THE GALLICAN CHURCH.

A HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF FRANCE FROM THE CONCORDAT OF BOLOGNA, A.D. 1516, TO THE REVOLUTION, A.D. 1789.

CHAPTER VIII.

SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL

From this summary of the external policy of the Church of France during the earlier years of Richelieu’s ministry, I return to the details of its interior history. The reader’s attention must be claimed, in the first place, for some new religious institutions belonging to this period, which have not been hitherto noticed.

No name more worthy of pre-eminent honour and veneration is to be found in the records of the 17th century than that of Vincent de Paul. This celebrated man was not, like Francois de Sales, the scion of a noble house, but sprang from the ranks of the people. His parents were peasants of the village of Pouy, near Dax, in the Landes of Gascony. Here Vincent was born on the 24th of April, 1576. The religious disposition and love of learning which the boy manifested at a very early age determined his father to devote him to the clerical profession; and after receiving the rudiments of education at Dax, he was sent to study at Toulouse. Here he was admitted to the priesthood in September, 1600. A singular misfortune which befell him not long afterwards seems to have had the effect of shaping the prevailing character of his subsequent ministry. In the course of a coasting voyage from Marseilles to Narbonne, in 1605, the vessel in which he sailed was captured by pirates from Barbary. Vincent was loaded