocate, and the Premier President Seguier 
 exclaimed that he was another Bossuet. Nevertheless, 
 he was not satisfied or happy in his legal career. God 
 had better things in store for him, and he could find 
 no rest for his longings in these secular achievements. 
 "I am growing old in mind," he wrote, "and I am 
 conscious of mental wrinkles beneath the flowers I 
 strew. I care little for existence ; my imagination ha:: 
 exhausted it. I am satiated with everything without 
 having really known anything ! If you only knew how 
 melancholy I am ! I like melancholy ; we are familiar 
 friends. Men talk of the fame of authors, of public 
 positions ; I have had such fancies. But honestly 1 
 despise fame, and can hardly imagine how people 
 take so much trouble in pursuing the silly little 
 goddess. To live quietly by one's own fireside, with- 
 out pretension and without notice, is surely better 
 than to sacrifice one's peace to fame, to receive in 
 
30 INWARD STIRRINGS. 
 
 return a few gilded straws ! I shall never be content 
 until I possess three chesnut trees, a field of potatoes, 
 another of corn, and a cabin in some Swiss valley." 
 
 Lacordaire gives an eloquent description of this 
 mental condition from his own experience in a Confer- 
 ence of the year 1850 : — 
 
 " Eighteen years have barely passed over us before 
 we begin to experience longings whose object is neither 
 the flesh, nor love, nor ambition ; nothing, in short, 
 that can take shape or name. Wandering, whether in 
 lonely solitudes or amid the splendid streets of great 
 cities, the youth is weighed down by objectless aspira- 
 tions; he turns from the realities of life as from a 
 prison which stifles his heart, and he seeks from all 
 that is vaguest, most uncertain — from the evening 
 clouds, the autumn winds, the fallen leaves — sensations 
 which feed while they wound him. But all in vain ! 
 the clouds disperse, the winds lull, the leaves decay 
 without teaching him wherefore he suffers, without 
 satisfying his soul more than his mother's tears or his 
 sister's love had satisfied it. O my soul, why art thou 
 so cast down ? Hope in God. Yes, it is God, it is 
 the Infinite stirring in our twenty-year-old hearts 
 which Christ has touched, but which have carelessly 
 strayed from Him, and in which His precious grace, 
 failing to produce its supernatural influence, now stirs 
 the storm which it alone can lull." l 
 1 Conferences, Ix. 
 
OMNIA VAN IT AS! 31 
 
 The oppression became daily greater. "People pro- 
 phesy a brilliant future for me, and yet I am often weary 
 of life. I have no pleasure in anything ; society has 
 little attraction for me ; the theatre bores me ; I am 
 becoming a negation in the order of material things. 
 No enjoyment save self-love remains, and I am wearying 
 even of that. Every day I feel more and more that all 
 is vanity ! I would not lose my heart in this puddle ! " 
 
 His friends, for he had friends, although they were 
 not yet such as could touch the penetralia of his heart, 
 noticed his depression, but they could not understand 
 the cause. They saw less and less of him ; he became 
 preoccupied and absent. Now and then some one 
 caught sight of him in some church, kneeling behind 
 a pillar, motionless, wrapt in meditation. They could 
 not make him out. One young fellow (the same to 
 whom his friendship had been so fervently professed) 
 came to see Lacordaire in his lodgings ; and finding 
 him alone, sitting at his writing-table with his face 
 between his hands, no book, no occupation in hand, 
 he entreated to be told the cause of his trouble, offer- 
 ing a hearty sympathy. Lacordaire thanked him, 
 but kept his secret, promising that when he saw day- 
 light as to his perplexity this man should be one of the 
 first to know. It was not long after that he returned 
 the visit, and utterly overwhelmed his friend by the 
 announcement, " I have made up my mind. I am 
 going to the Seminaire." 
 
32 REVIVAL OF FAITH. 
 
 His own account of this joyful loosening of the 
 bonds which held him must supersede any other : — 
 
 " It was in my weary state of isolation and mental 
 sadness that God came to seek me. No book, no 
 man, was the instrument between Him and me. M. 
 Riambourg had introduced me to the Abbe Gerbet, 
 but in vain. It was also in vain that I had been 
 taken once to a dark room in the Bureau de la Grande 
 Aumonerie to see M. de la Mennais. I felt only 
 curiosity at seeing and talking with him, neither 
 had any Christian oratory won my attention. M. 
 Frayssinous had become Minister of Ecclesiastical 
 Affairs, and no celebrated preacher had taken his 
 place in the pulpits of Paris. At the end of eighteen 
 months I was as much alone as the first day — a 
 stranger to all sides, carried on by no stream, unen- 
 lightened by any influence, upheld by no friendship, 
 cheered by no home delights. Such an entire and 
 severe isolation was a trial unquestionably, but it was 
 part of God's dealing with me. I crossed this desert 
 of my early life in weary toil, unknowing that there 
 were its Sinai, its lightnings, and its flowing waters in 
 store. 
 
 " It is impossible for me to tell the day, the hour, or 
 the manner in which the faith I had lost for ten years 
 reappeared in my heart as a flame not wholly extinct. 
 Theology teaches us that there is another light besides 
 that of reason, another impulse besides that of 
 
"BEHOLD, 1 SEEr 33 
 
 nature, and that this light and impulse, proceeding 
 from God, work while we know not whence they 
 come or whither they go. 'The Spirit bloweth 
 where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, 
 but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it 
 goeth ' (S. John iii. 8). An unbeliever yesterday, 
 a Christian to-day ; certain with an invincible cer- 
 tainty : it was no sudden surrender of my reasoning 
 faculty to an incomprehensible authority j on the con- 
 trary, it was the extension of my sight, a glimpse of 
 all things beneath a wider horizon and a clearer light. 
 Neither was it the instantaneous submission of tem- 
 perament under a strict cold rule, but the develop- 
 ment of its energy by a motive-power beyond nature. 
 Neither was it the renunciation of heart-gladness, but 
 its fulness and exaltation. All that was the man 
 himself remained, only to that was added in him 
 the God who made him. 
 
 " He who has never known such a moment 
 has not fully realised life; a glimpse thereof has 
 entered his veins by inheritance, but the full stream 
 has not swelled into keen energy. It is the actual 
 fulfilment of our Lord's words, ' If a man love Me, he 
 will keep My words : and My Father will love him, 
 and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with 
 him ' (S. John xiv. 23). The two greatest gifts of our 
 nature, truth and beatitude, at once flow to the very 
 centre of being, begetting one another, sustaining one 
 
34 PROMPT DECISION. 
 
 another, creating a mysterious rainbow which tinges 
 all our thoughts, feelings, virtues, and actions, till the 
 last — death— is touched by the light of eternity. 
 Every Christian knows something of this condition, 
 but it is never more clear and vivid than at the hour 
 of conversion, and for that reason one is tempted to 
 say of unbelief when once conquered, what has been 
 said of original sin, Felix culpa. 
 
 "Once a real Christian, the world did not 
 vanish before my eyes ; it rather assumed nobler 
 proportions as I myself did. Instead of a mere 
 empty fleeting theatre of ambition, alike petty whether 
 deluded or achieved, I began to see therein a noble 
 sufferer needing help ; a mighty misfortune resulting 
 from all sorrows of ages past and to come, and I 
 could imagine nothing comparable to the happiness of 
 ministering to it, under the Eye of God, with the help 
 of the Cross and the Gospel of Christ." * 
 
 " A great heart in a little dwelling-place is what has 
 always most deeply moved me," Lacordaire wrote many 
 years later (1846), and of a truth it was no bad 
 characterising of himself. A very great heart his 
 was, that could do nothing feebly or by halves. 
 Directly that his mind was clearly made up, and his 
 unbelief gone, he went straight at the highest point, 
 and without hesitation offered himself as a student 
 at Saint Sulpice. Hesitation or looking back were 
 1 Memoires II. Perreyve, p. 464. 
 
SAINT SULPICE. 35 
 
 utterly foreign to his nature. His own simple 
 announcement of the fact cannot be surpassed : — 
 
 "Paris, May 11, 1824. 
 " My dear Friend, — Few words are needed to say 
 what I have to say, and yet my heart longs to expand. 
 I am giving up the Bar ; we shall never meet there 
 any more j our last five years' dream will not be ful- 
 filled. To-morrow morning I enter the Seminary of 
 Saint Sulpice. Yesterday the world's visions were still 
 in possession of my soul (although Religion was assert- 
 ing her presence), and the aim of my future was fame. 
 To-day I have a higher hope, and on earth I ask 
 but obscurity and peace. I am greatly changed, and 
 honestly I cannot tell you how it has come to pass. 
 When I examine my line of thought during the past 
 five years, my starting-point, the steps of my intellec- 
 tual process, the definitive result of this slow, hard- 
 beset progress, I am amazed, and can only lift up my 
 heart to God. Dear friend, it can only be felt by one 
 who has passed from error to truth, who realises all his 
 former fancies, who can grasp their connection, their 
 incongruous combinations, their gradual course, and 
 so compare them at the divers stages of his convic- 
 tion. It is a sublime moment when the final ray of 
 light pierces the soul, and gathers all stray and scattered 
 truths round their common centre. There is always 
 so mighty a gulf between the moment which follows 
 
36 A SEMINARISTE. 
 
 and that which precedes this same ; between what one 
 was before, and shall be after, that the word grace was 
 perforce invented to express the marvel, the lightning- 
 flash. I seem to see a man blindfold, moving on at 
 haphazard; the veil is loosened, he is conscious of 
 daylight, and then the moment his bandage drops 
 he finds himself face to face with the sun ! " ■ 
 
 In the first moment of surprise and disappointment, 
 for unquestionably Lacordaire's decision was the sacri- 
 fice of a great legal success, his friends and family 
 were inclined to question the reality, the motive of his 
 action. He had told no one but his mother of his 
 intention (" I was certain to meet with nothing but 
 blame," he said, " and I preferred not asking counsel 
 to flying in the face of it when given"), and while 
 asking her consent and blessing, he knew that even to 
 her there would be an element of pain mingled with 
 her thankfulness. " To know that I was a Christian 
 would be unmixed comfort to her, but that I should 
 be a Seminariste would be all the greater blow to her, 
 that I was her favourite child, on whom she had always 
 reckoned as the stay of her declining years. She wrote 
 me six letters, in which her joy and her sorrow 
 struggled touchingly ; but seeing that I was immov- 
 able, she consented to my giving up the world." 
 
 The Vicar-General, M. Borderier, presented Lacor- 
 1 Lettres aux Jeunes Gens, i. 
 
SECULAR LIFE CLOSED. 37 
 
 daire to the Archbishop, Mgr. de Quelen, who received 
 him with fatherly kindness. "You have been pleading 
 perishable causes before the world's bar hitherto," he 
 said to the young lawyer; " henceforth you will defend 
 a just cause, which is eternal. You will find it very 
 variously judged by men, but Above there is a final 
 appeal, where we are certain to win." 
 
 And so it was that Lacordaire closed for ever the 
 chapter of his secular life. At twenty-two he had 
 thoroughly grasped De Chateaubriand's assertion, 
 " In Christian thought lies the world's future," and with 
 him to believe was to act. As he wrote fifteen years 
 later from his Novitiate at La Quercia, "When we 
 become monks, it is with the intention of being monks 
 to the uttermost." * So now he entered Saint Sulpice, 
 going to the branch house, called La Solitude, at Issy, 
 May 12, 1824 (the anniversary of his baptism), re- 
 solved to be a student for the priesthood "jusqu'au 
 cou" and he kept his resolution. 
 
 1 M Quand nous nous faisons moines, c'est avec l'intention de 
 l'etre jusqu'au cou " (Lettres aux Jeunes Gens, p. 131). 
 
38 LA SOLITUDE. 
 
 II. 
 
 ISSY AND ORDINATION. 
 
 ON entering La Solitude at Issy, according to custom, 
 a senior student (since then an archbishop) was 
 told off to befriend Lacordaire, and initiate him into 
 the ways of the house j and he has recorded the frank 
 and simple happiness of his companion's first days as 
 a seminarist, his delight in the bursting leafage, and 
 the spring flowers, and the May sunshine. A young bar- 
 rister, one of Lacordaire's friends, had gone with him 
 to Issy, and when his former master, M. Guillemin, 
 presented the two, asking the seminarist to guess which 
 was his future comrade, he at once pronounced upon 
 the graver, less cheerful man, a mistake which de- 
 lighted Henri Lacordaire. An early letter to one of 
 the friends left behind puts forth his mental position : 
 
 " S£minaire b'Issy, fune 1824. 
 
 " Though you may not recognise my handwriting, 
 
 you were never indifferent to me personally, and I 
 
 have so lately received proofs of your interest and 
 
 recollection, that I am glad to think your friendship 
 
ISSY. 39 
 
 is not estranged at a season which must leave so 
 marked a stamp on my life alike in its cause and its 
 results. You have seen me floating between falsehood 
 and truth, alike friendly to both, because I involun- 
 tarily confused them ; the hour has come when it 
 pleased God to give me light, and to make me realise 
 the helplessness of reason and the necessity of faith. 
 And being thus brought near to you by religious 
 belief, I rejoice to find in you a brother that I fain 
 would have discovered earlier. It is true that I am 
 leaving you, by forsaking the career which you have 
 already made your own ; but if your triumphs cease 
 to be an object of emulation to me, if I dream no 
 more of Miltiades' trophies with a view to being 
 Themistocles, believe me that I shall always rejoice 
 in them, and take pleasure in your success." x 
 
 In after days Lacordaire always spoke of the calm 
 stillness and the serene content of those among whom 
 he found himself at Issy as having made a most lively 
 impression on him. Coming as he did from the noise 
 and clatter of the outer world, his imagination was 
 profoundly touched by the silence, the regularity, and 
 the simplicity of his new home. " I shall never have 
 to say * linquenda domus et placens uxor,' but I hope 
 to contract a marriage bond some day. My bride is 
 lovely, pure, immortal ; and our marriage, celebrated 
 1 Lettres aux Jeunes Gens, p. 60. 
 
40 SYSTEM OF SAINT SULPICE. 
 
 on earth, will find its consummation in heaven." 
 And again, " One night I was at my window watching 
 the moon, her rays falling mildly on our house, one 
 solitary star sparkling above at what seemed an 
 incredible distance. I don't know why I began to 
 compare the smallness and poverty of our abode with 
 the immensity of the vault of heaven, and then 
 thinking of the little band of God's servants in their 
 lowly cells, who have worked such wonders, albeit 
 counted as fools by other men, I was seized with such 
 an irresistible mind to weep over this poor world 
 which does not even know how to look upwards ! " 
 
 The system of Saint Sulpice was precisely what he 
 needed, and he threw himself heartily into it. A 
 friend who followed him there, but was not so amen- 
 able to discipline, remembers how Lacordaire used to 
 say to him, " Depend upon it, mon cher ami, the 
 priest who does not pass through a seminary will 
 never attain the true priestly mind." 
 
 But he was not without his difficulties. He had 
 left the world, as he himself said, so brusquely, without 
 any interval to mould him to the lowly reserve suitable 
 to a theological college, that he found himself invol- 
 untarily unlike the ordinary seminarist ; he was so 
 certain of his own entire sincerity in joining them, 
 that he did not put sufficient guard over the impulses 
 of his intellectual capacity, which had been trained to 
 so much of discussion and argument \ and his voca- 
 
ROUTINE OF LIFE. 41 
 
 tion became soon a matter of suspicion among his 
 surroundings. But of this he was unconscious, and 
 gave himself up to the life of devotion and study which 
 he delighted in. The routine of Issy was acceptable 
 to him. At five a.m. the students rose, and after an 
 hour's meditation, met in the chapel, which was in the 
 garden. Lacordaire delighted in the long, silent 
 procession of white surplices through the bright, sunny 
 gardens of early summer. Returning at seven to his 
 cell, he made his own bed, and then the hours of 
 study were thorough happiness to him. At this time 
 he read the Bible largely and prayerfully, and hence- 
 forward it never ceased to be part of his daily life. 
 " What do I do in my solitude ? " he writes. " I 
 give myself up to study and the meditation I always 
 loved. I see more and more daily that there is no truth 
 without religion, and that it only solves the endless 
 difficulties before which philosophy is helpless. My 
 powers of thought ripen from not being obliged to 
 disperse and scatter what little they attain. My mind 
 is like a field lying open to the ministering dews of 
 heaven." 
 
 Recreation-time was one of his perils, as seen by 
 the worthy directors of the college. His lively, 
 original, impulsive nature, full (as his friend Pere 
 Chocarne says) of " French liveliness, seasoned with 
 Burgundian wit," 1 burst out from time to time in 
 1 ' ' Cette gallica leviias, assaisonnee de malice bourguignonne. " 
 
42 EXUBERANT LIFE. 
 
 sallies of wit and fun, which astounded his superiors, 
 and which they were prompt to repress. On one 
 occasion he took special umbrage at the ugly, square 
 cap worn by the seminarists, and after a war of epigrams 
 there began a war of extermination ; Lacordaire seized 
 the obnoxious articles from his companions' heads and 
 burned them ! Tumult and innovation ! two things 
 held in the utmost horror at Saint Sulpice ! but a quiet 
 word from the Principal, and the storm lulled instantly. 
 Not that Lacordaire ever showed the smallest lack of 
 subordination in spite of his liveliness and impulsive- 
 ness, so that the good Superiors were often perplexed 
 by the seeming contradictoriness of his character. All 
 his fellow-students liked him j the freshness and 
 poetry of his nature, the free, loving warmth which 
 had now found full vent, made him infinitely 
 attractive to the young men surrounding him, 
 and if the authorities did not always understand or 
 appreciate him, his fellow-students evidently did. 
 However, the Superior-General of the Congregation, 
 Abbe Gamier, saw farther than some others could, 
 and towards the end of Lacordaire's first year of 
 theology he took his hand one day, saying, 
 " Mon cher ami, I shall summon you next year to our 
 Paris house, and make you maitre de conferences ; for 
 you must study theology thoroughly, without it the 
 most splendid talents want foundation. And I shall 
 make you a catechist, that you may exercise your gift 
 
THE ONE AIM. 43 
 
 of speech." Then with a sudden movement of 
 fatherly kindliness, the venerable old man patted his 
 shoulder, adding, " And I should like to be your con- 
 fessor too." This was the beginning of an unfailing, 
 lifelong friendship. 
 
 Unquestionably the sudden plunge from public life 
 into one almost monastic was a trial, but to Lacordaire 
 it was a trial of infinite value. Face to face with a 
 great reality, he set himself to consider the true object 
 of his life — his aim, and that which would be his chief 
 hindrance in accomplishing the same. " My aim is 
 to make known Jesus Christ to those who know Him 
 not, to contribute to the perpetuation of a divine 
 religion, to alleviate as many sorrows and avert as 
 much sin as is possible ; and my danger is the desire of 
 fame — of being spoken of." But few letters of this 
 period remain. In one of these, only dated " Issy, 
 1825," we find him saying : — 
 
 " You do not know one thing that delights me, a 
 sort of renewing of my boyhood, I mean that age 
 which comes between childhood and youth, with 
 moral powers which belong to a riper age. While 
 at school one is still too childish, one doesn't suffi- 
 ciently appreciate the value of men and things, 
 one is too wanting in perception to know how to 
 choose and bind to oneself friends. The higher 
 links of friendship escape such feeble minds, such 
 unformed intellects. And then later on, in the world, 
 
44 TRUSTFULNESS. 
 
 one has no longer the power of creating solid ties, 
 either because men do not live in such close contact, 
 or because interest and self-love slip in even to the 
 purest unions, or because the heart is less free in the 
 midst of social stir and action. Friendship has a 
 better chance amid a hundred and forty young men 
 who see each other constantly, and are in perpetual 
 contact ; who are all like chosen plants transplanted 
 into solitude. I take great delight in winning affec- 
 tion, in retaining somewhat of the world's courtesy in 
 a seminary, in snatching some worldly grace. Simpler, 
 more communicative, more accessible than I was ; 
 free from that desire to shine which had such hold 
 upon me, untroubled as to my future, with which I 
 am content, be it what it may ; dreaming of poverty 
 as I once dreamt of fortune, I live quietly with my 
 companions and with myself." 1 
 
 There is another letter written to a friend at the 
 same period, which we must quote as bearing strik- 
 ingly on his mental position : — 
 
 " Issy, 27/^ May 1825. 
 
 "We are accustomed, cherami, to speak unreservedly 
 of all that interests us, and I use this freedom to-day 
 to say that I should very much like to know where- 
 abouts you are as to the grandest subject of human 
 thought. When I left you, your religious belief was 
 almost nil ; but neither of us had then sufficiently 
 1 Lettres aux Jeunes Gens, iii. 
 
LETTER TO A FRIEND IN THE WORLD. 45 
 
 pondered those weighty questions which sooner or 
 later fix the attention of all men who are capable of 
 understanding and discussing them. It appertains 
 only to very weak minds to give themselves up to the 
 stream of life without once asking whither it is leading 
 them, without feeling surprise at what they do, with- 
 out imitating the savage, who, hearing of the arrival of 
 a missionary, hurries to him to ask, ' Men say you 
 know where the Great Spirit is ? Point me to Him ! ' 
 Doubtless, cher ami, you have often thought of that 
 Invisible Spirit Who made all we behold, and Who 
 has given to us our little corner in the infinite course 
 of ages ; you have often sought after the object of 
 His work and of your own existence. You have not 
 imitated the men who eat, drink, and sleep, gather a 
 few hundred pounds together yearly, and call that life ! 
 Like all noble souls, you realise the vanity of human 
 things, you lift your eyes to the countless worlds 
 which surround us, and teach us how small we are 
 in His Eyes Who has created these limitless regions 
 as a finite image of Himself; and the silence of those 
 endless generations who have already fretted the 
 earth disgusts you with the noise our own would fain 
 make in the world; you look into your heart and 
 find there a void which nothing can fill save the 
 truth. Is not this the condition of your soul ? But 
 where shall truth be found ? Men have ever chased 
 this phantom which continually escapes them, the 
 
46 SEARCH AFTER TRUTH. 
 
 first intellects of every age have devoted themselves 
 almost in vain to the glorious search, and they have 
 barely handed down to us as a certain heritage the 
 existence of God, natural law, and the immortality 
 of the soul. Philosophy is a subject of endless dis- 
 putes, and its empire over morals practically nought ; 
 you know it as well as I do. But, cher ami, we 
 have a resource — Religion. We say that there is a 
 religion, that is, a body of truths which God has 
 revealed to men, which contains all their duties, and 
 likewise the secret of their origin and their destiny. 
 We say that this religion is completely stored in a 
 book which is itself the history of the oldest people 
 in the world, and that they remain to this day bearing 
 witness to this book. For eighteen hundred years 
 this has been so; the greatest men have lived and 
 died in this belief. Moreover, never was there a 
 religion more pathetic, more sublime, worthier of 
 God ; and the whole world admits that if there be a 
 true religion, it is assuredly this. Consequently the 
 search after truth is reduced to two points : Is an 
 external divine revelation possible ? Is the Christian 
 revelation true ? The first embraces all general 
 difficulties as to revelation considered in itself and 
 a priori, that is to say, independently of this or that 
 fact; the second includes whatever can be raised 
 against the reality of revelation as given to earth by 
 Christ, the Son of God. If it be true that God can- 
 
ITS CONDITIONS. 47 
 
 not reveal to mankind things which He has hidden 
 from human reason ; if it be true that Christianity is 
 a tissue of sublime imposture, no need to seek 
 further; rather we must sit down and weep that 
 man has been thus cast upon the earth by an unknown 
 force, and with destinies so uncertain. No, cher 
 ami, such is not our lot; you will not reach this 
 dreary result if you love truth, if you seek it ardently 
 and heartily, if you are resolved to obey it when 
 found. For these three conditions are indispensable 
 to success in this all-important undertaking, and 
 nothing is rarer than their combination. Men do not 
 love the truth, they do not seek it honestly, they are 
 not resolved to practise it. Hearken to Him Who 
 knew all things : Hoc est autem judicium : ' That light 
 is come into the world, and men loved darkness 
 rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For 
 every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither 
 cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be re- 
 proved.' 1 
 
 "O cher ami, you are still, like myself, young, 
 still full of youthful simplicity of heart, you have not 
 the weight of fifty years of faults and mistakes upon 
 you, you are worthy to love and know the truth. 
 Are you certain that the Christian religion is false ? 
 If you fancy yourself certain, ask yourself what are 
 your grounds of certainty, on what you rest ; you will 
 x S. John iii. 19, 20. 
 
48 A FIRST SERMON. 
 
 see that your mind has nothing precise, positive, con- 
 nected, nothing that can assure your conscience 
 against the charge of temerity. If you are not 
 absolutely certain that it is false, surely you are 
 bound to study it, not only in the writings of enemies, 
 but in those of its defenders. We will talk the 
 subject over as often as you please. Happy the 
 friends who are of one mind in religious matters. 
 Adieu ! " * 
 
 Meanwhile some sort of a cloud seemed to hang 
 over the ardent, intellectual seminarist. His eager- 
 ness in discussion, his readiness to admit all manner 
 of pleas on behalf of reason, the bold, original form 
 in which his questions were put, not unfrequently 
 somewhat to the embarrassment of his professors ; — 
 all these things frightened the worthy men who were 
 at the head of the college. A custom prevailed by 
 which the students in turn preached in hall during 
 dinner, and here it was that the future orator of Notre 
 Dame delivered his first sermons. But although they 
 excited the enthusiasm of his fellow-students, these 
 discourses were not quite akin to the respectable 
 dead-level approved of by the authorities. Lacordaire 
 narrates the tale of one of his discourses. " I preached, 
 that is to say, I made my voice heard through the 
 clatter of plates and forks in a refectory where one 
 1 Lettres aux Jeunes Gens, iv. 
 
MISUNDERSTANDINGS. 49 
 
 hundred and thirty persons were eating. I can 
 hardly conceive a more unfavourable position for an 
 orator than speaking to men at dinner ; and Cicero 
 would never have achieved his orations during the 
 senators' dinner unless he had made them drop their 
 forks at his first phrase ! how much less if he had 
 had to speak to them of the Incarnation ! Yet this is 
 what I was obliged to do, and I confess that, at the air 
 of indifference on every face, the sight of men who did 
 not appear to be paying the smallest attention, but 
 were fixing their whole energy on their plates, I was 
 strongly tempted to shy my square cap at their heads ! 
 So I came down with a firm persuasion that I had 
 preached atrociously. I swallowed my own dinner 
 hurriedly, and going out I speedily found that my 
 discourse had been effective, and that the men were 
 struck with it. I confine myself to this phrase, which 
 is quite sufficiently conceited, and will not record the 
 opinions, judgments, flatteries, counsels, and so forth 
 given me." 
 
 It was all very well for his fellow-students to pass 
 so favourable a judgment, but Lacordaire's superiors 
 were less indulgent ; nor can it be wondered at. One 
 of his greatest friends has remarked that if Saint 
 Sulpice had not the grace to appreciate the future 
 facile princeps of sacred eloquence, at least it had the 
 wisdom to warn his contemporaries against a style of 
 preaching, imitation of which would have been fatal. 
 
 D 
 
5o ORDINATION. 
 
 Anyhow, two years and a half passed by, and Lacor- 
 daire was still not ordained. His quiet patience 
 under what must have been a great trial is very 
 remarkable ; but at length, when he fairly took in the 
 hesitation of those set over him, he turned his thoughts 
 seriously to the religious life, and began to prepare 
 himself for joining the Jesuits. Who can tell how 
 materially his career would have been altered had he 
 been permitted to carry out this intention ? Lacor- 
 daire actually took some steps towards its accomplish- 
 ment, but the venerable Archbishop of Paris, Mgr. 
 de Quelen, who appreciated the young orator more 
 truly than his Saint Sulpice superiors, quashed the 
 idea, and then M. Gamier came forward and explained 
 to the Council his more penetrating views as to the 
 seminarist. These worthy men were ready to admit 
 their mistake, and to lay aside their doubts : he was 
 at once ordained deacon, and on September 22, 1827, 
 the Archbishop gave him priest's orders in his private 
 chapel. On the 25th he wrote, "My desire is achieved, 
 three days since I became a priest. Sacerdos in 
 cetemum secundem ordinem Melchisedeck." 
 
 It was between these two eventful periods of his 
 life that Lacordaire wrote a letter to a friend which 
 foreshadows his future work, and in which we seem 
 to see the preacher of Notre Dame girding on his 
 sword for the battle of Christ before him : — 
 
LETTER TO A SCEPTIC. 51 
 
 "Aug. 14, 1827. 
 
 " I have heard you say several times, cher ami, 
 that you fully realised the importance of a serious reli- 
 gious study ; but at the same time you felt yourself 
 so distracted by the work which was indispensable to 
 your daily needs that you must await a more timely 
 and free opportunity. Now God's Providence has 
 given you this, and at twenty-five, without any great 
 exertion, you find yourself free from the too often 
 painful solicitude concerning your career which besets 
 many a man. So you will not be surprised if I call 
 to mind, if not your promise, at least your former 
 longings. 
 
 " From an earthly point of view, cher ami, it matters 
 little to me whether you are a Christian or a sceptic : 
 in this life it makes no difference to me. Our friend- 
 ship is not bound up with any creed ; it began in the 
 wilderness of irreligion, when we both looked at the 
 heavens with alike doubting eyes. That origin has 
 created points of contact which can never be oblite- 
 rated. And if voluntary error in what concerns reli- 
 gious belief had no ultimate consequences, I should 
 give little heed to lead you to an examination which 
 would merely tend to your intellectual perfecting. 
 But if so be that there is a true religion, that is to say, 
 one which comes from God, clearly those who deli- 
 berately reject it without cause will be called to give 
 account for their contempt. 'Are we blind also?' 
 
52 " WE SEE. 
 
 the Pharisees said to Jesus Christ when He reproached 
 them with their unbelief. ' If ye were blind, ye should 
 have no sin,' was His answer : ' but now ye say, 
 We see; therefore your sin remaineth.' So who- 
 soever might see and yet has shut his eyes, his 
 sin remaineth. Suppose then that there is such a 
 thing as a true religion, which at all events is possible, 
 there are but two answers available before God, '/ 
 have seen] or, ' I could not see.' Any man who is not 
 certain as to one or other reply is obviously casting 
 himself headlong over the precipice, unless he be sure 
 that religion is an impossible thing. But how can he 
 be sure ? Surely it will be a sorry plea to say, ' Lord, 
 I never examined the question, because I was con- 
 vinced that no religion was worthy Thee ' ? The very 
 least one owes to the multitude of men who have be- 
 lieved is to look on it as possible, for otherwise they 
 have believed what of necessity was false, a thing that 
 could not be true. And is that to be supposed? 
 So I repeat, at the Judgment Day there will be two 
 answers only available — ' I have seen,' ' I could not 
 see.' So far you cannot give the first. Could you 
 give the alternative ? could you give it a few years 
 hence ? and when into one scale God puts the mental 
 power, the leisure, the opportunities He has given you, 
 what will you produce as counterbalance ? 
 
 " Perhaps you will reply, Is religion to be studied 
 thus? Is it a mere question of books? I do not 
 
THE KNOWLEDGE OF TRUTH. 53 
 
 see why it should be unworthy of God to require that 
 every man might come to the knowledge of truth by 
 means proportioned to the development of his moral 
 powers, so that the Tree of Life, on its various levels, 
 should be nearer in proportion as the hand stretched 
 out is lower down. This would only be in accord- 
 ance with Divine Goodness, and worthy of His Justice. 
 What matter either to God or to men if generations 
 go on to meet Him by one same path or by many ? 
 There is order wheresoever we find concord between 
 the end and the means, however varied these may be. 
 All the same, I am ready to grant that books and 
 deep learning did not form part of God's primitive 
 design, and that He had chosen the line of a power- 
 ful, unassailed general tradition. But observe that 
 possibly nothing at the present day is precisely as it 
 might have been. For instance, God created men 
 for a social life, the individual feeble, society all- 
 powerful. If a man separates himself and goes to 
 make his own life amid the forests of another world, 
 has he a right in his old age to accuse his Creator of 
 the ills he endures, and for which his solitude affords 
 no remedy ? 
 
 "But this is what the unbeliever does. He has 
 overthrown the ordinary providential lines in general 
 teaching, he has raised up school against school, he 
 has darkened the sun with clouds, and his children 
 complain that they cannot see. Everything to which 
 
54 NOT S TUD Y AL ONE. 
 
 man has put his hand is no longer God's work only j 
 the moral world has become like Corinthian ore, in 
 which gold and silver were melted down with vile 
 metals. To call Him to account for all that has 
 thrust itself into religion, is an error and an injustice. 
 At the last day we shall see what was His design, and 
 comparing it with the result, we shall justify Him by 
 our shame at having substituted our wretched ima- 
 ginations for His Will. 
 
 " If you had been born three centuries back, with 
 your present intellect and position, you would have 
 been a Christian, and an enlightened one; you are 
 only not so actually because for three hundred years 
 men have toiled to bring about your unbelief. Is 
 that God's fault ? 
 
 "'Anyhow, it is not mine!' you will perhaps say. 
 No, not if you have profited by the grace given you, 
 not if you make use of the means He has sup- 
 plied to you in reparation of your forerunners' faults. 
 There is one such which must be combined with 
 study, for study rarely converts any one : La Harpe 
 admits it in a discourse on the study of the Psalms, 
 in which he records the fresh impressions made upon 
 him by reading Holy Scripture ; pointing out how 
 different these are when a man studies from a literary 
 point of view, and from a sincere desire to know the 
 truth. We only find what we wish to find because 
 we only seek that which we desire. Fenelon and 
 
PR A YER. 
 
 55 
 
 Voltaire were both highly intellectual men ; one wept 
 and adored as he read Holy Scripture, the other 
 only found material for scoffing. Let me say it with 
 all Christian frankness, there is nothing but prayer 
 which can fit the heart to accept the Faith. Why 
 should you be ashamed to pray to Him Whose 
 Omnipotence and Infinite Light you acknowledge ? I 
 have seen you seeking to worship Him after your 
 own fashion. Why not say bravely, 'Lord, I have 
 fallen upon times in which truth is clouded by strife : 
 mighty subjects are questioned on all sides, while I 
 cannot disentangle truth from falsehood. I can see 
 nought save darkness, division, doubt. Teach me 
 what to do, give me a hearty desire to know Thee ' ? 
 Cher ami, he who prays and seeks will never perish. 
 When God foresaw all the strife that would rage 
 against Christ, and the dark veil which impiety would 
 drop between Himself and men, He gave them 
 prayer as their safety. So long as men can pray, 
 they can be saved ; and every man who has refused 
 to pray will be without excuse before God's tribunal, 
 inasmuch as every man knows that He Is, and know- 
 ing that, it is childish and unreal not to pray to Him. 
 Believe me, this is a universal experience ; conversion 
 is only the effect of prayer, and that fact is a proof of 
 the divinity of our religion. Truth is the work of 
 silence and of reflection. Argument teaches nothing. 
 Adieu." 
 
56 PROMOTION REJECTED. 
 
 III. 
 
 DE LA MENNAIS— THE A VENIR— ROME- 
 LA CHESNAIE. 
 
 THE great step was taken, and Lacordaire was a 
 priest. But he did not at once decide upon 
 his future course. That ambition was not his ruling 
 influence may be emphatically asserted in view of an 
 offer made to him shortly after his ordination. The 
 Abbe Boyer, a learned and saintly Sulpician, the friend 
 and counsellor of Mgr. Frayssinous, 1 one day addressed 
 Lacordaire with the somewhat startling announce- 
 ment that he wished to make him a cardinal ! On ex- 
 planation it appeared that Mgr. Frayssinous had asked 
 the Abbe to find a suitable young priest to be appointed 
 in the place of Mgr. d'lsoard as Auditeur de Rote at 
 the Vatican, a post which invariably led on to high 
 ecclesiastical position. The minister required a man 
 
 1 M. Boyer himself refused the important post of Vicar- 
 General of Paris. Charles X. once asked Mgr. Frayssinous who 
 the friend was to whom he so often referred for counsel. " Sire, 
 he lives in a garret at Saint Sulpice," was the reply. "Oh, then, 
 that is why you never suggest sending him up any higher ! " the 
 king answered with a smile. 
 
CHAPLAINCY OF THE VISITANDINES. 57 
 
 of solid learning as well as brilliancy — one who would 
 represent France creditably — and M. Boyer knew no 
 one whose gifts better suited him to fill the office than 
 Lacordaire. Startled by the sudden proposition, the 
 future Dominican was not carried away by it, and 
 quietly answered that he had taken Orders with one 
 only aim, to serve Christ's Church by his gift of speak- 
 ing, which he felt to be his true vocation. If he had 
 sought honour, he would have remained in the world, 
 he said. His wish was to remain an obscure priest, 
 probably some day to become a Religious. The good 
 Abbe was proceeding to argue the point, and prove 
 that in an important office at Rome there was a 
 larger sphere of work to be done for God \ but Lacor- 
 daire entreated him to say no more, referring him to the 
 Superior-General, M. Gamier, who knew all his mind, 
 and would confirm his resolution. 1 Shortly afterwards 
 he accepted the Archbishop of Paris's offer of the 
 chaplaincy to a convent of Visitandines. This office 
 involved little more than the religious and spiritual 
 teaching of a girls' school, but Lacordaire devoted 
 himself to doing this humble work as thoroughly as 
 possible. His pupils had to write out the substance of 
 his instructions, and he took the pains to read all 
 
 1 The appointment was actually given to Mgr. de Retz, who 
 died holding it. His successors were Mgrs. de Segur ; de la Tour- 
 d'Auvergne, Archbishop of Bourges ; Lavigerie, Bishop of 
 Nancy ; and Mgr. Place, Bishop of Marseilles. 
 
58 A SOLITARY LIFE. 
 
 these childish papers, and to correct them himself. 
 The good nuns were not especially satisfied; they 
 complained that the Abbe Lacordaire was too meta- 
 physical, and they were probably right. His instruc- 
 tions were quite over the children's heads; and though 
 they admired him very much, they could not under- 
 stand him. 
 
 The time, however, was very valuable to him ; he 
 led an exceedingly quiet, almost solitary life, so much 
 so as to almost frighten his mother, who came to live 
 with him. " She knew my nature to be affectionate," 
 he wrote, " and she used sometimes to say plaintively, 
 ' You have no friends here ! ' It was true ; I had 
 none, nor was I to have them until things had happened 
 which were to change all around, my own lot included." 
 But the consequence was that he was able to give 
 himself up to study. 
 
 " Strength comes from the fountain-head," he wrote, 
 " and I mean to seek it. It will be hard work, the 
 rather that I mean to gather as I go everything which 
 will be of use in that defence of Catholicism which 
 has not yet assumed its definite shape in my mind, 
 but the materials for which surround me in Holy 
 Scripture, the Fathers, history, and philosophy. Every- 
 thing which so far I have read in the shape of a 
 defence of religion seems to me feeble or imperfect. 
 Modern theologians cannot move independently of a 
 guide. It is just like tourists in Switzerland : if some 
 
PREPARATION. 59 
 
 famous traveller has taken any particular road, every- 
 body follows him, and men pass by paths which lead 
 to unnoticed beauties simply because they have not 
 been made historical." 
 
 It is remarkable to find Lacordaire thus from the very 
 first contemplating that career which he so wondrously 
 filled as time went on. The strength of judgment and 
 absence of vanity (in spite of that love of fame which 
 he spoke of as his great peril) which enabled him to 
 put aside present brilliant prospects in stedfast pursuit 
 of his true aim were strongly displayed now. His 
 friends were anxious to see him put his mark, which 
 they knew he was so capable of doing, on the time, and 
 pressed him to make himself heard, speaking or writing. 
 
 " No. I am at present studying," he replied. " I 
 am growing older, it is time to be reasonable, and 
 to face life with steady gaze, undazzled by sunshine 
 and youth. Let us be just towards God : He has 
 not made men for celebrity, which few attain, and 
 still fewer value when attained. He sees the 
 littleness of this world too entirely to give His 
 children so frivolous a task; He has made the 
 stars to turn us from such delusions. Glory is the 
 illusion of childhood, and of those who never get any 
 further ; but he who attains to it is heedless thereof, 
 he has got beyond that. The wise man is self- 
 sufficing, he has not to wait thirty years to know how 
 much the great coteries we call nations are worth : he 
 
6o COLLEGE HENRL LV. 
 
 seeks the welfare and honesty of those who are 
 dependent on him, he cleaves to that corner of the 
 earth where Providence has placed him, and if he is 
 endowed with one of those vast geniuses to which 
 the world barely suffices, he craves yet more for 
 solitude. He appreciates his contemporaries too 
 well not to count it a happy thing to eat his onions 
 and his wood-cherries far from them. The mania to 
 be something great is the destruction of modern men, 
 and if we should ever have a really great man, he will 
 come forth from some fisher's hut or some charcoal- 
 burner's hovel. The greatest of all glories, that of 
 God, was born in solitude." 
 
 Towards the close of the year 1828, Lacordaire 
 was made chaplain to the College Henri IV., and in 
 its work he found a more congenial sphere ; still 
 persevering, however, in his studious and solitary life. 
 He was earnestly occupied reading Saint Augustine, 
 Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Church history, and the 
 writings of M. de la Mennais, with whom he was to 
 be so closely allied ere long. It was in the spring of 
 1830 that he suddenly resolved to go to la Chesnaie 
 and see the man of whom he said that he was " the 
 only great man in the Church of France." They had 
 only met twice for a few moments, but those clergy 
 with whom Lacordaire was intimate were de la Mennais' 
 friends, and he felt powerfully drawn to him. 
 
 " Having reached Dinan," he wrote, " I plunged 
 
LA CHESNAIE. 61 
 
 alone into the by-paths of the wood, and occasionally 
 asking my way, found myself at a lonely sombre house, 
 the mysterious fame of which was untroubled by any 
 tumult. This was la Chesnaie. M. de la Mennais, 
 who was prepared for my visit and my co-operation, 
 received me cordially. The Abbe Gerbet, his most 
 intimate disciple, and some dozen young men who had 
 clustered around him, were there, the seed with which 
 he hoped to fertilise the world with his ideas and 
 projects. This visit, while it gave me many a shock, 
 did not sever the link which bound me to the illus- 
 trious author. His philosophy had never taken a 
 distinct hold of my understanding, his Absolutist 
 politics had always been repulsive to me, and his 
 theology filled me with a dread that he could not be 
 reckoned upon as safely orthodox. But, nevertheless, 
 it was too late ; after eight years of hesitation, I gave 
 myself up voluntarily, though without enthusiasm, to 
 the school which up to that point had failed to subject 
 my sympathies or my convictions." 
 
 The idea of devoting himself to foreign missions 
 had at this time taken great hold of Lacordaire, and 
 it was strengthened by the Bishop of New York, whom 
 he met at la Chesnaie, and who offered him the post 
 of his Vicar-General. He had a great desire to visit 
 America, and to study her liberties, social and ecclesi- 
 astical. It must be borne in mind that, as he himself 
 has said, he had come at his religion through his social 
 
62 ADVANCED LIBERALISM. 
 
 creed. Society was a necessity. Society could not be 
 without religion, nor religion without Christianity, nor 
 Christianity without the Church. Thus society and 
 the Church were the two ends of the chain, how were 
 they to be united? And this problem, he believed, might 
 best be studied in America. His advanced Liberalism 
 was already in straits. He felt that the inalienable 
 and divine right to speak all that he held to be truth 
 was " cribbed, cabined, and confined " by the political 
 circumstances of his country. " The word of truth 
 was committed to me," he said a little later, "and I 
 was bound to carry it to the end of the world, no one 
 having a right to seal my lips for one single day. I 
 came forth charged with this mighty commission, and 
 on the very threshold of God's temple I encountered 
 legal slavery. The law forbade me to teach the youth 
 of France under a most Christian king ; and if I had 
 resolved, as my ancestors did, to plunge into a solitude, 
 there to build a peaceful house of prayer, fresh laws 
 would have been routed out to drive me thence." 
 Since his ordination he had seen the Jesuits' colleges 
 suppressed, and various other aggressions upon religious 
 liberty on the part of the Government. Gallicanism, 
 that Ark of the Covenant, was imperilled, and must 
 needs be fenced, while his spirit wearied under what 
 he felt to be injustice and oppression. " Weary of the 
 scenes which I confronted on all sides in France," he 
 said a little later, " I resolved to seek that hospitality 
 
THE ''AVENIR" FOUNDED. 63 
 
 which the laws of America have never refused to the 
 traveller or the priest." The Revolution of 1830 
 only served to give point to his perceptions as to the 
 subjection of the Church to the State. Accordingly 
 Lacordaire sought and obtained the consent of both 
 his mother and the Archbishop of Paris, and he had 
 actually gone to Dijon to take leave of his family and 
 friends before leaving France, when a letter from the 
 Abbe Gerbet completely changed his plans. This 
 letter set before him the proposed establishment of 
 the famous Avenir newspaper, calling upon him to 
 give his adhesion and co-operation in a work intended 
 to be at once catholic and national, set on foot with 
 the object of freeing religion from the trammels under 
 which it was fettered, and thereby of bringing about a 
 complete and happy change in the social life of France. 
 M. de la Mennais was prepared to throw over the 
 Absolutist party to which he had hitherto adhered, and 
 to accept the Revolution of 1830. Lacordaire's satis- 
 faction was great, and he threw himself enthusiasti- 
 cally into the movement. All feeling of isolation 
 passed away; fascinated already by de la Mennais' 
 great personal gifts, he beheld in him the saviour of re- 
 ligious liberty in France ; whatever was to be found in 
 America seemed about to be brought to pass at home, 
 and he was not the man to desert his country when 
 there was a battle to fight. Without a moment's 
 delay he threw up all his plans of travel, and took his 
 
64 RELIGIOUS AND MORAL LIBERTY. 
 
 unflinching stand beside de la Mennais and his little 
 band. The founders of the Avenir professed respect 
 for the Charte and the law, but beyondt hat the most 
 entire independence as regarded the powers that be. 
 Liberty of the press and war to the knife upon 
 arbitrary privilege, freedom of education and abolition 
 of a university monopoly, liberty of association and 
 war upon the old anti-monastic laws which had been 
 revived in an evil day ; liberty, i.e. moral independence 
 for the clergy, and war against the Budget des Cultes. 
 The only limitations assigned to these liberties were 
 vague and general, and even these were not unfre- 
 quently outstepped in the eagerness of discussion. 
 " It must be confessed," writes one of Lacordaire's 
 friends, " that they were more keen to obtain their 
 object than to forestall its abuse. Too radical in its 
 principles, their doctrine became still more so in 
 practice. ' Liberty is not to be given, but taken,' was 
 their cry, and they carried out the precept. Every 
 morning they charged their foes afresh, every day they 
 recorded new victories. They addressed the clergy as 
 an army ready for battle ; they lashed out furiously, 
 goading on the dilatory, pillorying deserters. The 
 enemy was given no quarter : philosophers, iconoclasts, 
 ministers, ombres de proconsul, universitarians, bour- 
 geois, Gallicans, all found themselves attacked at once. 
 Resistance only kindled their fire ; the sun was for 
 ever going down too soon upon their warlike ardour ; 
 
VEHEMENT UTTERANCES. 65 
 
 patience and consideration found little favour in their 
 strategy. To-morrow was nowhere in their calculations, 
 everything must be had to-day ; they were prepared 
 to wrest forcibly and at the sword's edge whatever 
 was not readily conceded. This haughty, antagonistic 
 attitude, this want of experience of men and things, 
 more excusable in the younger disciples than in their 
 leader, seems to us the great evil of the Avenir. Error 
 and exaggeration would have been corrected by time, 
 counsel, and the practical teaching of facts. But these 
 haughty, intolerant utterances, specially coming from 
 the lips of clergy, disturbed even their friends. The 
 responsibility of this false position fell chiefly upon de 
 la Mennais and Lacordaire. It was the latter who 
 wrote the fiercest diatribes, and faced the most burning 
 questions. The articles on the suppression of the 
 Clerical Budget were written by him. It is true that 
 later on Lacordaire sought to refute himself in the Ere 
 Nouvelle, taking up the opposite side of the question 
 as to the suppression of the Budget des Cultes ; but if 
 law and justice are to be found in the newspaper of 
 1848, assuredly all verve and warmth are in that of 
 1830." " 
 
 Still, amid these outbursts and excesses, the writers 
 of the Avenir were possessed with the most perfect 
 bonne foi, purity of purpose, and uprightness of inten- 
 tion ; and the universal chaos of opinion, the division 
 1 Chocarne, i. 115. 
 E 
 
66 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 of parties, the strange and unascertained position of 
 the clergy, together with the too obvious enmity of 
 Government, questionable episcopal appointments, 
 and the many sensational events which were daily 
 occurring in consequence of the sort of guerilla warfare 
 between Church and State, must be taken largely into 
 account in judging them. And unquestionably they 
 were a bulwark and a protection to the Church. The 
 Avenir often brought to bear a powerful weapon upon 
 some act of gross oppression or insult to the Church, 
 and her oppressors often winced under the stinging 
 scourge which descended so vehemently upon them. 
 Lacordaire was generally the author of these pungent 
 inflictions. 
 
 It was at this period, just a month after the Avenir 
 was started, that Montalembert saw the man for the 
 first time who was to become his dearest friend. The 
 Ordonnances of Charles X. of July 1830, published 
 without consent of Parliament, and so seriously affect- 
 ing the freedom of elections and the liberty of the 
 press, were followed by the famous Three Days, the 
 overthrow of the Legitimate dynasty, and Louis Philippe 
 became king. Montalembert was at this time in 
 Ireland, whence he hastened at once to throw himself 
 impetuously into the cause, to him so sacred, of God 
 and Liberty. 1 The young men met in de la Mennais' 
 study, where a few laymen and a few priests gathered 
 1 The motto of the Avenir was " Dieu et la Liberte." 
 
FIRST MEETING. 67 
 
 round their leader. None among them was intimate 
 with Lacordaire, who had never put himself forward 
 as a disciple of de la Mennais. Montalembert's own 
 description of the meeting is too striking to change 
 a word : "I saw both men then for the first time ; 
 dazzled and impressed by the one, I felt more plea- 
 santly and naturally attracted by the other. If I could 
 but describe him as he struck me then, in all the 
 charm and brilliancy of youth ! He was twenty-eight, 
 dressed as a layman (for the condition of Paris made 
 it unsafe for priests to be canonically clothed), his 
 height, his regular, well-cut features, his statue-like brow, 
 the noble poise of his head, his dark sparkling eyes, 
 the something indefinable that was proud and refined 
 as well as modest in his whole person, — all this was 
 merely the wrapping of a soul which seemed ready 
 to overflow, not only in the free field of public oratory, 
 but in the intimacies of private life. His fiery glance 
 sent forth treasures both of fierceness and tenderness, 
 seeking not only enemies to overthrow, but hearts to 
 win. His voice, naturally clear and vibrante, often 
 fell into accents of the most intense sweetness. Born 
 to fight and to love, he already bore the stamp of a 
 double royalty — that of soul and intellect. He struck 
 me as full of charm, and yet terrible ; as the very type 
 of all holy enthusiasm, of goodness armed on behalf 
 of truth. He seemed to me one of the elect, predes- 
 tined to all that young men most worship and desire 
 
68 MUTUAL ATTRACTION. 
 
 — genius and glory. But more attracted by the calm 
 pleasures of Christian friendship than by the distant 
 echoes of fame, he taught me that these great ex- 
 ternal struggles only partly touch us ; that they leave 
 us the power to seek the heart's life foremost, and that 
 the day begins and ends in proportion as some cher- 
 ished memory rises or sets in the soul. Such was the 
 tone in which he spoke to me, adding, ' Alas ! we 
 should love nought save the infinite, and therefore it 
 is that when we love, the object of love takes such 
 hold upon the soul.' The day after this our first 
 meeting, Lacordaire took me to hear his mass, which 
 he used to say in the chapel of a small convent in the 
 Quartier Latin ; and we began at once to care for one 
 another as pure and generous hearts do care when 
 they meet beneath the fire of a common enemy." ■ 
 
 Lacordaire's version of the meeting is not less 
 characteristic. " He is charming, and I love him as 
 if he were a plebeian. I am positive that if he lives, 
 his future will be as pure as a Swiss lake amid the 
 mountains, and as famous." 
 
 He was never attracted in the same way to de la 
 Mennais, whose genius excited admiration rather than 
 won the heart, although Montalembert has said that 
 there were moments when he knew how to be " the 
 most caressing and paternal of men," adding, however, 
 that he never displayed any tenderness towards Lacor- 
 1 Le Pere Lacordaire, p. 13. 
 
THE PRIEST ADVOCATE. 69 
 
 daire. But the one overpowering need of Lacordaire's 
 heart was confidence. He could imagine no friend- 
 ship without the most absolute, unrestrained outpour- 
 ing of heart ; so much so, that if he had a friend who 
 was a priest, it seemed a necessity to him to place 
 his whole heart before him in confession, and it is 
 significantly remarked by one of Lacordaire's most 
 confidential friends that he never sought de la Mennais 
 in confession. 
 
 Montalembert must himself describe the events 
 that followed : — 
 
 " He was not satisfied with writing, he spoke as he 
 wrote. He had thoroughly taken in the fact that in 
 free countries, or such as aspired to freedom, all great 
 causes must, as at Rome and in England, be heard 
 before the tribunal of public justice. A series of con- 
 tests, all touching upon the emancipation of the priest 
 and the citizen, brought him several times before the 
 Correctional Police, either as accused, as accuser, or 
 as advocate j for he chose more than once to plead 
 himself, and I well remember the amazement of a 
 President de Chambre, on discovering the priest, 
 whose name was beginning to be so well known, 
 wearing the advocate's gown. One day, in a reply to 
 the King's Advocate, who had ventured to say that 
 priests were the ministers of a foreign Power, Lacor- 
 daire exclaimed, • We are the ministers of One Who 
 is a stranger nowhere— God ! ' Whereupon the by- 
 
70 PROSECUTIONS. 
 
 standers, albeit those ' men of July ' who were so 
 antagonistic to the clergy, applauded vehemently, 
 exclaiming, ' Mon pretre, mon cure y who are you ? 
 You are a brave fellow ! ' " 
 
 He always rose to the occasion in these strifes. 
 " I am confident," he wrote after some such, " that 
 the Roman Senate could not overawe me." 
 
 The strife was about to thicken. Louis Philippe 
 exercised the prerogative given him by the Concordat 
 for the first time, and appointed three bishops. 
 Lacordaire wrote concerning these appointments with 
 a copious intemperance which he acknowledged and 
 regretted afterwards, and the Government, not alto- 
 gether unjustifiably irritated, summoned him, as well 
 as the editor, de la Mennais, to answer for exciting 
 the public to contempt of authority and disobedience 
 to the law. They appeared before the Court of 
 Assizes, January 31, 1831. De la Mennais had 
 Janvier as his counsel j Lacordaire was his own advo- 
 cate. We must quote some passages of his speech, 
 which was never reproduced save by Montalembert 
 in his political recollections of his friend. 
 
 " I rise," he said, " with an impression I cannot lay 
 aside. Formerly, when the priest rose amid the people, 
 an instinctive kindling of affection arose with him. 
 Now, albeit an accused man, I know that my title as 
 a priest is silent in my behalf, and I accept the fact. 
 The multitude has cast aside the affection it once bore 
 
LACORDAIRE'S SPEECH. 71 
 
 the priest, since the priest has himself cast aside a 
 noble attribute of his calling, since the man of God has 
 ceased to be the man of Liberty. ... I am but a 
 young man, an obscure Catholic, my acquaintance with 
 public life is of the briefest, and yet I would fain speak 
 to you of the hidden thoughts of my heart. ... I was 
 young, God had died out of my soul, and my country 
 was not free. God had died out of my soul, because 
 my cradle was rocked in the dawn of this nineteenth 
 century, amid storm and tempest : my country was 
 not free, because after great tribulations God had 
 raised up to France a man greater even than her 
 tribulations. ... I was still very young; I beheld 
 this capital, where curiosity, imagination, the thirst for 
 knowledge, all led me to believe that I should un- 
 riddle the world's secrets. Its weight crushed me, and 
 I became a Christian; once Christian, I became a 
 priest. Suffer me to rejoice therein, sirs; for never 
 did I more realise what liberty is than the day when 
 with holy orders I received the right to speak of God. 
 The whole universe opened before me, and I saw that 
 man possesses an inalienable, a divine, an eternally 
 free gift — that of speech ! The priest's word was 
 intrusted to me, and I was bidden carry it to the 
 world's confines, without any human being having the 
 right to silence me for a single day. I left God's 
 temple full of this mighty trust, and on the threshold 
 I stumbled against legal servitude ! . . . 
 
72 WHAT IS LAW? 
 
 " If I have excited disobedience to the law, I have 
 been guilty of a great crime, for the law is sacred. 
 After God, it is the country's safety, and no man is 
 more bound to respect it than the priest, whose com- 
 mission is to teach the people whence comes life and 
 whence death. Nevertheless, I must own that I do 
 not experience that veneration for the laws of my 
 country that men of old bore to theirs. It was written 
 on Leonidas' tomb, ' Go tell to Sparta that we died 
 to maintain her holy laws.' But I would not have 
 such an epitaph on my grave : I would not die for my 
 country's laws ; for the time has ceased to be when 
 law was the sacred expression of the tradition, the 
 customs, and the gods of the people : all that is 
 changed. Manifold periods, opinions, tyrannies, the 
 axe and the sword all clash in our complex legislation, 
 and the man who dies for such a law must worship 
 both glory and infamy. . . . We have spoken of our 
 oppressors, and you stumble at the word. . . . That 
 which is myself, is my thought, my speech, and 
 these are oppressed in this my country. You might 
 fetter my hands, it matters little ; . . . but though you 
 do not that, you fetter my thought, you forbid me 
 to teach, I to whom it has been said, Docete. The 
 seal of your laws is on my lips, when will it be broken ? 
 And therefore I call you oppressors, and I fear to 
 accept bishops at your hand. . . 
 
 " My task is accomplished ; yours, gentlemen, is to 
 
ACQUITTAL. 73 
 
 acquit me. I do not ask it for my own sake. There 
 are but two things which create genius — God and a 
 prison. I need not fear one or the other. But I 
 demand my acquittal as a step towards the union of 
 faith and liberty, as a pledge of peace and reconcili- 
 ation. The Catholic clergy have done their duty, — 
 they have cried out to their countrymen, they have 
 offered them words of loving-kindness ; it is your part 
 to respond. I demand it, moreover, that the petty 
 despots, offspring of the Empire, may learn in their 
 far-away provinces that there is justice in France for 
 Catholics, and that they can no longer be sacrificed 
 to antique prejudice and the hates of a bygone age. 
 Therefore, gentlemen, I call upon you to acquit me, 
 Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, inasmuch as I am 
 not guilty, as I have acted like a good citizen, as I 
 have defended my God and my liberty, and that I 
 will do all my life, gentlemen." 
 
 De la Mennais and Lacordaire were both acquitted. 
 The verdict was not given till midnight, and they were 
 immediately surrounded by a crowd of enthusiastic 
 applauders. " By degrees they left us," Montalembert 
 wrote, " and we walked along the Quays in the dark- 
 ness. As we parted at his door, I hailed Lacordaire 
 as the orator of the coming day. He was neither 
 excited nor overcome by his triumph j and I could 
 see that these little triumphs of vanity were less than 
 nothing to him, as mere passing mist." 
 
74 FREE SCHOOL. 
 
 This unforeseen victory led the conquerors to fresh 
 efforts. They resolved to concentrate their energies 
 on freedom of instruction. Government had not 
 taken any active steps towards promoting public 
 education and freedom of instruction, as they had 
 promised in the Charte of 1830 to do without delay. 
 The Universite (a body of Government officials at the 
 head of all public instruction and private education, 
 which maintained its position until the passing of M. 
 de Falloux' new law in 1850) opposed all free instruc- 
 tion, and the editors of the Avenir^ under the title of 
 Agence pour la defense de la liberie religieuse, announced 
 their intention to open a free, gratuitous school in 
 Paris. Notice was duly given to the Prefect of Police, 
 and the school was opened, May 7, 1831, and 
 Lacordaire, de la Mennais, and Montalembert set to 
 work, after the first had made a brief inauguration 
 speech, with a class of some twenty children each. 
 The next day but one, a commissaire came to put a 
 stop to the proceeding. He addressed the children 
 first : " In the name of the law I bid you disperse." 
 Lacordaire immediately spoke : " In the name of your 
 parents, whose authority is delegated to me, I bid you 
 stay." The children all cried out, " We will stay." 
 Upon which the sergenls de ville turned every one out 
 at once save Lacordaire, who asserted that the room 
 which he had hired was his legal domicile, and that 
 he would sleep there unless forcibly ejected. He 
 
ACTION BEFORE THE PEERS. 75 
 
 was, however, put out, the premises placed under seal, 
 and the school-keepers prosecuted. During the first 
 legal proceedings Montalembert's father died, and as 
 he succeeded to the peerage, while the action against 
 the accused could not be separated, they were both 
 brought before the Cour des Pairs, and, September 
 15, 1 83 1, convicted, and sentenced to a fine of 100 
 francs. 
 
 Lacordaire was again his own counsel, and he 
 seems to have addressed the ninety-four Peers of 
 France who were his auditors with as much force as 
 the jury of a former period. He began with a star- 
 tling Tu quoque addressed to the Procureur-General, 
 who had lately prosecuted the Prince de Polignac and 
 three other ministers on the strength of a law not as 
 yet sanctioned. His concluding sentences were as 
 follows : — 
 
 " If time did not fail me, I would have granted ?11 
 that is demanded ; and supposing us to be guilty of 
 the violation of a decree, I would have proved our 
 innocence from that very fact. For, noble peers, there 
 are holy faults, and it may be possible that the viola- 
 tion of a law should prove only the fulfilment of one 
 yet higher. In the first trial of liberty of instruction, 
 in that famous trial wherein Socrates was condemned, 
 he was clearly guilty as regarded the gods, and conse- 
 quently the laws of his country. Nevertheless pos- 
 terity, alike that of heathen nations and of the ages 
 
76 LACORDAIKE'S SPEECH. 
 
 which have followed Christ, has condemned his 
 accusers and his judges : they have absolved only the 
 guilty man and his executioner — the first, because he 
 had disobeyed the law of Athens that he might obey 
 a greater law ; the second, because it was with tears 
 that he proffered the fatal cup to the prisoner. And 
 I on my part would have shown you that, while 
 trampling under foot this decree of the Empire, I 
 deserved well at the hands of my country, that I 
 had done good service to her liberties, as to the 
 cause and the future of all Christian nations. But 
 time forbids my utterance. Enough. When Socrates, 
 during that first and famous cause of free instruction, 
 was about to leave his judges, he said, ' We go 
 forth; you to live, I to die.' It is not thus that 
 I leave you, my noble judges. Whatsoever may be 
 your verdict, we go hence to live j for liberty and 
 religion are immortal, and neither can those thoughts 
 which you have heard springing from a pure heart 
 perish." x 
 
 Writing in 1862, Montalembert appealed to the five 
 or six peers of France still living who had heard the 
 trial, whether the whole Chamber, which had listened 
 "patiently and coldly" to the other pleadings, had 
 not been carried away by Lacordaire's eloquence and 
 personal presence? "The present generation," he 
 says, " cannot form any adequate idea of the earnest 
 1 Monitetir du 20 Septembre, 183 1. 
 
A VICTORIOUS DEFEAT. 77 
 
 vehemence which kindled men's hearts at that time. 
 There were many fewer journals, and many fewer 
 readers than now ; postal communication was far more 
 difficult ; railroads and telegraphs did not exist, and 
 we performed our propagandist journeys by means of 
 three days and three nights in an atrocious diligence 
 between Paris and Lyons ! But what life there was 
 in souls ! what energy in minds ! ... To under- 
 stand the outburst of pure disinterested enthusiasm 
 which took place among the younger clergy and many 
 large-hearted young laymen, one must have lived 
 through those times, one must have read their glances, 
 hearkened to their confidences, held their quivering 
 hands ; one must have formed those ties during the 
 heat of battle which death alone could sever. . . . 
 A month later Lacordaire wrote, ' However cruel the 
 state of things, it can take nothing from the charm of 
 the past year, which will abide for ever in my heart 
 like the song of a virgin departed.' " ■ 
 
 The cause was lost as far as technicalities were 
 concerned, but every one felt that it had been won 
 before the weighty tribunal of public opinion; and 
 it was, as Montaigne has said, " a defeat more trium- 
 phant than a victory." But the days of the Avenir 
 were numbered. All the press waged war against it ; 
 the cause was seriously compromised with the Bishops 
 and clergy in general by de la Mennais' advanced 
 
 1 Montalembert, p. 49. 
 
78 THE "AVENIR" GIVEN UP. 
 
 philosophic opinions and his extreme U ltramontanism ; 
 and moreover, what was much to the point, financial 
 reasons made it almost an impossibility for the edi- 
 tors to continue their work; and November 15, 1831, 
 thirteen months after its first appearance, they an- 
 nounced the cessation of the newspaper, and simul- 
 taneously the intention of the three editors to go to 
 Rome, there to submit the controverted questions to 
 the Pope, promising absolute submission to his deci- 
 sion. This was Lacordaire's idea. 
 
 "No one had the smallest inclination to hinder 
 them," wrote Montalembert ; " and it was unlucky, for 
 the journey was a mistake. It was, to say the least, 
 an unusual piece of pretension to force Rome into an 
 utterance concerning matters she had left open to 
 free discussion for more than a year; while not to 
 be wholly thankful for her silence was altogether to 
 misunderstand the requirements and the advantages 
 of the situation. Such an aberration may be pardoned 
 in young men of no experience in the ways of the 
 world and the Church ; but it is hard to account for 
 in a priest of position and of ripened age, such as M. 
 de la Mennais, who was more than fifty years old, 
 
 1 A phrase of Montalembert's on this subject is curious to 
 read now : ' ' For we must add, on behalf of those who have not 
 fathomed the depths of French mobilite, that at this period ultra- 
 montane doctrines met with precisely the like unpopularity 
 among the immense majority of the clergy that Gallicanism 
 excites at the present day " (p. 50). 
 
JOURNEY TO ROME. 79 
 
 and had been at Rome before, Leo XII. having re- 
 ceived him with the utmost distinction." 
 
 On their arrival at Rome the agitators were asked 
 for an explanatory document, which Lacordaire drew 
 up, and then for two months they heard no more 
 about it. At the end of that time Cardinal Pacca 
 wrote to de la Mennais, saying that the Pope, while 
 doing justice to their past services and good intentions, 
 regretted to see them stirring up controversies and 
 opinions which, to say the least of it, were perilous. 
 He would cause their doctrines to be thoroughly 
 examined, and meanwhile, as this might take some 
 time, the Holy Father recommended them to go back 
 to France. After this the Pope received them with 
 his wonted courtesy, not conveying the slightest 
 reproach, but at the same time not making the 
 slightest allusion to the object which had brought 
 them to Rome. 
 
 It was not a brilliant or flattering conclusion, as 
 Montalembert observes ; but he truly says it was all 
 they could expect. Lacordaire was fully prepared for 
 it. He saw nothing save a kindly, fatherly warning, 
 deciding nothing, compromising no one. Those ten 
 weeks in Rome had had a very calming, softening 
 influence upon his mind. " I can see him now," says 
 Montalembert, " wandering for whole days among the 
 ruins and monuments, pausing in rapt admiration 
 — full of that exquisite feeling for true beauty which 
 
80 LACORDAIRE RETURNS TO TRANCE. 
 
 never deserted him — for all the unrivalled treasures of 
 Rome j above all, revelling in the charm of her calm, 
 lovely distances : then coming back to our common 
 room to preach reserve, resignation, submission — in a 
 word, reason, to de la Mennais." His keen sense of 
 duty bore him triumphantly over all the temptations 
 which pride, energy, and genius threw in his way, 
 and, as Montalembert says, the penetration which 
 sprang from humility and faith enabled him to fore- 
 shadow the wise judgment which time so fully ratified. 
 Unhappily it was not the same with the elder man of 
 the three friends. De la Mennais lost his temper, 
 and broke more and more with all his best and 
 happiest antecedents, refusing to hearken to counsel. 
 After receiving Cardinal Pacca's letter, Lacordaire put 
 strongly before him that either they should never 
 have come to Rome, or having come, they must be 
 silent and submit. De la Mennais refused to accept 
 the alternative, and persisted in remaining where he 
 was to urge an immediate decision. Thereupon 
 Lacordaire unhesitatingly took action, and, grieved to 
 the soul, returned to France, March 1832, to wait in 
 silence for the Pope's decision. " Silence," he said, 
 " is the next strongest thing to speech." 
 
 De la Mennais saw him depart without regret, feel- 
 ing merely relieved by the absence of an inconvenient 
 critic and a faithless disciple. Montalembert, in an 
 excess of generosity, held by his leader, and remained 
 
MEETING AT MUNICH. 
 
 in Rome. He speaks in touching language of 
 Lacordaire's earnest efforts to draw him thence. 
 " There is no spiritual disunion between us," Lacor- 
 daire wrote as soon as he had reached France j " all 
 my life I shall fight for liberty, and before de la 
 Mennais had said a word, liberty was the moving 
 power of my thoughts and my life. If he carries out 
 his new plan, bear in mind that all his most earnest 
 fellow-workers will forsake him, and, dragged by false 
 Liberals into a line where success is impossible, no 
 words can describe what may ensue. Do not let us 
 subject our hearts to our ideas, for men's ideas are 
 often as bright and as fugitive as the clouds which 
 flit across the sun." Montalembert remained obsti- 
 nate. "You are younger than I am," he pleaded 
 again, " and that is the only reason why you are more 
 mistaken." For four months they remained waiting 
 in Rome, and then, losing patience, de la Mennais 
 left Rome pettishly, making known his resolution to 
 return to France, and at once without further ado 
 begin the publication of the Avenir anew. On hear- 
 ing this, Lacordaire, determined to separate his course 
 distinctly from de la Mennais, went immediately to 
 Munich to study there. Curiously enough, Mon- 
 talembert and his companion travelled home that 
 way, and the three men met again. Lacordaire had 
 scarcely entered his hotel when Montalembert 
 appeared, having seen his name, and they went to- 
 
82 RETURN TO LA CHESNAIE. 
 
 gether to de la Mennais, who received him coldly 
 and resentfully. But they began at once to discuss 
 the great question, Lacordaire endeavouring to con- 
 vince the elder man that in attempting to renew the 
 Avenir he was committing not only a fault, but a 
 blunder. De la Mennais admitted it at last. The 
 next day a great dinner was given to the three friends 
 by the literary and artistic world of Munich. Towards 
 the end of the meal de la Mennais was called out, 
 and a messenger from the Apostolic Nuncio gave him 
 a letter containing an encyclical letter from Gregory 
 XVI. dated August 15, 1832. A glance showed him 
 that it was not favourable to the doctrines of the 
 Avenir. His line was instantly taken, and without 
 studying the document he whispered to his companions 
 that they had no choice but submission ; and returning 
 to their hotel, he wrote a few but clear lines express- 
 ing his obedience, which satisfied the Pope. Their 
 submission was speedily made known, and the three 
 returned together to Paris, "en vaincus victorieux 
 d'eux-memes" as Lacordaire said. 
 
 Characteristically, his generous feeling of sympathy 
 for de la Mennais' discomfiture (believing as he 
 did in his absolute good faith) led Lacordaire to 
 return with him to Brittany, where he took up his 
 abode at the lonesome, dreary country-house of la 
 Chesnaie. " I believed," he wrote, " that I was 
 bringing back a noble mind saved from shipwreck, 
 
FINAL SEVERANCE FROM DE LA MENNAIS. 83 
 
 a master more revered than before. . . . The illusion 
 was great. Soon some of his young disciples gathered 
 round him ; the house resumed its former tone, a 
 strange mixture of solitude and animation ; but if the 
 skies had not changed, the master's heart had. His 
 wound was open, and every day he plunged the sword 
 in deeper, instead of tearing it out and pouring in 
 the balm of God's love. Terrible storms passed over 
 that brow whence peace had fled. Broken words 
 and threats would escape those lips whence formerly 
 the words of evangelic teaching fell. Sometimes he 
 used to remind me of Saul; but none of us had 
 David's harp to calm the outbreaks of the evil spirit, 
 and day by day more fearful forebodings arose in my 
 mind, already depressed." Each day alienated the 
 two men more, all community of life and interests was 
 destroyed by their utter disagreement on all that was 
 most important in their present and future course ; 
 and at last, unable to bear it any longer, Lacordaire 
 left la Chesnaie never to return, having written 
 the following letter to his friend : — 
 
 "December 11, 1832. 
 " I shall leave la Chesnaie this evening. I leave 
 it from an honourable motive, being convinced that 
 henceforth I should be useless to you by reason of 
 the difference of our minds as to the Church and 
 society, which increases daily, in spite of my sincere 
 efforts to follow the development of your opinions. 
 
84 FAREWELL LETTER. 
 
 I believe that neither in my lifetime nor for long after 
 it any republic will be established in France or else- 
 where in Europe, and I cannot take part in a system 
 founded upon the contrary conviction. Without 
 renouncing my Liberal opinions, I understand and 
 believe that the Church has had good and wise 
 reasons, amid the utter corruption of parties, for 
 refusing to go on as fast as we wished. I respect 
 her thoughts and my own. Perhaps your opinions 
 are wiser, deeper; and considering your natural 
 superiority to myself, I ought to be convinced thereof j 
 but reason is not the whole man, and inasmuch as I 
 cannot tear out of me the opinions which divide us, 
 it is but right that I should put an end to that 
 community life which is entirely to my advantage and 
 your cost. My conscience demands it as much as 
 my honour, for I must turn my life to some account 
 for God, and being unable to follow you, I should 
 only weary and discourage you, put difficulties in 
 your way, and ruin myself. You will never know in 
 this world how much I have suffered during the past 
 year from the fear of causing you pain. In all my 
 perplexities, hesitations, and doubts I have thought of 
 you only, and whatever I may have to go through 
 henceforth, no heart-sorrow can ever equal what I 
 have now felt. To-day I leave you at rest as regards 
 the Church, more respected than ever, so much above 
 your enemies that they are as nought ; it is the best 
 
SORROWFUL DEPARTURE. 85 
 
 moment to choose for inflicting a grief upon you, 
 which, believe me, will spare you greater ones. 
 I do not know what will become of me, whether I 
 shall go to the United States or remain in France, or 
 in what position. Wherever I am, you will always 
 have token of the respect and attachment I must ever 
 bear you, and I entreat you to accept this expression of 
 a wounded heart." 
 
 " I left la Chesnaie alone, on foot, while M. de la 
 Mennais was as usual out walking after dinner. At 
 a certain point on the road I saw him through the 
 bushes, with his young disciples, and stopping, I 
 gazed, for the last time, on that unhappy great 
 man, and then pursued my flight, not knowing 
 what was to become of me, or how far God would 
 accept the act I was performing." 
 
 These strong expressions were no mere verbiage : 
 the separation cost Lacordaire pain which he never 
 could look back upon without a shudder, and he 
 underwent very unjust handling from some of his 
 most intimate friends, who disapproved of the line 
 he had felt constrained to adopt. Montalembert 
 himself was among these, and he bears witness to the 
 trustful confidence in his right motives which upheld 
 Lacordaire through the trying season. "No one," 
 he wrote, " can feel more deeply than I do the rever- 
 ence due to past links, and should M. de la Mennais 
 
86 REPLY TO THE "PAROLES PUN CROVANT." 
 
 at some future time leave the Church, should he be- 
 come the greatest of heretics, there would always be 
 an immeasurable gulf between his enemies and me, 
 and no one would read what I should be constrained 
 to write without acknowledging the painfulness of my 
 position, the lastingness of my respect, or the fidelity 
 of my conscience. These are the eventful hours of a 
 man's life, when he is forced to struggle against con- 
 tradictory circumstances and conflicting duties. In 
 the next world it will be known whether I have acted 
 with the heedlessness of a man who breaks the ties of 
 years carelessly and without sorrow ! " 
 
 It was not long before Lacordaire's course was fully 
 justified in the eyes of the whole Christian world. It 
 is curious to observe (and it is Montalembert who 
 points it out) how "a series of tergiversations and 
 retractations, of unreal submissions and contradictory 
 affirmations, led the ultra-apostle of absolute and 
 universal Papal Infallibility to the point of open 
 rebellion against the simplest and most legitimate 
 exercise of authority, invited by himself as it was." 
 
 We need not follow de la Mennais' downward 
 course. In 1834 the publication of his "Paroles 
 d'un Croyant" left no doubt as to his complete 
 departure from the ancient paths of faith and truth. 
 Lacordaire felt bound to reply in a pamphlet called 
 " Considerations sur le Systeme philosophique de M. 
 de la Mennais," to which he attributed all his master's 
 
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 87 
 
 errors, and which Montalembert considers as con- 
 taining some of the most eloquent passages he ever 
 wrote. Yet even this was disapproved by some old 
 friends, such as the Baron d'Eckstein and Padre 
 Ventura, who looked upon it as an assault upon his 
 former teacher. Lacordaire was not disconcerted. 
 
 " I have fulfilled my whole duty now as regards M. 
 de la Mennais," he wrote, June 3, 1834. "I have 
 told what my personal experience of ten years has 
 taught me concerning the school he sought to found, 
 and if I had done nothing else in my life, I should 
 die content. My conscience is at rest, I can breathe, 
 after a ten years' oppression I begin to revive. . . . 
 There are at least some who understand me, who 
 know that I have not become a Republican, or a 
 juste-milieu, or a Legitimist, but that I have made a 
 step towards that noble priestly character which is 
 superior to all parties, while pitiful to all weakness. 
 They know that the result of my journey to Rome 
 has been to soften me, to draw me out of the fatal 
 whirlpool of politics, teaching me to concern myself 
 henceforth only with the things of God, and through 
 these with the future happiness of mankind slowly 
 won. They know that I only separated from that 
 celebrated man in order not to plunge any further 
 into that unfortunate system of politics, and by 
 reason of the impossibility I found of bringing him to 
 the lines where the Church was waiting to applaud 
 
88 CONCILIA TION. 
 
 him, and where he would have done far more for the 
 enfranchisement of humanity than he will ever achieve 
 where he is." And again, "I am no saint, I know it 
 too well, but I do feel a disinterested love for truth ; 
 and though I have sought to extricate myself honour- 
 ably from the abyss in which I had fallen, no thought 
 of pride or ambition has prompted my conduct on 
 this occasion. Pride always whispered, ' Stay where 
 you are, do not move, do not expose yourself to the 
 reproaches of your old friends.' But God's grace 
 spoke louder, ' Tread human respect under foot, obey 
 the Holy See and God.' My sole skill has been my 
 frank submission. If everything has turned out as I 
 foresaw, I had only foreseen it by absolutely putting 
 myself aside. I do not rejoice in the gulf which self- 
 will has prepared beneath the feet of a man who has 
 done good service to the Church — I trust that God 
 may stop him while it is yet time — but I do rejoice 
 that the Pontiff, who is Father of all Christians, should 
 have settled by his authority questions which were 
 rending my native Church asunder, which were 
 misleading crowds of souls who were honestly 
 deceived — questions the unhappy attraction of which 
 I had experienced so long and so bitterly. If I 
 have had any personal triumph in the matter, may it 
 perish ! and may the Church of France rejoice in a 
 vigorous peace and unity after this memorable lesson ! 
 May we all forgive one another for our youthful 
 
DE LA MENNAIS ENTIRE ALIENATION. 89 
 
 errors, and join in prayer for him who caused them 
 by an excess of imagination too full of life not to be 
 deplored !" 
 
 As far as men can see, these prayers were not 
 answered. De la Mennais went on drifting farther 
 and farther from the truth, while it is a remarkable 
 fact that he carried literally no one with him. Mon- 
 talembert observes that he is a solitary instance in the 
 history of Christendom of a man possessing all the 
 qualities of the most " redoubtable heresiarch," who 
 did not succeed in drawing one single acolyte after 
 him. Montalembert himself, although he could not 
 accept Lacordaire's view, still shrank from the opinions 
 to which de la Mennais was daily committing himself 
 deeper. Hoping to escape from the distracting 
 doubts which beset him, he went to Germany, pursued 
 by his master's appeals. De la Mennais congratulated 
 him with bitterness on being a layman, bidding him 
 retain his independence at all costs, and adding scorn- 
 fully, " The Word which once could move the world 
 cannot now move the smallest schoolboys !" Mean- 
 while the evil genius was counterbalanced by the 
 good genius. Lacordaire wrote continually with " in- 
 exhaustible energy and perseverance. Sacrificed, mis- 
 understood, repulsed, he continued to lavish his 
 neglected warnings, his always true predictions, upon 
 me with such force of reason, such powerful and 
 touching eloquence, such a moving intermingling of 
 
90 LACORDAJRE AND MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 severity and humble affection, such salutary alter- 
 nations of pitiless honesty and irresistible tenderness ! " 
 He writes to Montalembert : " The Church does not 
 say to you, 'See.' She has no power to do that. 
 She says, 'Believe? She says to you at twenty-three, 
 holding as you do to certain lines of thought, what 
 she said at your first Communion, 'Receive your 
 hidden incomprehensible God, humble your reason 
 before God and the Church, His instrument' For 
 what has the Church been given us save to bring 
 us back to the truth when we mistake error for it ? 
 You are surprised at what the Holy Father requires 
 of M. de la Mennais ? Unquestionably it is harder 
 to submit when one has made public utterances than 
 when everything has been silent between one's heart 
 and God. This is the special trial pertaining to men 
 of great talent. The greatest Churchmen have had 
 to break their lives in two, and on a smaller scale 
 that is just what every conversion is. Listen to my 
 voice, however despised ; for who will warn you if I 
 do not ? Who loves you enough to treat you so merci- 
 lessly? Who will cauterise your wounds except he 
 who kisses them so lovingly, and would fain suck out 
 their poison at his own life's risk ? " 
 
 Lacordaire even followed his friend to Germany, 
 and by the tomb of S. Elizabeth of Hungary (the 
 fruit of which is one of Montalembert's most charming 
 books) pleaded with him. The struggle ended at 
 
THE IDEAL PRIEST. 
 
 QI 
 
 length, as was probable, in the younger man admitting 
 his error, and slowly coming round to the other's 
 belief and course of action. Few more touching 
 words were ever written than Montalembert's pathetic 
 regret over the struggle, and over his own ingratitude, 
 which assuredly was not meant for such. " In him " 
 (these are the concluding words) " I learned to under- 
 stand and revere the only Power in bowing before 
 which man is himself exalted. The captive of pride 
 and error, I was redeemed by him who then appeared 
 to me as the ideal priest, like to his own definition, 
 1 Strong as adamant, and tenderer than a mother.' " 
 
92 CHOLERA IN PARIS. 
 
 IV. 
 CONFERENCES. 
 
 1AC0RDAIRE had scarcely returned to Paris 
 _-/ when (April 1832) the cholera broke out there 
 with terrific force. He at once devoted himself to 
 ministering among the sick, spending his whole time 
 at a temporary hospital established in the Greniers 
 d'Abondance. The clergy were still looked upon 
 askance, the local government declined the Arch- 
 bishop's proffered aid, and no religious garb could 
 show itself in the streets. " No Sisters of Charity, no 
 chaplain, no parish priest," he writes ; " they barely 
 tolerate me and one or two more. Each day I gather 
 in some scanty fruits for eternity. The greater number 
 make no confession, and the priest is merely a deputy 
 from the Church, timidly seeking here and there some 
 soul which belongs to her flock. Some one or two 
 make their confession, others die deaf and silent. 
 I lay my hand on their brow and speak the words of 
 absolution, trusting in God's mercy. I rarely leave 
 without feeling thankful to have been there. Yester- 
 day a woman was carried in, her husband, a soldier, 
 
WORK IN HOSPITAL. 93 
 
 whispered the question whether a priest could not be 
 found? (I being in a layman's dress.) 'I am one.' 
 One felt so happy in being at hand to help a soul 
 and comfort the man." When this immediate pres- 
 sure was over, Lacordaire returned to his old idea 
 of going to some quiet country parish. He writes, 
 December 11, 1832 : "I mean to bury myself in the 
 country, to live for a little flock, and to find my whole 
 happiness in God and the fields. You will see that 
 I am a very simple, unambitious man. Farewell to 
 great things ! to fame and great men ! I have seen 
 the vanity of all, and only want to live in goodness 
 and obscurity. Some day, when Montalembert has 
 grown grey amid ingratitude and fame, he will come 
 to look back upon our youthful days with me. We 
 shall mourn together by the hearth of my presbytery ; 
 he will do me justice before we both die ; and I shall 
 give my blessing to his children. As for me, a poor 
 priest, I shall have no children to grow up beside me 
 or to survive me; no household, no church shining 
 with holiness and wisdom. Born in commonplace 
 days, I shall pass through this world as one of those 
 not worthy to be remembered; I will strive to be 
 good, simple, devout, hoping in the future without 
 any self-interested motives, inasmuch as I shall not 
 see it; working for those who may do so, and not 
 finding fault with Providence, which might well lay 
 heavier troubles on a life of little merit." 
 
94 LOVE OF SOLITUDE. 
 
 Of course this was not the view others took of him, 
 and on presenting himself to Mgr. de Quelen, the 
 Archbishop met him with open arms, as a son 
 who had come forth unscathed from a great peril. 
 He reinstated him in the Chaplaincy of the Visita- 
 tion, where for a time Lacordaire was thankful to 
 rest and study. His mother too returned to live 
 with him, and the remainder of her life was spent 
 there — a little apartment in a narrow street beneath 
 Sainte Genevieve, which for three years he in- 
 habited. " He comes before me there," says Mon- 
 talembert, "greater and more remarkable even than 
 in the Cour des Pairs, the Academy, or even Notre 
 Dame. I can see him daily gathering himself to- 
 gether and calming himself in prayer, in work, in 
 charity, in solitude, in a serious, simple, unknown 
 life, truly hidden in God. That was the nest where 
 his genius brooded, and whence the eagle which 
 outshone all its fellows at length soared." 
 
 He refused all attempts to draw him into public 
 action, declining twice over to become editor of the 
 Um'vers, which was beginning then. He also refused a 
 professor's chair at the University of Louvain. Solitude 
 was his passion at this time. " My days are very 
 same : I work all the morning and afternoon regu- 
 larly; I see nobody save a few country clergy who 
 now and then visit me. I delight in the solitude of 
 my life, it is my very element. . . . Nothing can be 
 
FIRST SERMON A T SAINT ROCH. 95 
 
 done without solitude, that is my great axiom. One's 
 heart is the loser by too much expansion among 
 strangers, it is like a hothouse flower transported. 
 ... A man is made within himself, not without." 
 Yet from time to time a presage of the future must 
 have come over him, for he writes, " The hour 
 always comes to the man j it is enough that he 
 wait patiently, in nowise controverting Providence." 
 And again, " I have no ambition, and can have none, 
 for all high position among the clergy means pas- 
 toral charge or administration wholly out of my line. 
 I neither shall nor will ever have such functions. 
 But conscience constrains one to do something with 
 oneself." 
 
 Conscious of his vocation for preaching, he was 
 not unwilling to prove it. His first sermon was 
 preached at Saint Roch, where he was, strangely 
 enough, last heard in Paris, some nineteen years 
 later. It was in the spring of 1833. Montalem- 
 bert, Ampere, de Corcelles, and others who knew 
 his capacities were present. It was an utter failure, 
 and they all went away saying that he was an able 
 man, but would never be a good preacher ! He 
 came to the like conclusion himself. " It is evi- 
 dent," he wrote, "that I have neither the physical 
 power, nor the mental flexibility, nor the knowledge 
 of a world in which I have lived and always shall 
 live apart; in short, I have nothing to the degree 
 
96 COLLEGE STANISLAS. 
 
 required to be a preacher in the full sense of the 
 word. But some day I may be called to some 
 work for reclaiming young men, devoted solely to 
 them. If I ever can make use of words on behalf 
 of the Church, it will be only in the way of apology j 
 that is to say, in the shape of gathering together 
 beauty, grandeur, history, and polemics, to the 
 exaltation of Christianity and the fostering of faith." 
 
 The call was soon to come. In January 1834, 
 Lacordaire was asked to give a series of Conferences 
 to the students of the College Stanislas, one of the 
 least important in Paris. The first was given January 
 19th, and for the next the chapel was so crowded 
 that a temporary gallery had to be erected — five or 
 six hundred people flocked to hear him. The only 
 notes of these Conferences are some very brief 
 analyses, but Montalembert says that they contain 
 the distinctive mark of the great preacher of Notre 
 Dame, his " startling originality and searching, 
 earnest passion, his impetuous bursts of thought 
 and word, of tenderness, of irony." It is told that 
 in reply to some listeners who were scoffing he 
 observed, " God has given you cleverness, messieurs, 
 great cleverness, in order to show you that He is 
 not afraid of any man's wit." There were vehement 
 partisans on both sides, "Some look upon me as 
 a rabid republican," he wrote, "as a renegade, and 
 I know not what. Some of the clergy accuse me, 
 
M. AFFRE. 97 
 
 not of atheism, but of never having uttered the 
 name of Jesus Christ. ... I despise all these 
 petty worries. I fulfil my duties as a man and a 
 priest. I am solitary, busy, calm, trusting in God 
 and the future." 
 
 This was no exaggeration of the atmosphere which 
 surrounded him. He was denounced as a dangerous 
 democrat, a preacher of perilous novelties, a fanatical 
 republican, calculated to stir up the worst passions of 
 men, not only at Rome, and to the French Govern- 
 ment, but with such persistent reiteration to the 
 Archbishop of Paris, that Mgr. de Quelen (whose 
 position at that time was so painfully difficult that 
 it seems almost ungenerous to accuse him of timidity 
 and weakness) first stopped Lacordaire s Conferences, 
 and then forbade their renewal during the winter of 
 1834-35. Meanwhile he had one vigorous advocate in 
 the person of the Chanoine de la Metropole, M. Affre, 
 himself later on the Archbishop who met his noble 
 martyr-death on the barricades of Paris. His calm, 
 resolute mind was able to see the real greatness of 
 the young orator, and he became his firm friend. 
 
 "I had read his retractation" (of the Avenir doc- 
 trines), M. Afire wrote, " and was struck with its can- 
 dour. I admired his talent, and without being blind to 
 his faults, I perceived tokens of a great soul and an in- 
 telligence of no common order. . . . Unfortunately his 
 Conferences at the College Stanislas, which had pro- 
 
 G 
 
98 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 duced the strongest enthusiasm among his young listen- 
 ers, had a different effect upon some others, not wholly 
 without ground, in the bold, unwonted thoughts, and 
 the strong, at times unguarded, expression of the same. 
 . . . The Archbishop took alarm, and desired that 
 the future Conferences might be submitted to him 
 before they were delivered. Lacordaire refused, on 
 the ground that he would be altogether hindered if 
 he might not improvise at least the expression of his 
 thoughts. I undertook to plead his cause, not un- 
 alive to the difficulties of extempore speaking on such 
 matters, but believing that they were mainly set aside 
 by the upright, frank character of the Abbe Lacordaire, 
 who is absolutely free from all sectarian spirit, and 
 most ready to listen to advice. I spoke strongly on 
 his behalf to the Archbishop, but for the time vainly." 
 However, not a murmur escaped the preacher, even 
 among his closest friends. " It costs me something to 
 obey," he wrote to Montalembert ; " but I have learned 
 from experience that sooner or later obedience has its 
 reward, and that God only knows what is best for us. 
 Light comes to a man who submits, as to one who 
 opens his eyes." And to Mme. Swetchine he wrote, 
 "lam quite calm and happy, and leave all to Provi- 
 dence, Which has never failed me, and knows best what 
 is good for me. From a spiritual point of view, this 
 resignation is profitable before God : perhaps I had 
 judged M. de la Mennais too severely, and God sees fit 
 
MGR. DE QUELEN. 99 
 
 to make me feel by personal experience how difficult 
 a thing submission is when it touches oneself directly. 
 But from an earthly point of view, persecution is 
 always profitable to those who bear it worthily." 
 
 . Even so. Shortly after, the Archbishop, who (as 
 Montalembert said) had been mistaken in applying 
 the words " Vir obediens loquetur victorias " to de la 
 Mennais' fictitious submission, now gave Lacordaire 
 opportunity of verifying it. 
 
 " Time went on," Lacordaire says, " and I did not 
 know what to do, when one day as I was crossing 
 the Jardin du Luxembourg I met a priest whom I 
 knew. He stopped me and said, 'What are you doing ? 
 You should go and see the Archbishop, and come to 
 an understanding with him.' A few minutes after I 
 met an ecclesiastic much less well known to me, who 
 stopped me again and said, ' You are wrong not to go 
 to the Archbishop. I have good reason to believe that 
 he would be glad to have some conversation with you.' 
 This double expression of opinion took me by surprise, 
 and being perhaps somewhat superstitious as to the 
 dealings of Providence, I turned slowly towards the 
 Convent of Saint Michel, not far from the Luxembourg, 
 where the Archbishop was then living. It was not 
 the ordinary portress who came to the door, but a 
 Choir Sister who was kindly disposed towards me, 
 because, as she said, ' every one was against me.' She 
 told me that Monseigneur was at home to nobody, but 
 
ioo INTERVIEW WITH THE ARCHBISHOP. 
 
 she proposed taking in my name, on the chance that 
 he might see me. He consented to do so. When I 
 entered, the Archbishop was walking up and down 
 his room with a preoccupied, troubled air ; he received 
 me coldly, and I began to walk beside him without 
 his saying a word. After some considerable silence, 
 he stopped suddenly, and turning to me with a glance 
 of investigation, said abruptly, ' I am thinking of 
 appointing you to preach in Notre Dame, will you 
 accept the appointment?' This brusque proposition, 
 which I did not understand, did not elate me. I 
 answered that the time was very short for preparation, 
 it was a solemn undertaking, and though I had 
 succeeded in the presence of a limited audience, I 
 might easily fail before some four thousand listeners. 
 The end was that I asked for twenty-four hours' con- 
 sideration. After prayer to God and consultation with 
 Mme. Swetchine, I accepted. . . . The Archbishop 
 was surprised at the slender opposition he met with 
 when his appointment became known. I believe it 
 was because my opponents hoped it would be my 
 destruction, convinced as they were that I knew no 
 theology, and had no oratorical power, two things 
 essential for such a work. They did not know that 
 I had devoted the last fifteen years to the study of 
 philosophy and theology, and during the same period 
 I had practised myself in speaking under every kind 
 of condition. Moreover, the orator is like the rock of 
 
CONFERENCES OF NOTRE DAME. 101 
 
 Horeb — until touched of God, it is a barren stone, but 
 once let His Finger be laid upon it, and it becomes a 
 fertilising spring." 
 
 Doubtless M. AfTre's stronger mind had great in- 
 fluence with the Archbishop in this measure, and he 
 was also subject to the urgent applications of a 
 deputation of law students, led by Frederic Ozanam. 1 
 The Conferences for young men, which had been in- 
 augurated the year before, had not been over success- 
 ful, and the Archbishop felt the need of a new start. 
 Anyhow, the thing was to be. "The day arrived. 
 Notre Dame was filled with a multitude of unwonted 
 
 1 In 1833 a petition had been presented to the Archbishop by 
 three law students — Ozanam, Lejonteux, and De Montazet — 
 asking for Conferences in Notre Dame which might tend to 
 Christianise their fellow-students, who were so generally impreg- 
 nated with rationalism. In 1834 the petition was renewed by 
 two hundred, insisting on a teaching somewhat beside the 
 ordinary lines, touching upon the topics then urgent on all 
 thoughtful young men, which should treat of the connection 
 between religion and society, and should more or less directly be 
 an answer to the rationalist German and French writings then 
 in such extensive circulation. They pressed for the appointment 
 of Lacordaire as preacher, as having forcibly enlisted the sym- 
 pathies of the young men of Paris ; and they held him more 
 than any one to be capable of pointing out " that philosophy of 
 science and art which would prove the Catholic faith the source 
 of all truth and all beauty ; that living philosophy which, plumb- 
 ing to the depths of human existence, should instruct man as to 
 his origin, guide his course, and help him to meet his end " 
 (Petition, F. Ozanam, Vie, p. 261). 
 
THE BATTLE WON. 
 
 character. The jeunesse liberale and the jeunesse 
 absolutiste, friends and foes, as well as the crowd of 
 merely curious men always abounding in every capital, 
 all poured in streams to the venerable Cathedral. 
 I went up into the pulpit, not unmoved, but with 
 firmness, and began my discourse, keeping my eyes 
 fixed on the Archbishop, who was the most important 
 person present to me, — coming after God indeed, but 
 before the public. He listened, his head somewhat 
 bent, in the most absolutely impassible manner, like 
 a man who was not merely a spectator nor a judge, 
 but who himself was incurring great personal risks in 
 the solemn undertaking. When I had once fairly got 
 possession of my subject and my audience, when my 
 heart fairly heaved under the necessity of seizing 
 hold of this vast assembly of men, and when the first 
 calm had yielded to inspiration, one of those outcries 
 which never fails to touch men, when it is true and 
 deep, escaped me. The Archbishop trembled visibly, 
 a pallor which even I could see came across his face, 
 he raised his head and cast a glance of astonishment 
 at me. I perceived that the battle was won as 
 concerned him, and it was so also with the audience. 
 Directly that he left Notre Dame he intimated his 
 intention of appointing me as an honorary Canon of 
 his Metropolitan Church, and there was some diffi- 
 culty in persuading him to wait until the end of the 
 course." 
 
LACORDAIRE'S CONGREGATION. 103 
 
 This was the beginning of Lent 1835, and such 
 was the first of those famous Conferences which have 
 probably acquired greater celebrity than any church 
 oratory of modern times, save that of Bossuet. 
 Montalembert says that to his mind these first dis- 
 courses were never surpassed by any that followed, 
 except the series of 1854 given at Toulouse. The 
 Archbishop was present at all : it was the first time 
 since the Revolution of July that he had come face to 
 face with the multitude, and he was intensely delighted 
 at the success which so amply justified a move he had 
 certainly felt some qualms in making. One day, 
 rising from his throne, he apostrophised the young 
 orator in the presence of his vast audience as " our 
 new prophet." 
 
 Probably the venerable aisles of Notre Dame had 
 never before embraced such a congregation. There 
 was a nucleus formed by the Society of Saint Vin- 
 cent de Paul, recently founded by Ozanam, one of 
 Lacordaire's dearest friends, and in which foundation 
 he himself had taken no small part ; and round this 
 gathered, often hours before the Conference was to 
 begin, 1 a vast crowd of men of every age, every position 
 in life, every form of belief and unbelief, every kind 
 of politics. There was a great majority of young men, 
 
 1 Frederic Ozanam's brother says that he often went to keep 
 places in Notre Dame, for men who were unable to come early, 
 some hours before the time appointed. 
 
104 CHARACTER OF THE CONFERENCES. 
 
 students of law and medicine, advocates, savants, 
 soldiers, Saint-Simonians, republicans and monarchists, 
 atheists and materialists. " New and strange scene !" 
 writes Pere Chocarne, "in which many a man, during the 
 long waiting hours, must have marvelled what brought 
 together so many men from such opposite quarters ? 
 the disciples of Voltaire hanging on the lips of a 
 Catholic priest ; the descendants of '89, meek listeners 
 in the temple whence their fathers had driven Christ 
 forth; seekers after a new religion before a pulpit 
 whence the same creed has ever gone forth. What 
 did they seek ? how came they there ?" l 
 
 There was much to account for the attraction 
 beyond the mere lust of hearing. Singularly gifted 
 by nature, Lacordaire had the additional attraction 
 of knowing to the heart's core the difficulties he had 
 to deal with. In the preface to the first published 
 edition of his Conferences, Lacordaire says that 
 they " belong wholly neither to dogmatic teaching 
 nor to pure controversy. They are a medley of both, 
 of the word of teaching and of discussion. Address- 
 ing a country where religious ignorance and intellectual 
 cultivation go hand in hand, and where error is rather 
 audacious than learned or deep, I have sought to 
 speak of the things of God in a language which might 
 reach the hearts and the circumstances of my con- 
 temporaries. God had prepared me for this task by 
 1 Vie Intime, i. 199. 
 
THEIR OBJECT. 
 
 suffering me to live long years in forgetfulness of His 
 Love, carried away in those same paths which He 
 designed me one day thus to retrace ; so that I seemed 
 to require little save my own memories, and some 
 thoughtfulness, in order to bring myself into sympathy 
 with a world which I had loved." And further on he 
 says, " I have been asked what was the practical object 
 of these Conferences? What was the point of this 
 singular preaching, half religious, half philosophic, 
 which affirms and debates, and seems as it were to 
 trifle on the borders of Heaven and earth? Its 
 object, its sole object, although it has often gone 
 farther, was to prepare souls to receive the Faith ; in- 
 asmuch as faith is the principle of hope, of love, and 
 of salvation, and inasmuch as this principle, weakened 
 in France by sixty years of corrupt literature, now 
 seeks to revive, and only asks the aid of a friendly 
 voice ; a voice which rather entreats than commands, 
 which spares rather than strikes, which rather expands 
 the horizon than rends it asunder, which, in short, 
 forms a treaty with the intelligence, and sets light before 
 it with the same solicitude that we employ in handling 
 a precious life when in peril by sickness. If this be 
 not a practical aim, what is ? To myself, who have 
 tasted alike the agony and the charm of unbelief, 
 when I have poured one single drop of faith into a 
 soul which suffers from the magic torture of its 
 absence, I thank and bless God; and had I done 
 
106 THE GREAT NEED. 
 
 so but once in my life, at the cost and labour of a 
 hundred discourses, 1 would thank and bless Him for 
 ever." Animated with such a spirit, no wonder that when 
 Lacordaire rose up pale and quivering with enthusiasm, 
 his voice low and almost weak at first, but soon 
 acquiring volume and power, his audience, " the most 
 splendid audience of men that ever was," were speedily 
 carried away. " Nothing could be simpler than his 
 debut : a brief, clear recapitulation of the last Con- 
 ference, a rapid summary of the thesis about to be 
 developed, this was how he set to work. Then he, 
 so to say, let fly I It was grand to see the young 
 apostle, still glowing with the grace of his conversion, 
 surrounded by all those men yet in thraldom, burning 
 to lead them to freedom, going freely with them into 
 the hidden recesses of their minds, never blinking 
 any difficulty, leading them by the paths he had 
 trodden himself, overthrowing all antagonistic errors 
 as he met them, and then, having reached the heights 
 of asserted truth, bursting forth in passionate fervour, 
 identifying himself with it, and crying out, My 
 Church!" 1 
 
 The great feature of his time was the absence of 
 God from its daily life, and the need, the void, was 
 keenly felt. " It may be," to use Lacordaire's own 
 words in 1844, that "our old society had perished 
 because God had been driven forth, and that our new 
 1 Vie Intime, i. 201. 
 
A NEW EPOCH. 107 
 
 society is ill at ease because God has not as yet gained 
 His rightful footing in it." r His was a bright, hope- 
 ful nature j he saw the wounds of his country plainly, 
 but he believed they might be healed, and he believed 
 still more strongly that the way to heal them did not 
 consist in contempt and malediction. Men were won 
 by his large-hearted, loving Christianity, which strove 
 to bring together the elements which half a century 
 had divorced j a Christianity which was ready to listen 
 to the legitimate pleas of reason, to welcome fearlessly 
 science and art, to claim liberty in all its least and 
 fullest senses, above all to offer free-hearted genuine 
 affection to all brethren in Christ ready to march 
 under His banner. 
 
 When that all but inspired voice was stilled for ever, 
 a Bishop of France said, speaking beside his grave, 
 " The Conferences of Notre Dame are an epoch in 
 Christian preaching, but also the epoch of a vast 
 movement among the youth of our country. Now, 
 every year, each Easter Day sees thousands of men 
 kneeling in Notre Dame at their Easter Communion. 
 Ask them who made them Christians ? Many will tell 
 you that the first spark which kindled their faith 
 reached them from his lips." 2 
 
 The course of Conferences this year and the fol- 
 lowing Lent of 1836 were upon the Church: the 
 
 1 Funeral Sermon on Mgr. de Forbin Janson, Bishop of Nancy. 
 
 2 Mgr. de la Bouillerie, Soreze, November 22, 1861. 
 
io8 THE CHURCH 
 
 necessity of a Church, and her distinctive character ; 
 the constitution, authority, teaching, and power of the 
 Church occupying the first series ; and the second, 
 upon her doctrine, tradition, Holy Scripture, reason, 
 faith, and the means of attaining that faith. Where 
 all are powerful and remarkable it is hard to specify 
 any, but perhaps at the present day the Conferences 
 which will strike readers most are the eighth, twelfth, 
 and thirteenth, on the doctrine and faith of the Church. 
 They are full of striking passages, riveting one by 
 their beauty as well as by the power of their teaching. 
 The veil of playful irony, which not unfrequently 
 appears, carries irresistible force sometimes ; e.g. when 
 speaking to rationalists he says, " Do you know what 
 you are about when you pronounce sentence against 
 Christianity in the name of reason ? I will tell you. 
 You have studied some rudiments of science, some 
 Latin and Greek ; you have picked up a few notions 
 about physics and mathematics, read some fragmentary 
 ancient and modern history; you have enjoyed turning 
 over the pages of more or less clever attacks upon 
 Christianity, and with this little stock-in-trade \ce petit 
 bagage\ carried by men from twenty to twenty-five years 
 old, you plant yourselves boldly in the face of Jesus 
 Christ and His Church, in order to show them that 
 you consider them without the pale of human reason. 
 Do you think that Christianity, which is certainly older 
 than you, has read more, has seen more, has lived with 
 
RATIONALISTS. 109 
 
 mankind more than you ? — do you think it might not 
 with quite as much right look upon you as without the 
 pale of reason?" r 
 
 1 Conferences, xi. 
 
MME. SWETCHINE. 
 
 V. 
 
 MME. SWETCHINE— PREACHING ORDER. 
 
 IT is time to speak here of one who had a more 
 than common interest and share in Lacordaire's 
 life ; one for whom his affection and respect were 
 unbounded, and to whom he turned for sympathy and 
 counsel as long as her life was spared : " I never took 
 any weighty step without consulting her," he wrote. 
 
 Mme. Swetchine, whose name is almost as well 
 known in the Church literary world as Lacordaire's 
 own, was born at Moscow, November 22,1782. Sophie 
 Soymanof s father was a man of high position at the 
 Russian Court, where he acted as confidential secre- 
 tary to the Empress Catharine, and when Paul I. 
 came to the throne, Mdlle. Soymanof became 
 demoiselle d'honneur to his Empress Marie. Politics 
 were in so excitable and uncertain a condition at 
 this time, that her father thought it prudent to place 
 her in a secure position, and when only seventeen he 
 married her to General Swetchine, a man of forty-two. 
 Her conduct as a wife was from first to last irreproach- 
 able, and no shadow of gossip ever presumed to touch 
 
HER YOUTH. 
 
 her in days when such immunity was scarcely com- 
 mon. That the General was no ordinary person 
 may be inferred from one anecdote told of him. He 
 was intrusted by the Emperor with the execution of a 
 barbarous and unjust sentence upon a colonel of the 
 Russian army. Going to the square where the con- 
 demned man was waiting, General Swetchine gave 
 him back his sword, bidding -him leave Petersburg 
 instantly, as reprieved by the Emperor. Then return- 
 ing to the palace, he entered Paul's apartment, saying, 
 " Sire, here is my head. I have not fulfilled your 
 
 Majesty's command. Colonel is free. I have 
 
 restored him to honour and life. Take mine instead." 
 The Emperor, after a moment's frenzied passion, 
 forgave him. But such a man was certain to fall 
 into disgrace, and before Paul's death he and his 
 wife had retired to his country estates, where Mme. 
 Swetchine, whose tastes were cultivated, read enor- 
 mously, and while eminently unaffected and unpre- 
 tentious, she became probably one of the best 
 informed, most truly intellectual women of her 
 century. De Maistre, on his arrival in Russia, be- 
 came one of her closest friends ; and every one, of 
 whatever nationality, of any mark, was sure to be 
 found frequenting her salon, which, after the accession 
 of the Emperor Alexander, was restored to Peters- 
 burg. We must not yield to the temptation of 
 lingering over Mme. Swetchine's most interesting 
 
PO WER OF S YMPA THY. 
 
 life, or the story of her departure from the Greek 
 Church to join that of Rome. It was in 1816 that 
 the Swetchines first went to Paris, though they only 
 settled there in 1825, and from that time her salon 
 became in all Paris that most remarkable for the 
 talent, originality, and personal piety of those who 
 frequented it. She was not handsome — quite the 
 contrary — though there was an attraction about her 
 face and manner which won everybody; it was her 
 boundless power of sympathy which so irresistibly 
 drew all ages and temperaments to her. Unlike many 
 women of powerful intellect and gifts, she won the 
 hearts of her own sex as she did those of men. 
 Rivalry with any one never seemed to enter her head, 
 and, as M. de Falloux says, "her disinterested 
 loving-kindness won forgiveness for her superiority." 1 
 
 Revelling in study of the gravest kind (she said of 
 herself that she liked " plunging into metaphysics like 
 a bath ! "), she was all brightness and charm directly 
 that a young or pretty woman entered her salon. 
 Her younger friends delighted to come and exhibit 
 their pretty toilettes to her before their balls ; no less 
 to come and pour out the griefs, or ask counsel in 
 the perplexities which had arisen in those festivities. 
 There was no sorrow, no anxiety, no care, moral or 
 material, to which humanity is subject, to which 
 Mme. Swetchine ever turned a deaf ear. It was but 
 1 Vie, i. 280. 
 
FRIENDSHIP WITH LACORDAIRE. 113 
 
 natural that when the young editors of the Avenir 
 were making their devoted efforts on behalf of freedom 
 of thought and education, they should find a warm 
 friend and sympathiser in her. Montalembert had 
 made her acquaintance on the strength of his devoted 
 admiration for de Maistre, and he, as he himself says, 
 had the blessing of making Lacordaire known to 
 Mme. Swetchine soon 1 after his return from la 
 Chesnaie, " who quickly saw in him a fits de predilec- 
 tion, and concentrated on his head, already storm- 
 beaten in spite of his youthfulness, all the force of 
 tender solicitude and close sympathy which her noble, 
 upright soul contained. . . . For a quarter of a cen- 
 tury she continued to be the guide, the counsellor, the 
 healer of his struggling, agitated temperament, which 
 grew calm and self-possessed beneath her softening 
 influence. Nothing ever marred the blessed union of 
 those two hearts, of that mother and son, who were 
 so worthy of each other ; a union so characteristically 
 defined by Lacordaire when he said, ' I never met 
 any one with such a thoroughly bold spirit of freedom 
 confined within so solid a faith.'" 1 Speaking of his 
 first introduction to her, Lacordaire says, " Mme. 
 
 1 It is told how bystanders at Notre Dame pointed out an 
 elderly lady sitting behind a column, evidently absorbed in the 
 keenest, tenderest interest for the preacher, as Lacordaire's 
 mother, the lady in question being really Mme. Swetchine, 
 whose devotion to him was hardly less than that of a mother. 
 H 
 
ii 4 HER INFLUENCE. 
 
 Swetchine received me with a friendliness quite unlike 
 the ordinary world's ways, and I soon grew accus- 
 tomed to tell her all my troubles, my anxieties and 
 plans. She used to enter into them as though I 
 were her son, and her door was open to me even at 
 those times when she rarely received even her most 
 intimate friends. What could have led her to devote 
 her time and counsels to me thus ? Doubtless some 
 hidden sympathy moved her at first ; but if I am not 
 mistaken, she was confirmed in the course by the 
 consciousness of having a mission to fulfil in me. 
 She saw me surrounded by dangers, guided so far 
 by my own inspirations, without worldly experience, 
 without other compass to steer by than my own pure 
 intentions, and she felt that in becoming a second 
 Providence to me she was doing God's work. From 
 that day, in truth, I never made any decision without 
 discussing it with her, and I owe it to her that I have 
 stood at the edge of many a precipice without falling 
 over." 
 
 There seems little reason to doubt that during the 
 trying period between his first Conferences being 
 stopped and his appointment to Notre Dame, Mme. 
 Swetchine was pleading his cause with the Archbishop 
 with all her winning force and warmth. 
 
 One day, after a conference, Mgr. de Qudlen took 
 him in his own carriage to Mme. Swetchine's house, 
 and led him into her room, saying, "See, here is 
 
MME. DE LA TOUR DU PIN. 115 
 
 your giant ! " One of the most interesting volumes 
 remaining in connection with Lacordaire is a col- 
 lection of his correspondence with her, 1 which enables 
 us to trace his inner mind at almost every stage of 
 his public and private life. Another intimate friend 
 with whom he became closely united about this 
 time was Mme. de la Tour du Pin, of whom he 
 says that " for twenty years she was one of the powers 
 of my life, through the elevation of her mind, her 
 sympathy with mine, and the admirable self-devotion 
 which actuated her." 2 
 
 In March 1835, knowing how limited his means 
 were, and probably feeling that an unfailing sym- 
 pathy always at hand would be the greatest assistance 
 that could be offered him, Mme. Swetchine proposed 
 that Lacordaire should take up his abode in her 
 house. He declined solely on the ground that his 
 mother, who was then living with him, might feel hurt 
 if he left her, although she had a married son at hand. 
 His mother died in February 1836. 
 
 His life was becoming very crowded. "I lead 
 the life of a gladiator," he writes (July 1835) from 
 Dieppe, " fighting against engagements to preach. 
 
 1 "On ne connaitra vraiment le Pere Lacordaire qu'apres la 
 publication de ses lettres," Mme. Swetchine often said (Vie 
 Mme. Swetchine de Falloux, i. 475). 
 
 2 Lettres a Mme. de la Tour du Pin et Mme. de , 
 
 Lettre 63. 
 
Ii6 GROWTH OF WORK. 
 
 . . . My life is rather secular here, but it makes me 
 feel all the more the necessity of working for God and 
 living to Him. Absence is a good touchstone for 
 real attachment. It makes me feel that I love Paris, 
 which was for so long merely a vast heap of stones to 
 me, but which now is inhabited by a soul, made up of 
 some few souls there that I love." This went on for 
 two years, during which Lacordaire's success as a 
 preacher grew daily : the Archbishop could not make 
 enough of his " young prophet," and what was more 
 to him, he began to enter upon the fruits of his 
 teaching in dealing with individual souls, which was 
 ever the most profound delight and interest of his 
 life — one to which we find him perpetually recurring, 
 as the great point, the one object of a priest's career. 
 " Up to this time," he writes, " my life had been spent 
 in study and in polemics, but through my Conferences 
 I entered upon the mysterious work of the apostolate. 
 Intercourse with souls began to open to me, that 
 intercourse which is the true happiness of any priest 
 who is worthy of his mission, and which takes away 
 every shadow of regret at having given up earthly 
 ties and hopes. Through the pulpit of Notre Dame 
 these bonds of affection and gratitude, which could 
 spring from no ordinary gifts of nature, arose — bonds 
 which unite the man and the apostle with as much 
 of sweetness as of strength. I feel like a traveller in 
 the desert to whom some unknown friend conveys 
 
DEPARTURE FROM PA RIS. 1 1 7 
 
 the refreshing draught he pines for. When once one 
 has become initiated into these delights, which give one 
 a foretaste of Heaven's joys, everything else disappears, 
 and vanity ceases to touch one save as an impure blast 
 which cannot deceive one with its bitterness." 
 
 He was only thirty-three, and was surrounded with 
 everything that could satisfy and intoxicate him, when, 
 "through one of those marvellous intuitions which 
 possessed him more than any one I ever knew," says 
 Montalembert, he realised that silence, solitude, 
 work, and recollection were needful to him; and 
 acting with his usual decision and promptness, he 
 resigned his post at Notre Dame, electrifying his 
 hearers in his last Lenten Conference, April 1836, 
 by its closing words : " May I at least have inspired 
 you with the blessed thought of turning to God in 
 prayer, and of reviving your intercourse with Him, 
 not through your intellects only, but by your very 
 hearts' impulse. This is the hope I take away, the 
 prayer I utter in leaving you. I leave this pulpit of 
 Notre Dame in the hands of my bishop, a thing 
 created henceforth j created by him and by you, by 
 the pastor and the people. For a moment this double 
 commission has rested brightly on me : suffer me 
 myself to lay it down, and to retire a while into soli- 
 tude with God and my own weakness." 1 Nothing 
 could shake his resolution, he was deaf even to Mgr. 
 1 Confei-ences, xiii. 
 
NEED FOR STUDY. 
 
 de Quelen's entreaties, and without loss of time he 
 started once more for Rome. Much has been said 
 as to the cause of this, as it seemed, uncalled-for and 
 hasty retirement. But in truth it was neither one 
 nor the other. Speaking of it many years later, Lacor- 
 daire's own expression was, " I felt myself not ripe 
 enough for the work." He had for long looked upon 
 such teaching — a teaching the object of which was to 
 reclaim the strayed faith of his countrymen — as his 
 vocation, and he had studied and prepared for it 
 diligently; but once embarked therein, while others 
 were simply fascinated, and in the burst of admiration 
 which his eloquence and his intellectual gifts pro- 
 duced, forgot, or failed to see any imperfection, he 
 himself became conscious of what was wanting, and 
 felt forcibly — for whatever Lacordaire felt or did was 
 forcible — that he needed more study, more concen- 
 tration of thought and power on the work. He was 
 well aware that there was another group of listeners 
 who were not admirers. Some among his clerical 
 brethren could not away with his entire departure 
 from all conventional stereotyped lines j they talked 
 profusely about striking out new paths, risk of creat- 
 ing rather than allaying doubts, above all, about 
 Liberalism and " idees la?nennaisiennes" as it became 
 the fashion to call them. A letter addressed to the 
 clergy and congregation of Notre Dame was widely 
 circulated, in which it was asserted that " the Abbe 
 
RETURN TO ROME. 119 
 
 Lacordaire's sermons are neither more nor less than 
 newspaper articles which would furnish very suitable 
 material for a new Avenir. We regard them as the 
 most absolute degradation of speech, the most 
 thorough anarchy of thought, and that not even 
 theological but even philosophic thought." All this 
 conduced to determine Lacordaire to bide his time, 
 and wait for that justification of his teaching which 
 was sure to come. The idea of a Preaching Order 
 had already presented itself to his mind, although it 
 had not yet taken definite shape. But as he said on 
 another occasion, " Through all important epochs in 
 my life I have always heard God's Voice within me 
 bidding me how to act ; I have always followed that 
 secret warning, and I have always had reason to 
 rejoice that I did so." So to Rome he went in May 
 1836, Montalembert returning there at the same 
 time ; and the two friends led a happy, peaceful life 
 together. Lacordaire used to say his daily Mass at 
 the Gesii, having a small apartment near it (56 Via di 
 San Nicolo a Cesarini) ; he was cordially received by the 
 Holy Father, and by the Cardinals Lambruschini and 
 Zuria, then at the head of affairs. The Pope re- 
 minded him of a former gathering in his apartment, 
 a "belle chambree" pointing out the spot where 
 Lacordaire, de la Mennais, Montalembert, and the 
 Cardinal de Rohan had each been placed. The 
 Jesuits paid him every attention, and he was wel- 
 
i2o LETTER TO MME. SWETCHINE. 
 
 corned heartily by the French Ambassador, the Comte 
 de Latour Maubourg, the Borghese family, and many 
 more. In one of his letters to Mme. Swetchine, 
 July 25, 1836, he gives a good idea of his mind 
 and actual position : " There is enough in me that is 
 false, incomplete, exaggerated, of evil and even of 
 good, to sink ten thousand men : God's goodness 
 preserves me, I know not why. I am thirty-four, 
 and it is a fact that my education is not finished in 
 any respect. I am conscious of a crowd of thoughts 
 waiting for fresh light, not unlike the incomplete 
 works which surround one here with ruins. Born in 
 an age which was steeped in error, God gave me an 
 abundant grace, the ineffable stirrings of which I felt 
 from my earliest childhood ; but the world prevailed 
 over this Heaven-sent gift, and its illusions got posses- 
 sion of me beyond what I can express, as if nature 
 were jealous of grace, and resolved to surpass her. 
 When, contrary to all probability, grace won the day, 
 some twelve years since, I plunged into Seminary 
 life without having had time to cast aside a thousand 
 false impressions, a thousand ideas inconsistent with 
 Christianity ; and I found myself committed at once 
 to the world and to faith, belonging to two worlds, 
 with equal enthusiasm for both ; an incomprehensible 
 medley of a nature as strong as grace, and a grace as 
 strong as nature. No learned and devout hand took 
 hold of mine; some condemned me, others pitied 
 
•" AFFAIRES DE ROME." 121 
 
 me, but He Who repenteth Him not of His gifts did 
 not fail me, and He is working out His design by 
 slow degrees. . . . My days pass very uniformly. I 
 get up at 5.45, the Holy Eucharist at 7 j from 8 to 
 11 work, then dejeuner, then I read newspapers and 
 magazines, take a siesta, and waste my time till 3 ; 
 work again till 8, unless sometimes I go out at 6 for 
 a walk ; dinner or supper at 8 ; and between 1 o and 
 1 1 bed. This is only interrupted by a few visitors. 
 Rome is a wonderful place for seeing people from 
 all quarters of the world, and for becoming au courant 
 of everything." 
 
 In the November of this year M. de la Mennais 
 published a book called " Affaires de Rome," which 
 seemed to Lacordaire to demand an answer, or rather 
 a refutation, on his part. He discussed the matter by 
 letter with Mme. Swetchine, who on her part con- 
 sulted with the Archbishop of Paris on his behalf. 
 But he, surrounded as he was by Lacordaire's enemies, 
 was opposed to the publication, which the Pope, and 
 those immediately around him, desired ! It was a 
 curious sort of dead-lock, and certainly tended to 
 make him glad that he had left Paris ! He had been 
 hesitating whether to return, but, as he wrote to Mme. 
 Swetchine, " I owe much to the Archbishop, but not 
 enough to make myself over to him, bound hands 
 and feet ! He has been sublime on my behalf occa- 
 sionally ! but I am a burden hard to him to bear, 
 
SAN LUIGI DE FRANCES!. 
 
 which the future may make heavier. ... I must 
 wait, and grow older, and become better. My first 
 ten years of priestly life have been too full, and too 
 full of excitement. I owe myself a long solitude. 
 . . . -Let us offer to God the sacrifice of not meet- 
 ing for some time. Your heart will tell you that 
 God has wise reasons for keeping me from Paris, and 
 that it would be foolish to return now." 
 
 Mme. Swetchine's wise counsels would bear repro- 
 duction at length, but we must only quote her opinion 
 that " solitude may be good for you, useful, perhaps 
 necessary ; solitude with its companion calm, freedom, 
 self-possession ; but not isolation, which sweeps away 
 support as well as difficulty, which would make you 
 lose the precious habit of human contact — most 
 precious to those whose lot is to live among men, 
 and for them, and which would at once deprive your 
 imagination of all the warnings of strict reason and of 
 sympathy. Everywhere, in all conditions, the Divine 
 precept, ' It is not good for man to be alone,' recurs." 
 The ultimate publication of Lacordaire's " Lettre sur 
 le Saint Siege" did not take place till 1838. 
 
 Meanwhile he was pressed to give Conferences at 
 San Luigi de Francesi, and the chaplaincy there was 
 offered him by the French Charge* d' Affaires. He 
 also made a Retreat at San Eusebio, and shortly after, 
 being invited by one of the chief ecclesiastics of 
 Metz, who was passing through Rome, to go and 
 
CHOLERA IN ROME. 123 
 
 preach there, he took counsel, as was his wont, with 
 Mme. Swetchine and Mme. de la Tour du Pin, and 
 the result was that he decided to accept the offer, 
 and others of a similar character flowed in. " France 
 is a large country," he wrote, "and her needs im- 
 mense; why should I give up everything because 
 Paris is closed to me ? Elsewhere I should not be 
 beset by unfriendly newspapers and the persecuting 
 coterie of the capital." M. Afire meanwhile always 
 stood his friend with the amiable but vacillating, 
 easily-influenced Archbishop ; and after much de- 
 liberation Lacordaire resolved to return to France in 
 the summer of 1837 with his friend Montalembert. 
 But just as they were about to start the cholera broke 
 out in Rome with great violence, and with his usual 
 impulse of self-devotion Lacordaire immediately de- 
 termined to stay when most men were flying the 
 contagion, and he put his services at the disposal of 
 the Cardinal-Vicar forthwith. Writing to tell Monta- 
 lembert of this decision, he concluded with the words, 
 " If I die, you will cherish my memory ; it will not be 
 necessary to defend so insignificant a thing." 
 
 He writes, August 21, 1837 : "Here we are, chere 
 amie, in the thick of cholera. After three weeks' 
 uncertainty, it showed itself unmistakably last week. 
 Yesterday there were a good many sudden cases : 
 Princess Massimo is dead; Sigalon, a well-known 
 French painter, was carried off the day before. . . . 
 
I2 4 GENERAL PANIC. 
 
 For myself, I was never better. . . . The Abbe de 
 Solesmes wants me to go with him, but although I 
 had fixed to go September 15 th, I think I must 
 wait until the cholera is on the wane. I do not 
 like to fly before it, especially as so many people 
 here are such utter cowards." 
 
 And September 16th: "My ignorance of Italian 
 hindered my usefulness among the natives, and 
 beyond M. Sigalon, to whose deathbed I ministered, 
 there has been no cholera among the French and 
 Belgians. I offered my services to the Cardinal- 
 Vicar, and he appointed me to our parish of San 
 Luigi j but there have been few cases in this part of 
 the town. It is now subsiding everywhere, and 
 my poor heroism, as you call it, becomes a very 
 small matter. The Abbe de Solesmes was taken 
 ill, and in danger for twenty-four hours ; but, 
 thank God, he is all right now, and is to leave 
 shortly in a merchant boat now lying off the Ripa 
 Grande. For I would have you know all roads 
 have been closed for a month, and nothing passes 
 save the post on horseback. All towns and even 
 villages are armed; they threaten to shoot you at 
 the gates, and would not throw you a bit of bread 
 for ten crowns ! The whole country loses its head 
 at the idea of contagion, and though the cholera is 
 lessening so much, and will soon be gone, I don't 
 know when we shall be suffered to travel again. My 
 
DIJON. 125 
 
 health has continued excellent, thanks to unbroken 
 tranquillity of mind. ... I am engaged for all next 
 winter at Metz, in consequence of a most gratifying 
 letter from the Bishop, and the Archbishop of Bor- 
 deaux has also written very kindly. I am obliged to 
 refuse him this time. But in spite of all this, which 
 promises me greater liberty and security hereafter in 
 France, I thought that before returning thither it 
 behoved me to write simply and respectfully to the 
 Archbishop of Paris. This time in Rome, so useful 
 in many ways, has added many years to my life in 
 eighteen months ! I leave it better, more detached, 
 and without regret." 
 
 It was in September 1837 that Lacordaire left 
 Rome, important projects working in his mind. 
 Writing from Dijon, November 8th, to Mme. Swet- 
 chine, he says, " My one ambition is to establish 
 in France that system of instruction which she lacks. 
 Every cathedral ought to possess such a school. It 
 is the crying need of a period in which our young 
 men are not taught religion anywhere, while never- 
 theless they have an immense desire to learn it. 
 I should count myself happy if I spend my life in 
 creating such a system, which indeed I have already 
 largely promoted, since there is not a diocese where 
 it does not depend upon myself whether I shall be 
 called upon to give instructions which M. Frayssinous 
 had limited to Paris, and of which indeed he had a 
 
26 METZ. 
 
 very rudimentary notion. It matters little what be- 
 comes of me, and, moreover, God's Providence will 
 find me bread as He sees fit. 1 But I will never 
 sacrifice a necessary work, which has gradually arisen 
 in spite of endless obstacles, and for which He has 
 been pleased to use me as an instrument, for any 
 worldly prospects." 
 
 In December he writes from Metz, where he had 
 " preached yesterday (December 3rd) in the Cathe- 
 dral, before a numerous assembly. A large enclosure 
 was reserved for men, and was full. The Bishop 
 could not be present because of his great age and 
 infirmities. His grands Vicaires were satisfied, although 
 the sermon was rather abstract for a beginning. I 
 have been received at Metz and in the four dioceses 
 through which I have passed with a cordiality which 
 took me by surprise, and which proves that my 
 journey to Rome has not been unprofitable, even as 
 regards France. I am quite satisfied, and I believe 
 that all will be well." 
 
 " Metz, January 5, 1838. — I am surrounded here 
 by unexpected consolations. The ground grows firm 
 beneath my feet with a marvellous rapidity and soli- 
 dity. I feel as if I had attained a point of emancipa- 
 tion, of self-possession, and of influence over others, 
 
 1 " Je suis soldat ou cure de campagne avec la meme facilite, 
 et la vie douce, naive, me recherche toujours plus que l'autre " 
 (Lettre a Mme. Swetchine). 
 
ABBA YE DE SOLES MES. 127 
 
 such as I had not dared to look for under less than 
 ten years." "January 29th. — I was to have been at 
 this moment on my way to Strasburg, but I learned 
 by a letter from M. Cheruel that a rumour had been 
 spread that the clergy of Metz had petitioned the 
 Bishop to stop my preaching, and that I should be 
 obliged to leave the place. This made me resolve 
 not to go before Easter, and I am most glad of it. 
 Practice has given me strength ; my voice was never 
 stronger or fuller : I shall be able to go on till Easter 
 without the smallest risk of over-exertion, and that 
 being the case, it is far better not to interrupt my 
 mission." "March 22nd. — Directly after Easter I 
 shall go to Liege and Brussels. . . . My course here 
 is ending even better than it began. . . . Since I wrote 
 last I have been asked to go to Liege, Grenoble, and 
 Aix by their respective Bishops. I have refused 
 Lyons and Marseille. ... I have only engaged 
 myself to Aix and Bordeaux, so you see I have 
 resolved to keep to the provinces. I had come to 
 that conclusion when I learned that M. de Ravignan 
 was engaged to preach at Notre Dame till 1840 
 inclusive, so it seems I had done wisely." 
 
 " Abb aye de Soksmes, June 25, 1838. — What a 
 pity, chere et bonne amie, that you cannot come and 
 see us here; it is a charming place, where nothing 
 is wanting save your presence. I am perfectly happy 
 and content. I have already in one week devoured 
 
128 PROJECT OF RELIGIOUS LIFE. 
 
 ever so, many big books upon one matter, 1 and am 
 more and more clear about it. Strangely enough, 
 an ecclesiastic, a most excellent man, has been here 
 to see me, in order to suggest the very thing which 
 I have before me ; this also occurred at Metz. The 
 only consideration which sometimes frightens me is 
 my own unfitness. I can see certain good points in 
 myself, and specially a real progress during the four- 
 teen years I have spent in God's service. I think I 
 am disinterested, temperate j not too proud ; much 
 more detached from the world and its stir than I 
 was; more ready to die to myself, more drawn to 
 God by the mind and heart, easily touched by 
 heavenly influences, and yet all the while my life 
 seems so commonplace at best ! But never mind, 
 God will do with me as seems best to Him. I take 
 courage because I never went to work more calmly 
 or deliberately. You cannot think, chere amie, how 
 quiet and patient I am. I am in no way feeling 
 hurried, which is unusual with me." 
 
 The allusions in these letters are of course to the 
 project which had gradually been taking shape in 
 Lacordaire's mind, not only of devoting himself to 
 preaching the Faith in his native country, but of 
 becoming a Religious, and of reviving in France the 
 extinct order of Preaching Friars. It was only on his 
 deathbed, years afterwards, that, amidst acute suffer- 
 1 The Dominican Order. 
 
RELIGIOUS ORDERS. 129 
 
 ing, he spoke at length upon this subject, dictating a 
 paper from which we must take a considerable extract 
 in order rightly to comprehend the great work of 
 Lacordaire's life. 
 
 " My long sojourn in Rome," he says, " had 
 given wide scope for reflection ; I studied myself, 
 and I studied the general needs of the Church 
 likewise. As to myself, having already reached my 
 thirty-fourth year, for twelve years in Orders, and 
 having twice borne a not wholly unsuccessful part in 
 the efforts made for the defence and advancement 
 of religion in France, I found myself still solitary, not 
 bound to any ecclesiastical institution, while Mgr. de 
 Quelen in all kindness had endeavoured more than 
 once to point out to me that a parochial sphere was 
 the only one in which he could look to advance me. 
 But I felt no vocation for that kind of work, and I also 
 saw plainly that in the actual condition of the Church 
 of France there was no other door open to that 
 natural desire every reasonable man entertains for 
 stability and security. 
 
 Turning from such personal considerations to 
 the Church and her needs, it seemed plain that 
 she had lost one-half her strength since the de- 
 struction of the Religious Orders. In Rome I saw 
 the splendid remains of these institutions founded by 
 Saints, and a Religious from the illustrious Cloister of 
 S. Gregory the Great actually occupied the Ponti- 
 
i 3 o A REVIVAL. 
 
 fical throne. . . . History recalled to me the names 
 of SS. Antony, Basil, Augustine, Martin, Benedict, 
 Colomba, Bernard, Francis of Assisi, Dominic, 
 Ignatius, the founders of those countless families 
 which had peopled the world with their heroic 
 graces. And beneath this shining track, the milky 
 way of the Church, I beheld as chief factor the three 
 vows — poverty, chastity, and obedience — the keys of 
 the Gospel and of the perfect imitation of Jesus 
 Christ. . . . Could one believe that the time had 
 come when these mighty monuments of faith, these 
 heaven-sent tokens of love to God and man, were to 
 disappear from among us? ... I could not think 
 it J whatever God does is necessarily immortal, and 
 no good work is lost in the world any more than any 
 star is lost in heaven ! 
 
 " Therefore it was that as I walked about Rome, 
 and as I prayed in her basilicas, I became convinced 
 that the greatest service to be rendered to Christianity 
 in our times was an effort to revive the religious Orders. 
 But while this conviction was as plain within me as 
 Gospel truth itself, I was fearful and undecided when 
 I considered how poor an instrument I was for so great 
 a work. My faith, thank God, was thorough : I loved 
 our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church before all else. 
 I had no ecclesiastical ambition, I never had any for 
 the common aims of worldly men, before I turned 
 to God. I had loved glory before I loved God, 
 
DIFFICULTIES. 131 
 
 and nothing else. But still, when I cross-questioned 
 myself, I could find nothing in me that seemed to 
 answer to one's idea of the founder or restorer of 
 an Order. Whenever I contemplated those giants of 
 holiness and Christian power, my heart sank within 
 me \ I was prostrate, discouraged, afraid. The mere 
 idea of subjecting my liberty to a rule and to supe- 
 riors was terrible to me. The child of an age which 
 has little notion of obedience, independence was life 
 to me. How could I suddenly acquire docility, and 
 seek light for my steps in submission only ? Then I 
 began to reflect upon the difficulty of gathering men 
 together, their varying characters and diverse minds, 
 which have ever made a religious community at once 
 the most cheering and painful of burdens even to 
 saints. And from moral perplexities I went on to 
 material ones. I had no fortune ; I was consuming 
 the last remnants of a slender patrimony in Rome. 
 How could I buy large houses and provide for a 
 number of men as needy as myself? Had I any 
 right to incur such risks in the name of Providence ? 
 Nor was this all : external hindrances rose up like 
 mountains before me. Could I expect to be even 
 tolerated by the French Government? . . . No 
 association, even literary or artistic, could be formed 
 in France without the sanction of authority j and this 
 utter bondage, acquiesced in as it was, gave shelter 
 to prejudice under the garb of law. What could be 
 
BREAKERS AHEAD. 
 
 done in a country where religious liberty, accepted by 
 all as a sacred principle, yet could not protect the 
 invisible act of a promise to God within a man's own 
 heart, and where such a promise, dragged to the light 
 by oppressive interrogation, was enough to cut him 
 off from the privileges of his fellow-men ? When a 
 nation has come to such a pass that all liberty seems 
 to be the privilege of those who do not believe as 
 opposed to believers, can one hope ever to see 
 justice, peace, stability, and any civilisation beyond 
 mere material progress flourish ? 
 
 "On all sides I found breakers ahead, and less 
 fortunate than Columbus, I could see no plank on 
 which to reach the shores of liberty. My sole resource 
 was in that boldness which inspired the primitive 
 Christians, and in unshaken faith in God's Omni- 
 potence. . . . The primitive Christians did not 
 merely die; they wrote and spoke, they strove to 
 convince the people and the rulers of the truth of 
 their cause ; and S. Paul, when preaching Jesus 
 Christ in the Areopagus, made use of every wile of 
 eloquence to convince his hearers. There is always 
 a resting-place for God in man's heart ; in the con- 
 dition of minds, the course of opinion, the laws — in 
 all things and in all seasons. The great secret is to 
 perceive it, and to make use of it, not the less making 
 God's own hidden Grace the foundation of one's 
 confidence and strength. Christianity has never 
 
A DECISION. 133 
 
 defied the world, it has never insulted nature or 
 reason, it has never used its light to blind and 
 irritate men ; but at once bold and gentle, calm and 
 energetic, tender and firm, it has penetrated the mind of 
 generations, and those who are found faithful at the 
 last day will have been won and held by the like means. 
 " I took courage from these thoughts, and it came 
 into my mind that all my previous life, even my very 
 faults, had paved my way after a fashion to the heart 
 of my country and my age. I asked myself if I 
 should not be wrong to reject such openings through 
 a timidity which would only further my own ease, 
 and whether the very greatness of the sacrifice were 
 not a reason for undertaking it ? . . . Nevertheless, 
 on my return to France in 1837, I had not come to 
 a decision. After preaching a successful mission at 
 Metz through the winter of 1838, 1 returned to Paris, 
 and there I opened my mind more or less to those who 
 cared for me. I met with no encouragement. Mme. 
 Swetchine let me go on, giving little support to my 
 opinions. Other people looked upon my project 
 as purely chimerical. . . . But it was necessary to 
 come to a decision. I had lost my mother in '36, 
 and there was no use in returning to Rome. Urged 
 on by the position of things, and stimulated by grace, 
 which was stronger than I, the decision was at last 
 made ; but the sacrifice was terrible. Whereas it had 
 cost me nothing to leave the world for the priest- 
 
134 LACK OF ENCO UK A GEMEN T. 
 
 hood, it cost me everything to add to that the 
 burden of the religious life. Nevertheless, in the last 
 case as in the first, when once I had made up my 
 mind, I knew no further weakness or vacillation, and 
 I went boldly on towards the trials which awaited me." 
 
 He had been preceded by the Abbe Gueranger, who 
 had restored the Benedictine Order in France ; and 
 Lacordaire spent two months with him at Solesmes, 
 where his Abbey was, on the way to Italy, in the 
 summer of 1838. 
 
 Before leaving Paris, Lacordaire thought it due to 
 the Archbishop to take leave of his Grace, and place 
 before him his intentions. Mgr. de Quelen was living 
 at the Sacre" Cceur. He listened somewhat coldly, 
 and observed, " These things are in God's Hand, but 
 He has not made His Will plain so far as I see." 
 Just as Lacordaire was taking his leave, however, the 
 Archbishop changed his manner entirely, and told a 
 dream he had had in 1820, which rather curiously 
 foreshadowed events which had since come to pass, 
 and in which certain Religious bore a part. " There 
 is nothing wanting to the complete fulfilment of my 
 dream," he said, "but the arrival of these white- 
 robed men who are to convert the people. Perhaps 
 it is you that are to bring them ! " 
 
 From Florence, where Lacordaire occupied the 
 same quarters he had inhabited six years before with 
 de la Mennais, he wrote to Mme. Swetchine, " Do 
 
RECEPTION IN ROME. 135 
 
 you know, chere amie, I am a better man than I was 
 then ! The nearer I draw to Rome, the more calm 
 and contented I become. I believe that I am truly 
 fulfilling God's Will, and I am full of gratitude for all 
 He has done for me in France. . . . But you are 
 possessed with the demon of more (le demon du 7nieux\ 
 you are never satisfied. Indeed I have great grievances 
 against you ! First of all, you have not enough confi- 
 dence in me, you think me too mobile, you would not 
 have me guided by the course of events. . . . You are 
 logical, chere amie, and the Abbe Bautain says that 
 logic is a terrible cause of error ! . . . Fortunately 
 I am going to be a monk, and you will get rid of 
 me." 
 
 August 25, 1838, Lacordaire had a satisfactory 
 audience of the Cardinal Secretary of State, and the 
 day following he was warmly welcomed by the General 
 of the Dominicans, Ancaroni by name. " I cannot 
 tell you," he writes, " what a delightful conversation I 
 had with this good and venerable old man. It was 
 like Simeon and his Nunc dimittis. In a word, they give 
 us Santa Sabina for our novitiate, sending the actual 
 novices elsewhere, so that we shall be all Frenchmen. 
 The novitiate will be for a year, after which the 
 colony will return to France, I being the Provincial or 
 Vicar-General of the Order, with carte blanclie. We 
 can found colleges for the instruction of youth, and 
 we shall thus have three manner of houses — noviti- 
 
136 PERSONAL FEELINGS. 
 
 ates, professed houses, and colleges — uniting the life of 
 regular clerks with that of a monastic order, an entire 
 novelty, but a necessity, granted us. This alone is 
 the security of our life and its usefulness. And 
 lastly, I have obtained even more than I asked for 
 without contest, and with a goodwill and kindly 
 feeling which rejoice me unspeakably. ... So as 
 soon as I have had my audience of the Pope I shall 
 return to France, and spend the winter looking out 
 for fine, brave, stedfast young fellows, capable of 
 mutual self-devotion and true humility. That is the 
 great point. After Easter we shall return, and pro- 
 bably take solemn possession of Santa Sabina in 
 May 1839." 
 
 A little later he writes to Mme. Swetchine, " I have 
 had but one struggle in this matter, that of weakness 
 face to face with a great self-devotion. I was happy, 
 contented, free from anxieties, and I am going to take 
 upon my shoulders, not so much a hard life and a 
 serge gown, as the heavy burden of a family to bring 
 up and feed. I am voluntarily going to surround 
 myself with those whose bread I must provide. 
 Selfishness said, ' Be still.' Jesus Christ said, 
 1 When rest and glory were offered Me, I chose the 
 life and death of the Cross.' My whole soul is uttered 
 in these last words. And now I have conquered the 
 enemy, I have laid aside every vestige of earthly 
 cowardice, and that gives me a stronger confidence in 
 
S. DOMINIC S TOMB. 137 
 
 success than all the facilities given me. It was pre- 
 cisely the same thing, fourteen years ago, when I 
 entered the seminary — first a struggle, in which I held 
 the same argument with myself, then my decision once 
 made, a firm certainty which has never once been for 
 a moment troubled. At both these important epochs 
 of my life I have sacrificed a certainty to an uncer- 
 tainty, a condition with which I was satisfied for one 
 which I feared." 
 
 Lacordaire returned through Bologna in order to 
 visit S. Dominic's tomb, 1 and directly that he arrived 
 at Dijon, co-operation began to offer itself both in 
 respect of money and men. With respect to these 
 last he was earnest, but not eager ; he would have no 
 one enter upon the life proposed to them hastily. 
 
 " Dear friend," he writes to one aspirant, October 
 18, 1838, " I am no way surprised, be sure, at the in- 
 ward struggle you are undergoing. It is natural. No 
 saint ever contemplated any great sacrifice for God's 
 sake without misgivings. Only give yourself up to the 
 
 1 "I arrived yesterday at Bologna, where one sole object was 
 my attraction," he writes, September 19, 1838, "the resting- 
 place of S. Dominic. ... His tomb is in white marble, quite 
 unlike the modern style, in a church at the extremity of the 
 town, in a sort of desert. It was there that S. Dominic died, 
 there where so many Religious have lived, and where some of the 
 greatest men from all ends of the world have met. Now the 
 monastery is almost empty, and the greater part turned into 
 barracks, and where once saints prayed and wrote, now soldiers 
 drink and swear." 
 
138 DOUBTS OF HIS FRIENDS 
 
 leadings of grace without haste, without insisting on 
 to-day or to-morrow. For my own part, I spent 
 nearly eighteen months in resolving, and several times 
 seemed almost to have given up my plans. ... I am 
 not aware of your precise age ; but S. Augustine was 
 not a priest till he was six-and-thirty, which did not 
 prevent his writing ten folio volumes on religion, nor 
 his being a great and powerful bishop. The only 
 difficulty, my dear friend, lies in knowing how far you 
 love Jesus Christ and His Church, and what sacrifice 
 you are capable of making for Him. All else matters 
 not. Think this over before God, and write to me 
 when you have decided." 
 
 Meanwhile there were anxieties afloat among his 
 friends in Paris and in Rome, especially the latter, 
 owing to the openness and publicity with which 
 Lacordaire spoke of his intended work. He wrote, 
 November 3, 1838, to calm these anxieties : 
 "All Romans make a mistake when they have to 
 do with France ; they always put the Government 
 foremost, whereas public opinion is the thing to be 
 considered first of all. Without that, nothing is 
 done ; with that and patience, we always end by 
 obtaining the needful concurrence of Government. 
 Consider my position. My journey to Rome was 
 beginning to be known ; it was talked about, and 
 my motives in going. In another fortnight some of 
 the newspapers would have taken it up ; what should 
 
GOVERNMENT. 139 
 
 I have gained by silence ? My friends were before- 
 hand in saying openly and sincerely what could not 
 be ignored ; they fired a moment before they were 
 fired on, and so have gained for me the merit of not 
 fearing publicity. . . . My present position is good 
 as regards the public; it has passed no hasty con- 
 demnation, it waits ; and I shall take good care not 
 to go back to Rome without having told it anything. 
 As to Government, my position is neither better nor 
 worse. Possibly the silence of the newspapers has 
 struck them, so that they are not afraid of any 
 general explosion. I shall do whatever is necessary 
 to conciliate them, without subjecting my work to 
 their approbation. Time is in our favour, and were 
 thirty years required to re-establish the Dominicans 
 in France, I hope that in the natural order of things 
 these thirty years may be given me. If it is neces- 
 sary that I should be the only French preaching friar, 
 I will be the only one, and take my habit into our 
 pulpits, and win for it all the friendliness which may 
 possibly be shown to me personally." 
 
 And November 21st he wrote, "I believe it is 
 being pressed at Rome that it is very dangerous to 
 tolerate an Order which may become a stronghold of 
 de la Mennais' former friends. I have not written 
 to Cardinal Lambruschini on this matter, because I 
 think I am sufficiently known at Rome for no heed 
 to be given to such rubbish. ... An age has already 
 
i 4 o " MEMOIR E POUR LE R&TABLISSEMENT^ 
 
 passed over de la Mennais' tomb, and he is a terror 
 to no sensible man." 
 
 During this winter Lacordaire wrote his " Memoire 
 pour le retablissement en France de l'Ordre de Freres 
 Precheurs." In this he begins by telling his country 
 in straightforward words what he intends doing. 
 " We live in times," he says, " when a man bent on 
 becoming poor and the servant of all finds it more 
 difficult to carry out his desire than it is to create 
 himself a fortune and fame. Nearly all the Powers 
 of Europe, kings and editors, partisans alike of 
 absolutism and of liberty, are leagued against volun- 
 tary self-sacrifice, and never before was the world so 
 afraid of a man going about barefoot and clothed in 
 shabby serge ! The only bondage is for those who 
 seek to serve God generously. . . . We, the children 
 of the nineteenth century, have demanded liberty to 
 believe in nothing, and it is granted ; we have asked 
 liberty to seek all office and honour, it is granted ; we 
 asked freedom to influence its highest destinies by 
 dealing with the weightier questions, in our extreme 
 youth, and it is granted J we have asked means of 
 luxury and ease — welcome. But when now, filled 
 with the Divine kindlings which are moving this our 
 century, we ask liberty to follow the inspirations of 
 our faith, to seek no fortune, to live in poverty with 
 a few like-minded friends ; then, forsooth, we are 
 pulled up short, laws innumerable hurled at us, and 
 
WHA T IS LIBER TY? 141 
 
 Europe itself is ready to fall upon us and crush us, 
 if called upon I" 1 He goes on to point out the in 
 
 1 At the present time, when worse oppression than in Lacor- 
 daire's time is being practised upon the Church under a Free 
 Republic than was known then under a Monarchy, it may be 
 well to call attention to some of his words : "I ask protection 
 from public opinion ; I ask it against itself, if need be. . . . 
 Is it conceivable that a country which has been proclaiming 
 liberty for the last fifty years, that is to say, the right to do 
 what harms no one, should pursue a Voutrance a mode of life 
 which suits many and hurts none? What is the good of shed- 
 ding one's blood for the ' rights of man ' ? Is not a life in 
 common a right of man, even were it not a need of humanity? 
 . . . What is right and liberty, if it is not permitted to citizens 
 to live in one house, to get up and go to bed at the same hour, 
 to eat at the same table, and wear a like garment ? What be- 
 comes of property, what becomes of freedom of domicile and 
 individual freedom, if citizens can be driven forth from their 
 own hearths because they carry out domestic life as a Com- 
 munity ? ... It would not have been a mockery if the Revolu- 
 tion had said to Religious, ' There may be some among you 
 who did not enter the cloister willingly ; henceforth the doors 
 are open to them, let them abide by their conscience. ' Neither 
 would it have been a mockery to add, ' The nation takes away 
 the property which your ancestors and ours formerly gave you. 
 She believes this sacrifice to be necessary to the welfare of our 
 country, and while leaving you enough for subsistence, she asks 
 you to bear the blow with the dignity of men who have re- 
 nounced the world from love to God and man. Now that the 
 ancient order of things is abolished by this extraordinary and 
 terrible act, go where you will, build fresh shelters beneath the 
 protection of our common rights, and trust yourselves fearlessly 
 to the future. Providence suffers revolutions for purification, not 
 destruction.' Such language would have been injustice, but not 
 
142 RESULT OF THE " MEMOIRE." 
 
 consistency of those who, seeking after liberty and 
 equality, would hinder a Community life in which 
 the prince and the peasant are alike, and share the 
 same table. 
 
 The desired result was in a great measure 
 attained. Public opinion, the value of which 
 Lacordaire did not over-estimate among his country- 
 men, was taken with his boldness, his frankness, and 
 the vigour of so gifted a man who had made his 
 gifts so widely felt. There was no attack made on the 
 book either by the press or the Government, and the 
 first visible result was that Hippolyte Requedat, read- 
 ing the " Memoire," came and unreservedly threw him- 
 self into Lacordaire's plans. Of this, his first associate, 
 the leader said that though others, noble, pure-hearted 
 as he, joined the little company later, there was none 
 gifted with a purer, deeper beauty of soul, or on whom 
 God's Hand was more visibly laid. 
 
 mockery. What is mockery is to pretend, in the name of 
 liberty, to undo knots which cannot be undone, because they 
 depend upon men's inward minds, and to sanction such a 
 curious deliverance by the spoliation of the most venerated 
 rights. When the Trappists were driven forth from the Abbey 
 of Melleray, did they not take their vows as well as their faith 
 with them ? and what were they deprived of save peace, home, 
 the fruit of their labours, and all those liberties which had been 
 watered with the blood of their ancestors and their contempo- 
 raries?" The whole pamphlet, for it is little more, is well 
 worth attentive reading under the light of the Republic of the 
 present day. 
 
TAKING THE HABIT. I43 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE NOVITIATE— LA QUERCIA— SANTA SABINA 
 —NOTRE DAME— ROME— BOSCO— THE PRO- 
 VINCES—NANCY. 
 
 EARLY in March, Lacordaire, together with 
 Requddat and the Abbe Bontaud, returned to 
 Rome. Of the former he says that he is " a real 
 saint." Their reception was most cordial. " I see 
 true Christian fraternity for the first time," he writes 
 to Mme. Swetchine of the Dominicans, "the true 
 likeness of Jesus Christ in men. We might have 
 lived together fifty years, and they could not 
 have been more simple or more cordial." Cardinal 
 Sala, in his official capacity, saw reason to desire that 
 the French Novitiate should be out of Rome, and 
 accordingly after taking the habit on April 9, 1839, at 
 seven p.m., in the Chapel of S. Dominic, in Santa Maria 
 Minerva (when Lacordaire, according to established 
 use, took the name of Dominic), they proceeded a 
 few days after to La Quercia, a convent at Viterbo. 
 Lacordaire writes as follows to Mme. Swetchine : — 
 
144 LA QUERCIA. 
 
 "April 15, 1839. 
 " It is a week to-day, cJiere amie, since we took the 
 habit, and this is the fourth of our abode at La 
 Quercia. It would be difficult to tell you all the 
 feelings of tenderness and joy which filled me on the 
 night of April 9th. The remembrance of my Ordina- 
 tion is very fresh, with all its happiness, but that 
 which was then lacking I now found in the most 
 ample abundance, — I mean the sympathy and welcome 
 of a brotherhood. . . . On Thursday, at eleven a.m., 
 we entered the Convent of Gradi at the gates of Viterbo, 
 where we dined with the Provincial of Rome and all 
 the Fathers. In the evening the Provincial took us 
 to La Quercia, about half a mile off, where he 
 initiated us with a short address in the presence of 
 the Community, after which we retired each to our 
 cell. It was cold, the wind had changed to the 
 north, and we had only summer habits in fireless 
 rooms ; we knew nobody ; all the excitement, the 
 prestige^ was over; friends were no longer at hand, 
 though bearing us in mind. We were alone with 
 God, face to face with a life which as a practical 
 matter was yet unknown to us. At night we went 
 to Matins, then to the refectory, and at last to bed. 
 The next day, it was colder than ever, and we only 
 half understood the course of devotional exercises. 
 I had a passing moment of weakness ; my mind re- 
 verted to all I had left — my formed habits, certain 
 
DAIL Y LIFE. 
 
 "45 
 
 advantages, beloved friends, days filled up with pro- 
 fitable intercourse, warm hearths, the thousand joys 
 of a life which God had filled with so much happiness 
 external and internal. It was a dear purchase, the 
 pride of a powerful action, to lose all that for ever ! 
 I humbled myself before God, and implored the 
 strength I needed. By the end of the first day I felt 
 that my prayer was heard, and the last three days 
 comfort has been ever growing within me, as gently 
 as the waves of a summer sea creeping slowly over its 
 shores. Our daily life is as follows : The bell calls 
 us at a quarter-past five, a quarter of an hour later 
 we are in a little interior choir, by the Novitiate door, 
 where we sing Prime, hear Mass, and make our me- 
 ditation. After that we say our own Mass. Before 
 midday we go to the choir of the church to sing Terce, 
 Sext, and None, and on great days High Mass. We 
 dine at noon ; all meals are maigre, without special 
 dispensation, and every Friday is a fast. On other 
 days we eat some bread in the morning, but from 
 September 14th to Easter the fast is continual, dis- 
 pensation excepted. After dinner we either join 
 the general recreation or take a siesta as we will. 
 At three o'clock, Vespers and Compline. From four 
 to eight we are free, and can go without for a walk 
 if we think fit. At eight we sing Matins and Lauds, 
 at a quarter to nine supper, followed by conversation 
 in the Community-room, and to bed at ten. We 
 
 K 
 
1 46 THE NO V1TIA TE. 
 
 have a little chapel in the Novitiate, where morning 
 and evening we can make a short meditation when it 
 suits us ; the other exercises are with the whole 
 Community, save such Fathers as are kept from the 
 choir by the nature of their occupation. At other 
 times we can assemble in the general room for study 
 or conversation. Every one is kindness and genero- 
 sity itself to us. The Sacred Office does not occupy 
 more than two hours a day for the Fathers. The 
 house consists of professed monks, of whom several 
 are Spaniards, eight or nine students, and lastly us 
 three, and two Italian novices. ... La Quercia is a 
 splendid convent; ... a magnificent avenue reaches 
 from the church to the gates of Viterbo ; ... the 
 environs are delicious. To the south, close to the 
 convent, rises Monte Cimino ; on the north Monte- 
 fiascone stands on its hill ; on the east the Apennines ; 
 on the west the lower heights, which slope away to 
 the sea, which can be seen by going a little way on 
 rising ground ; beneath, a rich valley. . . . It is a very 
 paradise, and here we are for a year. You remember 
 Requedat's fine saintly face, it has acquired a new 
 beauty of devotion which makes me delight to gaze 
 upon it. He is an admirable fellow, and were I to die 
 now, I should count upon him safely for the re- 
 establishment of the Dominicans in France. . . . 
 Now, chtre amie, it is your business to give me 
 abundant and welcome news. Remember that I 
 
PROSPERITY. 147 
 
 am in profound solitude, and know nothing. Have you 
 got my letters? Tell me about Montalembert, and 
 all those I love. Give me all important political news 
 too ; they are quickly told, and it is important to me 
 not to lose sight of France. I appoint you my ' own 
 correspondent ' at a hundred Ave Marias per month. 
 Go on loving me, chere amie. If I have ever grieved 
 you, this is the time for forgiveness. There is nothing 
 of the old Adam left in me save the memory of your 
 affection and my heartfelt return thereof. Your place 
 is for ever marked in my life by the moment at which 
 you took it, and all the good you have poured into it." 
 
 A month later Lacordaire wrote, " We are in a 
 very earthly paradise, you could not find any one in 
 a more flourishing condition ;" and he goes on to say 
 that he has written to the Archbishop of Paris, 
 promising to preach in Notre Dame in the winter of 
 1 841, on condition that it be in his Dominican habit. 
 " If the Archbishop accepts, my object will be attained, 
 viz. to show forth the religious habit in Paris, en 
 pleine Notre Dame, without any legal power being 
 able to interfere, and without anything to fear from 
 the people. The date I fix is sufficiently distant to 
 leave a good margin after my novitiate. Monta- 
 lembert is for ever preaching patience, and doubtless 
 patience is an excellent thing, but one must likewise 
 know how to take advantage of actual circumstances." 
 
i 4 8 ARTISTS' ASSOCIATION. 
 
 "La Quercia, July 3, 1839. 
 u The Univers, which I receive without difficulty, 
 has kept me au courant of your emeutes, and your 
 Ministries. These three governments which have 
 been tried since the Revolution are curious enough. 
 The first, founded on the sword, has perished by the 
 sword ; the second, founded on hereditary blood, has 
 perished by relationship j the third, founded on 
 industrial interests and a thousand mean little com- 
 promises, perishes through commercial interests and 
 the alliance of mistaken ambitions. It is grand. 
 God has worked in a truly Homeric fashion. In all 
 epochs His Providence has made itself plainly felt, 
 not less forcibly and urgently than to-day; one would 
 almost say reverently, that He has become impatient. 
 Through all this materialist muddle God works His 
 way in France, each day brings a fresh proof. I 
 receive incessant requests to join our work; an 
 association of artists is forming in Paris and Rome 
 with a view to the sanctification of art and of Christian 
 propaganda through it. A young painter of three or 
 four and twenty came to see me the other day. He 
 was barefoot, going to Florence on an expiatory 
 pilgrimage and to ask the gift of faith. He was a 
 fine young fellow, so modest and humble ; all those 
 who saw him imagined he was a devout person come 
 to join us. Requedat receives letters from his former 
 friends in Paris, once unbelievers and republicans, 
 
S. DOMINIC. 149 
 
 that might be written by nuns or anchorets, in the 
 most definite Christian tone. ... In a year's time 
 our difficulty will be to select some fifteen novices 
 from out more than a hundred aspirants." 
 
 " August 10, 1839. 
 "I have just received a kind long letter from M. , 
 
 who sees and will see nothing in the Dominicans but 
 inquisitors and burners of men, and cannot imagine 
 any other opinion of them ! I am writing in reply to 
 tell him that, after long study of S. Dominic's life, his 
 Constitutions, and the history of his Order, it is perfectly 
 evident that S. Dominic was a very gentle person, 
 who never troubled his head about the Inquisition, 
 and saw no other means whereby to save the Church 
 than the apostolical lines of poverty, prayer, preach- 
 ing, and the knowledge of God, which sublime view 
 of the matter made him what he was. His Constitu- 
 tions held the same language. His Order was scarcely 
 founded when it was engrossed by missions in Europe 
 and the West, by schools of theology, and later by its 
 noble works in the two Indies. His saints, S. Pietro 
 di Verona excepted, and the countless bands of his 
 known and unknown holy men were all strangers to 
 the Inquisition, and were merely gentle, charitable, 
 penitent people. Throughout this history the Inqui- 
 sition was a mere by-the-way accident, a function 
 which the Dominicans of that day accepted, but in no 
 
i5o 
 
 OFFER FROM BELGIUM. 
 
 sense their vocation, their principal business, or their 
 official character. You know that M. de Maistre 
 says all the harshness of the Spanish Inquisition came 
 from the State, but this good man affirms the contrary. 
 He is altogether a curious body, and I thought it 
 good to tell him my mind plainly. I will tell you 
 in confidence that I am writing a Life of S. Dominic. 
 I daily give some hours to this work, and have already 
 got over its chief difficulties. This will be my second 
 battle. . . . I go on receiving letters from men wanting 
 to join us. Yesterday two priests wrote, at the sug- 
 gestion of their bishop, they tell me." 
 
 " September 22, 1 839. 
 
 "We are offered a fine convent, with a church, 
 cloisters, and gardens, which once belonged to our 
 Order at Lierre, three miles from Malines in Belgium. 
 It was bought by a certain Pere Claes in order to 
 preserve it for us, and now at his death his nephew 
 offers it us for nothing, if we will go there. We 
 accept it conditionally, that is to say, if we should not 
 go to France, and secondarily as a great Novitiate 
 after we have won the right to settle where we please 
 by a primary establishment in France. Besides this, 
 a wealthy Englishman, Mr. Lisle Philipps, offers 
 through Montalembert to found a convent for us on 
 his property. So we have made good way for six or 
 seven months." 
 
LIFE OF S. DOMINIC. 151 
 
 To Mme. de la Tour du Pin : — 
 
 " September 22, 1839. 
 
 "I am calm, laborious, rarely troubled with any 
 thought of our opponents ; I see better the emptiness 
 and pride of my past life ; I think I am growing 
 humbler; I understand better the general ruling of 
 Christianity ; I feel as though I were ripening, and 
 may be guilty of fewer faults than in the past. Our 
 enemies are very profitable for heart-purging, they bring 
 our real penance. A few blows are soon forgotten, 
 even when deserved and accepted ; but the incessant 
 persecution of those who do not understand us, or who 
 are envious, this is the Christian's true cross." 
 
 " November 17, 1839. 
 " I admire your audacity, chere amie, in asking 
 whether the Life of S. Dominic will be a book, that 
 is to say, a volume, as you call it ! Know then, 
 Madame, that with the exception of two short treatises 
 on the Republic and Law, Plato wrote nothing save 
 dialogues of a hundred or so pages, which did not 
 hinder his exhaustiveness ; and that the greatest 
 authors of ancient times did not write volumes ! 
 But since a volume you desire, I beg to inform you 
 that S. Dominic will make a volume, a big one too ! 
 I have brought my great patriarch to the forty-sixth 
 year of his life, which was only fifty-one, and neverthe- 
 less but a third is done. The rest, however, is easy. 
 
152 FES TINA LENTE. 
 
 The work is very pleasant, though somewhat interfered 
 with by our religious offices. But I give myself up to 
 Providence, and take time as it is given me. Life is 
 too short, chere amie, for hurry. It is a great mis- 
 fortune that our authors write so fast. Men of old 
 wrote slowly. They knew that a man's life is but a 
 brief revelation, that there is always time enough to 
 tell what is worth telling of it. I abide quietly at 
 present, seeing clearly what I shall have to say at 
 some future time, if it please God, and I wait His time 
 patiently. I let my hair grow a little grey ; I fear 
 God and respect my fellow-men too much not to be 
 willing to let my mental powers await their full 
 maturity." 
 
 To another friend Lacordaire writes : — 
 
 "La Quercia, Oct. 2, 1839. 
 " I see the advertisement of a reissue of your book, 
 of which I am glad. Beware of laying down your 
 pen. Unquestionably writing is a heavy vocation, but 
 the press has become too important an agent to forsake 
 one's post. Let us write, not for glory or immortality, 
 but for Jesus Christ. Let us take up our pen as a 
 cross. Supposing that nobody reads us a hundred 
 years hence, what does it matter? The drop of 
 water falling into the sea no less bore its part in filling 
 the river, and the river ceases not. He who belonged 
 
IMPORTANCE OF THE PRESS. 153 
 
 to his own age, belongs to all ages, Schiller says ; 
 he has done his work, he has had his share in the 
 creation of things which last for ever. How many 
 books, now lost in our great libraries, have during the 
 last three centuries brought about the revolutions 
 which we behold ! We do not actually know what 
 our fathers wrought, but we live through them. . . . 
 The close of your letter, in which you speak of the 
 persistent drawings you feel to consecrate yourself to 
 God, touches me deeply, and the hope of seeing you 
 one of us would be very acceptable. ... A week spent 
 with us, when we open a Novitiate, would tell you 
 more than much writing. For myself I am well 
 satisfied, and regret nothing here save the lack of the 
 vigour and severity which are necessary to us French- 
 men. When we become monks it is with the inten- 
 tion of going in for it thoroughly" (jusqu'au cou). 
 
 To Mme. Swetchine : — 
 
 "La QuERCiA./aw. 9, 1840. 
 
 " The fulness of ocean comes from its receiving all 
 waters that flow into it j if you let the chemists work 
 their will, the ocean would be dried up in a hundred 
 years. No one prizes purity of doctrine more than I 
 do, and I may say that I grow daily more jealous over it 
 as regards myself, but a charitable valuation of doctrine 
 is the absolutely necessary make-weight of theological 
 inflexibility. A true Christian's object is to find truth, 
 
1 54 CL OSE OF THE NO V1TIA TE. 
 
 not error, in a doctrine, and to seek urgently to find 
 it, even as one gathers a rose from amidst its thorns. 
 He who holds cheap the thought of any sincere man, 
 any man who has made obvious sacrifices to God, 
 he is a Pharisee, the only class of men pronounced 
 accursed by our Lord. He who can say of any man 
 whom he believes to be working for God's glory, 
 1 What does he matter ? does God need clever 
 people ? ' is a Pharisee, who takes away the key of 
 knowledge, and neither enters himself nor suffers 
 other men to enter in. Is there any father of the 
 Church who did not hold his own peculiar opinions, 
 and sometimes erroneous ones? Should we throw 
 their writings out of window in order that the ocean 
 of truth may be purer ? Oh, the man who fights for 
 God has a sacred being, and until the time of his 
 manifest condemnation, we must receive his thought 
 with bowels of compassion ! " 
 
 As the year of novitiate drew near its close, 
 Lacordaire came to the conclusion that instead of 
 proceeding at once to begin his work in France, it 
 would be well to remain for three years in Rome, 
 studying theology, and he wrote a request to this 
 effect to the General of the Order. " While appar- 
 ently losing time," he writes to Mme. Swetchine, " we 
 really save it, inasmuch as in France we should be 
 obliged to begin both a Novitiate and a School of 
 
PERE BESS ON. 155 
 
 Theology. I should have been overwhelmed beneath 
 this burden, whereas now I shall bring at least five 
 or six young men well trained, who will require only 
 a year's novitiate to be effective Dominicans, and to 
 take my place if need be." One consequence of this 
 decision was that the Abbe Bontaud left Lacordaire 
 reluctantly. His health failed altogether under the 
 Italian climate and the Dominican regime. It was 
 Lacordaire's earnest counsel which induced him to seek 
 another sphere of work in Christ's vineyard. Writing 
 in 1862 of the novitiate now closing, the venerable 
 Padre Palmegiani, who had been Lacordaire's novice- 
 master, says, " He was a very model of regularity and 
 religious precision. Among the many virtues which 
 stamped his life, the dearest of all to him was humility. 
 He always counted himself the last of the novices, 
 read at meals, swept the corridors, fetched water, 
 trimmed lamps, performed every humble office, 
 refusing every manner of distinction or exemption. 
 He was never heard to speak of himself or his own 
 affairs, nor could he bear to hear them alluded to. I 
 well remember a novice asking him if the crowd 
 attending his Conferences were really as great as was 
 reported, and so forth, and how, pretending not to hear, 
 Lacordaire turned round and began to talk about 
 something else." 
 
 Before the two Frenchmen left Quercia, the artist 
 Besson, who was shortly to join them, made a copy of 
 
i ;6 PROFESSION. 
 
 the celebrated Madonna della Quercia for their future 
 house. It was on Palm Sunday, April 12, 1840, that 
 Lacordaire and R£quedat took the vows in the 
 presence of a somewhat remarkable and cosmopolitan 
 assembly, which included Prince Borghese and his 
 English wife, Mr. Augustus Craven and Albertine de la 
 Ferronays j and on Easter Day he was preaching at 
 San Luigi di Francia in Rome, at the special request 
 of the French Ambassador, before a crowded assembly. 
 He was made much of, and caressed by the great 
 world both of natives and visitors, and it was a relief 
 to take possession of the quiet Monastery of Santa 
 Sabina on May 15 th. They were seven in number. 
 R^quedat has already been mentioned; his nature was 
 described by one of his friends as being " steeped in 
 the passion of self-devotion as some men are steeped 
 in selfishness." In a little society of young men who 
 used to meet in Paris to discuss the loftiest questions 
 of philosophy and religion, he had made acquaintance 
 with a young architect, Piel, a man of remarkably- 
 pure life and high aspirations. They became warm 
 friends, and when Requedat went to la Quercia, he 
 told Piel that he would soon follow. He took an 
 active part in Paris in the confraternity of artists 
 already mentioned — Besson, Cabat, and Cartier being 
 its chief promulgators in Rome — and was greatly 
 distinguished in a literary capacity — his style was said 
 to recall that of Pascal — as well as in his profession as 
 
PIEL. 157 
 
 an architect; and it was not till after long and stedfast 
 thought and prayer that Piel decided on following his 
 friend, which he accordingly did this same Easter, 
 together with Hernsheim, a promising pupil of the 
 Ecole Normale, where he was about to fill a professor- 
 ship when a serious illness, and the reflections it 
 produced, led him to join the little company of French 
 Dominicans. The young artist Besson, whose history 
 has been already made known to the English public, 
 was the fifth. "We did not expect him at present," 
 Lacordaire wrote, May 13th, "because of his mother, 
 whose only child he is ; but it was she herself who 
 besought him to follow his vocation, after she heard 
 my sermon at San Luigi. For two days she urged 
 him more and more pressingly. I went to see them 
 all unwittingly on the Wednesday, and needed but 
 to stoop to gather this beautiful flower. He is a 
 miniature Beato Angelico, a wondrously pure, good, 
 simple fellow, and with the faith of a great saint. The 
 Abbe Jandel, who was the sixth, had made acquaint- 
 ance with Lacordaire in 1837 at Metz, being then 
 Superior of the Petit Seminaire of Pont-de-Mousson, 
 and like most men, Jandel was deeply impressed by 
 the earnestness and power of the elder man. In 1839 
 he went to Rome, intending to join the Jesuits, but 
 was advised by them to seek his vocation with the 
 Dominicans. He had been preaching in Rome that 
 Lent, and was much thought of. Lacordaire mentions 
 
158 SANTA SABINA. 
 
 him as a " thorough " man. 1 A young Pole, by name 
 Tourouski, was the last of the little band. A corridor 
 and chapel apart were given up to them, and Lacor- 
 daire looked forward greatly to the opportunity for quiet 
 and study, Thursdays from eight to twelve o'clock 
 being the only time at which their privacy could be 
 invaded. " I have finished my visits," he writes to 
 Mme. Swetchine, "and rejoice in the prospect of 
 having no more. Solitude is always a great power. 
 Nothing frustrates intrigue and enmity so much as a 
 man who keeps to his own room." 
 
 The first thing that occurred greatly to move Lacor- 
 daire after taking up his abode at Santa Sabina was 
 the appointment of Mgr. ArTre as successor to Mgr. 
 de Qudlen, who while loving him and feeling grateful 
 for his personal kindness, Lacordaire had always felt 
 to be a weak place in the Church of France. He writes 
 enthusiastically on the subject to Mme. Swetchine 
 July 8, 1840, counting it a great act of God's Provi- 
 dence. " Not that I deceive myself as to what we 
 may expect from the new Archbishop," he says. 
 " Mgr. ArTre will only be just to us ; he will not give 
 himself up, tied hand and foot, to any coterie ; he will 
 feel the need for action, and consequently not to 
 repulse zealous able men raised up by Providence ; he 
 will not abhor his own times because of their troubles ; 
 
 1 The Rev. Pere Jandel is actually now General of the Order 
 at Rome (see p. 157). 
 
MONSEIGMEUR AFFRE. 159 
 
 he will let himself be seen and approached ; he will 
 try to put an end to the disunion which exists among 
 the Parisian clergy. But he is Gallican ; he does not 
 care for religious orders save under absolute submis- 
 sion to the Bishop, and possibly some day he may 
 give me more ground for complaint than Mgr. de 
 Quelen. But whatever he does, he will prepare the 
 way for many good things, and that is quite reason 
 enough for me to forgive him beforehand whatever he 
 may do to me. I never measured Mgr. de Quelen 
 with regard to myself, for I was one of the few he 
 tolerated and even loved. . . . Now let us turn to S. 
 Dominic. My manuscript will be taken to Paris early 
 in August by the Abbe de Bouillerie. . . . Will your 
 health and occupations allow of your superintending 
 the printing of a volume of from three to four hundred 
 pages, that is to say, of carefully correcting the proofs ? 
 Or would some one of your friends help you without 
 your giving up the real superintendence ? If you say 
 yes, as I expect, you shall have the MSS., and I will 
 give you details as to publisher, printer, paper, type, 
 etc. A distinguished Catholic artist is at this moment 
 engraving Fra Angelico's portrait of S. Dominic for the 
 title-page." * The same letter mentions Requedat's 
 serious illness. He had been suffering from his chest 
 
 1 M. Lavergne. ' ' You know that he would take nothing for 
 engraving the portrait ? He is a clever painter, and a thoroughly 
 good Christian " (Letter to Mme. Swetchine). 
 
160 requ£dats death. 
 
 for a long time, and now he realised, as did his affec- 
 tionate companions, that his work on earth was to be 
 a brief one. He went peacefully to his rest, September 
 2, .1840, and waits the rising of the dead within the 
 walls of Santa Sabina. " He is the first and the most 
 valuable friend I have lost," Lacordaire writes, 
 October 19th. " No one had given himself to me with 
 such self-devotion, no one promised better, or combined 
 more natural gifts and Christian graces. Truly God's 
 ways are incomprehensible. Nothing has touched me 
 so nearly as this early loss, and the certainty I feel of 
 my friend's invisible presence does not fill up the 
 earthly blank he leaves." 
 
 Mme. Swetchine writes in return about the busi- 
 ness matters connected with publishing the Life of 
 S. Dominic, going on to say, " Cher ami, I have 
 finished your MSS., and words fail me to say how it 
 has gone to my heart, or how much beauty I find in 
 it. It is the best book of the kind I know, so com- 
 plete, and as harmonious as the light which rises up in 
 your own soul. ... I boldly send you some annota- 
 tions, for which your friendship will forgive me." 
 
 The Life of S. Dominic, 
 
 " L'altro che per sapienza in terra fue 
 Di cherubica luce uno splendore," * 
 
 1 " For wisdom upon earth 
 The other, splendour of cherubic light." 
 
 Paradiso, c. xi. 
 
STYLE OF WRITING. 161 
 
 while written with enthusiastic warmth and brilliancy, 
 and in many parts a poem in itself, will probably 
 never be so attractive to English readers as Lacordaire's 
 other writings — his Conferences, and above all his 
 Letters. That " santo atleta" as Dante calls him, has 
 had few nobler followers among the 
 
 " Many rivulets since turned 
 Over the garden catholic to lead 
 Their living waters, and to feed its plants," x 
 
 than Lacordaire, and in some points it is impossible 
 not to be struck with a marvellous resemblance be- 
 tween himself and the patron saint he is describing, 
 as, e.g., when he exclaims, " It is the privilege of 
 certain souls to be prolific in vigorous affection to 
 their last breath, and Dominic was continually 
 acquiring new ties of love." 2 But the tone of pane- 
 gyric is apt to be oppressive in hagiology, and not even 
 Lacordaire's knowledge of the world and happy style 
 can divest us of the feeling that the saint is under- 
 going his Academy laudation. 3 At the same time the 
 
 1 " Di lui si fecer poi diversi rivi, 
 Onde l'orto cattolico s'irriga, 
 Si che i suoi arbuscelli stan piu vivi. " 
 
 Paradiso, c. xii. 
 
 2 Vie de S. Dominique, c. ix. 
 
 3 Chateaubriand gave it the highest praise possible to Mme. 
 Swetchine : " C'est immense comme beaute, comme eclat, je 
 ne sais pas un plus beau style." 
 
 L 
 
162 CONVENT OF SANTA SAB IN A. 
 
 art-lover will find many of the legends with which he 
 is familiar in the well-known frescoes at Florence and 
 at Rome beautifully told, and the descriptions of 
 Santa Sabina and San Sisto have all the charm of 
 Lacordaire's personal attachment to the spot. The 
 book was written in the Convent of Santa Sabina, of 
 which he says, "Its walls rose on the loftiest and 
 most abrupt side of the Aventine, above the narrow 
 channel where Tiber brawls as it rushes forth, dashing 
 against the remnants of that bridge which Horatius 
 Codes defended against Porsenna. Two rows of 
 ancient columns supported an open roof, dividing the 
 church into three aisles, each ending with an altar. 
 It was the primitive basilica in all its glorious 
 simplicity. The relics of Santa Sabina, who was 
 a martyr for Jesus Christ in Adrian's reign, rested 
 beneath the high altar, as near as possible to the 
 spot pointed out by tradition as that of her martyrdom. 
 The church joined the Palazzo Sabelli, then occupied 
 by Honorius III., whence was dated the Bull approv- 
 ing the Order of Preaching Friars. From the win- 
 dows of this dwelling, part of which was given to 
 Dominic, the eye fell upon the Roman city and 
 rested on the Vatican hill. Two winding lanes led 
 to the town ; one going direct to the Tiber, the other 
 to one of the angles of the Palatine, close to the 
 Church of Santa Anastasia. This was the road by 
 which Dominic was wont to go from Santa Sabina to 
 
MEMORIES OF S. DOMINIC. 163 
 
 San Sisto. No pathway on earth retains so deeply 
 the memory of his footsteps." 1 
 
 S. Dominic was master of the Papal household, 
 and to this it was owing that Santa Sabina was made 
 over to him. No locality is, as Lacordaire says, 
 more connected with his history. " Everything 
 around reminds us of him," Pere Besson wrote a few 
 years later, when appointed to the Priorate of that 
 house, 2 " and one seems still to hear the echo of S. 
 Dominic's sighs, as he knelt here. . . . The spot 
 where he was wont to pray is still pointed out. . . . 
 There is one cell where he, S. Francis of Assisi, and 
 the blessed Angelo de Carmi spent a whole night 
 talking of heavenly things ; and it was in the Chapter- 
 room that my patron, S. Hyacinthe, received the 
 habit from S. Dominic." Besson was bent on the 
 restoration of Santa Sabina, but the magnitude of the 
 undertaking was too great, and he had to content 
 himself with painting the Chapter -house of San 
 Sisto, where his frescoes are a point of great interest. 3 
 An orange-tree planted by the saint still grows in the 
 garden of Santa Sabina, 4 and in the church the faithful 
 
 1 Vie de S. Dominique, c. xii. 
 
 2 A Dominican Artist, p. 169. 
 
 3 The frescoes represent S. Dominic's miracles. San Sisto is 
 now annexed to the Irish Dominicans of San Clemente. 
 
 4 It is said that the year before Lacordaire began his work of 
 restoration this tree put forth a new and vigorous shoot, as 
 though in sympathetic forecast of his success. 
 
1 64 REVISITING PARIS. 
 
 look with veneration on a rude black stone, said to 
 have been flung by his hands at the devil, who sought 
 to molest his meditations. 
 
 Some months of study and repose followed, but as 
 winter drew on, it was decided that Lacordaire should 
 revisit Paris. " Our General wishes it," he wrote to 
 Mine. Swetchine ; " it is thought that a long absence 
 from France would do us harm, and that it is well to 
 be seen there, if only pour /aire acte de presence. 
 Moreover, I must gather in the harvest of my Life of 
 S. Dominic ; I shall bring back some select young 
 fellows, and put myself in communication with many 
 who will help us later on. The diocesan adminis- 
 tration having changed, it is well to be en rapport 
 with it, and know what one may expect for the 
 future. I shall see other Bishops on the way ; and 
 this return will testify my entire freedom, the confi- 
 dence of my Order, which sends me thus alone to 
 France, and it will be a fresh proof that the estab- 
 lishment of the French Dominicans is no chimera. 
 Our habit will be seen, and it will pave the way for 
 next year, when I count on preaching in it. ... I 
 shall bring nothing but my Dominican habit and a 
 cloak. I can wrap that around me when necessary, 
 but I will not put off my habit." 
 
 Mme. Swetchine wrote highly commending the 
 project. " I cannot tell you," she says, November 17, 
 1840, "how often I have mentally gone over the 
 
NOTRE DAME. 165 
 
 objections to an overlong absence on your part j one's 
 ignorance of whatever one does not see, or judge of 
 for oneself; the dangers of a long self-concentration, 
 and of an explosion when thought breaks lose at 
 last, sometimes by an anticipatory process ! This 
 applies to all natures, but especially to yours, which 
 cannot live and develop without the adaptation of 
 well-balanced activity and contemplation. The more 
 I think of it — and I have done nothing else since 
 yesterday — the more convinced I am that your pro- 
 posed plan, wisely and carefully carried out, will have 
 an admirable result. The pleasure of seeing you 
 again will win the day for your Dominican habit ; 
 you will attract all those who do not yet know you, 
 and draw closer the links between you and those who 
 are already friendly." 
 
 Accordingly Lacordaire started on November 30th, 
 and visiting the various houses of his Order at Siena, 
 Florence, Lucca, Genoa, etc., he reached Paris without 
 hindrance before Christmas. His arrival was unex- 
 pected, save by his intimate friends, and as it has been 
 observed, his former enemies had not time to think of 
 their opposition — every one yielded to a lively spirit of 
 curiosity. The new Archbishop, Mgr. Affre, received 
 Lacordaire warmly, and without making the slightest diffi- 
 culty as to his preaching at Notre Dame in his monk's 
 habit, at once asked him to fix his own day. " So I 
 appeared," he says, " at Notre Dame with my shaven 
 
1 66 PERFECT SUCCESS. 
 
 head, my white gown, and black mantle. The Arch- 
 bishop presided ; the Chancellor, Ministre des Cultes, 
 ;M. Martin (du Nord), was determined to be present 
 himself at a scene the result of which no one could 
 precisely forecast. Many other notabilities crept in 
 amid the crowds, which overflowed from the porch to 
 the sanctuary. I chose as my subject the Vocation 
 of the French Nation, with a view to sheltering the 
 audacity of my presence beneath a popular line of 
 thought. I succeeded, and the day after the Chan- 
 cellor invited me to a large dinner party. During the 
 meal, M. Bourdeau, formerly a minister of Charles X., 
 leaned towards a neighbour, saying, ' How strangely 
 this world revolves ! If I had invited a Dominican to 
 my table when I was Chancellor, the place would have 
 been burned down the next day.' But now there were 
 no incendiaries, nor did even any newspaper invoke 
 the vengeance of secular law upon my auto-da-fe." 
 
 " He only alluded casually to his own monastic 
 vocation," Montalembert says ; " but he fully intended, 
 when he thus ascended the metropolitan pulpit, to 
 inaugurate the monk's dress, which had been lost for 
 fifty years in France. And so he appeared with his 
 shaven head and white habit among some six thousand 
 young men, as eloquent as ever, and there was no 
 serious opposition. The Government manifested some 
 timidity, and issued some trifling prohibitions, but 
 Lacordaire displayed neither fear nor boastfulness. 
 
GENOA. 167 
 
 He had some sort of negotiations with the Ministre 
 des Cultes, and disarmed him by his simplicity, straight- 
 forwardness, and vigour. I acted as intermediary, 
 and in one of the letters it was my office to read to 
 the Minister he said, ' The stability of Government, 
 the maintenance of those liberties which experience 
 has proved necessary to France, the propagation of 
 the Gospel, of which the Church is sole and infallible 
 guardian, — these are my aim and object in things tem- 
 poral and spiritual. Free from all party spirit, I have 
 always sought, from respect to my faith, to keep it 
 within the realm of justice and worth. Public opinion 
 has rewarded me by placing me on a level far beyond 
 my humble talents ; and if the Government has not 
 taken me at my true measure, I perhaps owe it to the 
 fact that I have never sought their favours. Now 
 that I can by no possibility aspire to anything, I have 
 acquired the right to say so, and I use that right 
 merely to reassure your Excellency as to my thoughts 
 and intentions.'" 1 
 
 Lacordaire only remained two months in Paris. 
 In March we find him travelling by Lyons (where 
 the Archbishop, Mgr. de Bonald, received him at the 
 Archevech£, and congratulated him on his choice of 
 a subject for Notre Dame, observing that it was well 
 continually to remind France of her mission), Genoa, 
 where the king, Carlo Alberto, the Minister of Foreign 
 1 Le Pere Lacordaire, p. 113. 
 
1 68 SMALLPOX. 
 
 Affairs, Conte della Margarita, and Cardinal Tadini, 
 the Archbishop, all feted the enterprising Frenchman ; 
 and it was a triumphal progress as far as la Quercia, 
 where he was stopped by an attack of smallpox, 
 which, however, coming after vaccination (thirty-nine 
 years before), was not serious, and only produced 
 further kindly demonstrations — the Pope sending 
 anxious inquiries, the Cardinal Bishop of Viterbo, 
 and the Governor Delegate visiting him, and so forth. 
 Returned to Rome in April, the little French Com- 
 munity found itself transferred to San Clemente, 
 where ten additional members were shortly expected 
 to begin their novitiate. All seemed prosperous, and 
 yet Lacordaire was anxious. 
 
 " Yesterday," he writes (April 28, 1841), "I went 
 by summons to see Cardinal Fieschi. He charmed 
 me by his frankness, cordiality, and enthusiasm ; he 
 quoted my sermon, and talked of Rome with the 
 most delightful desinvoltura, as though seeking to give 
 me the Carte du pays. Yesterday the French Ambas- 
 sador came to see me, and visited San Clemente as a 
 French establishment. I must own, chere amie, that 
 I am alive to all these tokens of esteem and affection ; 
 but what reassures me is that I never felt more ready 
 to refer all to God, and to feel my own weakness. I 
 see how little it would take to bring the whole thing 
 crumbling about my ears, and how insufficient my 
 natural and spiritual supplies are for the burden I 
 
SENT FROM ROME. 169 
 
 bear, I am now father of an independent house ; 
 seventeen persons to feed and clothe, for whom I am 
 responsible to God. Fourteen take the habit. . . . 
 Although the novitiate has not yet begun, I am none 
 the less occupied with it, and have two lectures daily. 
 This is absolutely necessary, not only that the Brothers 
 may learn what it befits them to know, but to keep 
 them occupied. All this year will be devoted to 
 them, and I shall lose nothing by it, for it is surprising 
 how much one learns by teaching. I take part in all 
 the offices, and am actually at last learning plain-song, 
 of which I did not believe myself capable. It is 
 seventeen years since I used to despise ut, re, mi, fa, 
 at the Seminary, and now I am quite proud of being 
 able to solfeggiar ! How God changes men ! " 
 
 A great blow to his plans was indeed impending. 
 On April 2 9th the Congregazione informed Lacordaire 
 that a French Novitiate could not be sanctioned, as 
 no French Province or Community existed as yet ; 
 but they were authorised to choose any house in the 
 Roman Province for their Novitiate, and accordingly 
 selected la Quercia. They had actually begun a 
 preparatory Retreat, when suddenly it was announced 
 that the Congregazione could not allow the Frenchmen 
 to take their habit in Rome, and that they must be 
 divided into two bands, and go to different Novitiates, 
 one to la Quercia, the other to Bosco, in Piedmont. 
 It was a great and unexpected blow. To all human 
 
170 FRESH TROUBLES. 
 
 appearance the work seemed crushed by its members 
 being thus separated and divided from their head. 
 But Lacordaire took calmly the trial; he intimated 
 his submission, and gathering together his little band, 
 reminded them that obedience was the first duty of a 
 Religious, though at the same time they, who were as 
 yet bound by no vows, were now free to reconsider 
 their determination, bidding them weigh the uncer- 
 tainty of their future conscientiously before God, and 
 decide as they saw fit. All answered with one voice 
 that they were ready, like himself, to obey, and that 
 they had no idea of forsaking the vocation they be- 
 lieved themselves to have experienced. 
 
 " Our young fellows behaved admirably," he wrote 
 to Mme. de la Tour du Pin : " if our enemies, who- 
 ever they may be, thought to dishearten them and 
 break up our work, they have been greatly out in their 
 calculations. On the contrary, their ready obedience 
 proved the true religious spirit in them, and so far 
 from losing credit in Rome, we have gained immensely. 
 Every one is perplexed as to the real cause of this 
 upsetting of our plans. 1 . . . Perhaps we shall never 
 
 1 Mme. Swetchine expresses herself strongly convinced that 
 the French Government had been at the bottom of the discom- 
 fiture : "II m'est impossible de repousser ici ce vieil adage de 
 jurisprudence, qu'il est naturel d'attribuer le delit a qui la profite. 
 . . . Malgre cette visite de votre Ambassadeur a San Clemente, 
 je n'en serais pas moins disposee a croire que c'est la diplomatie 
 qui a tout fait ; non pas assurement que j'aie quelque raison de 
 
SAN CLEMENTE. 171 
 
 know, but the actual result is to strengthen our hands 
 by proving our stedfastness, and that the work does 
 not depend upon me personally. Another advantage 
 is that I am set free much sooner than I expected ; 
 I can return to France, travel, preach, and write as 
 much as I wish. Those I leave at the head to repre- 
 sent me are thoroughly capable and worth more than 
 I am : we shall only lose the exceeding comfort of 
 living together. You cannot think how happy we 
 were during our short time at San Clemente. It seems 
 as if God had been pleased to give us a foretaste of 
 the happiness we shall find when once we have a 
 French convent, before our dispersal." By the middle 
 of May this dispersal took place, five of the French 
 novices and a lay brother going to la Quercia, while 
 a similar party went to Bosco, near Alessandria. Besson 
 was of the latter, and it was to him, with his artist's 
 tastes and habits, no small sacrifice to leave Rome. 
 
 M San Clemente, May 13, 1841. 
 " I write to you from our deserted San Clemente. 
 This morning our Bosco brethren started; those 
 destined for la Quercia departed thirty-six hours 
 earlier. I am alone, after having been surrounded 
 by a numerous and happy family. We parted with 
 
 douter de la bienveillance personnelle de M. de Maubourg pour 
 vous ou pour votre ceuvre, mais parce que son devoir n'en aura pas 
 ete moins de se conformer aux instructions qu'il aura recues. 
 
AT LA MINERVA. 
 
 perfect calmness, full of mutual confidence, and in the 
 loving hope of being gathered together again in France." 
 
 There can be little doubt that the move was a poli- 
 tical one, and that the Roman authorities were induced 
 to believe that the de la Mennais danger was not quite 
 extinct. Cardinal Lambruschini said to one of the 
 Frenchmen interested that they "might do some good 
 in France, but it was a great calamity for that country 
 that there was so large a party of young men formed 
 with Lacordaire at their head, who had no idea of 
 anything but the separation of Church and State." 
 La Bouillerie began to deny the fact, but the Cardinal 
 broke in with assurances that Lacordaire and de la 
 Mennais — it was all the same thing ! 
 
 Meanwhile Lacordaire remained a while at the 
 Minerva Convent, his time divided between study of 
 S. Thomas Aquinas and the preparation of his Confer- 
 ences. " The transit from activity to contemplation, 
 from family life to solitude, is less painful to me than 
 to many, thanks to the habit of years which has used 
 me to these alternations. The first day or two I 
 suffer, then I fall into the old mould ; but for this 
 adaptability I should have been dead long ago. I 
 have spent years without seeing anybody or taking 
 part in anything, and think of them now with a 
 shudder, for I am already greatly changed ; the waters 
 have lowered, chere amie, and the time of rest among 
 
BOS CO. 
 
 173 
 
 sons and brethren will come. I shall be astonished 
 at myself in many ways then no doubt, like an old 
 soldier who can no longer wield his sword." 
 
 In September 1841, Lacordaire left Rome, going 
 first to la Quercia and Bosco, at which last place he 
 found the young architect Piel dying of consumption. 
 " His malady has made a tremendous advance during 
 these four months," Lacordaire wrote, "and I find 
 nothing of himself left save his still vigorous mind, 
 which is calm, serene, resigned, and wondrously 
 cheerful. Requedat was as resigned as he is ; he too 
 had freely offered his life to God, but there was a 
 certain austerity in his calmness, while Piel seems 
 to welcome death, and to feel neither regrets nor 
 temptations. He says he always expected to die thus, 
 and at his actual age." Piel lingered till December 
 19, 1841. 
 
 " Bosco is a charming convent, built by Pio Nono 
 in a splendid position. It contains the novices and 
 students of the Piedmontese province ; it is perfectly 
 ruled, and this is the first time I feel quite en religion. 
 I am about to give the habit to two new French 
 novices." Lacordaire went on to Lyons and 
 Bordeaux, at which latter place he was engaged to 
 preach during the coming Advent and Lent. It was 
 an event in the town, says Pere Chocarne. Two 
 immense tribunes were erected in the Cathedral, in 
 order to increase the accommodation of the spacious 
 
174 ADVENT CONFERENCES. 
 
 nave, and every department — Government, the Bar, the 
 army, etc. — was duly represented there. The enthu- 
 siastic excitement of this crowded audience wound 
 Lacordaire up to a great pitch himself, and he often 
 was forced to check the irresistible inclination of his 
 hearers to burst forth in applause. It was a kind of 
 frenzy ; go where you would, the topic of the day was 
 Lacordaire and his Conferences. A distinguished 
 lawyer of the town wrote to the preacher some time 
 after : " You have left as many friends as admirers in 
 Bordeaux, for you have found the secret, so difficult 
 nowadays, of conciliating opinion, of combining poli- 
 tical differences, and of absorbing men's minds in the 
 one subject, greatest of all." 
 
 One result of Lacordaire's Advent Conferences 
 was that a house near Agen was given him for the 
 use of his Community; and the Lent station, 
 especially Holy Week, confirmed the work begun so 
 satisfactorily. A charity sermon at Tours, and a 
 week in Paris, and the active Dominican was on his 
 way to Bosco again ; but he arrived there weak and 
 exhausted, after a somewhat difficult passage of the 
 Saint Gothard, and an attack of fever at Vercelli, 
 which laid him up there in a little inn for a week. 
 
 Among his letters of this period to Mme. Swetchine, 
 there is one of especial interest, as it seems to me, 
 replying to her earnest desires to bring him to Paris. 
 
 " I have always been surprised," he writes, July 14, 
 
PARIS IS NOT FRANCE. 175 
 
 1842, "at the fixity of idea with which you draw me 
 to Paris, as towards the sword destined to cut the 
 knot of my fate. I could quite conceive that no 
 reputation, and consequently no moral force, can 
 attain its full development save in Paris ; but such 
 force once acquired with God's help, or rather by His 
 Sovereign power, which lifts up and overthrows as He 
 sees good, is one to condemn oneself only to live, to 
 act, to do any good in Paris ! If I study the tradi- 
 tions of the apostolic life, I see all the first teachers 
 of the Word of God going from town to town like 
 their Master, and followed by S. Paul, whose life, 
 as I find it in the Acts of the Apostles, is but one 
 continual journey from Rome to Jerusalem all along 
 the Mediterranean shores. It is all very well to say 
 that Paris is France. Not so : the greater part of our 
 men do not see Paris more than once, passing through ; 
 and if they happen accidentally to hear some preacher, 
 the recollection of his voice forms but a part of their 
 general impression of the great things they beheld. I 
 do not deny the good done, many proofs of it occur 
 to me ; only yesterday I got a charming letter from 
 an unknown young Brettonais sending me a volume 
 of poetry dedicated to me, and thanking me in the 
 warmest terms for the good I had formerly done him. 
 No doubt; but the same thing happens elsewhere, 
 and what a difference there is between touching a 
 whole town in all its various classes, and merely 
 
176 WORK IN THE PROVINCES. 
 
 raising one's voice amid the vast whirlwind of the 
 capital, a voice stimulated rather by outward fame 
 than by inward grace ! Do you know what happened 
 at Bordeaux during Holy Week ? In the big hotels, 
 full of commis voyageurs from twenty miles round, the 
 masters were expressly required to provide maigre 
 food, and during all that week the Church's rule was 
 carefully kept with but few exceptions. If, again, I 
 look at my private position, the sort of problem which 
 I am to many, and the political enmities which sur- 
 round me, I feel that Paris is murder to me ; for it is the 
 centre of all power, of all intrigue, of all those hidden 
 forces which can never be grappled with by any religious 
 success. You might convert a thousand men on one 
 day in Paris, and the public conscience would know 
 nothing about it. Then think of Notre Dame ! eight 
 or nine sermons in a year, taking away all possibility 
 of anything else — like a few thunder-claps heard afar 
 off in the darkness ! If you increase the number, by 
 the end of two or three years you would become 
 exhausted, and be forced to repeat yourself, which is 
 impossible in such a position. I should have liked 
 my Saint Stanislas a little enlarged a thousand times 
 better ! But Mgr. de Quelen was bent on making a 
 show, and he succeeded, I grant you ; still ask M. de 
 Ravignan why he left Notre Dame for Saint Severin. 
 It was this feeling, joined to the need of recollection, 
 which took me so quickly from Paris. Later on, my ex- 
 
TURNING FROM PARIS. 177 
 
 perience of the provinces fully confirmed my impres- 
 sion. I saw that the gain was immense, visible, clearly 
 defined, and, moreover, that one could conquer hatred 
 and prejudice best on that ground. I did not leave 
 one enemy at Bordeaux; scarcely had I arrived in 
 Paris, and my mere presence stirred up passion. 
 
 " And from an altogether different point of view, I 
 would ask you, have I lost in public opinion during 
 the last six years ? I will venture to say that I possess 
 more true and real esteem than if I had not left Notre 
 Dame for those six years. Fame is composed of 
 many elements, victory and eclat are but a part; 
 there is another side, without which it soon pales 
 before men. I do not particularise, I would not seem 
 too skilful in the secrets of glory. They are matters 
 with which pride mingles swiftly, even when one seeks 
 to deal with them from the side of cold, disinterested 
 speculation." 
 
 Enclosed in this was the copy of a letter to Mgr. 
 Afire, explaining why he was unable to comply with 
 his recent request to preach at Notre Dame, the 
 Bishop of Nancy holding him to his promise to go 
 there. " I ought to confess, Monseigneur," he says, 
 " that your request took me by surprise and unpre- 
 pared. I had not leisure to prepare for what I did not 
 in the least expect. ... It is evident, by experience, 
 that I can do a good work in the provinces, a greater 
 and more solid work than in Paris. A few annual 
 M 
 
178 LETTER TO MGR. AFFRE. 
 
 Conferences given to a shifting audience cannot com- 
 pare with whole months of consecutive teaching given 
 every winter in some large country town to a fixed 
 congregation, made up of all classes of society — at 
 least I do not think so. There is more stir and 
 credit in Paris, I grant, but what are credit and name ? 
 If I have been weak enough, which God knows, to 
 desire reputation, I am satisfied. I desire no more than 
 what God has freely given me, and it is but just that 
 I should tend His affairs when He has so tended mine. 
 Therefore, Monseigneur, I beg you to think no more 
 of me for Notre Dame. If I am to preach in Paris 
 again, I will ask you for a church some winter, as I 
 might do elsewhere, and you will remember me kindly 
 enough to be satisfied to grant it. My one regret 
 would be if you thought me ungrateful. I am not. 
 Your offers have given me genuine pleasure ; they 
 have linked the present to a past which will be ever 
 dear to me. ... I am glad to think that some day 
 when you think over all the ingratitude and injustice 
 you have experienced, you will reckon me among the 
 few of whom you have no cause to complain, and as 
 one who has always been stedfast in affection for 
 you." 
 
NANCY. 179 
 
 VII. 
 
 LIBERTY— PREACHING. 
 
 LACORDAIRE spent some months of this autumn 
 _-/ at Bosco, whence he writes that Pere Jandel 
 " is admirable. He is the very man I want ; I shall 
 be the outsider, and he the inner workman (j'e serai 
 Vhomme du dehors et lui du dedans) ; for although I 
 do make some progress in the spiritual, the active, 
 eager man still peeps out." That winter was spent, 
 as promised, at Nancy, whence his letters tell, not 
 boastingly, but thankfully, of a great success. His 
 time was more than ever crowded. "The week 
 passes like a flash of lightning, and do what I will, my 
 correspondence is always in arrears." The congrega- 
 tions were large, attentive, and friendly ; the Bishop 
 full of kindness ; no voice of opposition had been 
 raised, and the Legitimists, who had begun by being 
 irritable and defiant, were conciliated. The Arch- 
 bishop of Paris, though he had not pressed Lacordaire 
 to give up his promised course at Nancy, continued 
 to ask him to come to the capital. Lacordaire 
 answered frankly that he would do nothing which 
 
180 TEN YEARS AGO. 
 
 could in any way seem uncourteous to de Ravignan. 
 Three winters were already bespoken by Grenoble, 
 Lyons, and Strasbourg ; after that he was willing to 
 preach for three seasons in Paris, if the Archbishop 
 still desired it. " Everybody in these days," he writes, 
 " fails through hurry ; they don't remember that good 
 circus-drivers begin slowly, which is the real secret of 
 all things. Thank God, I feel no jealousy, no desire 
 to prove myself worth more than other people ; I 
 honour all the gifts which God sends His Church, 
 and every day I marvel at my own undeserved share 
 of esteem. Dear friend, ten years ago where was I ? 
 On the verge of want, shattered, lonely; having attained 
 a dawning reputation together with a heavy burden 
 of the hatred and prejudices of some men, the over- 
 weening enthusiasm of others, the mistrust and 
 defiance of the greater part. I knew not what was to 
 be my visible course, and in the bottom of my heart 
 I saw but vaguely the limits of my own ideas. Now, 
 with ten years' work, I have swept the ground, traced 
 out my path, and created a work which seemed purely 
 chimerical j or rather God has done all this for me, 
 bringing success out of discomfiture, suffering me 
 twenty times to totter on the brink of destruction, and 
 continually bringing me out of danger. How can I 
 ever forget that ten years ago you were given me at 
 that painful hour when, in separating myself from a 
 man who was still in the height of his glory, I lost 
 
FIRST DOMINICAN HO USE. 1 8 1 
 
 every stay I most required in losing him? You 
 have been, through God, to me like those rays of sun- 
 shine which come in spring-time to the poor labourer 
 and comfort him for the winter's hardships. And so 
 I am content, and feel at present much more longing 
 to hide than to produce myself to the world. Pride 
 would dictate such a course, even if Christian feeling 
 did not suggest it. Nothing dignifies a man so 
 much as not seeking fame, and not doing the 
 commonplace thing which everybody would do in his 
 position." 
 
 He was rewarded for his constancy to his engage- 
 ment by the satisfactory establishment of the first 
 Dominican house in France, a young man who 
 was among his congregation, M. Thierry de Saint- 
 Beaussant, being brought from his attitude of artistic 
 agnosticism to earnest Christianity; and in gratitude 
 he bought a house, of which the Community took 
 possession at Whitsuntide 1843. A valuable library 
 of 10,000 volumes was made over to them by the 
 heirs of a late Cathedral dignitary, who had left his 
 books to the first religious body that should be 
 established in Nancy. De Saint-Beaussant further 
 built a chapel, refectory, and other needful quarters, 
 and himself became a Dominican. He died in 1852 
 at Oullins, and Lacordaire observed that he and 
 Requedat, both so early called to rest, were the first- 
 fruits of the restored Order ; Requedat gave the first 
 
1 82 STORMS ARISING. 
 
 spiritual, de Saint-Beaussant the first material, corner- 
 stone of the building. During the summer Pere Jandel 
 was placed at the head of this Nancy foundation, and 
 Pere Besson undertook that of Bosco. 
 
 But in spite of all these encouragements, difficulties 
 and storms were gathering. The Minister of Public 
 Worship (that same M. Martin who had been so 
 cordial in 1841) took fright at the prospect of a 
 Dominican Convent in Nancy, and wrote to the 
 Coadjutor Bishop, bidding him refuse his consent. 
 Mgr. Menjaud stood his ground firmly, and 
 declined to drive away a man whom he admired and 
 esteemed, at the moment he was carrying out an 
 excellent work, religious and social, in the town. 
 
 An attempt was then made on another side to 
 overthrow Lacordaire's influence. The Patriot news- 
 paper assailed him in gross terms, attacking him both 
 doctrinally and personally; and as the authorities 
 would not interfere, Lacordaire prosecuted the paper 
 for defamation, which, as it was well understood, in- 
 volved both the Minister of Public Worship and the 
 Rector of the Lycee, who had taken a cowardly, time- 
 serving line against the Dominican. Party spirit rose 
 high j most of the inhabitants of Nancy were energetic 
 in defence of their favourite preacher, who was thus 
 calumniated. The leading advocate of Nancy under- 
 took his cause, and Lacordaire proposed pleading on 
 his own behalf in order to assert the rights of religious 
 
RE TIREMENT A T BOSCO. 183 
 
 orders in France. Indeed he saw God's Hand in the 
 whole matter, as bringing to light the truth, and 
 asserting the freedom of such associations. But the 
 Government saw that things looked unpromising for 
 them, and that whatever might be the verdict, they 
 would lose ground, and therefore they hastened a 
 compromise. Mgr. Menjaud put out a strong letter 
 against which there was no appeal, and Lacordaire, 
 seeing himself amply justified, agreed to withdraw the 
 prosecution. 
 
 There were gleams of quiet, happy privacy among 
 these activities which are highly characteristic of 
 Lacordaire's nature. Thus we find him hastening 
 from Nancy to Bosco, living there in the greatest 
 retirement, working in the garden, studying, going 
 forth to preach to the Savoyard soldiers at Alessandria, 
 putting aside the Superior, the politician, the leader, 
 as far as possible. Padre Morassi, Master of the 
 Novices, tells how on one occasion a distinguished 
 ecclesiastical guest came from far in order to see the 
 celebrated Pere Lacordaire, and being introduced into 
 the Superior's room, and having explained his errand, 
 he was shortly placed, but without introduction, by 
 Lacordaire's side at the dinner-table. Eager to see 
 the object of his curiosity, the visitor soon whispered 
 the inquiry to his neighbour, Which was Lacordaire ? 
 " The priest sitting at the top of the table," Lacordaire 
 answered slyly, and the visitor, apprehending no 
 
1 84 POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS. 
 
 deception, took it for granted that not the speaker 
 (who was at one end of the table), but the Religious 
 at the other end, was the celebrity he wished to inter- 
 view, and watched his every movement, to the brink 
 of incivility, all dinner-time. As soon as that was 
 over, he hastened to the person he supposed to be 
 indicated, and began to speechify about his delight in 
 making acquaintance with one so famous, etc. etc. 
 Greatly to his dismay, the object of his eloquence only 
 smiled, giving the unwelcome information, " I am 
 not Pere Lacordaire ; he was sitting by you at dinner ! " 
 But the real Lacordaire had slipped away and was 
 lost ! 
 
 It has been said that clouds were gathering, and 
 here we must leave Montalembert to speak both of 
 his friend and of the political aspect of things, which 
 at that moment was so weighty, and which we contem- 
 plate with double interest under the complications of a 
 still more aggravated character of the present period, 
 1882:— 
 
 "The question of freedom of instruction, opened 
 by Lacordaire twelve years before, in the Avenir and 
 before the Cour des Pairs, after lying dormant a while, 
 had now reawakened with new energy, and had laid 
 vigorous hold on the public mind. There naturally 
 arose together with this question that of freedom of 
 association, inasmuch as the Communities alone could 
 really supply the requirements of free instruction. 
 
PRESSURE ON ALL SLDES. 185 
 
 While the Bishops and Catholic editors claimed the 
 liberty promised by the C/iarte with all its consequences, 
 the far more numerous orators and writers of the 
 University party maintained monopoly a routrance, 
 and poured forth all the torrents of unpopularity which 
 the legatees of perversion and persecution from the 
 eighteenth century always know so well how to excite, 
 especially against the Jesuits. ' We owe them nothing 
 save expulsion ! ' — the cry of a deputy well known for 
 his outbreaks — seemed to the crowd of so-called Liberals 
 the best answer to the appeals raised on behalf of re- 
 ligious associations in the name of Liberty and equality. 
 Government, which was more timid than unfriendly, 
 and fully intended avoiding all persecutions, nevertheless 
 let itself be overruled and carried away by the stream 
 of anti-religious opinion. The Dominican's white robe 
 seen in the street or the pulpit no longer encountered 
 the anxious, but friendly neutrality of 1841 ; it caused 
 a serious anxiety, which betrayed itself in protestations 
 and threats, even before more serious demonstration. 
 Under these circumstances Mgr. Affre invited Lacor- 
 daire to renew his Conferences, and, spite of the pres- 
 sure put upon him by the Government, that prelate, 
 who a few years later sacrificed his life with such 
 modest composure, now upheld the liberty of the 
 Gospel with invincible firmness. The pressure was 
 great ; the King even sent for Mgr. ArTre to the 
 Tuileries, and there, in the Queen's presence, argued 
 
1 86 NOTRE DAME ONCE MORE. 
 
 for an hour, endeavouring to induce the Archbishop 
 to withdraw his resolution. But Mgr. Affre stood firm, 
 and asserted that it would be a dishonour to himself 
 and to Lacordaire were he to retract. The King ended 
 by exclaiming, ' Well, Monseigneur, if anything goes 
 wrong, remember that you shall not have one soldier 
 or one national guard to help you ! ' In December 
 1843, Lacordaire once more took possession of the 
 pulpit of Notre Dame, which he occupied for eight 
 consecutive years, and until the coup-d^ etat of 1851." 1 
 
 Clearly there was no vacillation, no overruling by 
 pride or vanity of the opinions we heard him express so 
 plainly a few months before. Then it was a question 
 of accepting the more flattering invitations of the 
 metropolis rather than of provincial towns, of taking 
 the higher instead of the lower place. Now the call 
 of duty was plain ; there was a great battle to be 
 fought, and Lacordaire was not the man to refuse the 
 post of standard-bearer, or voluntarily to keep out of 
 the thick of the fight, when his commanding officer 
 summoned him to it. 
 
 "That was the heroic age of our religious and 
 liberal struggle," says Montalembert. "One might 
 watch a Dominican and a Jesuit, both illustrious men, 
 alike superior to the veriest shadow of jealous rivalry, 
 teaching our young men how to tread human respect 
 under foot and leading them at once to live up to 
 1 Montalembert, p. 115. 
 
PERILOUS AND DECISIVE. 187 
 
 their faith and to acquire the civic rights of Catho- 
 licism. Every winter Lacordaire gave seven or eight 
 Conferences during December and January, after 
 which he went for Lent to preach at some provincial 
 town — Grenoble, Lyons, Strasbourg — leaving de 
 Ravignan to replace him in Notre Dame, and to 
 prepare those Easter Communions which have ever 
 since been the glory and consolation of the Church 
 in Paris, and which as early as 1844 induced the ex- 
 clamation, ' We must bring Voltaire to bear on these 
 people ! ' ' And indeed they tried their best to do 
 so, but with liberty we can afford to laugh even at 
 Voltaire. This first station at Notre Dame, since the 
 strife had become hot, did not end till February 1 844. 
 Lacordaire himself called it ' the most perilous and 
 most decisive of his campaigns.' It succeeded beyond 
 all expectation, kindling and strengthening hearts ; a 
 worthy prelude to the struggle in Parliament of that 
 memorable year and the one following, when the 
 Religious Orders, furiously attacked from the tribune, 
 were defended as they had never been since 1789. 
 Thanks to the union and courage of the Episcopate, 
 thanks to the resolute attitude of Catholics in the 
 elections, resistance to the mere passions and pre- 
 judices of incoherent Liberalism grew visibly stronger 
 day by day. Catholic action was at once sensible 
 and dignified j its intervention in the conditions of 
 1 "II faut mettre la main de Voltaire sur ces gens-la." 
 
1 83 DE RAVIGNAN. 
 
 modern society became daily more regular and more 
 efficacious. 
 
 " This state of things lasted till the moment when 
 the Revolution of February first precipitated, then led 
 away, and finally annihilated this healthy effort. No 
 voice was raised within our ranks to criticise or 
 hinder. ' We both served Christian liberty under 
 the flag of public liberty,' Lacordaire said with 
 happy concision of himself and de Ravignan. The 
 latter, in a calm, dignified, and eloquent document, 
 claimed the right to be and proclaim himself a Jesuit, 
 as a citizen in the name of the Charte y in the name of 
 liberty of conscience, thereby guaranteed to all men. 
 And M. Dupanloup [since Bishop of Orleans] spoke as 
 follows with the universal assent of the clergy and the 
 faithful : ' What is meant by the spirit of the French 
 Revolution ? Do you mean free institutions, freedom 
 of conscience, political freedom, civil freedom, indi- 
 vidual freedom, family freedom, freedom of education, 
 of opinion, equality in the sight of the law, an equal 
 division of taxes and public expenses ? All this we 
 accept deliberately and fully. . . . These precious 
 liberties which men accuse us of not loving, we pro- 
 claim them, and we demand them for ourselves 
 
 AS FOR OTHERS.' " 
 
 They are wondrous discourses, even to read, those 
 Conferences of 1843-44, on the rational certainty of 
 Catholic doctrine ; the repulsion raised in the mind by 
 
CONFERENCES OF 1843-44. 189 
 
 it ; above all, on the opposition of statesmen and men 
 of intellect against it. The unflinching boldness and 
 calm superiority of an invincible cause with which 
 Lacordaire handles his subject is throughout some- 
 thing most unwontedly impressive. "One of the 
 most powerful passions of man is the passion of 
 sovereignty. Man will not be merely free, he must 
 be supreme j he must not only be master of himself 
 and at home, he would fain be master of other men 
 and in their domain. De Maistre says that the rage of 
 domination is innate in man's heart. But I do not 
 accept the expression, for the crave of power is not a 
 mere rage, it is a generous passion. A man possesses 
 every gift of birth and fortune, he can enjoy at will 
 the pleasures of family life, of society, luxury, honour, 
 repose; but he rejects these. He shuts himself up 
 within an office, and buries himself in the delight of 
 toil and difficulties. He grows grey with the weight 
 of business not his own, receiving no reward save the 
 ingratitude of those he serves, the rivalry of others 
 ambitious like himself, and the blame of the indifferent. 
 The first schoolboy at hand takes his pen, and without 
 talent, ancestry, past service, one to whom society 
 owes nothing but forgiveness of his audacity, he 
 attacks the statesman, who instead of enjoying his 
 fortune and position, scarce has time to swallow down 
 a glass of water between his prolonged anxieties. The 
 statesman heeds it not; he issues forth from his 
 
190 FREE INSTRUCTION. 
 
 Cabinet to the battlefield ; he watches by the general's 
 side to counsel him ; he signs treaties for which all 
 posterity will call him to account. And at last he dies, 
 his career cut short by toil, care, and calumny ; he 
 dies, and while waiting for the decree of futurity, his 
 contemporaries cast an epigram upon his tomb!" 1 
 Those who were present describe him as frequently 
 electrifying his audience, carrying them away with 
 irresistible force by the stream of his sympathetic 
 influence. " It was thus," says Montalembert, " that 
 he saw his early dreams becoming realised. He 
 enjoyed the unexpected triumph, but without excite- 
 ment or vanity." 
 
 " What we have gained of unity, of power, of future 
 strength, during this last campaign is hardly credible," 
 he wrote in June 1 844. " Even if free instruction were 
 lost for fifty years, we have gained more than that, 
 because we have gained the instrument which wins it, 
 and therewith the liberties necessary for the salvation 
 of France and of the world." 
 
 " His counsels were always on the line of prudence 
 and that practical mind which characterised him," 
 Montalembert says. " He used to urge us not to want 
 everything at once, to keep the ground already won 
 patiently, not to plunge into boundless unfathomed 
 theories, above all, not to give our enemies any pretext 
 for proclaiming that we aimed at the total overthrow 
 1 Conferences, xvi. 
 
CONFERENCES ON CHASTITY. 191 
 
 of French society. He took no part in the controversy 
 either on paper or in act j and there was not a single 
 allusion to it in his Conferences. It was during the 
 warlike year 1844 that he delivered his celebrated 
 Conferences on Chastity, which shut the mouth of his 
 most energetic detractors, their beauty remaining 
 above all criticism, like an exquisite pearl which no 
 breath can tarnish. But the universal popularity of 
 his preaching, the immense audiences which gathered 
 wheresoever he appeared, were more eloquent argu- 
 ments than anything politics or law could afford. His 
 victory was proved by his preaching in Paris and 
 throughout France, and by the establishment of his 
 right to community life and to his habit, which no 
 one ventured to contest, whithersoever he went." It 
 was on his deathbed, speaking of these times, that 
 Lacordaire said, " Directly that any nation realises the 
 true elements of liberty, these will work, even uncon- 
 sciously, against all oppression j and as truth appeals 
 to truth, justice to justice, so in the logical circle of 
 things human and Divine, liberty appeals to liberty." 
 " Wolves did not cease to be wolves," Montalembert 
 observes, "as we see too plainly even now; but 
 Lacordaire had put those to shame who would have 
 howled with them, and in the name of liberty he had 
 turned their strength against the oppressors." 
 
 It is curious to trace Lacordaire's perfect sense of 
 his own power, without any apparent self-satisfaction or 
 
192 THE RELIGIOUS HABIT. 
 
 vanity. Some pressure was put upon him by the 
 Archbishop (who induced Mme. Swetchine herself to 
 back him) to forbear appearing at Notre Dame in the 
 much -contested monk's habit; but he was immov- 
 able on that point. "The Archbishop knows that 
 no one will insult me in the pulpit of Notre Dame," 
 he writes, November 12, 1843; "he knows that an 
 immense audience will shield me from any individual 
 outbreak ; he knows that I shall not give the multitude 
 time to gather itself together, that at my third sentence 
 I shall have penetrated their hearts, and found my 
 safety there. Nothing can stand against popular 
 impulse. Curiosity alone will keep hatred quiet, and 
 the very boldness of the measure will move those who 
 would fain not be moved j France has an instinctive 
 feeling for honour, which enchants her whenever she 
 comes within its shadow. If anything could damage 
 me in Notre Dame, it would be a change of garb. . . . 
 And on the personal side, I should altogether lower 
 my character if I were to lay aside my habit in order 
 to preach at Notre Dame. Who but would suppose 
 I did it for the small glory of preaching there ? . . . 
 Let me show that I would never accept openings or 
 fame at the cost of dishonour. Let me put duty and 
 dignity foremost. The older I grow, the more I feel 
 that God's grace is detaching me from this world ; I 
 care only to do His Will. If it is His Will that I 
 should preach in Notre Dame, I will do so ; if He 
 
THE DOMINICAN PREACHER. 193 
 
 closes those doors, I will preach elsewhere ; if all the 
 pulpits of France are successively closed to me, as 
 may be the intention of Government, I will wait for 
 better times, and do what good is practicable the 
 while. Or I will be content to do nothing, if nothing 
 is possible. The present matters little, the future is 
 all in all." 
 
 Nevertheless the Archbishop was still so anxious as 
 to the question of the monk's habit, that through the 
 Papal Nuncio he obtained a formal authorisation for 
 Lacordaire to preach in the secular priest's garb, and 
 eventually he consented to wear the ordinary canon's 
 rochet over his habit, and thus, on December 3, 
 1843, began his famous course. What he had said 
 of his power to arrest and win all hearts by his third 
 sentence proved most true. The opening was anxious. 
 The Archbishop took his place, looking nervously 
 around on the vast multitude which crammed Notre 
 Dame's mighty nave; a body of young men with 
 arms ready to defend their idol surrounded the pulpit 
 in a serried mass. Lacordaire went into it ; a silence, 
 awful in such a crowd, occurred for a few moments, 
 while the orator slowly and calmly looked round upon 
 the masses of expectant listeners, and then began his 
 sermon ; perfect stillness continued, and, as he 
 said, before another moment he had obtained full 
 control of his audience. From this hour his royalty 
 was confirmed beyond power of assault, and he never 
 
 N 
 
i 9 4 IRONY AND PATHOS. 
 
 let go the hold then affirmed upon men's hearts and 
 intellects. 
 
 The delicacy with which his half-playful irony some- 
 times touched things, the dignity and pathos which 
 are found in every Conference, will ill bear being 
 demonstrated by quotations. We may barely illustrate 
 the former by such a passage as the following from 
 one of the discourses of 1843: "The war against 
 Catholic doctrine is no war of enfants perdus ; it is a 
 civil, a social war, and as this war has been the history 
 of eighteen centuries, as it involves your destinies, and 
 those of your posterity, needs be you must pause, and 
 well weigh this public passion of statesmen and men of 
 intellect against Catholic doctrine. The question is 
 serious, messieurs, it is delicate. But be reassured, I 
 will treat you even as Massillon treated Louis XV. in 
 the royal chapel of Versailles. Whatsoever be your 
 needs and my goodwill, I can do no better for you 
 than treat you as that great century treated its great 
 king." " 
 
 Or take another passage from the Conference on 
 Humility in the Soul : " Wherever we are, we would 
 fain be foremost. The artist who reproduces with pencil 
 or graver, the orator creating thoughts in the mind of 
 the multitude, the general commanding his battalion 
 and promising victory to it, the minister ruling an 
 empire, the king beneath his purple, — we all aspire to 
 1 Conferences, xvi. 
 
SUBJECTS OF CONFERENCES. 195 
 
 primacy, and to a sole primacy. We are only content 
 when, able to measure our surroundings with a glance, 
 we find space, and beyond that space, as far off as 
 may be, a kneeling world ready to worship us." * 
 
 The Effects of Catholic Doctrine on the Mind 
 was the subject of the Conference of 1843; on the 
 Soul, that of 1844; on Society, of 1845. In 1846 
 Lacordaire took for his subject Our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 a course of which Montalembert says that to his mind 
 it contains " the most striking riches of his eloquence ; " 
 1848, of God; 1849, the Commerce of Man with 
 God j 1850, the Fall and Restoration of Man j 1851, 
 the Providential Economy of Man's Restoration, — 
 a series embracing, as it is seen, all the mysteries of 
 Creation and Redemption. Unquestionably it is as 
 an orator that the world in general will remember 
 Lacordaire, and class him among her great men, 
 although to the inner circle it may be that, as his 
 dearest friend says, " the orator will be lost in the 
 Religious." But, as Montalembert seeks, and most 
 successfully, to prove, his oratory was the fruit of his 
 intense religious convictions more than any mere 
 natural gift. " Before all else, he was the priest, the 
 confessor, the penitent disciple of a crucified Master. 
 While yet a seminarist he wrote, ' I would fain come 
 forth from this mere natural life, and consecrate myself 
 wholly to the service of One Who will never be jealous, 
 1 Conferences, xxi. 
 
1 96 SPIRIT OF LO VE. 
 
 nor ungrateful, nor vile.' And all his words, as his 
 life, were stamped with this love which passes all other 
 love." Montalembert goes on to cite the burst of 
 living tenderness with which he opened his Conferences 
 on Jesus Christ, just at the moment of supreme 
 excitement and burning external strife : " Lord Jesus, 
 during the ten years which I have been speaking of 
 Thy Church to this audience, it is indeed ever of Thee 
 that I have spoken ; but now at length I come more 
 nearly before Thee, gazing upon that sacred Face 
 which is the object of my daily contemplation ; those 
 holy Feet which I have kissed so often \ those dear 
 Hands which have so often blessed me ; that Head 
 crowned with glory and with thorns j that Life, the 
 savour of which I have breathed ever since I was born, 
 which my boyhood forgot, which my manhood regained, 
 which my riper age worships and proclaims aloud. 
 O Father ! O Master ! O Friend ! O Jesus ! help me 
 more than ever, forasmuch as drawing nearer to Thee, 
 Thy Presence must needs be seen in me, and my 
 words glow with the richness of Thy touch ! " " 
 
 Or again, a little later : "Pursuing love all our life, 
 we never attain it save in an imperfect state which 
 wounds the heart; and even if we won it in life, 
 what would remain after death ? Grant that a lov- 
 ing prayer follows us beyond this world, a friendly 
 memory yet whispers our name ; but ere long Heaven 
 1 Conferences, xxxvii. 
 
LOVE OF CHRIST. 197 
 
 and earth have moved on, forgetfulness follows, silence 
 shrouds us, no breath of frail earthly love lingers still 
 about our tomb. It is over, ended for ever, and this 
 is the story of man's love. Yet not so. There is 
 One Man Whose tomb has been kept by love ; One 
 Man Whose grave is not merely glorious, but beloved. 
 There is One Man Whose ashes are still warm 
 after eighteen centuries ; Who is daily born anew 
 in the thoughts of a multitude of men, Who is 
 visited in His cradle by shepherds and kings 
 bringing in gold, incense, and myrrh. There is a 
 Man Whose steps a multitude is found to tread in 
 unweariedly, and Who, while out of sight, is traced 
 by a crowd in every spot of His former dwelling- 
 place — on His Mother's lap, on the lake's shore, 
 on the mountain-top, in the valley beneath the 
 olives, in the lonely wilderness. There is One Man 
 dead and buried, Whose sleep and Whose rising is 
 watched, Whose every word vibrates yet and brings 
 forth more than love — the virtues that spring from 
 love. There is One Man Who ages since hung from 
 a gibbet, and daily millions of worshippers take Him 
 down from that throne, kneel before Him, and with- 
 out blushing at their humiliation, kiss His bleeding 
 Feet with unquenchable love. There is One Man, 
 scourged, crucified, killed, raised through His 
 wondrous Passion from death and shame to the glory 
 of an unfailing love, which finds peace, joy, and 
 
198 BURSTS OF ELOQUENCE. 
 
 ecstasy in Him. There is One Man Who, pursued to 
 His death and the grave by undying hate, and Who, 
 requiring Apostles and Martyrs from every generation 
 as it springs up, finds them everywhere. There is 
 One Man, and One only, Who has for ever established 
 His Love on earth, and that Man, O my Jesus, it is 
 Thou ! Thou Who hast vouchsafed to baptize me, to 
 consecrate me to Thy Love, and Whose very Name 
 at this moment as I speak burns within my heart, and 
 brings forth these tones which overwhelm me, and 
 which I myself knew not to be in me!" 1 
 
 " Truly," says Montalembert, " he did not recognise 
 those tones, nor we either ! for none of us had ever 
 heard the like, and none who heard them that day can 
 ever forget them ! None can ever forget those days 
 when every high, and pure, and noble fibre of their 
 heart quivered beneath his living words ; when there 
 burst from the heart of the priest, as from the rock 
 touched with the rod of the Lord, that pure 
 impetuous torrent, overflowing, irresistible, as an 
 Alpine torrent ! . . . How can we ever reproduce his 
 lightning glance, the magic tones of his voice, the 
 power of that action which filled up speech ? Who 
 can venture to describe the unexpected turns, the 
 bold strokes, the tender touches, the sudden bursts 
 of a talent which has never been surpassed in France, 
 save by Bossuet; which literally carried away his 
 1 Conferences, xxxix. 
 
CRITICISM. 199 
 
 audience, and left them under an emotion which 
 can only be expressed by that word liable to so 
 much commonplace degradation — ravishment, but 
 which to the Christian suggests memories of S. 
 Paul : Quoniam raptus est in paradisum ? Yes in- 
 deed, like S. Paul and his two noble countrymen S. 
 Bernard and Bossuet, this humble Burgundian priest 
 of our own times was verily a prince of the Word — 
 Quoniam ipse erat dux verbi. He knew the way to 
 men's hearts ; he assaulted, convicted, subdued them, 
 not by the mere ordinary and transient admiration 
 which genius excites, but by that mysterious power 
 which belongs to human words when they spring 
 from unearthly sources, and take shape in that 
 priestly eloquence which Lacordaire carried to 
 perfection, and of which he fathomed the most 
 hidden secrets." 
 
 Montalembert, however, was no mere blind wor- 
 shipper of his friend's talent. He gives force to his 
 exceeding admiration by the vigour of the criticism, 
 which he is not afraid to utter boldly. Lacordaire was 
 sometimes incomplete, he says, and did not always keep 
 sufficiently clear of declamation. At times, even Monta- 
 lembert does not hesitate to say, he disturbed his more 
 logical hearers by putting forward the objections he 
 was about to deal with more forcibly than the answers 
 10 the same ; he often lacked simplicity of style (a 
 quality in which Montalembert's own beautiful writing 
 
200 TASTE NOT IRREPROACHABLE. 
 
 is so pre-eminent), and his literary and historical 
 resources were not extensive or always accurate. 
 " His classical reading seemed limited to 'De Viris' and 
 Cornelius Nepos," Montalembert goes on to say, 
 " and to the slender stores of his childhood. Yet he 
 was obstinately, persistently devoted to the classics ; 
 mythology, Greek and Roman history, were an inex 
 haustible treasury in his estimation. No one in our 
 days ever so used and abused Brutus and Socrates, 
 Epaminondas and Scipio ! He had gathered to him- 
 self a little private literary stock, 1 from which he could 
 never part, and which, indeed, he often put to a mar- 
 vellous good use, though, generally speaking, he was 
 not sparing enough in handling it. His taste, great 
 and noble as it was, was not irreproachable." I 
 purposely dwell upon these criticisms, because the 
 very fact of their existence proves the genuine 
 reality of the feeling which in spite of them Lacor- 
 daire's eloquence excited in one so capable as a 
 judge. 
 
 One side there is connected with his most remark- 
 able history which must never be forgotten while the 
 wonders of his eloquence are before us, carrying away 
 all before it. It is difficult to separate Lacordaire 
 from his pulpit life, and yet there was meanwhile a 
 man, so unlike the popular idea of the great preacher, 
 
 1 " II s'etait fait ainsi un petit bagage litteraire, dont il ne se 
 se pa rait jamais." 
 
GR ANDES JOURNEES. 201 
 
 one so humble amid his overwhelming successes, 1 so 
 prostrate with the sense of his own weakness, so 
 sternly rigid to his own frail body and earthly mind, 
 as almost to strike those admitted to look behind the 
 curtain dumb with reverence and awe. Among the 
 detractors always eager to soil the reputation of any 
 real greatness, some were found who delighted to 
 spread reports of Lacordaire's supposed vanity, of the 
 eagerness with which he looked out for applause; 
 carrying their inventions so far as actually to affirm 
 that after his Conferences he would disguise himself 
 and mix with the outer world, in order to drink in his 
 own praise ! 
 
 We will leave his companion Pere Chocarne to 
 describe how these days, these " grandes journees de 
 Notre Dame," as he calls them, were really spent: 
 "He used to remain during the morning in deep 
 meditation. No one ever ventured into his room, 
 except one or two of his most intimate friends, who 
 might just look in to see that he wanted nothing ; but 
 they crept silently in and out, glad to do anything for 
 him, but cautious not to disturb him. He breakfasted 
 alone at nine o'clock, leaving off niaigre diet on these 
 exceptional days, but his meal was nevertheless most 
 
 1 " Un jour, quand on me lira, si on me lit un jour, on cherchera 
 curieusement dans les coins de phrases quelques allusions aux 
 choses du temps, et on sera surpris de trouver si peu ce que le 
 vulgaire aura cru si abondant " (January 10, 1850). 
 
202 THE PREACHER'S HABITS. 
 
 simple. In fine weather he would go into the garden 
 and stroll quietly about, pausing before a flower, 
 delighting in the greensward as it caught the light ; 
 refreshing his soul with the sight of God's glories in 
 creation as a sort of prelude wherewith to kindle his 
 soul. At eleven o'clock he used to go forth, generally 
 accompanied by his friend Cartier. About three p.m. 
 he would come back, broken down with fatigue, but 
 his countenance shining, his brow lit up, his soul all 
 akindle and overflowing with faith, love, eloquence. 
 Sometimes he would recruit his exhausted powers by 
 going to bed, letting a young layman for whom he had 
 a special affection sit by him, and so they would talk 
 at length of the love of Christ and the blessings of the 
 religious life. At supper-time his meal was brought 
 to him ; precisely the same as that of the rest of the 
 Community — two eggs and some salad. And then he 
 would resume the conversation, which always turned 
 upon the Love of our Lord, the love of suffering, and 
 the like. He seldom if ever spoke of his Conferences, 
 and if any one spoke of them in commendation, he 
 did not answer, though sometimes he was ready enough 
 to ask his intimate friends to tell him where they were 
 defective. The young man alluded to above told 
 him one Sunday evening that some people thought he 
 studied effect in his action, and that he planned certain 
 pauses with care in order to excite the thrill of admir- 
 ation which was sure to ensue. The Father seemed 
 
EXCITEMENT AT L YONS. 203 
 
 surprised, and, after a moment's thought, owned that 
 he had never thought about it. ' So I have very little 
 exterior signs of humility,' he said ; ' but after all, am 
 I really as humble as I ought to be ? ' ' No, Father, 
 not yet' 'It is true,' he replied; 'but I will work 
 hard to become so, and you, cher ami, must help me ! ' 
 . . . The day always ended with severe scourging, 
 notwithstanding his fatigue and exhaustion. . . . This 
 was the energetic reaction of will by which Lacordaire 
 kept himself from slipping downwards amid his dazzling 
 success." 1 
 
 Throughout it was the same. Perhaps no more 
 touching incident in his brilliant, exciting career could 
 be found than one told of his station at Lyons in the 
 Lent of 1845, which was almost more successful, more 
 wonderful in the enthusiasm it aroused than any pre- 
 vious occasion. Nothing of the kind had ever been 
 witnessed in that busy city ; it was described as a 
 "very delirium." By five o'clock in the morning 
 crowds gathered round the doors of the Cathedral, and 
 the moment they were opened every seat was occupied, 
 and there men, grave business men, intellectual men, 
 artists — the very elite of the population, in short — were 
 content to sit seven and eight hours waiting in order 
 to secure the brief hour of Christian eloquence which 
 at last was afforded them. One night, after such a 
 scene as this, when even the reverence instinctive to 
 1 Chocarne, Vie Intime, ii. 76. 
 
204 AT ARS. 
 
 God's House had scarcely refrained his listeners from 
 clamorous applause, the hour of supper arrived, and 
 Lacordaire did not appear. He was waited for a while, 
 but as he did not come, he who was so notoriously 
 punctual in all his habits, at last a messenger went 
 to his room. He knocked, no answer; thereupon 
 he entered, and found Lacordaire at the foot of his 
 crucifix, his face buried in his hands, absorbed in 
 prayer broken with many sobs. The friend went 
 anxiously up to him, asking, " What is the matter, mon 
 Pere t" "I am frightened," was the answer amid 
 many tears. " Frightened, Father, of what ? " "I am 
 frightened at all this success ! " 
 
 It was that same spring, May 1845, that Lacordaire 
 made a pilgrimage to Ars, in order to see and hear 
 the venerable Cure of that place, M. Vianney. A 
 crowd surrounding the church hailed his white Domi- 
 nican robe enthusiastically, and were soon edified at 
 seeing him listening humbly and attentively to the aged 
 saint of Ars, who himself remarked to a friend, " Shall 
 I tell you what struck me when Pere Lacordaire came 
 here? He who is greatest in wisdom has come to 
 humble himself before the lowliest and most ignorant ; 
 the two extremes meet ! " 
 
 Lacordaire was exceedingly moved by the warmth 
 and beauty of the old man's simple sermon on the 
 Holy Spirit, and he spoke of it recurringly afterwards, 
 adding, "Though our manner of expression might 
 
M. VIANNEY. 205 
 
 be different, I am thankful to know that we feel the 
 same." The orator had heard the saint, but in his 
 turn M. Vianney would fain hear Lacordaire, and 
 accordingly he gave out that at Vespers " on dirait 
 mieux que lui." Lacordaire could not but do as he 
 was asked, though, as he said, he came to hear, not 
 to be heard ; and in his sermon he spoke so lovingly 
 and with such veneration of the grand old Cure, that 
 the Ars people were quite proud and delighted. " Did 
 you hear how the great preacher put himself down far 
 below our Cure ?" they went about asking one another. 
 When Lacordaire left, M. Vianney accompanied him 
 some distance, and at their final separation there was 
 a moment of pathetic contest, each of those two 
 remarkable men asking the other's blessing. It 
 behoved the elder man to yield and bless the younger, 
 which he did, Lacordaire kneeling in the road before 
 him, the tears in the eyes of both. "lam quite shy 
 of my own pulpit," the Cure d'Ars said afterwards ; 
 " I feel like that man who, having met the Pope and 
 lent him his horse, never dared mount it again him- 
 self!" 
 
206 CHALAIS. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 CHALAIS— PERSONAL INFLUENCE, 1848— THE 
 REPUBLIC— POLITIC S. 
 
 WE must return to the year 1844, when, during 
 his Lent station at Grenoble, Lacordaire 
 became possessed of an old convent, formerly the 
 Chartreuse de Chalais. It was a large, rambling, 
 dilapidated building on a sunny mountain plateau, 
 looking on one side down upon the lovely valley 
 of Graisivaudan, and on the other towards Lyons, 
 the Rhone, and the Saone j originally founded by 
 some Benedictines, who ultimately handed it over 
 to the Carthusians, with whom it became a sort of 
 dependance to their great convent the Grande Char- 
 treuse hard by. During the Revolution the property 
 had been taken and sold in the name of the nation, 
 and now, with the full consent and approbation of the 
 Bishop of Grenoble, Mgr. de Bruillard, Lacordaire 
 bought it for his rising Order. He describes his 
 taking possession as follows : " Together with a few 
 young Religious from Bosco we started for the dear 
 mountain Chalais. We left our carriage at the foot of 
 
TAKING POSSESSION. 207 
 
 the hill, and it took us three hours' hard walking to 
 get to the top. We arrived at sunset, weary, hungry, 
 without any provisions or furniture, nothing save each 
 his Breviary. Fortunately the farmers who were 
 giving up the place had not yet left, indeed we 
 reckoned on this. They made a good fire, and we 
 gathered cheerfully at a table where some soup and a 
 dish of potatoes satisfied our hunger. We slept 
 soundly on straw, and the next morning daybreak 
 enabled us duly to admire the magnificent retreat God 
 had given us. The house was poor, the church, with its 
 thick mediaeval walls, had been used as a barn ; but 
 what grand woods surrounded us, what rocks were 
 lifted up above us, what meadows with their mountain 
 flowers ! Time was wanted to get things into order, 
 but it was easy to bear privation amid such natural 
 beauty, and the recent ruin had not effaced the 
 memories of olden times. . . . The bell which the 
 Benedictines and Carthusians had used still hung in 
 its pine-covered flhhe, and the same clock which had 
 struck their hours of prayer now summoned us to 
 our offices." This establishment was not made with- 
 out considerable difficulties. The Ministre des Cultes 
 had a remarkable faculty for interposing his inter- 
 ference wherever Lacordaire struck root, and the 
 impertinence of his letters to the venerable Mgr. de 
 Bruillard might have produced a serious hindrance 
 but for the Bishop's calm indifference. He was eighty- 
 
208 MGR. J ANSON. 
 
 two then, but as vigorous as any younger man, and 
 by the union of a judicious silence and resolution 
 he defeated M. Martin's opposition. In fact the 
 Government of that day was very glad to do whatever 
 it could by means of intimidation, but it was not pre- 
 pared for actual violence, and Lacordaire felt that he 
 was at once strong with his footing on the Charte, 
 and also as fighting the cause of all religious liberty. 
 
 Leaving Chalais for Nancy, Lacordaire passed, 
 among other places, through his native town, Dijon, 
 where for the first time he preached, to his intense 
 emotion and pleasure. A gratifying circumstance 
 befell him there, the Bishop of Langres, who had been 
 one of his strong opponents, inviting him warmly to 
 his house and his cathedral. " He received me with 
 open arms, no reconciliation was ever more thoroughly 
 and gracefully made." At Nancy Lacordaire was 
 called upon to preach a funeral oration over his old 
 friend Mgr. de Janson, August 28, 1844. The late 
 Bishop of Nancy had always been one of his staunchest 
 supporters, and deserved the encomium bestowed on 
 him as "one of the first to build afresh the ancient 
 Church of France on her fresh foundations." l It was 
 at this time too that he for the first time printed some 
 of his Notre Dame Conferences, having, as he wrote 
 to Mme. Swetchine, " formed the monstrous resolu- 
 tion to bring out a volume every year, till I have gone 
 1 Oraison Funebre, p. no. 
 
FIRST PUBLISHED CONFERENCES. 209 
 
 through the whole doctrinal series, after which you 
 may do what you will with me as far as this life goes ! 
 Perhaps you will be inclined to suppose that this work, 
 if it be one, will have neither head nor tail, but you 
 are quite as wrong as it is possible to be ! Be it 
 known to you, on the contrary, that it is systematic, 
 so systematic that I am surprised at it myself, for I 
 have not tried very much to make it so. The Con- 
 ferences of 1835 treat of tne Church : the need of her ; 
 her constitution ; her authority, rational, moral, and 
 infallible ; her headship ; her connection with temporal 
 things: this is the foundation. 1836 treats of the 
 sources of the Church's doctrine ; tradition, Holy 
 Scripture, reason and faith, as the natural results. 
 From the teaching authority we come to the question 
 of the doctrines taught. So going on, I shall treat of 
 its results on the soul, nature, society, and arrive at 
 last at the articles of faith. It is a beautiful course ; 
 it will be quite complete, a sort of little Summa for the 
 nineteenth century. I see what you are afraid of. 
 You remember the old newspaper reports, and ask if 
 all that rubbish is to be brought out again ? Pray, 
 give me credit for a little more sense than that. In 
 addition to those reports, I have my notes, my own 
 recollections, all of which blend together ; I polish up, 
 I renew the tints, perhaps I prune away some little 
 youthful shoots, and together with the greatest possible 
 faithfulness, you will have something respectable and 
 
210 GOD'S LEADINGS. 
 
 tidy. ... I have long fancied that I should let all these 
 debris take their chance, and then in my old age 
 perhaps write a book about all that I have been think- 
 ing of through life. But as one grows older one finds 
 out that we cannot shape our destinies at will, and 
 that we must give ourselves up to the leadings of 
 God. Since it has been His Will that my thoughts 
 should touch the public by means of speech, why 
 should I take away their simple natural character? 
 Sooner or later these scattered pages would have 
 been put together, and I was ashamed at the prospect, 
 for reading them over, my self-merit was grievously 
 damaged by their many faults. So in ten years, chere 
 amie, I have unconsciously prepared a tolerably com- 
 plete work, which I am now beginning to publish. 
 Perhaps it may not be finished for another ten years, 
 there may be many interruptions ; but I have great 
 confidence that God will suffer it to be completed. I 
 feel His blessing this year like an overflowing ocean, 
 everything succeeds. Yet all the same, holiness pro- 
 gresses slowly ; the head is easier to perfect than the 
 heart. I languish in the valleys, albeit every day the 
 horizon of truth is opened wider before me. Oh, how 
 hard it is to become holy ! I am at a loss to under- 
 stand why God makes the use of me He does, or 
 seems to do, for I may deceive myself even about 
 that ! " 
 
 In 1845 I-acordaire obtained permission to trans- 
 
AVANT TOUT LA R&GLE!" 
 
 fer the French Novitiate from Bosco to Chalais, and, 
 August 8th, the festival of transference took place. As 
 far as was possible, henceforth the founder's time 
 was spent there. " I wish I might never have to leave 
 Chalais again. God knows that my happiness would 
 be to pass my life with you there," he writes ; " but 
 it is necessary for the work that I should move, 
 and whenever I make arrangements to stay at home, 
 God is sure to overthrow them." When at Chalais, 
 or indeed in any house of the Order, Lacordaire was 
 foremost in the strict observance of every rule. His 
 punctuality was always absolute. His brethren tell 
 how once he and one other were the only occupants 
 of the newly-opened Dominican house at Toulouse 
 through Lent, all the other members being out 
 preaching. The two kept all Community rules most 
 precisely, but one day the other Religious overslept 
 himself, and instead of calling Lacordaire at three a.m. 
 for Matins, did not appear till four o'clock. Lacordaire 
 remonstrated, " Avant tout la regie ! " but when the 
 same thing happened again the next morning, he ex- 
 claimed, " My dear fellow, the Community can never 
 work at this rate ! I must be- wakesman myself in 
 future ! " Great men are apt to think themselves 
 privileged to do things after their own fashion, and at 
 their own time, but Lacordaire subjected himself to 
 every detail of regular duty as a matter of course. 
 He was fond of saying, " Do your day's work, plough 
 
PUNCTUALITY AND SYSTEM. 
 
 your furrow, finish your own affairs;" and he 
 certainly did so himself. Every day at ten o'clock 
 he used to sit down to his letters for two hours, by 
 the end of which a pile all sealed and directed might 
 generally be found on the corner of his table; he 
 never neglected this. Sometimes coming home after 
 an absence, an enormous heap of correspondence 
 would be awaiting him, and then that was always his 
 first care. Without any rest he would sit down at 
 his writing-table and give himself up to answering 
 letters — many very long, and in his close, neat hand- 
 writing, in which rarely a word was erased or altered 
 — and by the next day the arrears were all cleared 
 away. His habit of having a fixed time for every- 
 thing, and of keeping accurately to it, enabled him to 
 get through a most enormous amount of work, and 
 any unwonted increase never seemed to worry him 
 or make him irritable. He never infringed on the 
 fixed hours of devotion or sleep for any pressure of 
 work, he simply seemed to work harder and with 
 more despatch; and at such times he used to join 
 his brethren at recreation with a bright eye and cheer- 
 ful smile, like one who sought refreshment after 
 extra tension of brain. Those who assisted frequently 
 at his Mass say they could not help being struck with 
 the exceeding reverence and thoughtfulness with 
 which it was always said ; routine and daily custom 
 seemed quite unable to deaden the solemnity of the 
 
DEVOTIONAL HABITS. 213 
 
 act to him. He might always have been celebrating 
 his first Mass, it was said by one of his brethren. 
 Nor would he ever occupy himself with saying offices, 
 or any other devotion than the Mass itself; and when 
 during his busiest time at Soreze he was asked why he 
 did not say his office during the school High Mass, 
 he replied that " Mass was too high and holy an act 
 for anything save that which the priest was doing and 
 saying to fill the mind." He always gave some time 
 after saying Mass to the study of Holy Scripture, 
 which with the Summa were the only books that 
 might always be found on his table. At the close of 
 his life he said to some of his Soreze children, " I 
 have been studying the Bible for thirty years, and 
 every day I discover new light and new depth in it. 
 Men's thoughts are soon fathomed and exhausted, 
 but God's Word is a boundless fountain." And he 
 writes, " How I pity unbelievers as they grow old ! 
 Light grows so full, so precious, so piercing as one 
 approaches death under the auspices of faith and 
 holiness rooted in the Gospel. One ceases to be- 
 lieve merely ; one sees. Just as the mystery of dark- 
 ness thickens round a soul that has not faith, and 
 everything becomes darker and more doubtful to him, 
 so light spreads and surrounds more and more the 
 soul which habitually lives in God. When I read the 
 Gospel, every word seems a light and a blessing on 
 my path." 
 
2i 4 CHARM OF PERSONAL INTERCOURSE. 
 
 The New Testament was his favourite study, and 
 S. John and S. Paul, the Apostle of Love and the 
 Preacher of the Cross, his favourite teachers. He did 
 not give much time, indeed he could not possibly 
 have it to give, to general reading. Frivolous reading 
 he despised, what he called " niaiseries de salon." 
 Homer, Plutarch, Cicero, Plato, S. Augustine, S. 
 Teresa, Bossuet, and Pascal, these were the substantial 
 authors in whom he delighted, and he used to say 
 they were enough for any one ! His love of order 
 and neatness has already been alluded to. His room 
 was always arranged in the most orderly fashion. 
 He could not endure the slightest disorder. " Never 
 mind whether anybody sees it or not," he used to say, 
 " the angels see it." Then, when circumstances per- 
 mitted, he would work for hours with a passionate 
 enjoyment of the labour which was all done in and 
 for God, so that he used to become so enrapt in it 
 that those who entered were often awestruck, as in 
 the presence of one very near God, in very close 
 communion with Him. To those privileged to see 
 him in this familiar attitude, he was full of the most 
 tender, pathetic kindness, albeit to the outer world he 
 often seemed cold and hard. No one could resist 
 the charm of his personal intercourse who came into 
 close contact with him. Whatever pleased him was 
 instantly and thankfully referred to Him from Whom 
 all good comes : whatever brought sorrow or indigna- 
 
TRUE HUMILITY. 215 
 
 tion might for a moment bring a cloud over his fine 
 face, and he would look inexpressibly sad \ but that 
 soon passed away, and he saw God's Hand even in 
 that which troubled him. No vein of bitterness or 
 harshness ever crossed him. " He had none of that 
 humility which refuses to see its own talent and merit, 
 above all, that humility which is for ever producing 
 itself in this respect to all comers," says Pere Chocarne. 
 " He had no hesitation in acknowledging the gifts he 
 possessed, and considered himself as neither better 
 nor worse for them." He used to say that "humility 
 does not consist in hiding one's gifts or graces, or 
 thinking oneself worse and inferior to what one 
 really is, but in realising thoroughly wherein we are 
 deficient, in not being puffed up by what we may be, 
 remembering that it is all the free gift of God, and 
 that even with all His gifts we are infinitely small and 
 poor. It is noteworthy that great holiness inevitably 
 produces humility." Lacordaire's conventual humility, 
 if we may be allowed the expression, was like that of 
 all his great forerunners in the religious life, founded 
 upon His lowliness Who made Himself the Servant 
 of all. He was always seeking to take upon himself 
 little acts of service towards others ; in themselves 
 nothing, but acquiring a meaning as expressing the 
 feeling of brotherhood and perfect meekness. Many 
 little anecdotes are told of his services in kitchen and 
 refectory — how he would wash his brethren's .feet or 
 
216 ASCETICISM. 
 
 clean their shoes, or wait upon a stranger at table 
 — trifling in themselves, but, as expressing a tone of 
 mind, full of meaning. One of his great pleasures at 
 Chalais was to go out on a woodcutting expedition 
 with the novices, when with his axe Lacordaire 
 would "do as good a day's work as any man, and 
 marshal his forces like a general at the head of his 
 army." 
 
 During all these years he was moulding many men 
 to their Christian career with a downright severity, 
 which was before all others lavished upon himself. 
 We shrink from entering upon the details of his secret 
 asceticism ; such hidden things seem scarcely fit to 
 be dragged into the light of day, and discussed by all 
 — those who are utterly incapable of understanding 
 the great soul which found strength and refuge in 
 asceticism, as well as those who may look on in 
 reverential wonder. But this is quite plain, that the 
 only thing which enabled Lacordaire to keep the 
 attitude of loving humility and self-abnegation which 
 he so wonderfully preserved through the success 
 which, as we have seen, "frightened" him, and in 
 spite of a passionate, eager, overflowing natural 
 temperament, was precisely that asceticism of which 
 we, less gifted, weaker in every conceivable way, are 
 altogether unqualified to judge. To such of his 
 disciples as a similar dealing was applicable, to men 
 of a like, or rather we should say of a far-off, 
 
" L E TTRES A UX JE UNES HOMMES. " 217 
 
 resemblance to his vigour and power, he freely and 
 heartily dealt out the same treatment, in many cases 
 most successfully. The volume of his " Letters to 
 Young Men," published by Henri Perreyve after his 
 death, is itself a treasure-house of manly, straight- 
 forward counsel, full of strength and power, often 
 humorous and playful, always plain and practical. 
 He did not by any means look upon the religious life 
 as the one point towards which all men were to be 
 driven ; witness the following letter to a young friend 
 
 seeking counsel as to his course : — 
 
 " October 3, 1846. 
 
 " I will tell you at once what I think about the 
 changed circumstances of your position. I do not 
 think you can decide on quitting the world, and 
 refuse the advantages offered you. Your duty to 
 your family and the debt of gratitude you owe your 
 friend are sacred. It seems to be God's Will to 
 frustrate all your plans and keep you in the world ; 
 and even if you cannot perceive what is His aim, it 
 would be difficult not to perceive a proof of His Will 
 in all these occurrences, to which you must submit. 
 Perhaps you will serve Him better in the world than 
 under the monk's habit. It seems to me evident 
 that you must accept the offers made to you, and 
 apply yourself steadily to your worldly career without 
 persisting more in a plan to which God's Providence 
 has set so many obstacles." 
 
2 1 8 FRIENDL Y CO UNSEL. 
 
 To another he writes : — 
 
 " November 7, 1849. 
 
 " Your letter indicates progress, at least in frankness 
 and sincerity towards me. It is only by dint of time, 
 by earnest watchfulness over yourself, by prayer, read- 
 ing, meditation, the Sacraments, works of penitence 
 and charity, that you will succeed in uprooting the evil 
 propensities of your character, pride especially. Thus 
 you need to watch yourself very particularly in recrea- 
 tion, and see whether you are really seeking to give 
 pleasure or only to make a show and shine ? Kind- 
 ness in intercourse with other men is the brightness of 
 life. A mind which takes thought for others, avoiding 
 whatever gives them pain, which sacrifices itself, never 
 holds back out of pride or temper — such a mind is that 
 of a Christian, and the delight of all who come in 
 contact with it. Make yourself to be loved, for men 
 are only loved for their goodness. As to meditation, 
 I think your best course is to listen to what is read, 
 and seek therein material for reflection. The dwelling 
 on truth, self-application, as loving as possible, this is 
 the essence of meditation. Do not be disheartened 
 by dryness ; feeling is a consolation, but the strict 
 fulfilment of duty is the true source of all interior gain. 
 Meditation, even if ill performed, will at last bring 
 about an increase of spiritual life if it is persevered 
 in ; if you do not attain perfection in it, you at least 
 may acquire the habit of its first essentials, which are 
 
HOL Y SCRIPTURE. 2 1 9 
 
 reading and thought. ... As to penitence, do nothing 
 which will be noticed by others, not that one need 
 fear to be known as penitent, but because whatever 
 goes off the ordinary lines is not fit for all men, and 
 also because we should not suffer ourselves to be 
 thought more holy than we are. . . . You can easily 
 practise some penitential observances without notice. 
 . . . Make an interior offering of yourself to God for 
 any humiliation and pain He may see fit to send you ; 
 think on Our Lord's Passion, and apply it to yourself, 
 specially on Fridays. Meditation on His Sufferings is 
 the groundwork of all holiness. . . . Read two chapters 
 of Holy Scripture daily. . . . Kneel down a moment in 
 preparation. You must learn to value every word of 
 that Book before all else, and to prize human writings 
 only in so far as they approach its tone. If you could 
 learn the Psalms and S. Paul's Epistles by heart, it 
 would be a great gain to your soul. I should not 
 advise you to enlarge the circle of your philosophic 
 studies, but rather to retrench and circumscribe it. 
 The strength of knowledge is concentration. Learn to 
 meditate upon a few lines of even a second-rate author ; 
 nothing is really useful unless it is fertilised by medi- 
 tation. A wide field of reading often puzzles the mind, 
 and if you happen to have a good memory, it may 
 dazzle others, but it does not ensure depth or solidity. 
 Depth involves extent, but extent does not necessarily 
 mean depth." 
 
220 INFLUENCE AMONG YOUNG MEN. 
 
 «i — — — — — 
 
 "Whatever you do," he writes to another young 
 man, June 10, 1850, "do it steadily and persever- 
 ingly. I would rather that you read nothing than see 
 you take to reading casually." 
 
 Lacordaire's element was among young men ; with 
 them he was easy, expansive, full of warmth and 
 friendliness, and his power of attracting and preserv- 
 ing their confidence was great. He looked upon 
 himself as " the Apostle of youth," and accepted the 
 office as his appointed lot. Certainly it was not 
 from sparing their foibles and weaknesses, with which 
 he could deal in the freest possible way without 
 hurting or giving offence. To one we find him 
 writing : " You are lukewarm and careless towards 
 God. Prayer, communion, penitence, devotional 
 habits, all that gladdens and uplifts the soul is almost 
 strange to you. You have no regular system ; . . . 
 you do not love Jesus Christ as your best friend, 
 ready to seek Him everywhere, to give all for Him 
 as He has given all for you. The Crucified Lord 
 does not speak to your soul, and outweigh your sin- 
 ful longings. And then what is left? Nought. 
 You wander without light or warmth. . . . My poor 
 fellow, this is your condition, and it will only cease 
 when you give yourself wholly to God. It is not 
 necessary for you to become a priest or a Religious. 
 Not so; you will find it possible to love God 
 tenderly and heartily everywhere. But you must 
 
HENRI PERRE YVE. 
 
 really will it, and to that end you must have some 
 fixed rule of intercourse with Him. . . . You are vain, 
 mon cher ami; you like what is showy; you are 
 proud of your horse and your groom ; you want to be 
 a fine fellow, and admired ; you are proud of your 
 position j in short, you are a small creature full of all 
 manner of vanities, of which perhaps you yourself are 
 unconscious ! Nobody needs to humble himself and to 
 be humiliated more than you do. You see how I speak 
 to you j it is because I love you, and would go through 
 a great deal to win you to the true Love of God. You 
 are cold naturally, but there is something behind in 
 your heart." 
 
 To Henri Perreyve, who was one of Lacordaire's 
 most chosen friends and disciples, he writes : — 
 
 "April 22, 1852. 
 "You have dangers ahead; and it is in you to 
 make many mistakes, but your faults will be generous 
 ones, I hope, and God forgives these, for He loves 
 generosity. During the last four years I have seen 
 many things which have disgusted me with mankind, 
 but you are a bright hope for the future. Neverthe- 
 less learn to be temperate if you would be stable. 
 Impetuosity and exaggeration often lead to astounding 
 falls, whereas temperate ideas and acts easily main- 
 tain their stedfastness. Above all things be kindly ; 
 kindliness is a grace very near the likeness of God, 
 and one which disarms men above all else. You 
 
222 LACORDAIRE AS DIRECTOR. 
 
 have its stamp upon your soul, but such furrows can 
 never be ploughed too deep ; your lips and your eyes 
 are not yet as charitable as they might be, and no 
 art can give them this gift save a culture of interior 
 kindliness. Gentle, charitable thoughts of others 
 gradually stamp the countenance, and help it to win 
 hearts." 
 
 Except in his own Order and among these young 
 men, Lacordaire undertook but little personal direc- 
 tion of souls. His life was too active and his 
 journeys too perpetual to fit in well with that kind of 
 work. In the few exceptional cases, he seems to 
 have waged unremitting war upon indolence, self-in- 
 dulgence, and vanity ; and the few women under his 
 direction were urged to read steadily and substantially, 
 to undertake good works in a persevering spirit, and 
 to seek their happiness without the world's code of 
 pleasure. Distinguished birth or position were in his 
 eyes only an additional call to humility of heart and 
 practice, and little as we possess of his instructions to 
 this class, there is enough to indicate that the women 
 he directed needed brave, simple hearts and stedfast- 
 ness of purpose. It was thus that amid his many 
 duties, public and private, the comparatively calm 
 years from 1843 t0 l8 4^ passed by. Another Revo- 
 lution was shortly to open out new issues to him. 
 
 Advent 1847 found Lacordaire preaching at Toulon 
 
POLITICAL LIFE. 223 
 
 and Marseilles, and on February 1 1, 1848, he delivered 
 a remarkable funeral oration upon O'Connell. This 
 was practically the beginning of what may be called 
 his political life, and concerning it Montalembert him- 
 self puts the question whether his friend throughout 
 that always displayed a safe and solid judgment? 
 answering in the negative, while he adds, " When a 
 political mistake or change of opinion has been wholly 
 free of all unworthy motive, all selfish fear, all mean 
 jealousy, and all sordid interest, a man need not 
 blush to own it." 
 
 " He had foreseen the storm," another of his friends 
 says, "and was neither astonished nor overwhelmed 
 when the popular movement broke out in which not 
 the throne merely, as in 1830, but the monarchy itself 
 was overthrown. He was not a republican partisan, 
 as many have thought and said : he always expressed 
 his preference for a constitutional monarchy; like many 
 others, he may have believed in the future triumph of 
 democracy, but he was never a democrat. He was a 
 Liberal from his birth, he lived and died faithful to this 
 flag, which he carried independently of all parties and 
 all forms of government." 
 
 " I intend to live and die a penitent Catholic and 
 an impenitent Liberal," were his own words, addressed 
 some years later to the Cercle Catholique ;' and while 
 
 1 "Je compte vivre et mourir en penitent catholique, et en 
 liberal impenitent." 
 
224 LIBERAL NOT DEMOCRAT. 
 
 never drawing back from this affirmation, he fre- 
 quently protested against being called a democrat : " I 
 have always been puzzled by the way some people 
 persist in speaking of my political position, because I 
 have never said a word or written a line which could 
 indicate the smallest tendency to what is called the 
 Republican party. All my political system may be 
 reduced to this, that outside Christianity no society 
 is possible unless it be a social state struggling 
 between the despotism of one and the despotism of 
 many; and further, that Christianity can never 
 regain its empire in the world save by a hearty 
 struggle in which it is neither oppressor nor 
 oppressed. There I take my stand, and I have 
 nothing to say to anything else." " But," he writes to 
 a friend, January 10, 1850, " I might cry on the house- 
 tops that I am no democrat, and people would only 
 insist the more that I am!" 1 Now, February 1848, 
 he had little faith in the new Republic, but he did not 
 feel justified in refusing such support as his adhesion 
 might give, hoping to obtain from it at least that 
 
 1 Yet even Montalembert says of him, "Ne democrate, il ne 
 Ini en a pas coute de croire, avec tous les hommes senses de ce 
 siecle, au triomphe inevitable de la democratic ; mais il n'en avait 
 epouse ni les tendances outrees, ni les mauvaises querelles. 
 Comme la plupart des vrais liberaux, il etait assez indifferent aux 
 questions dynastiques, et meme, jusqu'a un certain point, aux 
 formes gouvernementales ; mais ses preferences demeurerent 
 toujours acquises a la monarchic temperee. " 
 
ERE NOUVELLE." 225 
 
 religious freedom which the recent regimes had failed 
 to grant freely. And with this intention he suffered 
 himself to be drawn into the struggles of the hour, and 
 took part in the editing of a daily paper, the lire 
 Nouvelle, no longer out of youthful enthusiasm and 
 hope, but as a duty which was out of keeping with his 
 personal inclinations. He wrote to Mme. Swetchine, 
 March 16,1848: " My ideas, thank God, have taken 
 full shape, and time will see them carried out. Above 
 all things, one must lay aside fear, and not shrink 
 back from any duty. This is perhaps the first time 
 that I make any real sacrifice for God. Up to this 
 time whatever I have done has been in sympathy 
 with my tastes ; but at the present moment I am 
 laying aside my own inclination, and in the fullest 
 sense of the words, I give my life up to God as op- 
 posed to my own will. This will be the consolation 
 if I perish, and I look upon it as the plank of my 
 possible shipwreck. Pray for me, and forgive me 
 for coming so seldom to you. Time has clipped its 
 wings to fall faster ! " 
 
 Speaking of this time, at the close of his career, 
 Lacordaire says : — 
 
 " It was difficult to know what to do, because it 
 was difficult to see what was for the best. It was not 
 possible to re-establish a tempered Monarchy after 
 the catastrophes of 1830 and 1848 ; it seemed equally 
 impossible to set up a Republic in a couutry which for 
 
226 VIEW OF THE SITUATION. 
 
 thirteen or fourteen centuries had been ruled by kings j 
 but there was this difference between the two positions, 
 that the Monarchy had fallen and the Republic was 
 standing upright. And that which is standing has a 
 better chance of life than that which is thrown down ; 
 while even if there was little hope of establishing the 
 new regime permanently, it might at least be used as 
 a temporary shelter, and as a means of giving France 
 some of those institutions the lack of which had been 
 the evident cause of the overthrow of two thrones and 
 two dynasties. This was M. de Tocqueville's view 
 of the matter. He was not a Republican, but if the 
 Republic were overthrown, and especially if it were 
 overthrown at the actual moment, he saw no hope of 
 anything but Absolutism. It was necessary to choose 
 between these two extremes, and every sound politician 
 had to work on one or the other side ; everything else 
 was mere delusion. It is easy enough to see it now, 
 but few men saw it all plainly then, and one may 
 almost say that the greater number of good men were 
 deluded by the phantom of a restoration of Constitu- 
 tional Monarchy after a brief reign of Republicanism. 
 I was very undecided myself. Since my earliest days 
 I had been a partisan of Parliamentary Monarchy, I 
 had limited my hopes and longings to that; I had 
 no hatred either for the Bourbons or the Orleans 
 family, and had thought of nothing more than what 
 hopes they held out for the future liberties of our 
 
THE REPUBLIC OF 1848. 227 
 
 country, ready to support the one if they had been 
 faithful to the Charte of 1814, or the other if they 
 had carried out the Charte of 1830 fairly. If you 
 could imagine those two houses united in giving France 
 a Monarchy solidly founded on institutions which 
 involved no self-contradiction, no one would have 
 been more hearty towards them than myself. But all 
 that was a mere dream of the present as of the past. 
 As a follower of principle, never of party, I had always 
 been influenced by things, not people. And whereas 
 it is easy to follow a party, it is difficult to follow 
 principles when one cannot be definite as to their 
 application. As a Parliamentary Liberal, I understood 
 my own position perfectly ; as a Republican, I was 
 not so clear. And yet it was imperatively necessary 
 to come to a decision. 
 
 "While I was yet hesitating, the Abbe Maret 
 and Frederic Ozanam came to me. They said 
 that uneasiness and uncertainty prevailed among 
 Catholics, that all rallying-points were getting lost in 
 what might soon be irreparable confusion ; that we 
 might easily excite hostility in the new regime, and 
 so lose the chance of obtaining from it that liberty 
 which the late Government had obstinately refused. 
 The Republic was well disposed towards us, they said, 
 and we had none of those cruelties and irreligious 
 deeds which stamped the Revolution of 1830 to 
 reproach it with. The Republic believed and hoped 
 
228 DIFFICULTIES OF THE PERIOD. 
 
 in us, surely we should do well not to discourage it, 
 else what was there in prospect but ruin, and what 
 was this Republic save the natural government of a 
 society which has lost all its anchors and all its 
 traditions ? My friends had still higher ulterior views 
 drawn from the condition of European society, and 
 the powerlessness of the Monarchy to recover solid 
 standing-ground. I did not go entirely with them 
 here ; a tempered Monarchy, with all its faults, 
 always seemed to me the most desirable of govern- 
 ments, and I could only look upon the Republic as a 
 necessity for the time being, which must be honestly 
 accepted, until ideas and realities should fall naturally 
 into a different shape. This difference of opinion 
 was weighty, and made it difficult for us to work 
 together under one flag. But the danger was urgent, 
 and it was a moment in which it behoved one to lay 
 aside personal feeling, unless one was able to raise 
 one's own standard openly, and bring other lights and 
 power to bear upon the difficulties of the period. 
 Hitherto I had taken my definite stand in all public 
 events j was I now to fall back into a selfish, cowardly 
 silence because the difficulty was complicated ? True, 
 I might say that I was a Religious, and use my habit 
 as a shield ; but I was a militant Religious, a preacher, 
 a writer, surrounded with sympathies which involved 
 other duties than those of a Trappist or a Carthusian. 
 These considerations moved my conscience, and, 
 
PASTORAL LETTER. 229 
 
 urged by my friends to take my line, I yielded to the 
 force of circumstances ; and although I shrank from 
 renewing my career as a journalist, I joined with 
 them in hoisting a flag which represented at once 
 Religion, the Republic, and Liberty." 
 
 It was thus that Lacordaire found himself once 
 more a newspaper editor, in conjunction with the 
 group of fervently religious men, who, as Montalembert 
 says, believed that 1848 was indeed the beginning of 
 a " New Era." This was the name they gave their 
 paper, "in which they upheld the new regime, pro- 
 fessing the solidarity of Christianity and Democracy 
 with an honest but intemperate eagerness, which 
 Lacordaire, who had so eloquently combated the 
 traditional belief in a solidarity of Catholicism and 
 Monarchy, did not share, but could not sufficiently 
 control." 1 
 
 A few days before the Ere Nouvelle appeared 
 Lacordaire resumed his Notre Dame Conferences. 
 It was February 27th when a vast multitude flocked 
 together to hear what the most popular orator of his 
 day would say concerning the events which were 
 passing around him. Mgr. Affre, who had given, so 
 to say, his vote of confidence to the Republic already, 
 by a Pastoral Letter of February 24th, in which he 
 praised the people for their moderation and reverence 
 in the day of victory, was present, and Lacordaire 
 1 Montalembert, p. 204. 
 
230 RENEWED CONFERENCES. 
 
 could not refrain from apostrophising him. " Mon- 
 seigneur, the Church and our country unite in thank- 
 ing you for the example you have set us all during 
 these days of great and memorable excitement. You 
 have called us together in this Cathedral immediately 
 after a revolution in which all seemed lost ; we 
 obeyed the call, we are here beneath this great 
 dome; we learn that there is nothing to fear for 
 religion or for France ; both will go on their way 
 under God's protecting Hand; both thank you for 
 having believed in their indissoluble alliance, and for 
 having discerned these things which abide and are 
 strengthened by the very movement of events from 
 those which are but temporary." 1 The subject of his 
 Conference was God — the Existence of God — and 
 at one point Lacordaire burst forth with one of those 
 storms of eloquence which from time to time wholly 
 carried away every listener, and which can be but 
 feebly rendered in any language apart from the glow- 
 ing countenance and thrilling voice of the all but 
 inspired speaker. " Let me tell you, messieurs, this 
 is the first time since authority to preach God's Word 
 was committed to me — it is, I say, the first time that I 
 have approached this question — the existence of God 
 — if indeed such a thing can be called a question ! 
 Hitherto I have always passed it over as useless ; I 
 thought it needless to prove to a son the existence 
 1 Conferences, xlv. 
 
INCIDENT OF FEBRUAR Y 24TH. 23 1 
 
 of his Father, and that he who knew it not was 
 unworthy to know it. But the course of thought 
 constrains me to touch upon it ; and yet while making 
 such a concession to the logical order of things, I 
 would not have you think that I held it a need for 
 your hearts, or the heart of the people and the age 
 to which we belong. Thanks be to God, we believe 
 in Him ; and if I could doubt your faith, you would 
 rise up to thrust me forth ; the very doors of this 
 Cathedral would burst open to cast me out, and the 
 people would need but one glance to confound me, 
 that people who even now, in the midst of the excite- 
 ment of power, after overthrowing generations of 
 kings, yet bore in submissive hands, and as belonging 
 to their triumph, the likeness of the Son of God 
 made man." 
 
 At this point the popular feeling could not control 
 itself, and there were loud bursts of involuntary 
 applause. Lacordaire turned calmly to the people : 
 " Do not applaud God's Word — believe it, love it, 
 fulfil it ; this is the only acclamation which will rise 
 up to Heaven, or which is worthy to do so." 
 
 His allusion, so happily made, was to an incident 
 of February 24th, when the mob had taken possession 
 of the Tuileries, and was throwing furniture, etc., out 
 of the windows. A young man, member of the Con- 
 ference of Saint Vincent de Paul, hurried to the 
 chapel, fearing that it would be profaned. He found 
 
232 VIVE LA RELIGION! 
 
 it had already been invaded, and the vestments were 
 tossed about, but the altar was untouched (Mass had 
 been said there that morning). Summoning to his 
 aid some National Guards and two students of the 
 Ecole Polytechnique, they took the holy vessels and 
 the Crucifix, and proceeded by the Place du Carrousel 
 towards Saint Roch. Attacked by some of the excited 
 mob, one of the party held the Crucifix aloft, exclaim- 
 ing, " You want regeneration — you can only have it 
 through Christ ! " There was a cry, " Yes ! yes ! 
 He is Master of all ! " And heads were bared to the 
 cry of " Vive le Christ ! " while a procession followed 
 the young men to Saint Roch, where the Cure came 
 forth to meet them, and the mob asked his blessing. 
 He spoke a few timely words, which were respectfully 
 listened to, and the cry rose up, " We love the bon 
 Dieu, we want religion ; it must be respected. Vive la 
 Liberte ! Vive la Religion et Pio Nono ! " x Very 
 different indeed was the religious aspect of things 
 during this Revolution of 1848 to what we have 
 unhappily seen since. 
 
 For a time the fere Nouvelle prospered ; the circu- 
 lation was between eight and ten thousand daily, a 
 large number then; the Archbishop publicly sanctioned 
 it, and the talent of its editors made it popular. 
 Lacordaire defended the Budget des Cultes, the sup- 
 pression of which was sought in a series of powerful 
 
 1 Ami de la Religion, No. du Mardi, February 29, 1848. 
 
SUCCESS OF THE "ERE." 233 
 
 articles. Frederic Ozanam put forth some very re- 
 markable papers on Divorce. " We sell as many as 
 ten thousand copies in the streets sometimes," Lacor- 
 daire wrote (June 30, 1848) to Mme. Swetchine, 
 "and fresh subscribers come in fast. At the same 
 time there is a vast increase of wrath against us, 
 and heaps of anonymous letters. It is a down- 
 right battle, the most amusing thing imaginable, albeit 
 very serious. One set of people write, ' Yours is the 
 best newspaper going,' and the others cry out, ' It is 
 atrocious, horrible, sans-culotte J " Let one do what 
 one may, there is no leading a quiet life here below, 
 chere amie ! " 
 
 " The difficulty of this work," he wrote a little later, 
 " is to combine the religious and political spirit ; that 
 is, the spirit of charity and peace with the thing which 
 of all others produces the most deadly hatred and 
 most terrible divisions. If you visit the sick, the 
 poor, the prisoner, Christianity is all right, everybody 
 understands it. But if you apply Christianity to 
 politics, a yell is raised at once ; impartiality is called 
 weakness ; pity, treachery ; gentleness, a wish to stand 
 well with all the world. Nothing so easy as the parti 
 pris of faction ; nothing so hard as justice towards 
 factions." 
 
 After a while Lacordaire saw that it would be well 
 for him to withdraw ; his own interests and those of 
 his fellow-editors, who wished the paper to take a 
 
234 LACORD AIRES WITHDRAWAL 
 
 more decidedly democratic line, required it. 1 He 
 had never been prepared to go as far as they did, 
 and now, when financial reasons .involved a new 
 arrangement as to the proprietorship of the newspaper, 
 he gave up the direction. " Everything has been 
 friendly," he said, September 7, 1848, writing from 
 Chalais. " I never intended to remain at the head 
 of the management, nothing would be more contrary 
 to my tastes, I may say to my duties. So far from 
 my withdrawal damaging the paper, I think it will 
 give strength, by making its position more definite, 
 and allowing of a more decided tone. In every case 
 I am satisfied, being convinced that I have done my 
 duty, alike in establishing and in leaving the &re 
 Nouvelle. I have considered the past six months as 
 in God's Sight j and not to speak of the mere errors 
 of detail, I think that under these trying circumstances 
 I have done what religion and patriotism required of 
 me. My vocation was never political, and yet it was 
 impossible to avoid coming into temporary contact 
 with these great perils, were it merely through a mis- 
 taken self-devotion, or to gain a sad experience. 
 This I have now gained, and without any serious 
 loss. You cannot think how restful it is to me, or 
 how much more clearly I see what God requires of 
 
 1 "Ce journal va bien au dela de mes pensees en fait de 
 democratic, et tous ses redacteurs savent combien j'ai combattu 
 pour le maintenir dans une ligne plus reservee." 
 
CONSTITUENT ASSEMBL Y. 235 
 
 me henceforward. Even if I should have lost ground 
 in men's esteem, what does that matter if I have not 
 lost ground in God's sight ? This retirement cost me 
 less than it would have cost many, because I have 
 been so accustomed to live very much apart, in limited 
 intercourse with a few souls, animated by intercourse 
 with God." He left Ozanam, in whom he had such 
 absolute confidence, although their opinions were not 
 always precisely parallel, at the head of the newspaper, 
 and hastened to leave Paris, in order, as he said, " to 
 put the seal to it all. Rapidity is not precipitate 
 hurry. I had consulted Montalembert and other 
 friends, I had arranged every minutest detail, and it 
 was easy, when the moment came, to depart like the 
 swallows." 
 
 But the Ere Nouvelle was not the only startling 
 political feature of this Revolution in which Lacor- 
 daire had his share. Three Bishops and twenty priests 
 were elected members of the Constituent Assembly, 
 and not unnaturally Lacordaire was one of the first 
 representatives desired by the Catholic party. He 
 never came forward as a candidate anywhere, but 
 seven or eight constituencies put him forward. The 
 comite cT arrondissement in which he lived asked him to 
 be present at two meetings, and answer certain ques- 
 tions. " So I went to the amphitheatre of the £cole 
 de Medicine and to the great salle of the Sorbonne, 
 and at both places I declared freely that I was not a 
 
236 ELECTED FOR MARSEILLES. 
 
 republicain de la veille, as the expression of the day is, 
 but a simple republicain du lendemain? At the first 
 place I had a great success ; at the Sorbonne there 
 was an excitement and commotion from without." 
 
 In spite of vigorous opposition, Lacordaire regis- 
 tered 62,000 votes in Paris, and also a very large 
 number at Toulon, where he had lately been preach- 
 ing an Advent course, and was known and liked ; but 
 it was Marseilles which had the honour of returning 
 him as its member. He had only once been there 
 for a few days in the previous month of January, after 
 his visit to Toulon ; but the single sermon he had 
 preached there had aroused a paroxysm of sympathy, 
 and several large deputations had brought him 
 addresses. The members of the Catholic Club had 
 conducted him enthusiastically to the point of depar- 
 ture, and the Due de Sabran, as their mouthpiece, 
 urged his speedy return. A little later he was invited 
 to establish a Dominican house in the town. Com- 
 missioned by such a constituency, Lacordaire took his 
 place in the Assembly, May 4, 1848, seating him- 
 self at the upper end of the first left cross seats. This, 
 as he himself said afterwards, was a mistake. " I was 
 too young a republican to take so marked a place," 
 he said, " and the Republic itself was too new to 
 deserve so marked a token of adherence." He quickly 
 
 1 This may probably be best translated as not so much a re- 
 publican by conviction as one of action. 
 
TAKES HIS SEA T. 237 
 
 perceived the error and altered his position. The 
 Univers of the day wrote concerning this event : 
 " Yesterday was a great day for Pere Lacordaire, for 
 the Church, whose minister he is, and for the religious 
 Orders, whose most popular representative he is among 
 us. The Dominican entered the National Assembly, 
 whither he has been called by the free suffrage of 
 two hundred thousand Frenchmen. He was clothed 
 in the white Friar's robe which he has restored among 
 us. His election was confirmed without the slightest 
 opposition, and his monk's dress did not arouse the 
 sound of complaint in the Assembly, where, notwith- 
 standing, M. Dupin and M. Isambert were to be found. 
 More than this : when the whole Assembly moved to 
 the peristyle of the Palais Bourbon, there to proclaim 
 the Republic in presence of the people and the Garde 
 Nationale, Pere Lacordaire went with the Abbe de 
 Cazales, Grand Vicaire of Montauban, down to the 
 railing, which was besieged by the surging masses of 
 the Parisian crowd, which crowd saluted the eloquent 
 Religious with wild acclamations. He shook hands 
 with numerous citizens and National Guards, and was 
 brought back in a sort of triumph to the door of the 
 Assembly. When the House dispersed, leaving it by 
 the Rue de Bourgogne, the orator had to cross the 
 ranks of a company of the Tenth Legion, who again 
 raised the cry of ' Vive le Pere Lacordaire ! ' From 
 this day we may say the oppressive laws against which 
 
238 RAPID RETIREMENT. 
 
 we have so long contended — laws which have been 
 brought to bear on men's consciences, upon all freedom 
 of self-devotion and penitence, by various successive 
 despotisms — are practically abrogated. They have 
 fallen to the ground, and have received their 
 death-stroke from the monk's courage and the 
 people's sympathy. The Second Republic has thus 
 repaired one of the most odious iniquities of its pre- 
 decessor." 
 
 Lacordaire's career as a member was of the brief- 
 est. Ten days only were his term of office. During 
 those days he spoke twice, not successfully, Monta- 
 lembert says. From the first he seems to have felt 
 keenly that he was not in his right place, and that 
 this surging ocean of political excitement was not the 
 sphere in which his life ought to be dedicated to 
 God. On May 15 th an irruption of the mob told its 
 own story as to the position of the Assembly relatively 
 to the country, and "for three hours," Lacordaire 
 wrote, "we remained defenceless in presence of a 
 scene where no blood indeed was shed, and where 
 it may be no great danger was incurred, but in which 
 there was all the more loss of honour and dignity. 
 The people (if the people it really was) outraged 
 their representatives merely to prove that they had 
 them at their mercy. . . . During those weary hours 
 one solitary thought kept for ever repeating itself in 
 my brain — monotonous, implacable — 'The Republic 
 
LETTER TO HIS CONSTITUENTS. 239 
 
 is lost !'" "I saw him sitting motionless, imperturb- 
 able, in his place," Montalembert says, " pointed out 
 by his white robe as a mark for insult to the mob. 
 The next day he sent in his resignation; he had 
 recognised that his temperament, at once so impetu- 
 ous and so thoughtful, was not adapted to the daily 
 storms of parliamentary life." 1 
 
 He knew well beforehand that he would be accused 
 of inconsistency, want of judgment, even want of 
 courage ; but these trifling annoyances were more 
 than compensated by the sense of duty fulfilled. 
 " One must learn," he said, " to be lowered in man's 
 sight, that one may rise in that of God." His letter 
 to the electors des Bouches-du-Rhone, who he felt 
 might justly complain, is a striking one : — 
 
 "Yesterday I resigned the seat with which you 
 had honoured me. I restore it after but a fortnight's 
 occupation, and without having done anything of 
 that which you expected of me. My letter to the 
 President of the National Assembly will already have 
 explained the causes of my retirement; but I must 
 needs say something more detailed to you who 
 selected me, and conferred upon me the highest 
 mark of esteem it was in your power to give me. 
 You reckoned upon me, and I have failed you ; you 
 counted on my speaking, and I have scarcely entered 
 the tribune ; you relied on my courage, and I have 
 1 Montalembert, p. 205. 
 
240 REASONS FOR WITHDRA WING. 
 
 run no risks ; surely you have every right to question 
 me, and I feel a need to forestall your questions. 
 
 " I felt within me two men — the Religious and the 
 citizen. It was impossible to separate them ; it was 
 essential that each, as united in me, should be worthy 
 of the other, and that no act of the citizen should 
 ever do any hurt to the conscience of the Religious. 
 But, as I advanced in this wholly novel career, I saw 
 parties and passions more clearly marked out. 
 Vainly I strove to maintain my own line of superi- 
 ority to their vibrations ; the necessary equilibrium 
 was beyond my power to preserve. I speedily realised 
 that in a political Assembly impartiality eventuates 
 in powerlessness and isolation, that one must needs 
 choose one's side and throw oneself into it headlong. 
 This I could not bring myself to do. Thenceforth 
 my retirement was inevitable, and I have effected it. 
 God knows, messieurs, that the one thing which 
 hindered my determination was the thought of you. 
 I feared to wound you, I grieved to break in this 
 speedy and unforeseen manner links which I had 
 so gladly contracted. My chief consolation is the 
 remembrance that during the very brief term of my 
 political life I have acted upon a conscientious inspira- 
 tion akin to your own. Elected without my own 
 seeking, I accepted in the spirit of self-devotion, 
 I have sat without passion, I have withdrawn from 
 fear of not being that which I would always be in 
 
REPLY TO CRITICISM. 241 
 
 God's Sight and in yours. My resignation, like my 
 acceptance of the seat, is a homage which I pay to 
 you." 
 
 In a private letter of May 28th, Lacordaire 
 says : " My position in the Assembly had become 
 intolerable to me ; I could not keep free of 
 Democracy, and yet I could not accept such 
 Democracy as surrounded me. All my own con- 
 victions and circumstances drew me one way, and 
 the actual facts surrounding me forced me another. 
 And after all, what is a man without any special 
 standing-ground or clearly-defined line? Resigna- 
 tion has cut this Gordian knot, but not without a 
 great inward struggle. It is very hard to seem 
 inconsistent and vacillating, but it is harder still to 
 resist one's own conscientious instincts. So at last 
 I took the upper hand, and now I am writing quite 
 calmly. ... I should never have expected to have 
 such a horror of political life ; you would hardly 
 credit the degree to which it has arisen. I found 
 out that I was merely a poor ordinary monk, and not 
 at all a Richelieu; a poor monk who delights in 
 peace and quiet." 
 
 In reply to some criticism, he writes again, June 
 6th : " You may rely upon it that hereafter my retire- 
 ment from the Assembly will be one of the things 
 most approved in my life. But anyhow, however that 
 may be, one must look at duty, not the world's 
 Q 
 
242 CALM AFTER STORM. 
 
 opinion. One of the most real virtues a man can 
 perform is to do his duty subject to the risk of being 
 blamed j ust now I feel like some one who was perish- 
 ing in an abyss into which he had fallen, and who has 
 been miraculously extricated. I have received some 
 most touching letters from this point of view, but 
 generally my act seems to have caused an unpleasant 
 impression. Few people look into the future. I 
 have written a few letters in self-justification to some 
 friends, but it is better to wait and let time be my 
 justification. How often I have been misjudged ! 
 If you knew all that has been said of me in various 
 salons and other places, you would be dumfoundered ! 
 It is best to let all such storms pass by without letting 
 them disturb one. Moreover, solitude is a safeguard 
 to me which increases in value as time goes on. It 
 brings me untold peace. I am never unhappy save 
 when I hesitate what course to take ; at all such 
 times I suffer greatly from uncertainty first of all, 
 and then from apprehensions of what may occur ; but 
 once my resolution is taken, I become calm and at 
 rest." 
 
 It was really the calm after the storm, and from 
 this time Lacordaire never mixed again in public life. 
 How confirmed he must have been in the wisdom 
 of his decision, as the events of that exciting summer 
 followed on ! There are but few letters of this period, 
 and only one slight allusion to the noble martyr- 
 
MARTYRDOM OF MGR. AFFRE. 243 
 
 death of Mgr. Affre on the barricade of June 25th. 
 It is in a letter to Mme. de la Tour du Pin, dated 
 July 2, 1848 : "I go to-morrow to Chalais for a 
 fortnight, a necessary visit which I have delayed in 
 the hope of something like a tranquil state of things 
 in Paris. I must take advantage of this interval of 
 peace, which, alas ! may possibly only be too short. 
 You know the terrible details of these last days. 
 God has preserved us, and the death of this good 
 Archbishop of Paris is a warrant that He will save 
 us in the future. Pio Nono living, and Mgr. Affre in 
 his martyr's death, are a forecast of future days of 
 mercy and resurrection. This is my firm hope." ■ 
 
 1 It is almost too well known to need repetition how Mgr. 
 Affre went forth to his death. Ozanam, Cornudet, Bailly, and 
 others who were serving as National Guards during these days of 
 civil war, believed that if the Archbishop would undertake the 
 office of mediator, the strife might be allayed. They went to 
 him, he received them gently and kindly, replying that he had 
 already thought of the course himself, but he knew not how to 
 carry it out ? Would Cavaignac permit such a step ? and how 
 could he be reached ? After a short discussion the Archbishop 
 said, " almost submissively," that he would go. At that moment 
 a priest came in, greatly excited with the terrible details he had 
 just witnessed. The Archbishop listened with emotion, but would 
 not be dissuaded from his intention. He was soon ready, but 
 then there was a further request made, that he would wear his 
 purple cassock and his archiepiscopal cross. Mgr. Affre assented 
 at once. His passage from the lie Saint Louis to the Assembly 
 is described as a sort of triumphal march : the troops, National 
 Guards, and Garde Mobile presented arms, every one uncovered ; 
 
244 JUNE 25, il 
 
 To Mme. de la Tour du Pin : — 
 
 " Chalats, September 10, 1848. 
 
 "... It is with nations as with men ; misfortune 
 is their education, provided their intelligence and 
 their heart are worth anything. And France is too 
 generous, too enlightened, possessing too much faith 
 and charity not to profit by the teaching God is 
 
 there seemed an instinctive consciousness afloat that the Arch- 
 bishop had come forth on a mighty mission. General Cavaignac 
 received them "with respect and admiration ;*' gave him a pro- 
 clamation for the insurgents, and a promise to spare them if they 
 would at once lay down their arms. At the same time he explained 
 to the Archbishop on what a perilous mission he was entering, and 
 how General Brea, sent on parley, had just been seized by the 
 insurgents. But Mgr. Afire could not be deterred from his work 
 of mercy, and his heroic "J'irai! " will never be forgotten while 
 the memory of good men lives. The three friends, Ozanam, 
 Cornudet, and Bailly, wanted to go with him, but this he abso- 
 lutely refused to permit; and as they still followed him at the 
 Pont des Saints Peres he bade them leave him, as their uniform 
 gave them the look of being an escort. They sorrowfully 
 obeyed. The rest is soon told. Mgr. Affre went home, took 
 a little food, made his last confession, as fully expecting death, 
 and then set off for the Faubourg Sainte Antoine, accompanied 
 by his Grand Vicaire, the Abbe Jacquemet. As they went he 
 repeated several times the words, "The Good Shepherd giveth 
 I lis life for the sheep. " At the Place de la Bastille, M. Brechemin, 
 a young man who followed them, tied his white handkerchief to 
 the branch of a tree, and preceded the Archbishop to the first 
 barricade. The venerable man got up on the barricade, holding 
 out the promise of mercy : there was a shot fired from a window, 
 and, mortally wounded, he fell, exclaiming, "May mine be the 
 last blood shed !" ("Que mon sang soil le dernier verse!") 
 
THE CITY'S MARTYR BISHOP. 245 
 
 dealing out so largely to her now. She has her 
 saints who are praying for her and will save her. 
 You are somewhat of these, if you will suffer me to 
 say so, and I say it quite seriously. We have each 
 and all our own power in God's Kingdom, and how- 
 ever feeble we may be individually, collectively we 
 can do great things. And therefore it is that I have 
 
 (See Vie F. Ozanam, p. 447.) Dr. Neale's stirring poem on the 
 subject is less known than it ought to be : — 
 
 Who come towards the barricade with steady steps and slow? 
 With prayers and tears, and blessings to aid them as they go ? 
 Among the armed no armour the little cohort boasts, 
 Their leader is their Prelate, their trust the Lord of Hosts. 
 And the brave Archbishop tells them in voice most sweet and deep 
 How the Good Shepherd layeth down His life to save the sheep ; 
 How some short years of grief and tears were no great price to give, 
 That peace might come from discord and'bid these rebels live : 
 Rebels so precious in His Eyes, that He, Whose word is fate, 
 Alone could make, alone redeem, alone regenerate ! 
 
 One moment's lull of firing, and near and nearer goes 
 
 That candidate for martyrdom to the midmost of his foes : 
 
 And on he went, with love unspent, toward the rifled line, 
 
 As calm in faith, in sight of death, as in his church's shrine : 
 
 And the war closed deadlier round him, and more savage rose the cheer, 
 
 And the bullets whistled past him, but still he knew no fear : 
 
 And calmer grew his visage, and brighter grew his eye, 
 
 He could not save his people, for his people he could die : 
 
 And following in the holy steps of Him that harrowed hell, 
 
 By death crushed death, by falling upraised the men that fell. 
 
 They bear him from his passion, for the prize of peace is won ; 
 
 His warfare is accomplished, his Godlike errand run : 
 
 They kneel before his litter, in the midst of hottest strife ; 
 
 They ask his prayers, the uttermost, who gave for them his life. 
 
 So, offering up his sacrifice to God with free accord, 
 
 The city's Martyr Bishop went home to see his Lord ! 
 
246 RETIREMENT AT CHA LA IS 
 
 great confidence in the future, far greater than I had 
 in the last reign. Then one was forced to believe 
 in the success of egoism and corruption ; now that 
 dreary belief is swept away. We are certain that 
 France will not tolerate the rule of a materialistic 
 government or caste, and this conviction is my greatest 
 hope. There is nothing in the world that I should 
 not think preferable to the triumph of such times 
 and doctrines as those of '30 to '48. Better suffer 
 than decay. You see I am nowhere near converted ! 
 I shall always be a poor solitary man, weather-beaten, 
 struggling with the difficulties and delights of solitude. 
 That is the enigma of my whole career ; I have never 
 had any party on my side, because I have never 
 belonged to any party. I have been obliged to make 
 my way through indifference and repulsion, with God 
 alone, and some few friends He has given me, on my 
 side. . . . Chalais is a blessing which fills my heart, 
 nature and grace dispute which shall do the most for 
 it. I am writing on a delicious evening, with a clear 
 calm sky, trees, corn-fields, woods, rocks, valleys, all 
 lit up softly by the moon, all breathing peace divine. 
 The thought of you touches me deeply, because I 
 know how much sorrow I cause you by all the com- 
 plications of my life. Probably it will be my lot to 
 the end." 
 
 Lacordaire's review and forecast of the political 
 
REVIEW AND FORECAST. 247 
 
 situation, as expressed to Mme. Swetchine, September 
 15, 1848, is interesting: "You are right, chere amie, 
 the horizon is darkening a vue d'ceil^ although the 
 elements of strength and security are great in Paris 
 since the June days, and there is a strong bent in 
 men's minds towards the truth. But there are such 
 divers elements around, such balance among passions 
 and parties, so little that is fresh for use in the minds 
 of our leaders, that one can hardly imagine how any 
 fixed order is to come out of it all without a struggle 
 which should definitely eliminate some of all these 
 incompatible elements. Our society is composed of 
 three ruins, a resurrection, and a chimera. The 
 three ruins are the Empire, the Restoration, and the 
 Revolution of '30 ; the resurrection is the Conven- 
 tional Republic ; the chimera is Socialism. Throw 
 into the bargain an almost universal religious igno- 
 rance, a heap of antichristian prejudices, an over- 
 whelming terror of truth in what pertains to God, and 
 you have the sum-total of our troubles. But, mind 
 you, there are three things for us : the light produced by 
 this desperate accumulation of ruin and disorder ; the 
 holiness of a multitude of souls who have preserved 
 an unequalled faith ; the state of the Church which 
 claims some quite extraordinary help from God. So 
 you may lay it down as an axiom that we shall be 
 saved. . . . How, when, by whom ? It would be a 
 very welcome prophecy to make, but these things are 
 
248 WILL THE REPUBLIC LAST? 
 
 only known at the last moment. It is evident that 
 we must pass through a mighty struggle to which June 
 is a mere prelude. I say it is manifest, because in 
 the moral as well as physical order of things, when 
 irreconcilable materials meet and accumulate, explo- 
 sion must follow. So it will surely come, though 
 what will be the issue is God's secret. If the Republic 
 fails, Henri V. is the inevitable presumptive heir. I 
 do not say so that you may bespeak me in such case 
 a Court chaplaincy ! for the experience I have had of 
 political life will last me a thousand years and a day ! 
 You cannot imagine how thankful I am to have 
 escaped that danger, especially having done in all 
 faith and conscience all that I could during the 
 emergency. If I had entirely abstained, it would 
 have been a prudence bordering on selfishness ; as it 
 is, by jumping into the fire I burned myself a little, but 
 all the same, I acquired a right not to be quite reduced 
 to ashes, and to drop some little oil upon my wounds. 
 If it were not that God overruled the whole matter, 
 I should think myself rather a deep kind of man ! 
 Look here, when the whole thing has tumbled to 
 pieces — Assembly, Republic, and Constitution — peo- 
 ple will say, ' Ma foil that Father was sharper than 
 we were ! he foresaw it ! ' Ah, chere amie, we cannot 
 laugh in such serious times ! But we can take 
 comfort in the blessed certainties of our faith. 
 Nothing in this world is greater than the Christian 
 
TRUST IN GOD. 249 
 
 edifice j God has made all else small, and we are like 
 a great living cathedral in the midst of a waste 
 solitude. If God takes pity on the remnant of our 
 life, we shall see before we die the wonders of His 
 Right Hand ; we shall have trusted Him alike in the 
 sorrows of darkness and the joy of light. One of 
 my troubles in Paris was lest death should come upon 
 me away from my brethren, disguised as a journalist ! 
 But under this age-worn, consecrated roof, at my post, 
 among my own people, the storm, should it reach 
 hither, whether it brings ruin, exile, or death, will be 
 but the end of a fair pilgrimage." 
 
250 ITALIAN QUESTION, 
 
 IX. 
 
 PRIVATE LIFE— THE COUP-D' ETAT— FLAVIGNY— 
 OULLINS— TOULOUSE^-LAST CONFERENCES. 
 
 FROM this time Lacordaire's public life ceased, 
 and for the remaining years which were given 
 him he never suffered politics to engross his mind. 
 His friend and biographer Montalembert explains, 
 while regretting, the line of opinion he expressed 
 upon the Italian question, concerning which the 
 former says, " He did not perceive at once the dangers 
 which were evident and inseparable from the line of 
 the Italian patriots. The sacred and most legitimate 
 aim they set before them of freeing Italy from foreign 
 rule cast a veil over the immorality of the means they 
 employed in her emancipation." He had ceased to 
 read the newspapers, and his sympathies with a national 
 cause were rather ideal than based on deliberate facts. 
 Ten days before his death Lacordaire dictated a letter 
 to M. Guizot (it was apparently the last he ever 
 dictated) which is interesting as characteristic of both 
 men : — 
 
LETTER TO M. GUIZOT. 251 
 
 Soreze, November 2, 1861. 
 
 " Monsieur et cher Confrere, — I had just 
 finished reading your work on the Church and Chris- 
 tian Society in 1861, when I received a second copy 
 sent to me by yourself as well as your note of Octo- 
 ber 29th. These tokens of your kindness were all 
 the more acceptable that I was still enjoying the 
 pleasant impressions left on my mind by your book. 
 It is a great light shed by a great authority. Natu- 
 rally I cannot agree with you on the theological 
 question of Protestantism, and I should also make 
 a reservation on the Italian question up to the 
 moment when Piedmont invaded the Neapolitan 
 States, and that part of the States of the Church 
 which had remained in full obedience to the Pope. 
 This seems to me the limit where justification ceased 
 to be possible, and where the Italian Revolution 
 assumed a character of violence, conquest, and 
 usurpation. As to the great outlines of your work, 
 the errors and merits of our day, that which has been 
 wanting to us in success and in defeat, the necessity 
 of religious liberty honestly carried out for the good of 
 the State and of all Christian communities ; as to the 
 difference between the liberal and the revolutionary 
 mind ; as to our fears and hopes for the future, I 
 accept your thoughts as the only ones whereby the 
 world and the Church are to be saved. You must 
 have undergone many attacks in consequence, 
 
252 FLAVIGNY. 
 
 monsieur et tres honore confrere, but you have long been 
 accustomed to this, and one can never hope to serve 
 mankind without being exposed to their ingratitude. 
 My health, to which you kindly allude, is very frail, 
 and makes me envy your fine old age, which has 
 suffered nothing from the long and arduous work you 
 have undergone. 
 (Signed by himself. ) 
 
 " Fr. Henri Dominique Lacordaire." 
 
 I have anticipated somewhat in quoting this letter 
 in order not to return to political matters. Hence- 
 forward the interests of religion, as more especially 
 connected with his Order, were to occupy and absorb 
 Lacordaire's attention. In the autumn of that same 
 1848 he was at Dijon, in compliance with the Bishop's 
 urgent request, preaching the Advent Station j and 
 some of the clergy of the diocese, who possessed the 
 old Benedictine Convent of Flavigny, about fifteen 
 miles from Dijon, offered it to him for an establish- 
 ment of Dominicans. The climate was less severe 
 than that of Chalais, and Lacordaire was glad to 
 remove his novices thither; but the beginning was 
 humble. " At first we had but seven chairs in the 
 house ; everybody carried his own with him wherever 
 he went — from his cell to the refectory, from the 
 refectory to the salle de recreation, and so on. One 
 person brought us a sack of potatoes, another of 
 
LOUIS NAPOLEON. 253 
 
 turnips ; flour, wine, oil ; all the population of Flavigny 
 was friendly and helpful. But this did not last long. 
 A committee of clergy and laity was formed at Dijon 
 under the Bishop's presidency, which guaranteed us 
 certain help for a time." How plainly Lacordaire 
 anticipated the turn events were soon to take is 
 evident from the same letter which describes the 
 foundation of Flavigny to Mme. Swetchine, in which 
 he says (December 14, 1848) : "Louis Napoleon has 
 had an overwhelming majority here, and in the whole 
 department, and I hear the same thing from the 
 neighbouring departments. It seems to me quite 
 certain that we shall have him as President, and as 
 the Presidential position would destroy him in six 
 months, it appears to me only probable that his party 
 will speedily push him higher, all the rather that the 
 rights of the National Assembly, now that it has 
 accomplished the Constitution, are very questionable. 
 So another Assembly will be called with the object of 
 re-establishing the throne on behalf of the Napoleonic 
 dynasty ; subject to the resistance of Republicans of 
 all shades, and of such fortuitous events as are known 
 only to God's Providence. I voted for General 
 Cavaignac, so as to be clear of all the evils probably 
 involved in such a combination." 
 
 The new Archbishop, Mgr. Sibour, wrote cordially 
 to Lacordaire, speaking with gratitude of his work 
 hitherto at Notre Dame, and desiring that it might 
 
254 MGR. STB OUR. 
 
 continue; 1 accordingly, in Lent 1849, the important 
 series of Conferences on Man's Intercourse with 
 God was given. The three first of these, on Man's 
 Supernatural Intercourse with God, are very wonderful 
 in their clearness and power ; the three next concern 
 Prophecy, and the seventh and last is'upon the Blessed 
 Sacrament. Apparently Mgr. Sibour was well satisfied 
 with the continuation of the work, for during that 
 spring he privately proposed to Lacordaire that the 
 former Carmelite convent in the Rue de Vaugirard 
 should be made use of for a Dominican Community. 
 While negotiations for this work were pending, the 
 Archbishop, together with the well-known Abbe 
 Gerbet — since Bishop of Perpignan — proposed the 
 establishment of a religious newspaper, in which he 
 asked Lacordaire's co-operation. But " I would 
 promise no assistance, direct or indirect," he says. 
 "After two attempts, and with plenty else to do, I 
 feel justified, without selfishness, in keeping aloof." 
 Accordingly, November 4, 1849, Mgr. Sibour formally 
 installed the Dominicans in the proposed convent, 
 and while a numerous gathering assisted at the cere- 
 mony, there was no opposition even from the hostile 
 press. Churchmen fondly hoped in those days that 
 religious liberty was a thing really and permanently 
 
 „ " Ce digne archeveque a conquis en quelques semaines une 
 popularite qui est encore un des phenomenes remarquables de ce 
 temps" (A Mine, de la Tour du Pin, November 21, 1848). 
 
RUE DE VAUGIRARD. 255 
 
 established in France. When M. de Falloux was able 
 to bring in a projet de loi for freedom of instruction 
 supported by such men as Montalembert, Cousin, 
 Dupanloup, Thiers, Laurentie, Dubois, etc., Catholics 
 and Universitarians (as they were called) united ; so 
 that March 15, 1850, saw free instruction become 
 the law of the land. Alas for the present day, when 
 under the insulted name of Liberty, religious instruc- 
 tion has more than ceased to be the law of France ! 
 
 As soon as he was established in the Rue de Vau- 
 girard, Lacordaire began a regular course of preach- 
 ing of a simpler character than his Notre Dame Con- 
 ferences, given every Sunday during Mass. This 
 proved most useful, and was greatly valued. " Only 
 fancy," he wrote, November 29, 1849, " I nave turned 
 into a Cure ! Every Sunday after the Gospel I preach 
 for half an hour on that same Gospel for the day. 
 Our church is full, and people seem to think that this 
 sort of thing will do as much good, perhaps more than 
 the Notre Dame Conferences." 
 
 In July 1850 the Pope appointed Pere Jandel, 
 one of Lacordaire's earliest colleagues, to the important 
 post of General of the Dominicans, a tribute to their 
 work which was highly prized by their founder in 
 France, without a moment's surprise that he himself 
 had not been selected. "It is the most welcome 
 reward for all my labours," he writes, July 19, 1850, 
 to Mme. Swetchine. "... Pere Jandel is myself, 
 
256 APPOINTED PROVINCIAL. 
 
 without any of the drawbacks to myself; and I have 
 but one mind in the matter, hearty gratitude." That 
 September Lacordaire went to Rome to promote the 
 canonical erection of a French Dominican province, 
 which was accordingly done, and on the 15 th Sep- 
 tember 1850 the act was signed which confirmed 
 that province in its rights and privileges, Lacordaire 
 being the Provincial. Writing from Genoa on his 
 journey, he alludes to his occupying the same hotel 
 where in 1831 he had been with de la Mennais and 
 Montalembert, adding plaintively, " Alas ! the three 
 pilgrims have been widely separated since then, and 
 will never meet again save, as we may humbly hope, 
 in the presence of God;" and in another letter of 
 nearly the same date he says, " All those with whom 
 I hoped to work harmoniously have taken paths so 
 far apart from mine that I grow more and more what 
 David calls a sparrow alone upon the housetop ! " 
 
 Yet in spite of such passing melancholy, Lacordaire 
 was active and happy in his work. In 1850 his 
 Conferences in Notre Dame had been a continuation 
 of the last subject — The Fall and Restoration of 
 Man; and in 1851 he went on, treating the Pro- 
 vidential Economy of Man's Restoration. " There 
 was nothing visible to make him foresee that the 
 pulpit he had so long and so honourably occupied 
 would henceforward be closed to him," Montalembert 
 says; "and yet, as though moved by some hidden 
 
A FAREWELL. 
 
 257 
 
 presentiment which he shrank from even admitting, 
 he involuntarily closed the Station by a solemn fare- 
 well, which is remarkable as containing a sort of 
 resume of his past life, and as being one of the rare 
 occasions on which Lacordaire brought his own 
 history upon the scene." 
 
 " Twenty-seven years ago," he said, in opening the 
 Conference, 1 "when God restored to me the light 
 which I had forfeited, He likewise inspired me with 
 the wish to consecrate myself to Him in the sacred 
 ministry, and henceforward my uppermost thought 
 was the conviction that innumerable men were es- 
 tranged from Christianity solely because they knew it 
 not ; and that they knew it not because no one had 
 taught them. I remembered my own boyish days, 
 and how little was given me when once I left my 
 home j and I marvelled that in the heart of a 
 Christian country souls should be left to grow up to 
 manhood with no more religious teaching than some 
 three months' catechising when they are mere children. 
 I resolved if God gave me life, strength, and gifts, to 
 do whatever in me lay towards repairing this pitiable 
 defect of education among a civilised nation. Ten 
 years from the time when I cherished this hope — 
 perhaps overbold on my part — I was summoned to 
 this pulpit by Mgr. de Quelen, the first, kindest, 
 truest protector of my youth. Separated as he was 
 
 1 Conferences, lxxiii. 
 R 
 
258 THROUGH THE PAST 
 
 from me by many opinions, surrounded by men who 
 were unfriendly to me, he sheltered me with an affec- 
 tion at once generous and fatherly, and despite my 
 faults and my foes, he never withdrew the kindly 
 hand which he had laid upon my head at my ordina- 
 tion. Now that he is gone from among us, and that 
 seventeen years have confirmed this work which he 
 began, I cannot review the course we have travelled 
 without a grateful memory of him, without offering the 
 public tribute of a son to a father. I was thirty-three 
 when the office of teaching you the Faith from this pulpit 
 was committed to me ; of teaching it after the way 
 most adapted to your mental attitude, to the instincts 
 of the century, and the importance of the place 
 whence the instruction issued. Was I sufficiently 
 prepared for the task or not? I cannot tell — God 
 knows. When I recall the years which had preceded 
 this Notre Dame period, my childhood's faith, my 
 youthful denial thereof, the keen, unexpected restora- 
 tion which cast me suddenly from out the aberrations 
 of civil life into the calm of the priestly career ; then 
 after a long and studious interval the turn of events 
 which brought me all at once face to face with public 
 opinion ; it seems to me that the Lord's Hand had 
 led me, and that in appearing before you I was obey- 
 ing His call." Towards the conclusion of the 
 Conference Lacordaire takes up again this thread : 
 " This is our hope and our faith ; here I leave you, 
 
THE DARK FOREST. 259 
 
 here where dogma ends, and truth demands of you in 
 return for her light, holiness of life. It may be that 
 God's Providence will suffer me to open this second 
 issue before you j I alike fear and wish it. I fear 
 from mistrust of myself; I wish it because I love you. 
 But even if a fresh career should be opened by God's 
 Will to my interest in you, I cannot now refrain from 
 speaking as though I were taking leave of you. Suffer 
 me to do so, not as a presentiment, but as a conso- 
 lation. A consolation, because I experience two 
 opposite feelings — one of joy in having accomplished 
 a work which has forwarded the salvation of some, 
 and that in a century which has been called the 
 century of abortions ; the other of sadness, as I realise 
 that no man can accomplish any work without leav- 
 ing the best part of himself behind him in it — the 
 firstfruits of his strength and the flower of his days. 
 Dante begins his great poem by saying — 
 
 1 Nel mezzo del cammin di nostea vita 
 Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura.' ' 
 
 I too, messieurs, have reached that middle stage of 
 life's journey in which a man lays aside the last thought 
 of youth, and descends rapidly to the shores of help- 
 lessness and forgetfulness. I ask no better, for it is 
 
 1 " In the midway of this our mortal life 
 I found me in a gloomy wood, astray, 
 Gone from the path direct." 
 
 Cary's Dante, Inferno, i. 
 
260 MEMORIES. 
 
 the lot which a merciful Providence provides ; but at 
 least at this marked dividing-point, whence I can yet 
 once more behold that which is wellnigh ended, you 
 will not grudge me the delight of looking back, and 
 of calling to mind with you, my companions, some of 
 the memories which make both yourselves and this 
 Cathedral so dear to me. It was here, when my soul 
 was brought back to God's Light, that my sins were 
 forgiven and put away, and at that altar my lips, 
 strengthened and cleansed, received for the second 
 time the Lord Who had come to me before in my 
 early youth. It was here that by degrees I rose to 
 the priesthood, and that after long wanderings seek- 
 ing after my hidden calling, it was revealed to me in 
 this pulpit, which for seventeen years you have sur- 
 rounded with silent respect. It was here that after 
 a voluntary exile I brought back the religious habit 
 which for half a century bigotry had driven forth, and 
 that before an assembly, formidable alike in number 
 and quality, it won the triumph of unanimous rever- 
 ence. It was here that the day after a revolution, 
 when the very pavement was yet strewed with debris 
 of the throne and with warlike symbols, you gathered 
 to hearken to that Word which alone can survive all 
 ruin, from my mouth ; and that, carried away by an 
 emotion which none could control, that Word was 
 saluted by your applause. Here, close beneath that 
 altar, rest my two first Archbishops; he who called 
 
LAST WORDS IN NOTRE DAME. 261 
 
 me in my youth to teach you, and he who summoned 
 me back to the charge, when mistrust of my own 
 power had caused me to retire. Here, on this same 
 archiepiscopal throne, I have found a third pontiff 
 with the like kindly heart. In a word, it is here that 
 every affection which has gladdened my life has arisen, 
 and that I, a solitary man, unknown to the mighty, 
 estranged from all parties, alone among the crowds 
 which gather together, have found souls to love me. 
 O ye walls of Notre Dame, sacred walls, which have 
 borne my words to so many souls which were without 
 God in the world; altars which have blessed me, I 
 am not taking leave of you, I do but say what ye 
 have been to me, and overflow within myself at the 
 memory of your gifts, even as the children of Israel 
 when in exile sang the song of Sion. And you, 
 messieurs, already a numerous generation, in whom I 
 may have planted truth and holiness, I shall abide 
 one with you in the future as in the past ; but if the 
 day should come when my strength refuses the 
 demand of my will, if you should cease to welcome 
 the voice that once was dear to you, know that you 
 will never be ungrateful, for nothing henceforth can 
 ever hinder you from having been the glory of my 
 life or the crown of my eternity." 
 
 Lacordaire's presentiment, for such it surely was, 
 was a true one. He never preached again in Notre 
 Dame. After the Coup-d'Etat of December 2, 185 1, 
 
262 LAST SERMON IN PARIS. 
 
 he was only once again heard in Paris on any occasion 
 of public note, and that was February 10, 1853, when 
 he preached on behalf of the Ecoles Chretiennes at 
 Saint Roch, the same church where his first unsuc- 
 cessful sermon had been preached. Though appar- 
 ently without cause, there was great susceptibility in 
 high quarters about this sermon, which was preached 
 before the Archbishop of Paris and Cardinal Donnet. 
 His concluding words — " Let us bring up Christians 
 in our schools, but before all else, let us train up 
 Christians within our own hearts. Children of Christ, 
 be as great as your Father, be generous as the Cross on 
 which He bore you. The world may not acknowledge 
 you, but suffering souls will seek you \ they will learn 
 the beauty and power of Christianity from you, and 
 whatsoever age or soil may be your lot, you will be of 
 those who uphold reverence for God and for man, the 
 two great sources which combine to save the world " 
 — would seem to us absolutely true and harmless ; but 
 " from this day forth," Montalembert says, 1 " it be- 
 
 1 Lacordaire wrote, January 3, 1852, "Our country is lost 
 unless it restores religion. You, dear child, are called to work 
 for this regeneration, and the thought must be your consolation, 
 or at least it must give you strength to endure. For myself, I 
 feel an indescribable joy in the witness of my heart, that for 
 twenty-seven years, since the day of my consecration to God, I 
 have never spoken a word or written a sentence which had not 
 as its aim to give to France the spirit of life, and to give it in 
 a form that would be acceptable ; that is to say, mingled with 
 meekness, temperance, and patriotism. You will some day do 
 
DEATH OF MME. DE LA TOUR DU PIN. 263 
 
 came impossible for Lacordaire to preach in Paris," 
 although it would appear that the Archbishop more 
 than once invited him to do so. 
 
 In May 1851, Lacordaire's valued friend Mme. 
 de la Tour du Pin died, and we find him writing 
 to the friend who had been as her second self: "You 
 know how I loved and esteemed her who for twenty 
 years had been one of the powers of my life by the 
 loftiness of her spirit, her deep sympathy, and her 
 wonderful self-devotion. I know all that you have 
 lost, since I myself have felt its worth. But however 
 sore the separations of this world, we always have 
 Him Who is its Author left to us, He Who gives and 
 Who takes away, Who will never fail us, and in Whom 
 we shall all one day be reunited by the faith and love 
 which He has given us. He will not forsake you, 
 nor leave you lonely here j for He has balm for every 
 wound, even for those which seem as a bottomless 
 gulf. Cast yourself wholly upon Him, and so in 
 loving hope find her again whom you have lost. . . . 
 Adieu ! May God help us both, you and me, to end 
 this life well ! " 
 
 Lacordaire left Paris soon after these events to visit 
 
 the like. Prepare yourself by a constant control over yourself 
 and your passions. If there is no good day in store for our 
 country, at least there is God's own day in store for our individual 
 souls ; for your soul and mine, which God has knit together in 
 spite of the difference of our age, because it is the privilege of 
 Divine Love to know no measure by time." 
 
264 VISIT TO ENGLAND. 
 
 the various Communities of Dominicans which were 
 under his charge as Provincial. " There is nothing 
 tragical about my departure from France or the 
 interruption of my Conferences at Notre Dame," he 
 wrote from Ghent, February 2, 1852. "At a 
 moment when both tribune and press are silent, 
 I, as well as many of my friends, have felt that any 
 strongly liberal and Christian utterance might lead to 
 serious mishaps, whether through friends or foes of 
 the new powers that be ; and therefore I determined 
 on being silent, as the safest and most honest course. 
 . . . This resolution once made, I preferred leaving 
 France, on the one hand not to be exposed to all 
 manner of contradictory observations, and on the 
 other to use the first scrap of leisure I have had for 
 long in visiting our houses in Belgium, Holland, Eng- 
 land, and Ireland." 
 
 Lacordaire's visit to England was too brief to give 
 him much acquaintance with our country. He writes 
 to a young friend from 
 
 "Hinckley, March 7, 1852. 
 
 " This is a little town in Leicestershire, where we 
 have a convent and a few fathers. I got here last 
 night, after two days in London, during which I saw 
 no one, in order to give myself up to seeing the town, 
 which is large, and has some very fine parts, but 
 which strikes me as inferior to Paris in several 
 
OXFORD. 265 
 
 respects. Its very size neutralises its beauty; it 
 becomes merely an interminable pile of houses, 
 without harmony, without any connection ; and when 
 these houses are all in cold straight lines, as in most 
 parts of London, their vastness is a wearisome weight, 
 which gives no pleasure to mind or body. The 
 finest part of London is happily enclosed in a quarter 
 which is spacious without being overwhelming, and 
 where parks, palaces, spacious streets, Westminster 
 Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, and the Thames 
 combine admirably. I shall enjoy seeing it all again 
 as I return." 
 
 From Oxford he writes : — 
 
 "March 16, 1852. 
 
 "After ten days (among the Dominican houses) I 
 came here alone to rest, and write quietly to those I 
 love. What a beautiful charming place this Oxford 
 is ! Imagine a plain surrounded by hills and watered 
 by two rivers, in which you find a whole heap of 
 Gothic and Greek monuments j churches, colleges, 
 courts, porches, scattered profusely, but gracefully, in 
 quiet streets, ending in trees and meadows. All these 
 buildings devoted to literature and science are open ; 
 the stranger enters them as a home, and they are truly 
 the home of beauty for all who can appreciate it. 
 You cross silent quadrangles, meeting no one save 
 here and there a young fellow in cap and gown; 
 
266 IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 there is no crowd, no noise ; the air seems solemn, 
 like the age-stained walls around, and it seems as if 
 they never made any repairs for fear of sinning against 
 antiquity. Nevertheless there is an exquisite clean- 
 liness everywhere supreme. I never saw so much 
 apparent ruin with so much preservation. In Italy 
 the buildings seem young j here time leaves its stamp, 
 but without dilapidation, and after a majestic fashion. 
 This town is small, and yet it is grand ; the number 
 of public buildings takes the place of mere size, and 
 makes it imposing. How I longed for you as I went 
 about solitary, amid all these men of your age I 
 Not one who knew me or cared about me ; I was for 
 all of them absolutely nothing at all, and often the 
 tears came into my eyes, thinking how many friendly 
 faces I should have met elsewhere. . London has 
 some splendid quarters, but as a whole its uniformity 
 is depressing ; and it has an immense insignificance, 
 which deprives it of the gracefulness of a well-turned- 
 out thing ! The population, though lively, scarcely 
 conceals great poverty j nothing can be greater than 
 this people in its institutions, nothing meaner than its 
 appearance in the streets." 
 
 To Mme. Swetchine he wrote : — 
 
 "Oxford, March 16, 1852. 
 "I got here yesterday alone, and feeling quite lost, 
 but with a childish delight at finding a quiet town 
 
THE UNIVERSITY. 267 
 
 that is not smoky, but all full of literary interests ; 
 Gothic and modern buildings, with an inconceivable 
 number of quadrangles and cloisters, where here and 
 there one meets young students in a very quaint little 
 cap and gown. I am delighted to pace these quiet 
 streets, these beautiful river-lapped avenues, and I 
 never remember seeing anything that made so pleasant 
 an impression on me. I can quite conceive that the 
 young fellows brought up here can never forget it, and 
 must retain an ever-increasing affection for the place. 
 We have nothing like it in France ; the University 
 means to us nothing but a College — that is to say, four 
 walls, with five or six professors and as many tutors. 
 Here the University is a world in itself, and a very 
 charming world. All these colleges are open freely 
 to strangers, who can enter as into a home belonging 
 to any who love literature and art. The colleges are 
 large and not crowded, so that solitude adds to their 
 grandeur. . . . One seldom hears a word of impiety 
 in England ; there is such a thing, but it is powerless, 
 vague, despised. This people possesses more liberty 
 and more religion than any other, yet withal an 
 amount of poverty which forces itself upon one in all 
 large towns. The population of London, which is 
 so lively and vigorous as a whole, is in detail most 
 terribly piteous to behold. I never saw such rags or 
 more degraded physiognomies. The Englishman, who 
 is so brilliant, so almost femininely beautiful in the 
 
268 MEETING WITH MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 upper classes, is horrible to behold in the poorer 
 throng. Christianity has evidently suffered, and does 
 suffer, greatly here. Another feature of London is 
 that you see much more of the statues and monu- 
 ments of its great citizens than of its princes. West- 
 minster Abbey, S. Paul's, and all public buildings 
 are full of monuments raised to the memory of all 
 manner of celebrated Englishmen, whereas we have 
 few save in commemoration of our kings — great and 
 small." 
 
 By the end of March Lacordaire returned to 
 Flavigny, crossing Paris hastily to avoid seeing 
 people ; but to his great satisfaction he met M. de 
 Montalembert in the station, and they were able to 
 travel together for some hours, which recalled to both 
 friends the time (1832) when they had travelled from 
 Munich to Paris together. They discussed now, as 
 then, a host of weighty matters. " Alas, what a mere 
 journey this world is ! " Lacordaire writes, " and how 
 great a blessing it will be to arrive at the end, where 
 all will be clear and certain ! " From Flavigny 
 Lacordaire wrote at length, explaining the motives of 
 his withdrawal from Paris, to Mme. Swetchine. The 
 letter is so entirely the man himself, in all his strength 
 both of feeling and of will, and in the resolution of a 
 powerful nature, never swerving before right, that it 
 must be given at length. 
 
TO MME. SWETCHINE. 269 
 
 "Mayb, 1852. 
 " The most serious matter I have had on my hands 
 since my return is the loosening my connection with 
 Mgr. Sibour. Living so close to him, and receiving 
 so much kindness from him, I have by slow degrees 
 lost some of the independence I have hitherto always 
 kept, and which is more than ever necessary in the 
 position where God has placed me. As early as 1836 
 I felt the need of isolation, when I left Paris and 
 went to Rome for retirement ; then the Order of S. 
 Dominic opened the way for me to be for fourteen 
 years absent from Paris, save the short time required 
 for my Conferences. At the end of 1849 tne founda- 
 tion of our house at the Carmes inevitably recalled me 
 to the place I had so perseveringly avoided ; but after 
 two years' trial, I once more am convinced that the 
 position is a false and dangerous one, that it links me 
 with men and things whose solidarity is to my mind 
 doubtful, and, moreover, that it involves too many 
 calls and occupations to be consistent with the 
 leisure I require. The Revolution of December 2, 
 185 1, supplied a suitable opportunity for loosening 
 these ties; everything was changed, and the fact of 
 Monseigneur pledging himself to a policy which I 
 could not but disapprove, opened a wide door of 
 separation. I could not go on working with a man 
 who changed so quickly from one pole to the other, 
 and in spite of my gratitude towards him, it was im- 
 
270 EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 possible for me consistently to remain in the personal 
 contact with him of heretofore. Above all things I 
 am sensitive to straightforwardness ; the more I see 
 men fail in it with respect to their religion, the more 
 I desire, with the grace of Him Who holds all hearts 
 in His Hand, to keep clear of whatever can possibly 
 compromise or weaken a high Christian honour in 
 myself. Were there but one soul which hung on 
 mine, I should owe something to that soul ; but 
 whereas by God's Providence I have been made the 
 link between many souls, the point to which they 
 look for strength and consolation, I am bound to do 
 everything in my power to spare them from falling 
 back or from the bitterness of doubt. In a week's 
 time I shall be fifty j for the last twenty years I have 
 gone through numberless trials, in which I seemed 
 likely to fail a hundred times, but this upholding 
 hitherto of Heaven's protecting Hand does not dis- 
 pense me from striving on my part to co-operate with 
 God's goodness towards me. I can no longer con- 
 tinue the struggle with the inexhaustible passions of 
 men, and I have acquired the right to use the shield 
 of retirement. I am perfectly convinced that no 
 party will ever support me, because nothing will ever 
 make me pledge myself to any earthly party ; I am 
 also perfectly certain, that if I continue in a public 
 position, I shall always invite the assault of my 
 enemies by the naivete of my feelings and the bold- 
 
" TO BE OR NOT TO BE?" 271 
 
 ness of my words. The very nature of my audience, 
 made up as it is chiefly of youthful hearts, carries me 
 away; I grow young when in contact with their 
 youth, and as all deliberate preparation is an impos- 
 sibility to me, I can never undertake to subject my- 
 self to these prudential rules which would absolutely 
 fetter me. ' To be or not to be ? ' that is the ques- 
 tion. I have done a great deal in the way of public 
 speaking, why should I be denied the ineffable comfort 
 of a peaceful life spent in writing for God's service 
 during the rest of my life ? Writing is never stormy, 
 and I have had no troubles in connection with what 
 I have written. Not a line of my writings has ever 
 raised any discussion, although I have dealt with the 
 most delicate and controverted points of theology. 
 But then in writing the mind has absolute self-control, 
 nothing springs up between it and God in the shape 
 of urgent expression. By-and-by, if men read my 
 writings, they will not understand why my career has 
 been one of such excitement ; indeed I hardly under- 
 stand it myself. I know myself to be naturally gentle, 
 averse to extremes, given to simple and moderate 
 opinions, and when I see all that has come forth from 
 such a peaceful source, I am thoroughly amazed. 
 My only explanation lies in one word — I never 
 belonged to any party. Why should I not henceforth 
 reap the fruits of this solitude ? If it were a case of 
 breaking all the chords of the lyre, I could understand 
 
272 REASONS FOR LEAVING PARIS. 
 
 that I should have no right to do so j but if one is 
 severed, the rest remain. Certainly I have at times 
 thought that in some quiet parish I might still teach 
 souls of a less inflammable character than those with 
 which hitherto I have dealt ; but is not all Christian 
 morality put forth freely and with sincerity a source 
 of provocation ? I gave homilies in our Church des 
 Carmes j did they give satisfaction ? I may grow 
 as old as you please, but my speech will retain its 
 natural, inartificial fougue ; and even if hereafter I 
 could return to this work, I must leave it for a time. 
 Were I to return to Paris next winter, I should be 
 overwhelmed with pressure to preach in Notre Dame, 
 and I should never have the courage to resist it ! 
 From every point of view the spell must be broken, 
 and if I am intended to take my place hereafter in 
 humbler pulpits, people must have grown used to the 
 idea that the work of my youthful days is ended. 
 
 " These, chere amie, are the motives which have deter- 
 mined me. I almost feel as if God had always warned 
 me of definite duties at the very hour they were due. 
 In 1832 I was the first to sever myself from poor de 
 la Mennais ; in 1836 I left the pulpit of Notre Dame 
 at the right moment, to resume it hereafter with more 
 authority; in 1848 I bade farewell to my seat in the 
 Legislature the day after that outbreak which shattered 
 and dishonoured the Republic, and although every 
 one was not prompt to see that it was slain, I was 
 
TO HENRI PERREYVE. 273 
 
 fortunate enough to foresee the fact ; now I withdraw- 
 before other breakers ahead, not out of cowardice or 
 selfishness, or heedlessness of God and man, but in 
 order to serve both more heartily in such measure as 
 may yet be permitted me. It is in this manner that 
 hitherto I have triumphed over the difficulties of my 
 nature and my situation ; other men might have done 
 better, I do according to what I feel and what I am. 
 Forgive this long explanation. I greatly desire you 
 to be satisfied, for however firm I am in my own 
 convictions, the concurrence of your mind is always 
 so much additional strength and a great consolation. 
 Good-bye. I am going out to look at some lilac- 
 trees which I have planted in a thicket below our 
 convent, and which are very slow to flower." 
 
 About the same time, writing in a similar strain to 
 Henri Perreyve, Lacordaire says (June 3, 1852) : "At 
 no time, I can assure you, would it have been more 
 acceptable to me to be in Paris. . My spiritual family 
 and my dearest friends are there. To pass there the 
 rest of my life, after so much movement and so many 
 troubles, would have been a great blessing to me, but 
 my Dear Master will not have it so. Doubtless He 
 saw that I loved too much, and was too much loved; 
 and He has called me forth from the scenes amid 
 which He has never suffered me to linger long. 
 Many very serious and urgent calls are settling my 
 s 
 
274 A CONSCIENTIOUS SACRIFICE. 
 
 movements at present, and although I seem free to 
 go where I will, in truth I am simply obeying what 
 seem to me imperative duties. When I left the 
 Assembly in 1848, no one understood me, but now 
 who is there that regrets that I did so ? What use 
 could I be in that collection of powerless passions, 
 and how thankful may I not well be to God for 
 warning me in time that my place was not there? 
 Neither did my friends understand it, when in 1836 
 I gave up Notre Dame to go to Rome j and yet I 
 returned reinforced, authorised, more fitted to perfect 
 the work, and, moreover, in the interval, I have 
 established a religious Order in France. Was this 
 time lost? To-day other things call me away, and 
 sorry as I am to leave you especially, I make the 
 sacrifice conscientiously. That which is good does 
 not fade away, as you say ; but all pleasant things are 
 mixed with what is bitter, and we must learn to bear 
 the vicissitudes of enjoyment and separation. For 
 many a long day God has moulded me to solitude, 
 absence, loss and gain of all things ; and though no 
 stoic at heart, I am better adapted than many a man 
 for such a storm-tossed destiny. Don't be angry with 
 me. You are ever close to my heart as my cherished 
 child. We shall meet from time to time; we will 
 take the opportunities God gives us, and live upon 
 their memories. I shall come to you, and you to me, 
 as we may, until such time as eternity unites us to 
 
BY THE WORLD FORGOTTEN. 275 
 
 each other for ever in God's Presence. It will soon 
 come ! I am glad you are moving near our house. 
 Is your new room larger than the last ? I thought 
 you had not air enough for your delicate chest. ... I 
 abhor tyranny, but if ever I am king, my first decree 
 shall be fixing the square cubic feet necessary for a 
 Frenchman to live in. The greed of builders will 
 soon bring all our lodgings to the level of those famous 
 cages in which Louis XI. used to shut up people he 
 didn't like ! People cry out at that, not seeing that 
 in his time it was an exception, and now it is a general 
 thing ! Tell me all about your cage ; whether you 
 can stand upright, stretch yourself out at full length, 
 and receive a friend in it — three things which in this 
 world are very precious. I could go on about no- 
 thing for ever, but I must say good-bye on behalf 
 of messieurs the Hindoos, concerning whom, as a 
 Catholic monk, I am reading somewhat at present." 
 
 "July 6, 1852. 
 
 "All that you say about my absence from Paris 
 touches me deeply, save one sentence in which I 
 cannot agree with you. You are afraid that I shall 
 be forgotten. Alas ! cher ami, the best thing in the 
 world is to be forgotten by all men, save only those 
 who love us and whom we love. All else, as they 
 buzz around, give us more trouble than joy; and 
 when one has finished one's task, ploughed one's 
 
276 EDUCATION. 
 
 furrow, be it great or small, and sowed what good 
 seed one might therein, the happiest thing that can 
 happen to one is to leave oneself in God's Hands and 
 disappear. So I am no ways moved at the thought 
 of being forgotten ; I rather rejoice, and the only 
 thing which is a cause of sorrow to me, except the 
 separation from my friends, is the thought that 
 perhaps I might have been useful to some youthful 
 hearts like your own. But no man can do everything 
 at once ; what he gains at one end he loses at another, 
 and God Alone knows how in the arms of His Mercy 
 to embrace all times and all places." 
 
 Now that he had thus forcibly set himself free from 
 his more public engagements, Lacordaire turned his 
 vigorous mind to the subject which had from the first 
 been prominent among his interests — education. He 
 never forget how he himself had lost all Christian 
 faith as a boy in the Lycde of Dijon, and he knew 
 well that his own history was that of the greater part 
 of the lads of his country. The Universitaire education 
 was excellent as a technical thing, but as a matter of 
 faith and morality he knew it to be worse than useless. 
 Freedom of instruction had been his watchword long 
 before he became the member of a teaching Order, 
 and now that that freedom had been confirmed as a 
 political fact by the law of March 15, 1850, his 
 energies were bent on returning to the short-lived 
 
THE THIRD ORDER. 277 
 
 avocation of past years, and he would fain be once 
 more a schoolmaster. But Lacordaire was too 
 practical not to see that his rule was too ascetic for 
 men whose life was to be spent in so exhausting an 
 occupation as teaching; besides which their choir duties 
 were incompatible with it, and he decided at once 
 on founding a new branch with the more elastic rule 
 of the Third Order. The College of Oullins gave a 
 favourable opening for this work ; it had been founded 
 in 1833 by secular clergy, among whom was the Abbe 
 Dauphin, a Canon of Saint Denis ; and these, who 
 entirely agreed in Lacordaire's opinions as to educa- 
 tion, now invited his co-operation, so that the affilia- 
 tion was soon accomplished. Four professors of Oul- 
 lins took the Dominican habit, and on S. Thomas 
 Aquinas' Day, July 25, 1852, the transfer was effected 
 in the presence of a large gathering of friends and rela- 
 tions of the pupils. 1 He wrote the day before to Mme. 
 Swetchine : " How I wish you could see this fine house, 
 on a hill overlooking the Rhone, and whence you can 
 see Lyons, the hills of Bugey, the Alps, and the plains 
 of Dauphiny. God spoils us with giving us such 
 beautiful sites ; each one is more wondrous than the 
 last, and sometimes it quite frightens me, I feel so 
 unworthy of it all ! God does really treat me in 
 
 1 "Here I am," he wrote, "at fifty, with an entirely new 
 work in hand ! Ask God that it may be blessed like the rest, 
 and give me as much comfort." 
 
278 OULLINS. 
 
 fanciullO) as a mere child. One finds everything in 
 Him, even tenderness, which amazes one, because it 
 seems so undeserved !" He had just visited Toulouse 
 for the first time, and had taken great delight in a 
 pilgrimage to all the places connected with the his- 
 tory of his founder — Montpellier ; Prouille, where S. 
 Dominic's first monastery was established, and where 
 the church remained as in his time, and where the 
 Seignadon or Signe Dieu is still so called, the spot 
 indicated for building the monastery by the saint, with 
 the sign of the Cross ; Muret, where Lacordaire said 
 Mass in the chapel where S. Dominic was praying 
 during the battle known by its name, where the King 
 of Aragon and the Count of Toulouse were defeated 
 by Simon de Montfort. 
 
 That autumn Lacordaire took four novices with 
 him to Flavigny, who were to be the foundation of 
 the Third Order, and a religious ceremony of some 
 importance marked its initiation. The procession 
 wound about the woods and hills, singing, and finally 
 a stone cross was raised on a prominent rock, in 
 front of which Lacordaire addressed the surrounding 
 band. " This foundation is a great burden at the 
 close of my career," he writes (October 9, 1852), " but 
 it offered itself so naturally, and under such favourable 
 circumstances, that I should have felt myself resisting 
 God's Will if I had refused to undertake it. Five 
 young professors from Oullins join me. ... Of 
 
FLAV1GNY. 279 
 
 course the future is uncertain, but what should we 
 ever do here if we refuse to act without the certainty 
 of stability for a century ? The whole world is built 
 of dust upon a volcano ; but God underlies it, and 
 gives stability where He sees fit, even amid all our 
 upheavals and ruins. . . . God is the moving Power ; 
 He sometimes chooses to found upon a quicksand in 
 order to prove to men that it is He Who works, not 
 them. Besides, I am always resigned beforehand to 
 fail in anything, and my consolation is that even in 
 failure I may be at rest because I have done my duty, 
 and striven for that which is right." In this spirit 
 Lacordaire set to work at training his Third Order, 
 becoming their Novice Master, and devoting himself 
 to them. Three times daily he held a conference 
 with the novices, and all day long he was accessible 
 to them, ready to discuss, explain, and teach, as they 
 might require. In August 1853 they returned to 
 Oullins, where a great desire was felt to keep 
 Lacordaire among them, but this was incompatible 
 with his duties as Provincial. During that summer 
 he was thoroughly carrying out his retirement from 
 public life — expeditions with the boys from Oullins, 
 when he piqued himself on finding the way amid the 
 mountains and woods of Chalais and the Grande 
 Chartreuse; some occasional preaching, such as a 
 " panegyric " of Fourier, the saintly priest of Mattain- 
 court in Lorraine (the great apostle of education who 
 
2 8o DEA TH OF OZANAM. 
 
 in the seventeenth century founded the congregation of 
 Notre Dame, of which he writes, "It is the first time 
 I ever preached a panegyric. As one grows old one 
 finds oneself doing impossible things !"), a sermon at 
 Sens on the translation of S. Colomba's relics, and 
 the like. 
 
 On the 8th September this year his dearly- 
 loved friend Frederic Ozanam died at Marseilles 
 on his way back from Italy, where his family 
 had vainly hoped to see his health restored. 
 Lacordaire's notice x of him will strike most readers 
 as infinitely more valuable and impressive than 
 the lengthy, somewhat cumbrous Life published by 
 his brother. 
 
 This autumn too was marked by the foundation of 
 a Dominican house at Toulouse. Lacordaire writes 
 to Mme. Swetchine, October 24, 1853: "I go to- 
 morrow to Toulouse, and I feel as if I were going 
 there to my last resting-place, and should there find 
 my grave. God could give me no nobler or more 
 welcome one, and so it is not likely that it will be 
 so, but I like to go there with the pleasant hope. 
 No other foundation — and this is the sixth, includ- 
 ing Oullins — has given me such vivid and pure 
 pleasure. I feel as if I were going home, and as if 
 S. Dominic and S. Thomas Aquinas were receiv- 
 ing me in their arms. I should have liked long 
 1 Published in the Correspondant. November 1853. 
 
TOULOUSE. 281 
 
 before this to see you, but I was afraid. The 
 older I grow in the art of government, the more I 
 see how necessary it is for superiors to set the 
 example of welldoing, and never to do themselves 
 what they would not suffer others to do. . . . The 
 consequences of my every act follow upon me so 
 quickly that the thought thereof makes me exceed- 
 ingly cautious. And that is why you have not seen 
 me at Fontainebleau, where I have a brother and a 
 cousin j too many things attracted me for me to be 
 able to go there. ... I hear that you are suffering 
 and sad ; alas ! the Cross comes sooner or later to 
 each of us, and so far from its being averted by a holy 
 life, that is an invitation to God to touch us with the 
 mysterious sceptre of His Dear Son. But how much 
 courage we need to accept it ! and surely faith itself is 
 quite as much a torch to light up our own deficiencies 
 as to clear our way. I hardly dare say that I am 
 continually with you in thought, for what is man as 
 a support and comfort? Even God can sometimes 
 hardly comfort us, such sorry creatures are we ! But 
 after all, so far as the affection, gratitude, and devotion 
 of one creature can help another, I am present with 
 you, and share your troubles. Remember sometimes 
 that you have helped me, and perhaps through me 
 many others who do not know you now, but who will 
 know you some day." 
 
 The week before the Archbishop of Toulouse 
 
282 SAINT SERNIN. 
 
 solemnly opened the new house Lacordaire writes, 
 December 27, 1853 : "Though for ten years I have 
 been accustomed to receive such blessings from God, 
 this one touches my heart more deeply than any 
 other has done. It seems like the crown of all 
 His graces through my life, 'and that there is no- 
 thing beyond, save not for me not to prove myself 
 too unworthy, during the remainder of my days, 
 for all that I have received. Every time I walk 
 in or about Toulouse I fancy how S. Dominic 
 walked there, and comparing his life and my own, 
 I marvel that God should have chosen one so far 
 distant from the founder as the instrument of re- 
 storation in France. Every Wednesday I celebrate 
 at Saint Sernin, at the tomb of S. Thomas Aquinas, 
 with intention for our Order and the French province 
 in particular." 
 
 In this same letter Lacordaire alludes to the series 
 of Conferences he had undertaken to give at Saint 
 Sernin, and which he intended to supply what had 
 been left imperfect in those of Notre Dame. He 
 says that his general scheme has been made out, and 
 that the series will occupy six years at the least, 
 seven at longest; and he adds that he himself is 
 satisfied with the plan, and thinks it will complete 
 the work happily. But this was not to be. Let 
 Montalembert's suggestive words be given : " Invited 
 by the Archbishop of Toulouse to resume his 
 
LAST CONFERENCES. 283 
 
 Conferences on behalf of the young men of that 
 intellectual southern metropolis, Lacordaire gave early 
 in 1854 six Conferences, the last, and I think I may 
 safely say the most eloquent and perfect of all. He 
 treated of Life in all its stages ; life in general, the life 
 of the passions, moral life, supernatural life, and the 
 influence of this last upon private and public life. At 
 the end of the sixth Conference he announced his 
 intention of taking as the subject of his further 
 discourses God's established means of communicat- 
 ing the supernatural life to us, namely,' the Sacraments ; 
 but this last discourse had contained certain explosions 
 of truth, grief, and pride concerning the moral de- 
 gradation of the private life of nations as were not at 
 this time seasonable. It behoved Lacordaire to give 
 up public speaking henceforward." 
 
 The passage which gave special offence, striking as 
 it did at the Second Empire, is as follows : — 
 
 " Let us consider what that other life, which we 
 call public, is. In private life a man confronts himself; 
 in public life he confronts a people. There it is his 
 duties and his personal rights, his own perfection and 
 his own happiness which demand his solicitude ; here 
 it is the duties and rights, the perfection and the 
 happiness of a people which preoccupy his thoughts. 
 And inasmuch as evidently a people is more than a 
 man, so evidently public life is superior to private life. 
 Private life alone verges on egoism j its very virtues, 
 
284 THE SECOND EMPIRE. 
 
 unless they aim at a higher region, are easily corrupted 
 beneath the empire of a restricted fascination. Do 
 you ask for proof? turn to history. It sets forth 
 but two manner of peoples : the one moulded to 
 public life; the other frustrated on all sides in the 
 management of their own affairs, and kept in tutelage 
 beneath a master who leaves them barely liberty 
 to live without complaint beneath the shelter of 
 the laws he gives them. Now see the consequences 
 to these peoples of their condemnation to private 
 life. 
 
 " All public activity being an impossibility to them, 
 there remains no mode of raising themselves save 
 riches, and no serious pursuit save that of wealth. The 
 spirit of gain takes possession of souls. A man's 
 country, the scene for great doings, becomes a mere 
 commercial sphere. Its citizens are stockbrokers, its 
 tribune the counter, its Capitol the Bank or the 
 Exchange. Such a people despises literature because 
 it does not lead to fortune ; and if nature, fertile in the 
 very spite of men, brings forth some gifted minds, 
 they will soon be seen, faithless to their gifts, renegades 
 of genius, prostituting their muse, and betraying 
 modesty and truth for the love of gold. Her poets 
 aim rather to be financiers, and the bruit of glory is 
 less real to them than the jingle of coin. Every post 
 is measured by its stipend, every honour by its profit. 
 The greatest names, if so be great names there are in 
 
LUXURY AND CORRUPTION. 285 
 
 such society, are appended to industrial undertakings ; 
 and such undertakings, useful enough in their own 
 secondary places, push adroitly to the front, whence 
 they are not dismissed. Even those who administer 
 the general funds do not disdain to enrich themselves 
 like ordinary individuals. No one knows how to be 
 poor, not even the rich. Luxury grows with cupidity; 
 and this overflow of wants divides the people into two 
 classes, which have nothing in common — those who 
 enjoy everything, and those who enjoy nothing. And 
 whereas in the country where real public life prevails, 
 the honour of sharing in public affairs kindles a 
 generous ambition, and puts before all men a glorious 
 make-weight against the grovelling tendencies of human 
 nature; here, in the people steeped in private life, 
 nothing checks the downward course. Cupidity 
 begins, luxury carries on, corrupt morals finish the 
 tale. For one consequence of riches in those nations 
 which are held, if not in servitude, yet in tutelage, 
 is idleness, and idleness is the inevitable parent of 
 depravity. What is a man to do with himself when 
 there is no need to earn either fortune or bread ; 
 when amid an abundance which averts all trouble he 
 sees no call of responsibility which sets him to work ? 
 Where public life is the order of the day, every rich 
 man is, or may become, a patrician. The moment 
 he ceases to be occupied with his personal interests, 
 the general interests of the community present them- 
 
286 PAST HISTORY. 
 
 selves and demand his powers and heart. He reads 
 in the history of his fathers of those who did honour 
 to a great inheritance by a great self-devotion, and if 
 the elevation of his own nature in any way corresponds 
 to the independence he has acquired or received, the 
 thought of serving his country opens a perspective of 
 sacrifice and toil. He must needs speak, write, rule 
 with his gifts, and sustain those gifts, however grand 
 in themselves, by that other power which never suffers 
 itself to be eclipsed with impunity, goodness. From 
 his earliest years the young patrician, that is, the son 
 of the public man, contemplates ardently the future 
 which awaits him before his contemporaries. He 
 does not despise literature, for he knows that therein 
 lies mental supremacy. It is combined with eloquence 
 and taste, the history of the world, the knowledge of 
 despotisms and liberties, the light shed by time, the 
 shadow of all great men shedding their glory upon 
 the soul which aims at their similitude, and bringing 
 together with their glorious memories courage to 
 follow in their steps. Literature is the palladium of 
 all true-hearted nations ; and when Athens arose, she 
 had Pallas as her divinity. None save the peoples 
 which are on the road to extinction refuse to recognise 
 the value of literature, and that because, esteeming 
 matter beyond spirit, they cease to perceive that which 
 gives light, or to feel that which moves. But among liv- 
 ing nations the culture of letters is next to religion the 
 
DOWNWARDS. 287 
 
 greatest of public treasures, the aroma of youth, and 
 the sword of manhood. The young patrician takes 
 delight in and gives himself up to literature ; he de- 
 lights in it like Demosthenes, and gives himself to it 
 like Cicero ; and all this portraiture of what is great, 
 while fitting him for the duties of his citizenship, also 
 arm him against the all too precocious errors of the 
 senses. From letters he goes on to law. Law is the 
 second initiation into public life. If among enslaved 
 nations it leads merely to the defence of common 
 interests, among free nations law is the entrance-gate 
 of creative and protective institutions. Thus amid 
 lofty thoughts and worthy habits the national elite 
 of a country is formed. If riches still produce 
 some voluptuaries, they also make citizens. If they 
 enervate some souls, they strengthen others. But 
 there where the country is an empty temple, demand- 
 ing nought of a man save that he pass through it 
 silently, will arise on all sides, through a formidable 
 idleness, energetic debauch. Whatever strength there 
 may be left in souls will be expended on self-destruc- 
 tion. Empty heads bear the weight of great heritages, 
 and worn - out hearts drag wearily after dignities 
 no less worn out. The corruption of subjects and 
 rulers is mutually exchanged. These last, who have 
 neither anything to do, because all things are lawful 
 to them, take the lead in the degradation of morals, 
 and the whole machine treads on with a uniform step 
 
288 PUBLIC AND PRIVATE. 
 
 towards those regions which Providence has provided 
 for nations unworthy to live. 
 
 " One last word. In those lands where the public, 
 not private, life is considered, a citizen's rights are 
 inviolable; that is to say, his property, his honour, 
 his liberty, and his person are sheltered from all 
 arbitrary assault, and protected alike by the sovereign 
 legislature and invincible opinion ; he is amenable 
 solely to the law, and that no effete law, but one 
 that resides in a magistracy itself independent of 
 everything save duty. This absolute security, which 
 nought save crime can ruffle, lifts up men's characters. 
 Every one feels in himself that he is the subject of 
 lawful government in all honourable obedience, but 
 he also feels all-powerful against the frailties of any 
 power whatsoever. A noble respect for public welfare, 
 a sincere devotion to the authority which can do no 
 wrong, spring from this self-confidence. The whole 
 country breathes at ease upon the soil which God has 
 given it; such misfortunes or injustice as may yet 
 befall are no more than the inevitable accidents of 
 human events, like to the clouds which pass across 
 the sky sometimes in the most favoured climate. 
 
 But how far otherwise it is in those countries where 
 private life is foremost ! There the law itself bows 
 before the caprice of a will which cannot be antici- 
 pated ; the magistracy, movable and dependent, 
 obeys other commands than those of justice; and 
 
SILENCED, 289 
 
 every one, conscious that his fate lies in the hands 
 of a single man, draws back in fear which rules and 
 paralyses his acts, his words, even his thoughts. The 
 people's soul becomes possessed by the lowest of 
 passions — fear. Hypocrisy slips in behind fear to 
 diminish it, adulation to disguise it. Between these 
 three vices, which mutually sustain and justify each 
 other, men's hearts grow mean, their characters 
 degraded j nothing is left standing save slavery, nothing 
 certain save contempt." z 
 
 These words were not unnaturally looked upon as 
 having a marked reference to the Coup-cTEtat and the 
 Second Empire, and though Montalembert says that he 
 is not aware of any formal prohibition having been laid 
 upon Lacordaire, there was a general feeling, in which 
 he pre-eminently shared, that the time had come when 
 his bold, vigorous eloquence, which had unhesitat- 
 ingly spoken forth under such various regimes without 
 hindrance, was no longer likely to be tolerated. The 
 present were days of luxury and idleness, and much that 
 Lacordaire was ever foremost to condemn ; his strong, 
 unyielding pose, "en Liberal impenitent" was well 
 known; in a great measure, too, he felt that he had done 
 his work; the seed would surely spring up, whether men 
 would or whether they would not, and the Chrysostom 
 of France was henceforth silent. " I became dumb, 
 and opened not my mouth, but it was Thy doing." 
 
 1 Sixieme Conference de Toulouse. 
 T 
 
290 IN THE BACKGROUND. 
 
 Several years later Lacordaire said, " I left the 
 pulpit from a spontaneous fear lest my liberty should 
 be shackled amid a world which had lost its own;" 
 and on his deathbed he said, "I felt that in my 
 thought and expression, in my past, and what little 
 remained to me of the future, I was myself at liberty, 
 and that the time had come for me to disappear like 
 the rest." 
 
 Lacordaire was still only fifty, and in the prime of 
 his intellectual vigour and strength, and probably the 
 words he had spoken over the grave of his friend 
 Mgr. de Janson in 1844 fully expressed his own 
 heart's feeling : " He was forty-five ; the ripe age, 
 when whatever throughout a man's life he has sown 
 is bearing its fruit-laden branches; and this was 
 precisely the age at which Mgr. de Janson was to lose 
 all his past, and to see his life cast down like a tree 
 cut at the roots. It is difficult for those who have 
 never sounded the depths of sorrow of such a position 
 to realise them, or the courage a man needs not to 
 break down under it. He did not break down. He 
 was not indifferent or without regrets, but his own 
 heart was' strong to sustain him in God's Sight, to 
 uphold his honour before men, and to enable him to 
 go on working for his brethren." 
 
 Lacordaire was never molested, he underwent no per- 
 secution, and those who knew him best unite in saying 
 that he never displayed the slightest token of bitterness 
 
' ' LETT RES 2 UN JE UNE HOMME. " 29 1 
 
 or animosity towards the ruling powers. He only 
 seemed to intrench himself in a stiff neutrality, slightly 
 tinged with the disdain which he more or less instinc- 
 tively felt for all powers. But there is no doubt that 
 he was sorely wounded to see his country, of which he 
 had hoped such great things in every shape of liberty, 
 turning round after what he felt to be so fawning a 
 fashion, and " not merely accepting, but craving a 
 master." His regrets over France, and his admiration 
 for England in her greater consistency and stability, 
 are strongly expressed in the last thing he ever wrote, 
 which indeed was but the beginning of a series of 
 Letters upon Christian Life, 1 addressed to a former 
 pupil. The only three ever finished make one 
 earnestly desire that the work might have been accom- 
 plished; they are as powerful and picturesque as 
 anything he ever wrote. " One may have intellect, 
 science, even genius, and yet be deficient in character," 
 he writes. "That is the case with France in our 
 times. She abounds in men who have accepted 
 everything at Fortune's hands, all the time without 
 having betrayed any trust, because in order to betray 
 you must have held to something at least ! But to 
 these men all events are as mere passing clouds, a 
 spectacle, or a shelter — no more. They submit to 
 them without resistance, after having paved the way 
 for them involuntarily; mere toys of a past over 
 x Lettres a un Jeune Homme sur la Vie Chretienne. 
 
292 CHURCH AND COUNTRY. 
 
 which they had no power, and of a future which does 
 not deign to unveil itself to them. . . . Nothing can 
 stand against thirty millions of men who do not know 
 how to keep steady on any foundation, and who have 
 lost all political feeling as to religion and their own 
 rights." x And again almost the last words of the third 
 Letter are as follows : — 
 
 " Men will tell you that love for the Church is 
 incompatible with love of your country ; that sooner 
 or later you will have to choose between them, and 
 that you can only remain a faithful member of the 
 one by becoming an undutiful son to the other. I 
 greatly desire to clear away this error, inasmuch as 
 love of our country and love of the Church are, 
 taken together, the most sacred feelings of the human 
 heart, and were it possible for the one to be the 
 enemy of the other, it would in my apprehension be 
 the most terrible crisis that God has ever suffered to 
 try His people here below ; but it is nothing of the 
 sort. A man's country is his Church in Time, as the 
 Church is his country in Eternity; and if the orbit of 
 one is more vast than that of the other, they have 
 alike but one centre, and that is God ; but one 
 interest, which is justice; but one home, which is 
 conscience ; the same citizens, the souls and bodies 
 of their children. It is true that the Church may be 
 at variance with the Government of a country, but 
 1 Lettre i. 
 
WHA T IS CO UNTR Y? 293 
 
 the Government is not the nation, much less the 
 country. 1 Who among us ever imagined that his 
 country is in the head or the heart of the men who 
 govern it ? Our country is the soil on which we were 
 born, the blood and the hearth of our fathers, the 
 love of our parents, the memories of our childhood, 
 our traditions, our laws, our customs, our liberties, 
 our history, and our religion. It is all that we be- 
 lieve, and all that we love, protected by those who 
 were born at the same period of time and the same 
 given place with ourselves, in heaven and earth. The 
 Government is for us merely a means of preservation 
 for these possessions in their right place and full 
 security j and if, so far from fulfilling this mission, it 
 betrays or dishonours it, we take refuge in the love of 
 country for succour, hope, and consolation. When 
 Nero governed the world, Rome existed in those who 
 loved her, and her deserted Forum was the country 
 of such as still possessed a country. If, then, the 
 Government of any nation persecutes the Church, either 
 that nation is Catholic or it is not. If it is Catholic, 
 it is not the Church which attacks the country, but 
 the country which is itself oppressed in one of its 
 dearest, most holy rights — its religious Faith j and 
 the Church, when defending itself by the words or 
 the blood of its sons, is simultaneously defending an 
 
 1 " Country " fails wholly to reproduce the meaning of 
 patrie, as Lacordaire uses it. 
 
294 PE TITION FROM TO UL O USE. 
 
 outraged, insulted country. If, on the contrary, the 
 nation is not Catholic, it is true that the Church is not 
 one of the component parts which make it what it is ; 
 but even then it is included in the natural right of all 
 men to truth, grace, and eternal salvation ; and the 
 Church enduring persecution forwards two benefits 
 to the country — one in the future, its conversion j the 
 other present, namely, liberty of conscience." x 
 
 Lacordaire felt keenly that those men who had 
 clamoured so lustily for liberty really were bent but 
 on their own, and that liberty of conscience too often 
 among them only meant freedom to disbelieve and 
 neglect everything, however sacred. He put a 
 powerful check, however, on his utterances, for he 
 was no demagogue, and merely to stir up passions by 
 strong words was not the course in any way acceptable 
 to his mind. Two hundred young students in Tou- 
 louse presented a petition eagerly calling upon 
 Lacordaire to resume his Conferences, but in vain. 
 He answered them in warm, pathetic words, alluding 
 to similar petitions of an earlier date, which had 
 touched him less ; " since now, growing old as I am, 
 I advance more speedily towards the time when I 
 shall be forgotten, and the need of souls never yet 
 found me passionless and without the craving to 
 minister to them. But God calls me to fulfil more 
 hidden duties ; I must give myself up to these, and 
 * Lettre iii. 
 
SOREZE. 295 
 
 forget the past." 1 His own phrase, "the poignant 
 grief of the men and things of to-day," was a picture 
 always before his eyes ; and Montalembert does not 
 scruple to say that this grief shortened his days, 
 although disappointment never degenerated into dis- 
 couragement, and his sorrow was never without hope. 
 
 But all the same, while withdrawing from the 
 more public sphere in which he had cut his foot- 
 prints so deeply, Lacordaire was very far from lapsing 
 into inaction or spiritless indolence. Probably such 
 would have been an impossibility to him. Hence- 
 forward he gave himself up with all the vigour of a 
 young man to the working of education under his 
 Third Order. 
 
 It was just at this time that the venerable College 
 of Soreze came into his hands, and the remainder of 
 his life was spent there. 
 
 1 March 31, 1855, letter in the £cho de 1'Ande. 
 
296 FORMATION OF SORF.ZE. 
 
 X. 
 
 SOREZE— THE ACAD&MIE FRANQAISE— DEATH. 
 
 THE original foundation of Soreze dates back to 
 Pepin le Bref, 757. It remained in the hands 
 of the Benedictines until 1840, when it was bought 
 by a body of Churchmen who wished to see the 
 institution kept for its original purpose, and in 1854 
 it passed into Lacordaire's hands, to be, as he said, 
 his earthly rest, and at last his grave. (" Viventi 
 sepulcrum, morienti hospitium^ utrique beneficium."} 
 
 He set to work with vigour to make the College all 
 his imagination realised as the possible perfection of 
 an educational house, and " you can have no idea of 
 what such an administration is, above all in the first 
 beginnings, when everything has to be created. 
 Besides, I am a very systematic person, never hurrying 
 myself, doing each day's work as it comes, and con- 
 sequently there is no end to it." 
 
 Writing to Mme. Swetchine, November 4, 1854, 
 of the various changes he is making at Soreze, all of 
 which seem to have been accepted and even appre- 
 
CALMNESS AND HOPE. 297 
 
 ciated by the pupils, who, Lacordaire says, seem to 
 wish to co-operate heartily in the restoration of tone 
 to the school, he goes on to look back upon the past 
 touchingly : — 
 
 " All our best men have died prematurely. It is 
 as though they had traced out our path, and their 
 tomb is but the symbol of our own. I feel deeply 
 how little that is good I have thrown into a work 
 which required so much. I have a strong faith, 
 patience, and flexibility, but all that falls very far short 
 of the Saints ! And what great work has ever been 
 founded on earth without holiness? On the other 
 hand, our success has been so marked by providential 
 gifts, by such marvellously a propos succour, by men 
 sent us so precisely at the right moment, that some- 
 times I think I have merely been the feeble forerunner 
 of better times than ours. God makes use of whom 
 He thinks fit. He lifts up and casts down, and though 
 the instrument was nothing worth, the work has not 
 the less been blessed and prospered. It will all be as 
 God sees fit. I have often offered it all up in my 
 heart, and this is easier to me than it might be to 
 many, because I am naturally very moderate in all 
 things, and am easily satisfied. I think I wish now 
 for nothing more than to die at peace with God." 
 
 Comparatively speaking, it was now a very quiet, 
 uneventful life. When, early in 1855, Montalembert 
 urged him to write upon the public difficulties of the 
 
298 S YSTEM OF ED UCA TION. 
 
 times, he entirely refused, though not without lay- 
 ing his heart open to his friend as to the reasons for 
 such a refusal. " I think," he said, " that I can do 
 more for the Church and the convictions of a life- 
 time now by building up in education, than by entering 
 into the lists with men whose doctrines I have already 
 withstood in everything I have said or written." He 
 threw himself heartily into the interests of Soreze, even 
 to the minutest details of repairs and beautifying. " I 
 am in all respects a pere de famille" he said of him- 
 self. " At my age one begins not to live any longer 
 for oneself. When I was young, I sought stir and 
 fame, but now the repose of a useful obscurity is the 
 only thing which attracts me." His system of 
 education was not built up on theories ; his object 
 was to make the boys under his care into large- 
 hearted, true Christians, and his own conception of 
 what that was could scarcely be surpassed. He 
 believed that in forming character and confirming 
 faith, constraint and fear were feeble as compared 
 with persuasion and love. Accordingly from the first 
 he left the fulfilment of all religious duties absolutely 
 free, and no boy was obliged to perform any. The 
 consequence was that the irreligious tone which had 
 of late years prevailed, quickly disappeared, and the 
 boys almost needed to be kept back rather than 
 pushed on in their religious ardour. It must have 
 been a touching sight to see them hanging about him, 
 
SERMONS TO HIS BOYS. 299 
 
 whenever he was to be found in play-times, some- 
 times shyly taking hold of his white robe as if some 
 virtue came from out it. He preached constantly and 
 regularly in the chapel, dividing the work with the 
 chaplain, but never taking less than one sermon a 
 week in Lent, or in a fortnight at other times; and he 
 took just as much pains, it is said, with these sermons 
 to his boys as he had ever taken with his Conferences 
 in Notre Dame. On one occasion Lacordaire told a 
 young preacher who made his gift of improvisation 
 too much an excuse for idleness, that he always took 
 a week to prepare his school sermons, and it would 
 seem that their effect upon the young hearers was 
 striking. The boys always looked forward eagerly to 
 Lacordaire's sermons, and often left the chapel moved 
 to their heart's core, lifted out of themselves. In 
 many respects his influence over them reminds one 
 much of that Dr. Arnold exercised over a similar 
 congregation. He worked upon a regular plan, 
 treating of Christian life and its foundations — prayer, 
 penitence, etc. The general sketch of his courses 
 has been found, but merely as a sketch, in no way 
 filled up. Besides this he gave himself freely to all 
 who liked to seek him as a confessor ; his door was 
 always open to his boys, and no occupation, however 
 pressing, but was gladly laid aside to listen to their 
 difficulties and troubles. On one occasion Monta- 
 lembert tells how (I think it was in connection with 
 
300 INTERCOURSE WITH THE STUDENTS. 
 
 his election to the Academy, though his friend does 
 not say so) he pressed Lacordaire to remain in Paris 
 for business of some importance, but he entirely 
 refused, saying that by so doing probably some of his 
 dear boys at Soreze would miss the confession for 
 which they were preparing, " and no one can pretend 
 to calculate the loss of one Communion in a Christian's 
 life," he added. He was constantly impressing on his 
 boys that true religion avoids equally all hypocrisy 
 and all human respect. A good Christian must be 
 stedfast in what are called natural virtues — in upright- 
 ness, straightforwardness, honour ; he must have " the 
 courage of his opinions " (a phrase we have thoroughly 
 adopted in English). "While you are looking out 
 for the supernatural," he used to say, " take care you 
 don't lose the natural ! " His great gifts of con- 
 versation were freely used on these lads' behalf. 
 Every evening he used to join the upper classes in 
 the large schoolroom and talk with them for an hour 
 or more, trying to draw out their ideas and thoughts 
 on all possible subjects, one only excepted — politics. 
 This he scrupulously avoided, and could never be 
 induced to touch upon. Sometimes he read or 
 recited to them, and his gifts in this line being so 
 great, it is easy to imagine what delight he gave. 
 The military form was kept up, and there were 
 sergeant-majors, captains, etc. j but the literary 
 Academy within the College, which was called 
 
ATH&N&E AND 1NSTITUT. 301 
 
 rAthenee^ and which was only entered by those who 
 achieved certain school attainments j and the Institut, 
 a select body of twelve, always chosen from the 
 former, — these were the most highly-coveted honours 
 of the place, only exceeded by the title of Etudiant 
 (Thonneur, which the best and most respected scholar 
 received on leaving Soreze yearly, and which entitled 
 him to keeping up a close connection with the place, 
 spending a fortnight there yearly, and other like 
 privileges. At Easter, Lacordaire delighted to go off 
 on long expeditions with his boys, on some picnic in 
 wood or meadow, and pouring out the endless stores 
 of his fascinations for their amusement. The num- 
 ber of scholars rapidly doubled itself, and in spite 
 of sundry attempts to depreciate the work, there was 
 no doubt of its thorough hearty success. On one 
 occasion Henri Perreyve was present at some little 
 festivity at Soreze ; the boys had crowned Ozanam's 
 bust with flowers (chiefly because Lacordaire had 
 been writing his Memoir lately), and Perreyve made 
 a speech in which he spoke affectionately of the two 
 friends. As he sat down he whispered something to 
 Lacordaire, which caused the latter to rise smiling. 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " there is a report in Toulouse 
 that the students at Soreze have hung their Director 
 in efligy ! " Instantly one of the head boys, 
 "Sergeant-major" Serres, jumped up and answered, 
 " Mon Pere, they know a great deal at Toulouse, but 
 
302 STANDARD OF EDUCATION. 
 
 there is one thing they don't know which we should 
 like to teach them, and that is that every single one 
 of us would very willingly be hung for you !" But 
 his popularity was not sustained by any over-indul- 
 gence or weakness, it need scarcely be said. Like 
 Dr. Arnold again, Lacordaire was resolute in expel- 
 ling boys whom he felt to be really vicious, and 
 therein absolutely dangerous to those with whom they 
 associated. . It cost him grievous pain, and the 
 boys knew it ; perhaps one of the most touching 
 tributes paid to him as Director of Soreze was the 
 fact that at his burial four young men whom he had 
 expelled as boys were in the funeral procession, and 
 as heartfelt mourners as any present. 
 
 In respect of education, it was said by competent 
 judges to be equal to any school in France, and un- 
 questionably the tone of everything seems to have 
 been raised, as might be expected from the impression 
 Lacordaire's individuality was continually renewing 
 upon masters and pupils alike. The standard of 
 literary taste, both classical and modern, was raised, 
 and what was really good and beautiful was rather 
 aimed at under his influence, than the more meretri- 
 cious beauty which the actual French world sought 
 after. Against all luxury he set his face steadily. 
 Even the silk and woollen sashes worn by some of 
 the boys were set aside, because, as he said, " a real 
 sword can only hang on to a leathern belt ; " and 
 
SKETCH OF OZANAM. 303 
 
 when some of the boys sported duvets on their beds, 
 he reproached them publicly. " Leave such things 
 as those to women and sick people ! " he exclaimed. 
 " When I was cold at my school at Dijon, I used to 
 put my portmanteau on the bed ! " 
 
 June 8, 1855, Lacordaire writes to Mme. Swet- 
 chine : " I grow fonder and fonder of Soreze. I 
 have been here nearly a year, and the next two 
 months will be fuller of work than before. I must 
 prepare a discours for the Prize Day j it is the first, 
 for last year I merely spoke without premeditation, 
 and I felt it was not quite the thing. It requires a 
 certain turn of thought not suited to improvisation, 
 and everything calm and quiet requires more reflection 
 than inspiration. Then the Examinations are coming 
 on, and a thousand details which take up all my time." 
 
 September 19, 1855. — " I have finished my sketch of 
 Ozanam. . . . Every day I hear of changed opinions 
 and altered attitudes among men that I have known, 
 till it makes me feel giddy ! How thankful I am to 
 be out of it all ! In giving me this solitude, God has 
 repaid me a hundredfold for all my life's toil, and all 
 I ask of Him is that I may end my days in it. Adieu, 
 chere amie ; you are one of the few souls who have 
 remained faithful to their post. It is a great thing, 
 and I thank God for it daily." 
 
 In a letter of about this date (October 5 th) Lacor- 
 daire first mentions Henri Perreyve, whose name has 
 
3 04 THE OLD LION. 
 
 since become so well known, to Mme. Swetchine, as 
 " one of the few men in whose opinions I have found 
 consistency and faithfulness, things so strangely rare that 
 I make a careful note of them for the credit of human 
 nature and my own special consolation." The last 
 letters in this most valuable correspondence go on still 
 expressing Lacordaire's thankfulness for being removed 
 from the scene of political passion and excitement. 
 " I am growing old, and the tears sometimes fill my 
 eyes at the thought that I shall go hence pure from all 
 that sort of thing. How good God has been to me ! 
 What a happy retirement He has given me, just at 
 the moment when I had no course left but to stand 
 aside and be silent ! and among the general apostasy 
 I have kept some faithful friends who cleave to our 
 common Faith ! " And when his old friend had gone 
 to Fleury, he writes : " When I was at Issy, we used 
 often to go there, and I have a very pleasant memory 
 of it. If my letter finds you there, I thank God for 
 sending you to rest beneath the same shades which 
 I enjoyed in youth. How young I was then ! What 
 a slave still to imagination ! seeking fame for myself 
 by means of God, and yet sincere in my wish to serve 
 Him. Now I am like an old lion who has crossed 
 the deserts, and who lies with his great paws stretched 
 out, looking somewhat mournfully at the sea and its 
 waves. How much has happened between those 
 Issy days and now ! " 
 
THE LAST OF A FRIEND. 305 
 
 The interest of the next letter is chiefly that 
 mysterious one which nevertheless exists for most of 
 us ; it was the last Lacordaire ever wrote to the 
 trusted mother-like friend, who had been so much to 
 him through his animated career : — 
 
 " Soreze, August 24, 1857. 
 
 " At last, chere amie^ our fetes are over, and I have 
 time to say how sorry I am to have been so long 
 silent. Providence has been very good to us in the 
 way of unforeseen incidents, striking meetings, splendid 
 weather, and everything which could give us perfect 
 success. Only Montalembert was wanting, but he 
 was represented by M. Werner de Merode and the 
 Due de Mirepoix, whom he had promised to meet 
 here, and who kept their engagement better than he 
 did. We had Marshal Pelissier, whom we did not 
 expect, and the former Abbot of la Trappe, de 
 Staon£li. . . . Several unforeseen incidents turned 
 out most happily. Among our guests there was an 
 American, the Charge d? Affaires of the Republic of La 
 Plata, whom nobody knew, but who spoke admirably. 
 . . . The Marshal spoke amid great applause. In 
 short, it was the best festival I have had, and will pro- 
 bably be the last. God has been very good to me, 
 as sometimes one sees in things which happen once 
 and never again. Several people have brought me 
 tidings of you, M. Cartier among others. Do you 
 
306 MME. SWETCHINES LAST ILLNESS. 
 
 remember him, Besson's friend ? a man as modest 
 as he is remarkable, a race you don't find nowadays ! 
 The complete edition of my writings is just coming 
 out, the first time they have been regularly collected. 
 I still from time to time receive tokens of their con- 
 tinuing to do some good. This is now my greatest 
 reward, and God has been very good to me in this 
 way. This third year at Soreze has been good and 
 happy. The ground has grown from beneath our 
 feet, and I quite believe the school is saved. I have 
 seen many young fellows improve markedly during 
 these three years, and there can be no gladder sight 
 to a Christian soul. I hope to see you again here 
 below. Let me hear of you, and believe that no one 
 is nearer to you in spirit or values your affection more 
 than I do. Pray for me, as I pray daily for you. 
 We shall find one another again for ever in God." 
 
 Mme. Swetchine was then lying on her deathbed, 
 and' M. de Falloux, who took the place of a son 
 beside it, says that when he arrived in Paris he found 
 her greatly preoccupied about Lacordaire, not having 
 heard anything about these same doings at Soreze. 
 M. de Falloux found a newspaper which gave an 
 enthusiastic report of the whole proceedings, which 
 gave her great satisfaction. She specially rejoiced in 
 Marshal Pelissier's presence. " It is enough, and not 
 too much," she said, "to satisfy everybody." Shortly 
 
LACORDAIRES VISIT TO HER. 307 
 
 after this, hearing of her serious illness, Lacordaire 
 hastened to Paris to her, and spent six days in constant 
 attendance upon her. " Not the smallest detail was 
 forgotten in her questions," M. de Falloux says, " and 
 never was Lacordaire more attractive in his geniality 
 and filial piety. Both seemed aware that they were 
 drawing to a close of the earthly intimacy God had 
 granted them, and they expressed it continually, though 
 without words. Mme. Swetchine's weakness increased 
 rapidly. But nothing interfered with her meditation, 
 frequently of some hours, in her chapel, nor daily 
 Mass and frequent Communion. Pere Lacordaire 
 had the comfort of celebrating several times for 
 her. . . . On September 1st she seemed really better. 
 I left her at six o'clock, and returning a little later, I 
 found her talking earnestly with Lacordaire and M. 
 Fresneau, and she asked to have an article on Sceur 
 Rosalie, written for the Correspondent , read to her." 
 All this inspired Lacordaire with a confidence he had 
 not as yet felt, and having left Soreze hastily, with 
 much business weighing on his mind, he thought he 
 might safely go back now, fully intending to return 
 almost immediately to his dear old friend. Accord- 
 ingly, on September 2nd he said a very early Mass in 
 her private chapel, had a long confidential conversa- 
 tion with Mme. Swetchine, and left by the nine a.m. 
 train. She said not one word to detain him, though 
 it seems probable that she foresaw it was their last 
 
3 o8 MSS. OF "LIFE OF S. DOMINIC" 
 
 earthly meeting; but one striking characteristic all 
 through her illness was the way in which she accepted 
 every blessing and comfort God gave her without 
 ever asking anything for herself. Very soon the 
 dropsical symptoms from which she was suffering 
 increased rapidly. Extreme Unction was given her, 
 and during that evening Mme. Swetchine sent her 
 special blessing to Lacordaire and his work through 
 Pere Chocarne, then Superior of the Dominicans in 
 Paris. How constantly he was in her mind was 
 shown by her conversations respecting him with M. 
 de Falloux. She reverted again and again to his 
 correspondence with her, saying, " He will never be 
 really known except by his letters." One day she 
 sent M. de Falloux to a little etagere, and made him 
 bring her a book bound and carefully kept in a case ; 
 it was the MSS. of the "Vie de Saint Dominique." She 
 looked at it with evident pleasure, and then asked de 
 Falloux to read the letter it contained x aloud to her j 
 
 1 "I send you, chereamie, the manuscript of the 'Life of Saint 
 Dominic' I have not effaced the corrections you made, in 
 order that they may remind you, and whoever may see them, 
 what you have been to me in friendship and counsel. They are 
 a manner of hieroglyphics of which I hereby give you the key. 
 I do not know if God will ever permit me to write any longer work. 
 I have many things in my heart ; it seems as though my thoughts 
 expanded and grew stronger daily ; but how many trees wither in 
 full leaf, without supplying much fruit to the planter ! If public 
 speaking leaves me no time to write, or if death snatches the pen 
 from my fingers, this ' Life of Saint Dominic ' will remain a sort 
 
MME. SWETCHINE'S DEATH. 309 
 
 and then sending for the whole collected series of 
 letters, she gave them over with the MSS. to him. 
 Early in the morning of September 1 oth she passed to 
 her rest at the ripe age of seventy-five, happy in the 
 surrounding of many that she loved, though per- 
 haps he who was missing, Lacordaire, was almost the 
 dearest of all her dearly-loved friends. On the 6th 
 he wrote to M. de Falloux : " I have just received 
 your telegram telling me that Mme. Swetchine is in 
 extremis. I have no hope ever again to see this dear 
 friend, who has been a second mother to me during 
 the most trying periods of my life. I have to thank 
 you for having seen her so lately once more, and for 
 the opportunity of taking counsel once more with that 
 fine mind, kindled by such a soul as I have never 
 really seen the like. I was able once more to give her 
 the Body and Blood of Him Whom she loved above 
 all else, and Who is doubtless now her sure reward. 
 Her last glance at me was one of benediction, and if 
 
 of isolated obelisk which from that very fact will obtain a certain 
 value. If, on the other hand, I am to do a man's work, and 
 leave a more finished record of labour behind me, the following 
 pages will possess for you, loving me as you do, the attraction 
 of a youthful period which you have known and cherished. I 
 should like that some day when your nephews come upon these 
 MSS. among your papers, they should know how they had an 
 ancestress who was worthy to share Saint Jerome's friendship 
 with Paula and Marcella, and to whom the only thing lacking 
 was an illustrious and saintly pen to record what she was indeed." 
 Paris, February 22, 1841. 
 
310 SOLITARY. 
 
 I must grieve not to be by to close her eyes, at least 
 I have stood with her at the edge of the grave, and 
 the memory thereof will abide with me to my own 
 last hour." 
 
 October 2 6, 1 85 7, he wrote to a lady : " I have a great 
 loss to bear. Mme. Swetchine, who has been a second 
 mother tome for five-and-twenty years, is taken from me. 
 I went to Paris to be with her at the last, and stayed six 
 days there, but unfortunately duty recalled me to Soreze, 
 and I could not close her eyes as I should have earnestly 
 desired. Hers was a first-rate intellect, and her heart 
 was full of kindness, faith, devotion, and love. I 
 shall always think of her as one of those souls whom 
 God has placed in my path as a light and a guide. 
 Although latterly her help had been less needful to 
 me, and distance lessened our intercourse, her loss 
 is very great to me. It renews my sorrow for that 
 of our mutual friend, Mme. de la Tour du Pin, who 
 was also so remarkable a woman, so good, so self- 
 devoted ! It is a curious thing that I have found all 
 my best friends among our aristocracy. Mme. de la 
 Tour du Pin, Mme. Swetchine, Mme. de Mesnard, 
 Montalembert, etc., although I have so little to do 
 with the world and its salons. , . . Soreze is now 
 my Versailles ; it is as solitary as Louis XIV. 's great 
 palace, and it also has its own measure of celebrity, 
 which we revived by a great fete last August. . . . 
 I am above all happy in the steady progress of our 
 
PRIVATE LETTERS. 
 
 pupils in discipline, work, religion, and good general 
 habits. I assure you I was never happier. I am 
 weary of the world, and hope to end my days here. 
 But all that will be just as it may please God." 
 
 Some of Lacordaire's most interesting letters to 
 Henri Perreyve and other young men among his 
 friends were written about this time, when the pres- 
 sure of public affairs no longer hindered his free 
 expression of the large loving heart which was always 
 ready to pour itself out upon those he loved. Thus 
 he writes, March 6, 1854 : — 
 
 " Mon cher Ami, — You were wrong to check your 
 impulse of writing because I had not answered your 
 last letter. Don't let it happen again. Write as often 
 as your heart moves you, as often and at as great 
 length as you will, only don't be hurt if I am not so 
 quick about answering as I should like. If you really 
 love me you will hear my answer through all space, 
 you will know that I rejoiced to read your letter again 
 and again, and you will forgive the delay in my written 
 utterances. 
 
 " These lovely days remind me, too, of our walks 
 together, in like weather, in the Bellevue and Meudon 
 woods. Shall we ever enjoy such again, here or else- 
 where ? God knows ; but one thing is sure, that we 
 shall resume them under more lovely conditions, in an 
 unfading spring. We must keep our real rendezvous 
 
3 i2 THE EASTERN WAR. 
 
 for that. All else is but a preparation, a prelude, a 
 doorway; it is the weakness of men without faith to look 
 for all the joys they can expect in friendship, here on 
 earth. Perhaps we may meet but seldom here, but the 
 day will come when we shall be always together. You 
 will be full of beauty then, and I shall regain my 
 youth like yours. But before that I must grow old, 
 and so will you ; but this old age is merely a dream 
 which hides the approach to renewal and immortality. 
 Between times we must have some sad days — every- 
 where it is so. Melancholy is the powerful ruler of 
 all sensitive souls; it comes upon them without their 
 knowing how or why — suddenly, secretly. The ray 
 of light which gladdens others is a cloud to them, the 
 festival which brings delight and gladness to some is as a 
 spear to their heart. It is only God and Our Lord Who 
 can avert idle, weary clouds from the hearts of those who 
 truly love Him ; the less real the cause of our suffer- 
 ing, the harder it often is to relieve. You ask my 
 opinion about the Eastern War. I think it is a just 
 war. The union of France and England against the 
 arrogance of schism and despotism is a grand thing. 
 . . . Nevertheless I do not think that the Turks can 
 remain much longer in Europe. God seems to me to 
 be carrying out two ends — the expulsion of the Turks 
 and the restriction of Russia. . . . 
 
 " I agree with you about the mountains, the sea, 
 and the forests; they are the three great works of 
 
LETTER TO H. PERREYVE. 313 
 
 nature, and very full of analogies, especially the two 
 last. I love them as you do ; but as one grows 
 gradually old, nature becomes less and souls more to 
 one. One learns the beauty of that saying of Vau- 
 venagues, ' Sooner or later one cares for nothing but 
 souls.' 1 And so one can always love and be loved. 
 Old age, which withers the body, renews the soul if it 
 be not selfish and corrupt ; and the hour of death is 
 the spring-time of the spirit." 
 
 Henri Perreyve's health was failing rapidly, and 
 Lacordaire writes to him : — 
 
 " I have a world of reproaches for you, dear friend. 
 First of all, your signature is a very hieroglyphic ! 
 unpardonable save to business men, who are afraid of 
 forgery if they write their name legibly ? And then 
 your article has a false name, which is horrible ! 
 People ought to write nothing to which they cannot 
 put their name, and above all I hate a nom de plume. 
 If one dare not sign one's name boldly, it is a sure 
 sign that the thing in question ought not to have been 
 written or published. . . . How are you ? Have you 
 courage to do nothing but go out, and sleep well? 
 If you only knew how useful it is in life sometimes to 
 know how to lose time well ! Look at Ozanam. What 
 a difference, if instead of forcing his life as he did, he 
 1 " Tot ou tard on ne jouit que des ames." 
 
3H DISLIKE OF HURRY. 
 
 had slept eight hours out of the twenty-four, and only 
 worked six ! He would be alive now, and have thirty 
 years of life before him j that is to say, six hours of 
 work multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five days, 
 themselves multiplied by thirty ! I don't know 
 whether it is indolence or the spirit of worldly calcula- 
 tion, but except the rare occasions when something 
 must be finished at any cost, I have a horror of hurry 
 and interference with the ordinary natural course of 
 things. Each day brings its own work and rest in a 
 welcome succession, one makes up for the other, and 
 the soul, always active, ripens amid an unfailing 
 youth. Sometimes I fancy that is mere Sybaritism, 
 and yet only look at the results of the opposite course ! 
 Are you quite sure when you give way to your feverish 
 eagerness that it is for God's Sake you are so urgent, 
 and are not influenced by the disguised ambition of 
 production ? Pride is very crafty, and so, I must con- 
 fess, is the charm of a quiet life. God knows all that, 
 and He sets thorns before us on all sides, so that when 
 we strive to avoid them on one side we fall into them 
 on the other. 
 
 " You are very simple, and naif, and innocent, and 
 everything else, to talk to me about writing books ! 
 It is very clear that you are not at the mercy of two 
 hundred boys who have a right to run in and out of 
 your room from morning to night about every manner 
 of trifle j or to come down upon you, just when you 
 
REASONS FOR NOT WRITING. 315 
 
 least expect it, with some very serious matter which 
 puzzles you terribly as to whether you ought to be 
 firm or yielding, severe or indulgent. Be so good as 
 to know, monsieur le malade, that I never could do two 
 things at a time, and that is why I am so well now, 
 . although I am not losing my time. If I were to do 
 what you want, I should write a very poor book, and 
 have a College even worse than the book on my hands. 
 It is all very well to say that years pass by, and I am 
 growing grey ! It is quite true, and were I here by 
 my own seeking I should take it greatly to heart. 
 But being certain that it is God's Will which placed me 
 here, I give myself up to His gracious dealing, leaving 
 my years to Him for what they are worth, and my 
 intentions the same ! Undoubtedly if I were master 
 of my own life, I should be inclined to shut myself 
 up and write, taking part thus in the political and 
 religious affairs of the day, but God has ordered things 
 otherwise. Since 1830, just a quarter of a century, 
 my life has been one continual worry, without leisure, 
 without any certain future, without ties, almost without 
 a country ! I have been carried along like a leaf 
 before the wind ; and I am so entirely used to this, 
 that even Soreze, where I fain would die, only seems 
 to me the tent of a temporary sojourn. God will 
 most likely uproot me from this as from elsewhere, 
 and it is not likely that He will leave me to write at 
 leisure in a home of my own choosing. So don't 
 
316 TRUE FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 urge me to write any more than to love you ; the first 
 is impossible, the second is done ! " 
 
 To Henri Perreyve : — 
 
 11 October II, 1859. 
 
 " I know not if you feel as I do, but I cannot love 
 any one without the soul slipping in as well as the 
 heart, and so making our Dear Lord the medium 
 betwixt us. An intercourse which fails to become 
 supernatural ceases to be intimate, for what true 
 intimacy can there be without sounding the depths of 
 those thoughts and affections which fill the soul with 
 God? I see friends who do not make their con- 
 fessions to one another, do not help one another in 
 the paths of penitence, and keep their spiritual life 
 closely shut away even from those they love best. 
 But is this real friendship ? Is not friendship a full 
 gift of oneself? and when our Lord has become one 
 with us, can we really give ourselves without giving 
 Him Who is thus part of ourselves ? And how can 
 we exclude conscience from this self-devotion, if it be 
 entire ? And how can you make that gift without a 
 full confession of whatever is in you, of good and 
 evil ? It is so sweet to humble oneself before those 
 one loves ! And if pride restrains one, if one would 
 fain be an actor even to one's friend, does one really 
 love him? Confidence is undoubtedly the first 
 element of friendship j one might in fact call it the 
 
RE-ELECTED PROVINCIAL. 317 
 
 entrance, inasmuch as sacrifice is the sanctuary ; and 
 can there be confidence without confession, or is 
 confession anything but a supernatural confidence? 
 ... I am preparing for death, and it seems to me 
 that nothing is more helpful in the hour of death 
 than the services of a priest who has been one's 
 friend. Friendship furthers openness, humility, 
 unreserve, so wonderfully ! What a blessing to die 
 in the arms of a man whose faith is one's own, who 
 knows one's inner heart, and who loves one !" 
 
 In September 1858, Lacordaire was re-elected 
 Provincial of the Order, greatly to the joy of the 
 Dominicans in France, who for the last four years 
 had missed his kindly presence among them. But 
 he did not feel that he could resign either the head- 
 ship of Soreze or the post of Superior to the Third 
 Order; and while accepting the additional work of 
 the Provincialate, he looked forward to accomplishing 
 some of the work he still craved after when the 
 quieter days should come. 
 
 "When my four years as Provincial are over," 
 he wrote, September 23, 1858, "I shall be sixty; 
 that is a solemn stage of life, if one attains to it. 
 My great regret is that I cannot go on with my ' Letters 
 on the Christian Life,' of which three have been 
 published, and seem to be useful. But God orders 
 it otherwise. If I should attain the age of sixty, I 
 
318 ELECTED AN ACADEMICIAN. 
 
 hope I may be able to retire and devote my remain- 
 ing days to this work for God's glory." 1 
 
 The privacy of his latter days was to meet with 
 one more, and that a most honourable, interruption. 
 In bygone days the Literary Societies of Lyons, 3 
 Toulouse, 3 and Marseilles had all been proud to enter 
 Lacordaire's name on their books, and now the 
 Academy sought to confer upon him the highest 
 honour France can offer her literary men, by making 
 him an Academician. 
 
 It was no mere vanity that made this tribute 
 acceptable to him. As on the occasion of his 
 election to the National Assembly, the point on 
 which he rested with satisfaction was that such 
 honours were in his person a "symbol of liberty 
 accepted and strengthened by religion," as he said 
 in his discours de reception. 
 
 He wrote, November 16, 1859, on this subject: 
 " You may be sure that I appreciate the honour of 
 being received into the Academie Francaise, and that 
 I feel the spontaneous kindness which has been shown 
 
 1 It was during this second Provincialate that he was able to 
 recover for the Dominican Order the old church and convent 
 of the Preaching Friars at Saint Maximin in Provence, whence 
 they had been driven during the great Revolution. In the 
 summer of 1859 he had the great satisfaction of installing a 
 number of student novices, who overflowed the convent at 
 Chalais, in their own rightful abode at Saint Maximin. 
 " 1845. 3 1854. 
 
THE HONOUR APPRECIATED. 319 
 
 by some of the most illustrious Academicians on my 
 behalf. This kindness which has found me out in my 
 retirement, wholly unsought on my part, is perhaps 
 the only public honour I have received during my life. 
 I say perhaps, out of respect to the choice of me made 
 by the town of Marseilles as their deputy to the last 
 Constituent Assembly. But except that election, there 
 has been nothing in the course of my life such as is 
 commonly called an honour conferred. This honour 
 is quite compatible with my position as a Religious. 
 There have been bishops members of the Academy, 
 and other ecclesiastics from among the regular clergy 
 have been elected ; no one is surprised, because 
 literary fame is the thing of all others the most free 
 from all mere rank or position. The Roman 
 Academies are full of Religious, and I know one 
 Dominican, who fills a high post at the Pontifical 
 Court, who is a member of the Academia dell' Arcadia, 
 and is known within it as Titiro or Melibeo. So he 
 might well be a member of the French Academy. 
 All so far is plain. Now perhaps you will say, Then 
 why not come to Paris ? why not come forward as a 
 candidate, since you value the position of Academician, 
 and think it compatible with your habit? Bossuet 
 was not so fastidious. True, my dear friend; but 
 first of all, Bossuet was at the Court j he was not 
 living in a school some two hundred miles from Paris. 
 That makes some difference : he was free, and you 
 
320 LITER AR Y HO NO URS. 
 
 who have been at Soreze, know how far otherwise it 
 is with me. There is another difference. Bossuet, 
 as you mention him, lived in religious days ; his name 
 and his cross were safe to meet no opposition in the 
 Academy, he could come forward in all his talent. 
 But could I do the like, without his talent or his 
 period ? Could I knock at the Academy door with 
 absolute certainty of not exposing my name or my 
 cross to obloquy ? Can I do this ? What certainty 
 is there as to the majority or minority which might 
 come forth ? If it were only a question of myself, I 
 might do it, but I carry the gods of Rome with me, 
 Dii mdigetes, and that in times which have but a very 
 doubtful liking for them as yet. Is it not worth 
 keeping my honest and respected obscurity out of the 
 way of such risks ? 
 
 " Moreover, even as to literary honours, does it 
 altogether become a Religious to seek them ? or if it 
 is not out of place in Rome, is it not somewhat a 
 risk in Paris ? I appeal to your tact and your friend- 
 ship. And what is wanted? That the Academy 
 be sure of my grateful acceptance. This they are 
 already. I gave my word as to this when the first 
 suggestion was made. Whatever may be the result, 
 cher ami, I feel the honour of being thought of by so 
 many men who are eminent in the literature of our 
 age and country. If their vote should not confer 
 upon me the title of colleague, I shall at least 
 
HOMAGE TO RELIGION. 321 
 
 remember gratefully that they did not count me 
 unworthy to bear it." 
 
 To another friend he wrote, December 7, 1859 : 
 " You seem to fancy that I want to be an Academician. 
 You are mistaken. I never gave it a thought. The 
 proposal was made to me, not only by my friends, 
 such as Montalembert and de Falloux, but by others, 
 such as MM. Cousin, Villemain, and Guizot. Then 
 the question became whether I was to refuse or to 
 let the thing go on. Mme. Swetchine, when dying, 
 thought it would be a mistake to refuse, because in 
 such a spontaneous movement among eminent men 
 on behalf of a Religious, there seems to be a certain 
 homage paid to religion. And would it be right to 
 reject homage offered to God in the person of one of 
 His ministers who has done nothing to seek it, and 
 who can honestly say that he had never even wished 
 for it ? I took Mme. Swetchine's view of the matter, 
 although there is a bondage as well as an honour in 
 the matter, and I am unwilling to forego any link of 
 my entire independence." 
 
 The election took place, and Lacordaire was chosen 
 by twenty-one votes as against fourteen. The day 
 before he wrote, "It seems certain, but one should 
 never sell the bear's skin until the bear is on the 
 ground, even when for bear read Academy?" He 
 went to Paris for his reception, making the usual 
 oration, January 24, 186 1, in the presence of a more 
 x 
 
322 ACADEMY ORATION. 
 
 than ordinarily large and illustrious gathering, which, 
 according to custom, turned mainly on de Tocqueville, 
 whose successor he was. His concluding words carried 
 the motive which made him rejoice in his new position : 
 " When your votes suddenly called me among you, I 
 seemed to hear, not merely the voice of a literary body, 
 but that of my country itself summoning me to take 
 my place among those who are, so to say, the Senate 
 of her thought and the prophetic representants of her 
 future. I have watched the prejudices which twenty 
 years ago would have separated us, and these preju- 
 dices, which your choice of me has conquered, set forth 
 the progress won in sixty years of an experience full 
 of dangers, of successes, of deceived wisdom, and of 
 helpless though noble courage. M. de Tocqueville 
 was among you the symbol of liberty nobly interpreted 
 by a great mind; I shall be, if I may say so, the 
 symbol of liberty accepted and strengthened by 
 religion. I could receive no nobler reward on earth 
 than to succeed such a man for the advancement of 
 such a cause." x 
 
 1 Surely a liberty-loving nation might be satisfied with such 
 opinions as Lacordaire expressed in speaking of de Tocqueville : 
 " Certainement M. de Tocqueville, comme tout vrai chretien, 
 aimait le peuple ; il respectait en lui la presence de l'homme, et 
 dans rhomme la presence de Dieu. Nul ne fut plus cher a ce 
 qui l'entourait, serviteurs, colons, ouvriers, paysans, pauvres ou 
 malheureux de tout nom. A le voir sur ses terres, au sortir de ce 
 cabinet laborieux ou il gagnait le pain quotidien de sa gloire, on 
 
M. DE T0CQUEV1LLE. 323 
 
 He was not to retain the post of earthly honour 
 long. He never sat there again. Already the words, 
 " Friend, come up higher," had been spoken j and 
 returning to Soreze immediately after the ceremony 
 with a heavy cold and very much exhausted, Lacor- 
 
 l'eut pris pour un patriarche des temps de la Bible, alors que 
 l'idee de la premiere et unique famille etait vivante encore, et 
 que les distinctions de la societe n'etaient d'autres que celles de 
 la nature, toutes se reduisant a la beaute de lage et de la 
 paternite. M. de Tocqueville pratiquait a la lettre, dans ses 
 domaines, la parole de l'Evangile : Que celui de vous qui veul 
 etre le premier soit le serviteur de tous. II servait par l'affable 
 et genereuse communication de lui-meme a tout ce qui etait au- 
 dessous de lui, par la simplicite de ses moeurs qui n'offensait la 
 mediocrite de personne, par le charme vrai d'un caractere qui ne 
 manquait pas de fierte, mais qui savait descendre sans qu'il le 
 remarquat lui-meme, tant il lui etait naturel d'etre homme envers 
 les hommes. " In America de Tocqueville saw " pour la premiere 
 fois un peuple florissant, pacifique, industrieux, riche, puissant, 
 respecte au dehors . . . et cependant n'ayant d'autre maitre que 
 lui, ne subissant aucune distinction de naissance, elisant ses 
 magistrats a tous les degres de la hierarchie civile et politique, 
 libre comme lTndien, civilise comme l'homme d'Europe, 
 religieux sans donner a aucun culte ni l'exclusion ni la pre- 
 ponderance, et presentant enfin au monde etonne le drame vivant 
 de la liberte la plus absolue dans l'egalite la plus entiere. M. 
 de Tocqueville avait bien entendu dans sa patrie ces deux mots, 
 liberte, egalite ; il avait vu des revolutions accomplies pour en 
 etablir le regne ; mais ce regne sincere, ce regne assis, ce regne 
 qui vit de soi-meme sans le secours de personne, parce que 
 c'est la chose de tous, il ne l'avait encore rencontre nulle part. 
 ... II n'admira point l'Amerique sans restriction ; il ne crut 
 pas toutes ses lois applicables a tous les peuples . . . enfin il 
 ramena sur 1' Europe un regard muri, mais emu, qui le remplit, 
 
324 RETURN TO SOREZE. 
 
 daire insisted nevertheless on preaching as usual 
 through Lent in his school chapel, which was more 
 than he had physical strength to do, so that when 
 Holy Week came he was quite ill, and obliged to stay 
 in bed. His weakness was so great that the friends 
 
 selon sa pro pre expression, d'une sorte de terreur religieuse. 
 II crut voir que l'Europe, et la France en particulier, 
 s'avaneait a grands pas vers l'egalite absolue des conditions, et 
 que l'Amerique etait la prophetie et comme l'avant-garde de 
 l'etat futur des nations chretiennes. Je dis des nations chre- 
 tiennes, car il rattachait a l'Evangile ce mouvement progressif 
 du genre humain vers l'egalite ; il pensait que l'egalite devant 
 Dieu, proclamee par l'Evangile, etait le principe d'ou etait 
 descendue l'egalite devant la loi, et que l'une et l'autre, l'egalite 
 divine et l'egalite civile, avaient ouvert devant les ames l'horizon 
 indefini ou disparaissent toutes les distinctions arbitraires, pour 
 ne laisser debout, au milieu des hommes, que la gloire laborieuse 
 du merite personnel. Mais malgre cette origine sacree qu'il 
 attribuait a l'egalite, . . . malgre sa conviction que c'etait la un 
 fait universel, irresistible, et voulu de Dieu, il n'envisageait 
 qu'avec une sainte epouvante 1'avenir que preparait au monde 
 un si grand changement dans les rapports sociaux. II avait vu 
 chez les Americains l'egalite agir naturellement comme une 
 vertu hereditaire ; il la retrouvait trop souvent en Europe sous 
 la forme d'une passion, passion envieuse, ennemie de la supe- 
 riorite en autrui, mais la convoitant pour soi, melange d'orgueil 
 et d'hypocrisie, capable de se donner a tout prix le spectacle de 
 1'abaissement universel, et de se faire de l'humiliation meme un 
 Capitole et un Pantheon . . . il la retrouvait en Europe in- 
 quiete, menacante, impie, s'attaquant a Dieu meme, et sa vic- 
 toire inevitable pourtant, lui causait tout ensemble le vertige 
 de la crainte et le calme de la certitude," etc. (Discours de 
 Reception.) 
 
BEGINNING OF THE END. 325 
 
 nearest him were seriously alarmed, and though he 
 rallied for the time, he was never the same man he 
 had been before. He had been engaged to preach at 
 S. Maximin in May, on the occasion of the translation 
 of some relics of Saint Mary Magdalene, and he had 
 looked forward to the occasion, for the foundation of 
 the College of S. Maximin was one of his most 
 cherished works. Eight Bishops were to assist, and 
 numbers of old friends and admirers from Paris, and 
 indeed all the country, were counting on this — now rare 
 — opportunity of once more hearing the voice which 
 had thrilled from one end to the other of France. 
 His doctor endeavoured to dissuade Lacordaire from 
 the attempt, as beyond his strength, but he would 
 not give in, and started ; but when at Montpellier, he 
 found himself so completely unequal to the exertion 
 that he turned back with that calm acquiescence 
 in God's Will which had become a part of his very 
 self. He spoke of the matter in the school chapel, 
 saying, "It is a great mercy when God warns a man 
 of the uncertain tenure of his life by sickness. He 
 has mercifully dealt thus with me,- and I would have 
 you join me in thanking Him for it." 
 
 Yet the discipline was sharp, as may be judged by 
 an expression in a letter of May 2 8th : " This is the 
 first time that my body has refused to obey my orders." 
 In everything from this time forward it was plain that 
 he was, in Jeremy Taylor's quaint but expressive 
 
326 RENNESLES-BAINS. 
 
 language, " undressing for the grave." The very day 
 after his return to Soreze Lacordaire wrote to the 
 Priors of his Order explaining his physical incapacity 
 for all his work, and saying that as he felt that work 
 would be seriously injured were he to forsake either 
 the school at Soreze or the still new Third Order, he 
 asked permission to employ a secretary for his corre- 
 spondence, and to appoint a visitor who would relieve 
 him of his duties as Provincial, duties which were 
 only compatible with his school-work by being per- 
 formed during the brief periods which ought to be 
 spent in real rest. 
 
 That summer Lacordaire was sent to Rennes-les- 
 Bains with Henri Perreyve, but not even the com- 
 panionship of one he loved so well could make the 
 sort of life tolerable to him ; he could not endure the 
 manner of life which all frequenters of " les Eaux " 
 know to be imperative and — intolerable ! At the end 
 of three weeks he returned joyfully to Soreze, and for 
 a little while seemed really better. On August 12 th 
 he wrote, " The machine is fairly good yet, only it 
 won't bear so much jolting as of old." 
 
 That September he presided at a meeting of Priors 
 at Flavigny, in order to choose a Provincial Vicaire ; 
 but, as one of his Community observes, it was not in 
 his nature, so intensely subject to all claims of duty, 
 to make much use of such help, and practically 
 Lacordaire continued to govern his Province as 
 
S. MAXIMIN. 327 
 
 before. His last Lenten course, preached to his dear 
 boys, was on that, to him, most congenial subject, 
 Duty — duty, the greatest and noblest of claims, the 
 source of all that is high, holy, and happy. Once 
 more he visited S. Maximin, where every evening he 
 gave an instruction to the company of white-robed 
 novices, now sixty in number ; but every effort became 
 more and more laborious, and in the spring he was 
 reluctantly obliged to leave Soreze, and suffer himself 
 to be nursed a while by some kind friends at Becquigny 
 (Somme). There was some slight amendment in 
 appetite and vigour, but as he passed through Paris 
 on his return, and consulted two celebrated doctors, 
 Rayer and Jousset, they thought ill of his case. In- 
 ternal inflammation and anaemia, or impoverishment 
 of the blood, were two dangerous enemies for a man 
 of his age. His return to Soreze was a sort of 
 triumph. Not the College only, but all the inhabitants 
 of the place greeted him eagerly; floral arches, inscrip- 
 tions, flags, everything that the scene-loving French 
 nature could invent was provided to testify the public 
 delight at seeing him again. A few days later he 
 received tidings of the death of one of his first com- 
 panions, the Dominican artist Besson, who died in 
 the midst of an Eastern mission. He had loved 
 Requedat, Piel, Hernsheim, and de Saint Beaussant 
 all tenderly ; perhaps it was only because Besson was 
 the survivor of that little company that he seemed to 
 
328 DEATH OF PERE BESSON. 
 
 love him best. One of the last days of his life, Pere 
 Chocarne, kneeling beside him, spoke of his speedy 
 departure, adding that whereas the loss was all to 
 those left, it would surely be an accession to the joy 
 of those gone before to be reunited to him. " All 
 those you have loved, father ! " " Yes," he answered 
 softly, "they are many." Pere Chocarne mentioned 
 several by name, and Lacordaire himself added, " And 
 Pere Besson ! " with a kindling eye and a tone of 
 voice not easily to be forgotten, says the still living 
 friend. 
 
 As the summer of 1861 advanced, Lacordaire grew 
 visibly worse, and so feeble was he that syncope not 
 unfrequently came on. He still was able sometimes 
 to go out driving, and feast his eyes with the rich fertile 
 country that he loved. August 27th, he resigned his 
 office of Provincial. September 1 2th, he wrote, "I had 
 very good news from Rome yesterday ; Pere Jandel 
 had an audience of the Holy Father, and told him 
 of my condition. He expressed great interest, and 
 desired the Rev. General to convey to me his apos- 
 tolic blessing." Many friends from all quarters flocked 
 in to take leave of one who could not fail to leave 
 his mark wherever he had been known. Henri 
 Perreyve, himself so soon to follow his elder friend, 
 came twice. Montalembert arrived, September 25 th. 
 Lacordaire dragged himself with effort to meet him 
 on his arrival on the perron of the College. He was 
 
LAST DA YS. 329 
 
 very feeble, and the pallor of his fine though wasted 
 countenance invested it with wonderful dignity. 
 Montalembert spoke of it with tears. " I never was 
 so transfixed," he said; "I never saw such over- 
 whelming beauty." October 10th, M. Foisset, one of 
 Lacordaire's earliest friends, who had read law with 
 him at Dijon, and had been faithful to him through 
 everything, came ; and he was followed by M. Cartier, 
 who, as he said, was something more than a friend. 
 He liked to have him at the Mass said by his bedside, 
 and they had a drive together, a rare thing now for 
 the sick man. Lacordaire talked much to M. Cartier 
 about Pere Besson, and urged his writing the Life 
 which appeared not long after. 
 
 Mass was said in his room daily, and he liked 
 everyday to have some part of Bossuet's "Preparation 
 a la Mort " or the " Acte d' Abandon a Dieu " read to 
 him. But it scarcely needs to say that the thought 
 of death had long been familiar to him. In his ex- 
 tremest weakness he said, pointing to his Crucifix, " I 
 cannot pray, but I can look at Him." Every day too 
 he had some part of the Bible read to him, selecting 
 specially the Acts of the Apostles, the Gospel of S. 
 John, and some of S. Paul's Epistles. 
 
 On Sunday, October 10th, the Provincial Chapter 
 which was to elect his successor was held. Before 
 it the Fathers went to Soreze to visit the sick man. 
 " He received us with his wonted kindliness," Pere 
 
330 THE LAST SACRAMENTS. 
 
 Chocarne says, " gave us his blessing, spoke of the 
 affairs of the Order, and also of himself. ' I did not 
 expect to leave you so soon,' he said, ' God calls me 
 to Himself. It is well that I should go. If I re- 
 mained longer, it might be thought that the work de- 
 pended on one man. I shall be more useful to you 
 tJiere. Pray for me.' " 
 
 October 30th, he had a severe crise during the night, 
 and the combination of rheumatic symptoms gave him 
 acute pain. That afternoon, at two p.m., Dr. Houles 
 thought him so feeble that he proposed administering 
 the last Sacraments. His confessor spoke to Lacor- 
 daire. " Not yet," he answered ; " I will tell you when 
 it is time." Some better days followed, and for the 
 third time the Pope sent him his blessing, together 
 with a plenary indulgence for the hour of death. 
 During the night of November 5-6 another crise 
 occurred, with great increase of pain, and in the 
 morning he asked for Extreme Unction and the Via- 
 ticum. All the available Community, and the pupils 
 forming the Institute took part in this ceremony, and 
 after it was ended Lacordaire took leave of each in- 
 dividually, giving them his blessing, and saying to the 
 lads some little word of encouragement. His own 
 nephew, Frederic Lacordaire, had been at Soreze for 
 some days, and of him too Lacordaire took leave, 
 specially commending to him Louis, the faithful 
 attendant who had nursed him, and whom he loved 
 
FAREWELLS. 331 
 
 with all the warmth of his loving, grateful heart. And 
 indeed Louis deserved it, for his devotion had been 
 great ; for twenty days and nights he had not been in 
 bed, and the tender care with which he watched 
 the sick man could only come of true, heartfelt affec- 
 tion. Sometimes when excessive pain caused Lacor- 
 daire to cry out, he would look up at Louis in touching 
 apology, and throwing one arm round his neck, draw 
 him close to himself, speaking gently of his own 
 impatience. 
 
 After having received the last Sacraments, Lacor- 
 daire remained absorbed in recollection, but always 
 ready to speak kindly to those who came to see him. 
 Among these were the Fathers from Oullins, who had 
 been summoned by telegram. He was specially 
 pleased to see Pere Captier x and Mermet, who had 
 been the first members of the Third Order, and talked 
 in detail with the former about the House at Ouliins, 
 of which Pere Captier was Prior, going with interest 
 into the question of buildings, plantations, etc. On 
 Sunday, November 10th, he was so much better 
 
 1 He was one of the victims of the Commune, May 25, 1871, 
 being then Prior of the House at Arcueil known as the Ecole 
 Albert le Grand. The Dominicans were seized on the 19th and 
 carried off to Bicetre. The most touching account of these terrible 
 days, as given by one who, while actually under the fusillade, 
 escaped as by miracle, will be found in " Paris Brule," by Louis 
 Enault(pp. 2,34). He speaks of Pere Captier as "unedes plus belles 
 et des plus nobles intelligences de son temps ; il etait massacre." 
 
332 "OUVREZ-MOI!" 
 
 that hope revived in all around. " If it might be?" 
 one who loved him whispered trembling. But he 
 made an expressive sign indicative of his own convic- 
 tion, and indeed his strength failed him daily. 
 
 Through these long anxious days his own calmness 
 and recollection were most striking, and nothing was 
 suffered to break in upon it. Those who loved him 
 best went quietly in and out of his room, often only 
 kneeling for a few moments at the little altar there, 
 and going away silently, after receiving a look of affec- 
 tion from the dying man. One of these was specially 
 near his heart, M. Barral, the " Emanuel " of his 
 " Letters to a Young Man." So it went on, each hour 
 as it passed wearily by doubtless accomplishing its own 
 appointed work : he scarcely took any food, rarely 
 spoke, and then scarcely to be understood; no one 
 could do anything to relieve him j and all his former 
 eloquence was now reduced to the grateful expression 
 of his languid eyes, which still strove to thank those 
 who sought, however vainly, to minister to him. A 
 final crise came on the evening of Wednesday, 
 November 20th — the most trying of all — and in spite 
 of his weakness, he started up convulsively, stretching 
 out his wasted arms as though seeking something, 
 looking eagerly into every face and towards Heaven, 
 until at last with a great cry he exclaimed, "Mon 
 Dieu, mon Dieu! ouvrez-moi ! ouvrez-tnoi /" — "Lord, 
 open Thy way to me ! " They were his last words. 
 
IN PATRIA. 333 
 
 The Father Provincial's voice rose up in broken 
 accents with the last commendatory prayers, and at 
 the sound Lacordaire fell back upon his pillow and 
 seemed to recover self-control. There was no further 
 expression of suffering j he seemed to be rapt in the 
 prayers, absorbed in God. The Crucifix being offered 
 him, he tried to put it to his lips, but his feeble hands 
 could no longer guide themselves; a friendly hand 
 fulfilled the office, and then the Cross remained lying 
 on his breast. The Father Provincial paused as he 
 came to the solemn words, than which none can be 
 more full of deep longing and weight — " Proficiscere, 
 anima Christiana, dehocmundo" — almost as though he 
 could not bid one so loved to leave them ; but after a 
 moment Pere Chocarne signed to him to go on, and as 
 he proceeded — " Mitis atque festivus Christi Jesu Tibi 
 aspectus appareat" — a sob, half of sorrow, half of triumph, 
 rose from all around. He remained calm, peaceful, 
 neither sleeping nor as yet departed — the stillness of 
 God's Own Presence. So the whole of the 21st 
 November was passed, until about nine o'clock in the 
 evening, failing to hear him breathe, the faithful Louis 
 fetched a light, and found that the happy soul had 
 indeed fled beyond the troubles and griefs of this 
 world. 
 
 "The perfection of life lies in self-abdication." 
 They were Lacordaire's own words, and he had 
 fulfilled them. He died a humble Religious, and the 
 
334 BURIAL. 
 
 only worldly honours which surrounded his deathbed 
 were the fervent love and veneration of all who had 
 come in contact with him. 
 
 The body was placed in the chapel, the College 
 flag, veiled in crape, beside it, and every one connected 
 in any way with the work came to look once more 
 upon that noble face, and count over what they had 
 lost. " If my sword is rusted, messieurs" he said 
 not long before to the boys of Soreze, " it has been in 
 your service." 
 
 " Rusted it was not," one who loved him answers, 
 " but now it is broken indeed !" 
 
 For three days crowds came from all quarters to 
 look upon the "remains of a sublime intellect, the 
 head which had enlightened so many others, and 
 which, though for a time separated from the 
 living intelligence which had kindled it, would yet 
 one day possess it anew," as he had himself said 
 before the remains of S. Thomas Aquinas. 1 The 
 simple country-folk were no less eager in surrounding 
 him with tokens of their reverence and affection than 
 those whose intellectual level was nearer his own. 
 On Thursday, November 2 8th, he was laid in his grave, 
 
 1 " Cette tete sublime dont vous avez la 1'enveloppe exterieure, 
 cette tete qui en a illumine tant d'autres, et qui, quoique separee 
 de l'intelligence qui l'animait, cependant ne cessa pas d'en avoir 
 ete l'organe, et meme le redeviendra un jour, et nous presente 
 ainsi tout ensemble l'immortalite de sa poussiere avec l'immor- 
 talite de sa pensee" (Discours, Saint Sernin, Juillet 18, 1852). 
 
JUDGMENT OF POSTERITY. 335 
 
 Mgr. Desprey, Archbishop of Toulouse, saying the 
 Requiem Mass, while Mgr. de la Bouillerie spoke the 
 funeral oration which custom demanded, and which 
 in this case was called for by the strong feeling of 
 all present. 
 
 No fitter summing up of the Christian warrior's life 
 can be found than the words of his own dearest friend, 
 Montalembert, who, after speaking of that deathbed — 
 " propter quod non deficimus, sed licet is, qui f oris est, 
 noster homo corrumpatus ; tamen is, qui intus est, 
 renovatur de die in diem " — says : "I am not writing a 
 funeral oration, I am only speaking as an eye-witness. 
 ... As Lacordaire himself said of Mme. Swetchine, 
 1 During life, modesty and friendship itself lay a con- 
 straint upon our words ; but there is this to rejoice 
 over in death, that it sets free alike our memory and 
 our judgment' . . . And now, what will remain of him 
 in this world ? I believe that his fame will reach to 
 distant generations. But meanwhile, who can say? 
 No doubt it will be with him as with all those who 
 have been beyond their times, and have left their 
 impression behind in their words or writings. It will 
 be with Lacordaire as with greater than he — Dante, 
 Shakespeare, Corneille — succeeding centuries will not 
 wholly accept his utterances. Some points of his 
 genius will be questioned anew; some forms of his 
 eloquence will grow antiquated. The ideas, the 
 passions, the struggles which kindled him will seem 
 
336 LOVING MEMORIES. 
 
 insignificant or superannuated. Those immortal 
 truths of religion which he defended, assaulted by 
 new foes, and compromised by new follies, will 
 require fresh champions, and fresh testimony. His 
 foundations, already threatened by covetous greed, 
 will very likely be overthrown by cowardly persecu- 
 tion. But neither time, nor man's injustice, nor the 
 ' treacheries of glory ■ can ever deprive him of the 
 true greatness of his character, of the dignity of 
 having been the most stedfast, the most powerful, the 
 most hero-like man of his day ; of having grasped and 
 proved, as no one else had done, that alliance of faith 
 and liberty which alone can redeem modern society ; 
 of having combined with such wondrous power and 
 brilliancy that intrinsic tenderness and gentle pathos 
 which win and touch men's hearts even more than 
 genius. To all time his memory, like his living 
 presence, will be yet more loved than admired. 
 When I seek for a greater, more eloquent Frenchman 
 than he was, I can find none save Bossuet, and it is 
 in Bossuet's words that I find what seems to me the 
 summary of my friend's life — I behold him shining 
 with 'that Divine fire which is in us, and which 
 displays, as in a world of light, the everlasting union 
 of honour and goodness.' " 
 
 MUIR, PATERSON AND BRODIE. PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. 
 
31 Selection 
 
 from t£e 
 
 IRecent publications 
 
 of 
 
 Messrs. RIVINGTON 
 
 Waterloo place, pall /©all 
 Xonfcon 
 
[c-237] 
 
rivington's select list. 
 
 Mozley's Parochial and Occasional 
 Sermons. 
 
 Crown %vo. js. 6d. 
 
 Sermons, Parochial and Occasional. 
 By J. B. Mozley, D.D., 
 
 Late Canon of Christ Church, and Regius Professor of Divinity in the 
 University of Oxford. 
 
 Contents. 
 The Right Eye and the Right Hand— Temptation treated as 
 Opportunity — The Influences of Habit on Devotion — 
 Thought for the Morrow — The Relief of Utterance — Seeking 
 a Sign — David Numbering the People — The Heroism of 
 Faith — Proverbs — The Teaching of Events — Growing Worse 
 — Our Lord the Sacrifice for Sin — The Parable of the Sower 
 — The Religious Enjoyment of Nature— The Threefold Office 
 of the Holy Spirit — Wisdom and Folly Tested by Experience 
 — Moses, a Leader— The Unjust Steward— Sowing to the 
 Spirit — True Religion, a Manifestation — S. Paul's Exaltation 
 of Labour — Jeremiah's Witness against Idolatry — Isaiah's 
 Estimate of Worldly Greatness— The Shortness of Life— The 
 Endless State of Being — The Witness of the Apostles — Life 
 a Probation — Christian Mysteries, the Common Heritage — 
 Our Lord's Hour— Fear — The Educating Power of Strong 
 Impressions — The Secret Justice of Temporal Providence — 
 Jacob as a Prince Prevailing with God. 
 
 Mozley's Essays. 
 
 Two Vols. 8vo. 24s. 
 
 Essays, Historical and Theological. 
 By J. B. Mozley, D.D., 
 
 Late Canon of Christ Church, and Regius Professor of Divinity in the 
 University of Oxford. 
 
 Contents. 
 Volume I. — Introduction and Memoir of the Author — Lord Straf- 
 ford — Archbishop Laud — Carlyle's Cromwell — Luther. 
 
 Volume II. — Dr. Arnold — Blanco White— Dr. Pusey's Sermon — 
 The Book of Job — Maurice's Theological Essays — Indian 
 Conversion— The Argument of Design — The Principle of 
 Causation considered in Opposition to Atheistic Theories — 
 In Memoriam — The Author's Articles and Works. 
 
 Waterloo place, JlottDott. 
 
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 Practical Reflections on the Gospels. 
 
 Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 Practical Reflections on every Verse of the Holy 
 Gospels. 
 
 By a Clergyman. 
 
 With a Preface by H. P. Liddon, D.D., 
 
 Canon Residentiary of S. Paul's and Ireland Professor at Oxford. 
 
 "We cannot speak too highly of own daily life and conversation. For 
 
 this useful volume. It is a work of the sick and infirm, for such as are un- 
 
 little pretence and of great merit. . . . able to read the Gospels with fixed ptsr- 
 
 Rather the reflections serve to deepen pose for any length of time, or for busy 
 
 impressions which the language of the persons, the book is admirably adnpt- 
 
 Gospels will have awakened in medi- ed ; while to the preacher, the school 
 
 tative minds, and exactly serves the teacher, and such as read a portion of 
 
 purpose of such readers of the Bible as Holy Scripture in their family devo- 
 
 wish to be assisted in drawing infer- tions, it will prove to be of no incon- 
 
 ences from it which may influence their siderable service." — Guardian. 
 
 Liddon's Elements of Religion. 
 
 New and Cheaper Edition. Small Zvo. 2s. 6d. ; or in Paper 
 Cover, is. 6d. 
 
 Some Elements of Religion. Lent Lectures. 
 By Henry Parry Liddon, D.D., 
 
 Canon Residentiary ofS. Paul's, and Ireland Professor at Oxford. 
 
 Mozley on the Old Testament. 
 
 Second Edition. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, and their Relation 
 to Old Testament Faith. Lectures delivered to 
 Graduates of the University of Oxford. 
 
 By J. B. Mozley, D.D., 
 
 Late Canon of Christ Church, and Regius Professor of Divinity in the 
 University of Oxford. 
 
 Contents. 
 Abraham — Sacrifice of Isaac — Human Sacrifices — Exterminating 
 Wars — Visitations of the sins of Fathers upon Children — Jael 
 — Connection of Jael's Act with the Morality of her Age — 
 Law of Retaliation — Retaliation Law of Goel — The End the 
 Test of a Progressive Revelation — The Manichaeans and the 
 Jewish Fathers. 
 
 Gtlaterioo place, JLottcon 
 
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 Aids to the Inner Life. 
 
 yimo, cloth limp, 6d. each; or cloth extra, is. each. 
 These Five Volumes, cloth extra, may be had in a Box, price js. 
 
 Aids to the Inner Life. 
 Edited by the Rev. W. H. Hutchings, M.A., 
 
 Sub-Warden of the House of Mercy, Clewer. 
 
 These books form a Series of works provided for the use 
 of members of the English Church. The process of adapta- 
 tion is not left to the reader, but has been undertaken with 
 the view of bringing every expression, as far as possible, into 
 harmony with the Book of Common Prayer and Anglican 
 Divinity. 
 
 OF THE IMITATION OF CHRIST. In Four Books. 
 
 By Thomas A Kempis. 
 THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. Thoughts in Verse for the 
 
 Sundays and Holy Days throughout the Year. 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE DEVOUT LIFE. From 
 
 the French of S. Francis de Sales, Bishop and 
 
 Prince of Geneva. 
 THE HIDDEN LIFE OF THE SOUL. From the 
 
 French of Jean Nicolas Grou. 
 THE SPIRITUAL COMBAT. Together with the Supple- 
 ment and the Path of Paradise. By Laurence Scu- 
 
 poli. 
 
 "We heartily wish success to this convenient for common use. The 
 important series, and trust it may com- price at which the volumes are pro- 
 mand an extensive sale. We are much duced is marvellously low. It may be 
 struck, not only by the excellent hoped that a large circulation will 
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 carried out in the Translations them- taken this scheme for diffusing far and 
 selves, but also by the way in which wide such valuable means of advancing 
 Messrs. Rivington have done their and deepening, after so high a standard, 
 part. The type and size of the volumes the spiritual life."— Literary Church- 
 are precisely what will be found most man. 
 
 Lyra Apostolica. 
 
 New and Revised Edition, with red borders, i6mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Lyra Apostolica. [Poems by J. W. Bowden, R. H. 
 Froude, J. Keble, J. H. Newman, R. J. Wilberforce, 
 and I. Williams ; and a New Preface by Cardinal 
 
 Newman.] 
 
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 Goulburn's Collects of the Day. 
 
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 The Collects of the Day : an Exposition, Critical, and 
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 With Preliminary Essays on their Structure, Sources, 
 and General Character, and Appendices containing 
 Expositions of the Discarded Collects of the First 
 Prayer Book of 1549, and of the Collects of Morning and 
 Evening Prayer. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 
 GTantentS. 
 
 Volume I. Book I. Introductory. — On the Excellences of the 
 Collects — On the Origin of the word Collect— On the Structure 
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 Of the Sources of the Collects: Of the Sacramentary of Leo, of 
 the Sacramentary of Gelasius, of Gregory the Great and his 
 Sacramentary, of the Use of Sarum, and of St. Osmund its 
 Compiler — On the Collects of Archbishop Cranmer — Of the 
 Restoration Collects, and of John Cosin, Prince-Bishop of 
 Durham — Of the Collects, as representing the Genius of the 
 English Church. Book II. Part I. The Constant Collect. 
 Part II. Collects varying with the Ecclesiastical Season — 
 Advent to Whitsunday. 
 
 Volume II. Book II. contd. — Trinity Sunday to All Saints' Day. 
 Book III. On the Collects after the Offertory. Appendix A. 
 Collects in the First Reformed Prayer Book of 1549 which 
 were suppressed in 1552 — The Collect for the First Communion 
 on Christmas Day — The Collect for St. Mary Magdalene's Day 
 (July 22). Appendix B. Exposition of the Collects of Morn- 
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 Peace — The Third at Morning Prayer, for Grace — The Second 
 at Evening Prayer, for Peace — The Third at Evening Prayer, 
 for aid against all Perils. 
 
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 Blunt's Key to the Bible. 
 
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 A Key to the Knowledge and Use of the Holy Bible. 
 By the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A., 
 
 Editor of the " Dictionary of Theology," etc. etc. 
 
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 Edited by the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A., 
 
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 The Prayer Book in Latin. 
 
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 et 
 
 Petro Goldsmith Medd, A.M., 
 
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 [In hac Editione continentur Versiones Latinse — i. Libri Precum 
 Publicarum Ecclesiae Anglicanae ; 2. Liturgise Primal Reformatae; 
 3. Liturgiae Scoticanae ; 4. Liturgise Americanae. ] 
 
 The Book of Church Law. 
 
 Third Edition, revised. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 The Book of Church Law : being an Exposition of the 
 Legal Rights and Duties of the Parochial Clergy and 
 the Laity of the Church of England. 
 
 By the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A. 
 Revised by Walter G. P. Phillimore, D.C.L., 
 
 Barrister^xt-Law, and Chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln. 
 
 Waterloo place, HontJoiu 
 
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 Key to Church History (Ancient). 
 
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 A Key to the Knowledge of Church History 
 (Ancient). 
 
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 Key to Church History (Modern). 
 
 New Edition. Small Zvo. is. 6d. 
 
 A Key to the Knowledge of Church History 
 (Modern). 
 
 Edited by the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M.A., F.S.A., 
 
 Editor of the "Annotated Book of Common Prayer" etc. etc. 
 
 Norris's Key to the Gospels. 
 
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 A Key to the Narrative of the Four Gospels. 
 By the Rev. John Pilking-ton Norris, D.D., 
 
 Archdeacon of Bristol, and Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Manchester. 
 
 Norris's Key to the Acts. 
 
 New Edition. Small 8vo. is. 6d. 
 
 A Key to the Narrative of the Acts of the Apostles. 
 By the Rev. John Pilkington Norris, D.D.* 
 
 Archdeacon of Bristol, and Examining Chaplain to theBishofi of Manchester 
 
 Norris's Manual of Confirmation. 
 
 i8mo. is. 6d. 
 
 Easy Lessons addressed to Candidates for Con- 
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 By John Pilkington Norris, D.D 
 
 Archdeacon of Bristol, and Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Manchester. 
 
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 Fletcher's Prayers and Meditations. 
 
 New Edition, with Rubrics in Red. Royal ^2mo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Prayers and Meditations for the Holy Communion. 
 
 By Josephine Fletcher. 
 
 With a Preface by C. J. Ellicott, D.D., 
 
 Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. 
 An Edition without the Red Rubrics. 32WO. is. 
 
 Norris's Rudiments of Theology. 
 
 Second Edition, revised. Crown 8vo. js. 6d. 
 Rudiments of Theology. A First Book for Students. 
 By John Pilkington Norris, D.D., 
 
 Archdeacon of Bristol, and Examining- Chaplain to the Bishop of Manchester. 
 
 Contents. 
 
 Part I. Fundamental Doctrines: — The Doctrine of God's 
 Existence — The Doctrine of the Second Person of the Trinity 
 — The Doctrine of the Atonement — The Doctrine of the 
 Third Person of the Trinity— The Doctrine of the Church— 
 The Doctrine of the Sacraments. 
 
 Part II. The Soteriology of the Bible:— The Teaching of the 
 Old Testament— The Teaching of the Four Gospels— The 
 Teaching of St. Paul— The Teaching of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, of St. Peter and St. John — Soteriology of the Bible 
 (concluded). 
 
 Appendix, Illustrations of Part I. from the Early Fathers:— 
 On the Evidence of God's Existence — On the Divinity of 
 Christ— On the Doctrine of the Atonement— On the Pro- 
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 of the Eucharist — Greek and Latin Fathers quoted or referred 
 to in this volume, in their chronological order — Glossarial 
 Index. 
 
 Kay's The Psalms. 
 
 Third Edition, Zvo. 12s. 6d. 
 
 The Psalms. Translated from the Hebrew. With Notes, 
 chiefly Exegetical. 
 
 By William Kay, D.D., 
 
 Rector of Great Leighs, late Principal of Bishop's College, Calcutta. 
 
 CBatcrloo place, lUrnion. 
 
Newman's Selection from Sermons. 
 
 Crown Zvo. $s. 
 
 Selection, adapted to the Seasons of the Ecclesiastical 
 Year, from the "Parochial and Plain Sermons" of John 
 Henry Newman, B.D., sometime Vicar of S. Mary's, 
 Oxford. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. W. J. Copeland, B.D., 
 
 Rector o/Farnham, Essex. 
 
 Contents. 
 
 Advent: — Self-denial the Test of Religious Earnestness — Divine 
 Calls — The Ventures of Faith — Watching. Christmas Day : 
 — Religious Joy. New Year's Sunday : — The Lapse of Time. 
 Epiphany: — Remembrance of Past Mercies — Equanimity — 
 The Immortality of the Soul — Christian Manhood— Sincerity 
 and Hypocrisy — Christian Sympathy. Septuagesima: — 
 Present Blessings. Sexagesima : — Endurance the Christian's 
 Portion. Quinquagesima ; — Love the One Thing Needful. 
 Lent: — The Individuality of the Soul — Life the Season of 
 Repentance — Bodily Suffering — Tears of Christ at the Grave 
 of Lazarus — Christ's Privations a Meditation for Christians 
 —The Cross of Christ the Measure of the World. Good 
 Friday: — The Crucifixion. Easter Day: — Keeping Fast 
 and Festival. Easter-Tide : — Witnesses of the Resurrection 
 — A Particular Providence as Revealed in the Gospel — Christ 
 Manifested in Remembrance — The Invisible World — Waiting 
 for Christ. Ascension: — Warfare the Condition of Victory. 
 Sunday after A scension : — Rising with Christ. Whitsunday : 
 — The Weapons of Saints. Trinity Sunday : — The Mysteri- 
 ousness of our Present Being. Sundays after Trinity : — 
 Holiness Necessary for Future Blessedness — The Religious 
 Use of Excited Feelings — The Self-wise Inquirer — Scripture 
 a Record of Human Sorrow — The Danger of Riches 
 — Obedience without Love as instanced in the Character of 
 Balaam — Moral Consequences of Single Sins — The Greatness 
 and Littleness of Human Life — Moral Effects of Communion 
 with God— The Thought of God the Stay of the Soul— The 
 Power of the Will — The Gospel Palaces — Religion a 
 Weariness to the Natural Man — The World our Enemy — The 
 Praise of Man — Religion Pleasant to the Religious — Mental 
 Prayer — Curiosity a Temptation to Sin — Miracles no Remedy 
 for Unbelief — Jeremiah : a Lesson for the Disappointed — The 
 Shepherd of our Souls — Doing Glory of God in Pursuits of 
 the World. 
 
 Waterloo place, 3Umi<m. 
 
RIVINGTON S SELECT LIST 
 
 Newman's Parochial Sermons. 
 
 New Edition. Eight Vols. Crown Zvo. 5s. each. Sold 
 separately. 
 
 Parochial and Plain Sermons. 
 By John Henry Newman, B.D., 
 
 Formerly Vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. W. J. Copeland, B.D., 
 
 Rector of Faniham, Essex. 
 
 Contents. 
 
 Vol. I. — Holiness necessary for Future Blessedness — The Immor- 
 tality of the Soul — Knowledge of God's Will without Obedience 
 — Secret Truths — Self-denial the Test of Religious Earnestness 
 — The Spiritual Mind — Sins of Ignorance and Weakness — 
 God's Commandments not Grievous — The Religious Use of 
 exalted Feelings — Profession without Practice — Profession 
 without Hypocrisy — Profession without Ostentation — Pro- 
 mising without Doing — Religious Emotion — Religious Faith 
 Rational — The Christian Mysteries — The Self-wise Inquirer 
 — Obedience the Remedy for Religious Perplexity — Times of 
 Private Prayer — Forms of Private Prayer — The Resurrection 
 of the Body — Witnesses of the Resurrection — Christian Reve- 
 rence — The Religion of the Day — Scripture a Record of 
 Human Sorrow — Christian Manhood. 
 
 Vol. II.— On the Church Festivals.— The World's Benefactors 
 (S. Andrew) — Faith without Sight (S. Thomas) — The Incar- 
 nation {Christinas Day) — Martyrdom (S. Stephen) — Love of 
 Relations and Friends (S. John) — The Mind of Little Children 
 {The Holy Innocents)— Ceremonies of the Church (The Cir- 
 cumcision—The Glory of the Christian Church (The Epi- 
 phany) — S. Paul's Conversion viewed in Reference to his 
 Office (The Conversion o/S. Paul) — Secrecy and Suddenness 
 of Divine Visitations (The Purification) — Divine Decrees (S. 
 Matthias) — The Reverence due to the Blessed Virgin Mary 
 (The Annunciation) — Christ, a Quickening Spirit (The Re- 
 surrection) — Saving Knowledge (Monday in Easter Week) 
 — Self-contemplation {Tuesday in Easter Week) — Religious 
 Cowardice (S. Mark) — The Gospel Witnesses (S. Philip and 
 S. James)— -Mysteries in Religion (The Ascension) — The In- 
 dwelling Spirit (Pentecost)— The Kingdom of the Saints 
 (Monday in Wkitsun Week) — The Kingdom of the Saints 
 (Tuesday in Whitsun Week)— The Gospel, a Trust committed 
 to us (Holy Trinity) — Tolerance of Religious Error (6". Bar- 
 
 SjElaterfoo place, JLonnon. 
 
OF RECENT PUBLICA TIONS. 13 
 
 Newman's Parochial Sermons — continued. 
 
 nabas) — Rebuking Sin {Nativity of S. John Baptist*) — The 
 Christian Ministry (S. Peter)— Human Responsibility (S. 
 James) — Guilelessness (S. Bartholomew) — The Danger of 
 Riches (S. Matthew)— The Powers of Nature (S. Michael 
 and all Angels) — The Danger of Accomplishments (S. Luke) 
 — Christian Zeal (S. Simon and S. Jude)—Vse cf Saints' 
 Bays (All Saints). 
 
 Vol. III. — Abraham and Lot — Wilfulness of Israel in rejecting 
 Samuel — Saul — Early Years of David — Jeroboam — Faith and 
 Obedience — Christian Repentance — Contracted Views in Re- 
 ligion — A Particular Providence as revealed in the Gospel — 
 Tears of Christ at the Grave of Lazarus — Bodily Suffering — 
 The Humiliation of the Eternal Son — Jewish Zeal a Pattern 
 to Christians — Submission to Church Authority — Contest 
 between Truth and Falsehood in the Church — The Church 
 Visible and Invisible — The Visible Church an Encouragement 
 to Faith — The Gift of the Spirit — Regenerating Baptism — 
 Infant Baptism — The Daily Service — The Good Part of Mary 
 — Religious Worship a Remedy for Excitements — Intercession 
 — The Intermediate State. 
 
 Vol. IV. — The Strictness of the Law of Christ— Obedience without 
 Love, as instanced in the Character of Balaam — Moral Conse- 
 quences of Single Sins — Acceptance of Religious Privileges 
 compulsory — Reliance on Religious Observances — The Indi- 
 viduality of the Soul — Chastisement amid Mercy — Peace and 
 Joy amid Chastisement — The State of Grace — The Visible 
 Church for the sake of the Elect — The Communion of Saints 
 —The Church a Home for the Lonely— The Invisible World 
 — The Greatness and Littleness of Human Life — Moral Effects 
 of Communion with God — Christ Hidden from the World — 
 Christ manifested in Remembrance — The Gainsaying of 
 Korah — The Mysteriousness of our Present Being — The Ven- 
 tures of Faith — Faith and Love — Watching — Keeping Fast 
 and Festival. 
 
 Vol. V. — The Church Seasons (Advent to Quinquagesima). 
 — Worship, a Preparation for Christ's Coming — Reverence, 
 a Belief in God's Presence — Unreal Words — Shrinking from 
 Christ's Coming (Advent) — Equanimity — Remembrance of 
 Past Mercies — The Mystery of Godliness — The State of Inno- 
 cence — Christian Sympathy (Christmas) — Righteousness not 
 of us, but in us — The Law of the Spirit — The New Works of 
 the Gospel— The State of Salvation — Transgressions and In- 
 firmities^ — Sins of Infirmity — Sincerity and Hypocrisy — The 
 
 Waterloo place, JUnDom 
 
RIVINGTON S SELECT LIST 
 
 Newman's Parochial Sermons — continued. 
 
 Testimony of Conscience {Epiphany) — Many called, few 
 chosen — Present Blessings (Septuagesima) — Endurance, the 
 Christian's Portion — Affliction, a School of Comfort (Sexa- 
 gesimal) — The Thought of God, the Stay of the Soul — Love, 
 the one thing needful — The Power of the Will (Quinqua- 
 gesima). 
 
 Vol. VI.— The Church Seasons (Lent to Trinity).— Fasting, 
 a Source of Trial — Life, the Season of Repentance — Apostolic 
 Abstinence, a Pattern for Christians — Christ's Privations, a 
 Meditation for Christians — Christ the Son of God made Man 
 — The Incarnate Son, a Sufferer and Sacrifice — The Cross of 
 Christ the Measure of the World (Z*?«^)— Difficulty of realiz- 
 ing Sacred Privileges — The Gospel Sign addressed to Faith — 
 The Spiritual Presence of Christ in the Church — The Eucha- 
 ristic Presence — Faith the Title for Justification — Judaism of 
 the Present Day — The Fellowship of the Apostles (Easter) 
 — Rising with Christ — Warfare the Condition of Victory — 
 Waiting for Christ — Subjection of the Reason and Feelings 
 to the Revealed Word (Ascension) — The Gospel Palaces — 
 The Visible Temple — Offerings for the Sanctuary — The 
 Weapons of Saints ( Whitstintide) — Faith without Demonstra- 
 tion — The Mystery of the Holy Trinity — Peace in Believing 
 (Trinity). 
 
 Vol. VII. — The Lapse of Time — Religion, a Weariness to the 
 Natural Man — The World our Enemy — The Praise of Men — 
 Temporal Advantages — The Season of Epiphany — The Duty 
 of Self-denial — The Yoke of Christ — Moses the Type of Christ 
 — The Crucifixion — Attendance on Holy Communion — The 
 Gospel Feast — Love of Religion, a new Nature — Religion 
 pleasant to the Religious — Mental Prayer — Infant Baptism — 
 —The Unity of the Church— Steadfastness in the Old Paths. 
 
 Vol. VIII.— Reverence in Worship— Divine Calls— The Trial of 
 Saul — The Call of David — Curiosity a Temptation to Sin — 
 Miracles no Remedy for Unbelief — Josiah, a Pattern for the 
 Ignorant — Inward Witness to the Truth of the Gospel — Jere- 
 miah, a Lesson for the Disappointed — Endurance of the 
 World's Censure — Doing Glory to God in Pursuits of the 
 World — Vanity of Human Glory — Truth hidden when not 
 sought after — Obedience to God the Way to Faith in Christ 
 — Sudden Conversions — The Shepherd of our Souls — Reli- 
 gious Joy — Ignorance of Evil. 
 
 CBaterloo place, JLonnon. 
 
OF RECENT P UBLICA TIONS. 1 5 
 
 Newman's Sermons on Subjects of the 
 Day. 
 
 New Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s. 
 
 Sermons Bearing upon Subjects of the Day. 
 By John Henry Newman, B.D., 
 
 Sometime Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. W. J. Copeland, B.D., 
 
 Rector of Farnham, Essex. 
 
 Contents. 
 The Work of the Christian — Saintliness not forfeited by the Peni- 
 tent — Our Lord's Last Supper and His First — Dangers to the 
 Penitent — The Three Offices of Christ — Faith and Experience 
 —Faith and the World— The Church and the World— Indul- 
 gence in Religious Privileges— Connection between Personal 
 and Public Improvement — Christian Nobleness — Joshua, a 
 Type of Christ and His Followers — Elisha, a Type of Christ 
 and His Followers — The Christian Church a continuation of 
 the Jewish — The Principle of Continuity between the Jewish 
 and Christian Churches — The Christian Church an Imperial 
 Power — Sanctity the Token of the Christian Empire — Condi- 
 tion of the Members of the Christian Empire — The Apostolical 
 Christian — Wisdom and Innocence — Invisible Presence of 
 Christ — Outward and Inward Notes of the Church — Grounds 
 for Steadfastness in our Religious Profession — Elijah the 
 Prophet of the Latter Days — Feasting in Captivity — The 
 Parting of Friends. 
 
 Newman's Lectures on Justification. 
 
 New Edition. Crown 2>vo. $s. 
 
 Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification. 
 By John Henry Newman, B.D., 
 
 Sometime Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. 
 
 Contents. 
 Faith considered as the Instrument of Justification— Love considered 
 as the Formal Cause of Justification — Primary Sense of the 
 term Justification — Secondary Senses of the term Justification 
 — Misuse of the term Just or Righteous — On the Gift of 
 Righteousness — The Characteristics of the Gift of Righteous- 
 ness — Righteousness viewed as a Gift and as a Quality — 
 Righteousness the Fruit of our Lord's Resurrection — The 
 Office of Justifying Faith — The Nature of Justifying Faith- 
 Faith viewed relatively to Rites and Works — On Preaching 
 he Gospel — Anpendiv. 
 
 C&aterloo Place, LonQon. 
 
16 RIVINGTON S SELECT LIST 
 
 Newman's University Sermons. 
 
 New Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s. 
 
 Fifteen Sermons preached before the University of 
 Oxford, between a.d. 1826 and 1843. 
 
 By John Henry Newman, B.D., 
 
 Sometime Fellow 0/ Oriel College, Oxford. 
 
 Contents. 
 The Philosophical Temper first enjoined by the Gospel — The In- 
 fluence of Natural and Revealed Religion respectively — 
 Evangelical Sanctity the Perfection of Natural Virtue — The 
 Usurpations of Reason — Personal Influence, the means of 
 Propagating the Truth — Our Justice, as a Principle of Divine 
 Governance — Contest between Faith and Light — Human Re- 
 sponsibility, as Independent of Circumstances — Wilfulness the 
 Sin of Saul — Faith and Reason, contrasted as Habits of Mind 
 — The Nature of Faith in Relation to Reason — Love the 
 Safeguard of Faith against Superstition — Implicit and Explicit 
 Reason — Wisdom, as contrasted with Faith and with Bigotry 
 — The Theory of Developments in Religious Doctrine. 
 
 Mozley on the Miracles. 
 
 Fifth Edition. Crown Zvo. "js. 6d. 
 
 Eight Lectures on the Miracles : being the Bampton 
 Lectures for 1865. 
 
 By J. B. Mozley, D.D., 
 
 Late Canon of Christ Churrk, and Reg-'us Prcfcsior of Divinity in the 
 University ofOrfotd. 
 
 Mozley's University Sermons. 
 
 Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Sermons preached before the University of Oxford, 
 and on Various Occasions. 
 
 By J. B. Mozley, D.D., 
 
 Late Canon of Christ Church, and Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford. 
 
 Contents. 
 The Roman Council — The Pharisees — Eternal Life — The Reversal 
 of Human Judgment — War — Nature — The Work of the Spirit 
 on the Natural Man— The Atonement— Our Duty to Equals 
 —The Peaceful Temper— The Strength of Wishes— The Un- 
 spoken Judgment of Mankind — The True Test of Spiritual 
 Birth — Ascension Day — Gratitude — The Principle of Emula- 
 tion—Religion the First Choice — The Influence of Dogmatic 
 Teaching on Education. 
 
 ©Satetloo place, JLonuott. 
 
OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Percival's Helps for School Life. 
 
 Crown Zvo. js. 6d. 
 
 Some Helps for School Life. Sermons preached at 
 Clifton College, 1862-1879. 
 
 By the Rev. J. Percival, M.A., LL.D., 
 
 President 0/ Trinity College, Oxford, and late Head Master of Clifton College. 
 
 Contents. 
 Corporate Life — Our Attitude and Influence — Putting away 
 Childish Things — Manliness — Lenten Observance, or the 
 Need of Spiritual Discipline — Christ weeping over Jerusalem 
 — Christ bearing His Cross — Christ sacrificing Himself for 
 us — Why am I here? — My Father's Business — The Feeble 
 Character — Progressive Morality— Christian Enlightenment 
 — Parting Reminders — Companionship — Love worketh no 111 
 to his Neighbour — Public Worship— Sunday — Confirmation 
 — Advent— The Unaccomplished Work of Schools — What 
 House will ye build Me — School Memories — Farewell 
 Sermon. 
 
 The Prayer Book of Edward VI. 
 
 Small %vo. 6s. 
 
 The First Book of Common Prayer of Edward VI., 
 and the Ordinal of 1549. Together with the Order 
 of the Communion, 1548. Reprinted entire. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. Henry Baskerville Walton, M. A., 
 
 Late Fellow and Tutor of Merion College. 
 
 With Introduction by the Rev. Peter Goldsmith 
 Medd, M.A., 
 
 Rector of North Cerney, late Senior Fellow of University College, Oxford. 
 
 The Prayer Book Interleaved. 
 
 Tenth Edition. Small 8vo. 7s. 6d. 
 The Prayer Book Interleaved. With Historical Illus- 
 trations and Explanatory Notes arranged parallel to the 
 Text. 
 
 By W. M. Campion, D.D., and W. J. Beamont, M.A. 
 
 With a Preface by the Lord Bishop of 
 
 Winchester. 
 
 Waterloo Place, Jlimoon. b 
 
RIVINGTON S SELECT LIST 
 
 Goulburn on Everlasting Punishment. 
 
 Second Edition. Crown Zvo. 6s. 6d. 
 
 Everlasting Punishment. Lectures delivered at St. 
 ' James's Church, Piccadilly, on the six First Sundays 
 after Trinity in the year 1880. With Three Disserta- 
 tions on Kindred Topics. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 
 Contents. 
 
 Everlasting Punishment not inconsistent with God's Justice — Ever- 
 lasting Punishment not inconsistent with God's Love — Ever- 
 lasting Punishment not inconsistent with God's purpose in 
 Creation — Lessons on the Story of the Crucified Malefactors 
 — Scriptural modifications of the difficulty. 
 
 Goulburn's Study of Scripture. 
 
 Tenth Edition, revised and enlarged. Small Zvo. 6s. 6d. 
 
 An Introduction to the Devotional Study of the 
 Holy Scriptures : with a Prefatory Essay on their 
 Inspiration, and specimens of Meditations on various 
 passages of them. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 
 Goulburn's The Child Samuel. 
 
 Small 8vo. 5s. 
 
 The Child Samuel. A Practical and Devotional Com- 
 mentary on the Birth and Childhood of the Prophet 
 Samuel, as recorded in 1 Sam. i., ii. 1-27, iii. Designed 
 as a Help to Meditation on trie Holy Scriptures for 
 Children and Young Persons. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 
 Wiutttloo place, JLonDon. 
 
OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Goulburn's Gospel of the Childhood. 
 
 Second Edition. Square i6mo. 5s. 
 
 The Gospel of the Childhood : a Practical and Devo- 
 tional Commentary on the Single Incident of our Blessed 
 Lord's Childhood (S. Luke ii. 41 to the end) ; designed 
 as a Help to Meditation on the Holy Scriptures, for 
 Children and Young Persons. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 
 Goulburn's Holy Catholic Church. 
 
 Second Edition. Crown Zvo. 6s. 6d. 
 
 The Holy Catholic Church ; its Divine Ideal, Ministry, 
 and Institutions. A short Treatise. With a Catechism 
 on each Chapter, forming a Course of Methodical In- 
 struction on the subject. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 
 (Contents. 
 
 What the Church is, and when and how it was founded — Duty of 
 the Church towards those who hold to the Apostles' doctrine, 
 in separation from the Apostles' fellowship — The Unity of the 
 Church and its Disruption — The Survey of Zion's towers, 
 bulwarks, and palaces — The Institution of the Ministry, and 
 its relation to the Church — The Holy Eucharist at its suc- 
 cessive Stages — On the Powers of the Church in Council — The 
 Church presenting, exhibiting, and defending the Truth — The 
 Church guiding into and illustrating the Truth — On the Prayer 
 Book as a Commentary on the Bible — Index. 
 
 Goulburn's Pursuit of Holiness. 
 
 Fourth Edition. Small Zvo. 5s. 
 
 The Pursuit of Holiness: a Sequel to "Thoughts on 
 Personal Religion," intended to carry the Reader some- 
 what farther onward in the Spiritual Life. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 Also a Cheap Edition, 3s. 6d. 
 
 ©Waterloo place, JLonuon. 
 
rivington's select list 
 
 Goulburn's Thoughts on Personal 
 Religion. 
 
 New Edition. Small 8vo. 6s. 6d. 
 
 Thoughts on Personal Religion ; being a Treatise on 
 the Christian Life in its Two Chief Elements — Devotion 
 and Practice. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 Also a Cheap Edition, 3s. 6d. 
 
 Presentation Edition, elegantly printed on toned Paper. 
 Two Vols. Small ' 2>vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 Goulburn on the Lord's Supper. 
 
 Sixth Edition. Small Zvo. 6s. 
 
 A Commentary, Expository and Devotional, on the Order 
 of the Administration of the Lord's Supper, according 
 to the Use of the Church of England ; to which is added 
 an Appendix on Fasting Communion, Non-communicat- 
 ing Attendance, Auricular Confession, the Doctrine of 
 Sacrifice, and the Eucharistic Sacrifice. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 
 Also a Cheap Edition, uniform with " Thoughts on Personal 
 Religion," and " The Pursuit of Holiness." 3s. 6d. 
 
 Goulburn's Family Prayers. 
 
 New Edition. Large type. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Family Prayers. Compiled from various sources (chiefly 
 from Bishop Hamilton's Manual), and arranged on the 
 Liturgical Principle. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 Also a Cheap Edition. x6mo. is. 
 
 CEIaterloo place, HottDott. 
 
OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Luckock's After Death. 
 
 Third Edition. Crown Zvo. 6s. 
 
 After Death. An Examination of the Testimony of 
 Primitive Times respecting the State of the Faithful 
 Dead, and their Relationship to the Living. 
 
 By Herbert Mortimer Luckock, D.D., 
 
 Canon of Ely. 
 
 Contents. 
 
 part i.— The Test of Catholicity— The Value of the Testimony of 
 the Primitive Fathers — The Intermediate State — Change in 
 the Intermediate State— Prayers for the Dead: Reasons for 
 Our Lord's Silence on the Subject — The Testimony of Holy 
 Scripture — The Testimony of the Catacombs — The Testimony 
 of the Early Fathers — The Testimony of the Primitive 
 Liturgies — Prayers for the Pardon of Sins of Infirmity, and 
 the Effacement of Sinful Stains — The InefEcacy of Prayer 
 for those who died in wilful unrepented Sin. 
 
 PART n. — Primitive Testimony to the Intercession of the Saints — 
 Primitive Testimony to the Invocation of the Saints — The 
 Trustworthiness of the Patristic Evidence for Invocation tested 
 — The Primitive Liturgies and the Roman Catacombs — Pa- 
 tristic Opinions on the extent of the Knowledge possessed by 
 the Saints— The Testimony of Holy Scripture upon the same 
 Subject — The Beatific Vision not yet attained by any of the 
 Saints — Conclusions drawn from the foregoing Testimony. 
 
 supplementary chapters. — (a.) Is a fuller Recognition of the 
 Practice of Praying for the Dead desirable or not? — (b.) Is 
 it lawful or desirable to practise Invocation of Saints in any 
 form or not? — Table of Fathers, Councils, etc. — Passages of 
 Scriptures explained or quoted— General Index. 
 
 The Compendious Annotated Prayer 
 Book. 
 
 Crown Zvo. xos. 6d. 
 
 The Compendious Edition of the Annotated Book 
 of Common Prayer, forming a concisjs Commentary 
 on the Devotional System of the Church of England. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. John Henry Blunt, M. A., P.S.A., 
 
 Editor of the "Dictionary of Sects and Heresies," etc. etc. 
 
 ©Waterloo place, &onnon. 
 
rivington's select list 
 
 Goulburn's Devotional Forms. 
 
 Fottrth Edition, ^mo. is. 6d. 
 
 Short Devotional Forms, for Morning, Night, and 
 Midnight, and for the Third, Sixth, Ninth Hours, and 
 Eventide of each Day of the Week. Arranged to meet 
 the Exigencies of a Busy Life. 
 
 By Edward Meyrick Goulburn, D.D., 
 
 Dean of Norwich. 
 
 Fenelon's Spiritual Letters to Men. 
 
 i6mo. 2S. 6d. 
 
 Spiritual Letters to Men. By Archbishop Fenelon. 
 
 By the Author of "Life of Fenelon," "Life of 
 S. Francis de Sales," etc. etc. 
 
 Fenelon's Spiritual Letters to Women. 
 
 1 6m o. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Spiritual Letters to Women. By Archbishop 
 Fenelon. 
 
 By the Author of " Life of S. Francis de Sales," 
 "Life of Fenelon," etc. etc. 
 
 S. Bonaventure's Life of Christ. 
 
 Crown 2>vo. ys. 6d. 
 
 The Life of Christ. 
 
 By S. Bonaventure. 
 
 Translated and Edited by the 
 Rev. W. H. Hutchings, 
 
 Sub-Warden of the House of Mercy, Cletver. 
 
 "The whole volume is full of gems meditations, we can scarcely imagine 
 
 and rich veins of thought, and whether a more acceptable book." — Literary 
 
 as a companion to the preacher or to Churchman. 
 those who seek food for their daily 
 
 ©Waterloo Jplace, iLonnon. 
 
OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Knox Little's Mystery of the Passion. 
 
 New Edition. Crown 8vo. 35. 6d. 
 
 The Mystery of the Passion of our Most Holy Re- 
 deemer. [Five Sermons delivered in S. Paul's Cathe- 
 dral in Passion Week, to which are added five others 
 on the same subject, preached in Holy Week and Easter- 
 tide 1881.] 
 
 By the Rev. W. J. Knox Little, M.A., ; 
 
 Canon of Worcester, and Rector of St. Aiban's, Manchester. 
 
 Knox Little's Christian Life. 
 
 Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Characteristics and Motives of the Christian Life. 
 Ten Sermons preached in Manchester Cathedral in Lent 
 and Advent 1877. 
 
 By the Rev. W. J. Knox Little, M.A., 
 
 Canon of Worcester, and Rector of St. Aiban's, Manchester. 
 
 QTontmtg. 
 Christian Work— Christian Advance— Christian Watching— Chris- 
 tian Battle — Christian Suffering — Christian Joy — For the 
 Love of Man — For the sake of Jesus — For the Glory of God 
 —The Claims of Christ. 
 
 Knox Little's Manchester Sermons. 
 
 Second Edition. Crown 8vo. js. 6d. 
 
 Sermons preached for the most part in Manchester. 
 By the Rev. W. J. Knox Little, M.A., 
 
 Cation of Worcester, and Rector of St. Aiban's, Manchester. 
 
 dontentg. 
 The Soul instructed by God— The Claim of God upon the Soul— 
 The Supernatural Powers of the Soul— The Soul in its Inner 
 Life— The Soul in the World and at the Judgment— The Law 
 of Preparation — The Principle of Preparation — The Temper 
 of Preparation — The Energy of Preparation — The Soul's 
 Need and God's Nature — The Martyr of Jesus — The Secret 
 of Prophetic Power— The Law of Sacrifice— The Comfort of 
 God— The Symbolism of the Cross— The Beatitude of Mary, 
 the Mother of the Lord. 
 
 CKaterloo place, £onnon. 
 
rivington^s select list 
 
 Williams on the Apocalypse. 
 
 New Edition. Crown 8vo. 5s. 
 
 The Apocalypse. With Notes and Reflections. 
 By the Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D., 
 
 Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 WiMiams on the Epistles and Gospels. 
 
 New Edition. Two Vols. Crown 8vo. 5s. each. 
 Sold separately. 
 
 Sermons on the Epistles and Gospels for the Sun- 
 days and Holy Days throughout the Year. 
 
 By the Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D., 
 
 Author of a "Devotional Commentary on the Gospel Narrative." 
 
 Williams's Female Scripture 
 Characters. 
 
 New Edition. Crown Zvo. $s. 
 
 Female Characters of Holy Scripture. A Series of 
 Sermons. 
 
 By the Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D., 
 
 Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 (Etmtents. 
 Eve—Sarah— Lot's Wife— Rebekah— Leah and Rachel— Miriam— 
 Rahab— Deborah— Ruth— Hannah— The Witch of Endor— 
 Bathsheba— Rizpah— The Queen of Sheba— The Widow of 
 Zarephath — Jezebel — The Shunammite — Esther — Elisabeth 
 — Anna — The Woman of Samaria — Joanna — The Woman with 
 the Issue of Blood — The Woman of Canaan — Martha — Mary 
 — Salome— The Wife of Pilate— Dorcas— The Blessed Virgin. 
 
 Williams's Old Testament Characters. 
 
 New Edition. Crown Zvo. 5s. 
 
 The Characters of the Old Testament. A Series of 
 Sermons. 
 
 By the Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D., 
 
 Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 dTaterloo place, JUttnott. 
 
OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Williams's Devotional Commentary. 
 
 New Edition. Eight Vols. Crown &vo. ss. each. 
 Sold separately. 
 
 A Devotional Commentary on the Gospel Narrative. 
 By the Rev. Isaac Williams, B.D., 
 
 Formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 Thoughts on the Study of the Holy Gospels. 
 
 A Harmony of the Four Evangelists. 
 
 Our Lord's Nativity. 
 
 Our Lord's Ministry (Second Year). 
 
 Our Lord's Ministry (Third Year). 
 
 The Holy Week. 
 
 Our Lord's Passion. 
 
 Our Lord's Resurrection. 
 
 Voices of Comfort. 
 
 Fifth Edition. Crown Zvo. js. 6d. 
 
 Voices of Comfort. 
 Edited by the Rev. Thomas Vincent Fosbery, M. A. 
 
 Sometime Vicar of St. Giles's, Reading. 
 
 [This Volume of prose and poetry, original and selected, aims at 
 revealing the fountains of hope and joy which underlie the griefs 
 and sorrows of life. 
 
 It is so divided as to afford readings for a month. The keynote 
 of each day is given by the title prefixed to it, such as : " The Power 
 of the Cross of Christ, Day 6. Conflicts of the Soul, Day 17. The 
 Communion of Saints, Day 20. The Comforter, Day 22. The 
 Light of Hope, Day 25. The Coming of Christ, Day 28." Each 
 day begins with passages of Holy Scripture. These are followed 
 by articles in prose, which are succeeded by one or more short 
 prayers. After these are poems or passages of poetry, and then 
 very brief extracts in prose or verse close the section. The book is 
 meant to meet, not merely cases of bereavement or physical suffering, 
 but "to minister specially to the hidden troubles of the heart, as 
 they are silently weaving their dark threads into the web of the 
 seemingly brightest life. "] 
 
 aBamioo place, JUnnon. 
 
26 rivington's select list 
 
 Body's Life of Temptation. 
 
 Fifth Edition. Crown Zvo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 The Life of Temptation. A Course of Lectures 
 delivered in substance at St. Peter's, Eaton Square ; 
 also at All Saints', Margaret Street. 
 
 By the Rev. George Body, B.A., 
 
 Rector of Kirkby Misperton. 
 
 Contents. 
 
 The Leading into Temptation— The Rationale of Temptation- 
 Why we are Tempted — Safety in Temptation — With Jesus 
 in Temptation — The End of Temptation. 
 
 Body's Life of Justification. 
 
 Fourth Edition. Crown Zvo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 The Life of Justification. A Series of Lectures 
 delivered in substance at All Saints', Margaret Street. 
 
 By trie Rev. George Body, B.A., 
 
 Rector of Kirkby Misperton. 
 
 Contents. 
 
 Justification the Want of Humility — Christ our Justification — Union 
 with Christ the Condition of Justification — Conversion and 
 Justification — The Life of Justification — The Progress and 
 End of Justification. 
 
 Hutchings's Mystery of the Temptation. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 The Mystery of the Temptation : a Course of Lectures. 
 
 By the Rev. W. H. Hutching-s, M.A., 
 
 Sub-Warden of the House of Mercy, Clewer. 
 
 Contents. 
 The Entrance into the Temptation — The Fast — The Personality of 
 Satan — The First Temptation — The Second Temptation — The 
 Third Temptation — The End of the Temptation. 
 
 Cftaterloo place, EonDott, 
 
OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 The Treasury of Devotion. 
 
 New Edition, iZmo, is. 6d.; limp Cloth, zs.; or bound with, the 
 Book of Common Prayer, 3 s. 6d. 
 
 The Treasury of Devotion : a Manual of Prayers for 
 General and Daily Use. 
 
 Compiled by a Priest. 
 Edited by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A., 
 
 Also an Edition in Large Type. Crown 8vo. 5s. 
 
 The Star of Childhood. 
 
 Third Edition. Royal i6mo. zs. 6d. 
 
 The Star of Childhood : a First Book of Prayers and 
 Instruction for Children. 
 
 Compiled by a Priest. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A., 
 
 With Illustrations reduced from Engravings by Fra Angelico. 
 
 The Guide to Heaven. 
 
 New Edition. i8mo. is. 6d.; Cloth limp, is. 
 
 The Guide to Heaven : a Book of Prayers for every 
 Want. (For the Working Classes. ) 
 
 Compiled by a Priest. 
 
 Edited by the Rev. T. T. Carter, M.A., 
 
 An Edition in Large Type. Crown 8vo. is. 6d.; Cloth limp, is. 
 
 Lear's For Days and Years. 
 
 Second Edition. i6mo. zs. 6d. 
 
 For Days and Years. A Book containing a Text, Short 
 Reading, and Hymn for every Day in the Church's 
 Year. 
 
 Selected by H. L. Sidney Lear. 
 
 WiatttUo place, JUttDott 
 
rivington's select list 
 
 Adams's Warnings of Holy Week. 
 
 Seventh Edition. Small 2>vo. 4s. 6d. 
 
 Warnings of the Holy Week, etc.: being a Course 
 of Parochial Lectures for the Week before Easter and 
 the Easter Festivals. 
 
 By the Rev. William Adams, M.A., 
 
 Author of "Sacred Allegories" etc. 
 
 Moberly's Plain Sermons. 
 
 Third Edition. Crown Zvo. $s. 
 
 Plain Sermons, preached at Brighstone. 
 By George Moberly, D.C.L., 
 
 Bishop of Salisbury. 
 
 Cnntents. 
 
 Except a man be born again — The Lord with the Doctors — The 
 Draw-Net — I will lay me down in peace — Ye have not so 
 learned Christ — Trinity Sunday — My Flesh is Meat indeed — 
 The Corn of Wheat dying and multiplied — The Seed Corn 
 springing to new life — I am the Way, the Truth, and the 
 Life — The Ruler of the Sea — Stewards of the Mysteries of 
 God — Ephphatha — The Widow of Nain— Josiah's discovery 
 of the Law — The Invisible World : Angels — Prayers, espe- 
 cially Daily Prayers — They all with one consent began to 
 make excuse — Ascension Day — The Comforter — The Tokens 
 of the Spirit — Elijah's Warning, Fathers and Children — Thou 
 shalt see them no more for ever — Baskets full of fragments 
 — Harvest — The Marriage Supper of the Lamb— The Last 
 Judgment. 
 
 Moberly's Great Forty Days. 
 
 Fifth Edition. Crown Zvo. $s. 
 
 The Sayings of the Great Forty Days, between the 
 Resurrection and Ascension, regarded as the Outlines of 
 the Kingdom of God. In Five Discourses. With an 
 Examination of Dr. Newman's Theory of Development. 
 
 By Georg-e Moberly, D.C.L., 
 
 Bishop of Salisbury. 
 
 Waterloo place, iLonnon. 
 
OF RECENT PUBLIC A TIONS. 29 
 
 Lear's Weariness. 
 
 Large Type. Small Svo. $s. 
 Weariness. A Book for the Languid and Lonely. 
 By H. L. Sydney Lear. 
 
 Author of" For Days and Years," " Christian Biographies," etc. etc. 
 
 Lear's Precious Stones. 
 
 Three Volumes, yimo. is. each ; or in Paper Covers, 6d. each. 
 
 Precious Stones, collected by H. L. Sidney Lear. 
 
 I. Pearls — Grace. 
 II. Rubies— Nature. 
 III. Diamonds— Art. 
 
 Also a Superior Edition, i6mo, with Red Borders, is. each. 
 
 Lear's Christian Biographies. 
 
 Eight Volumes. Crown Zvo. y. 6d. each; sold separately. 
 
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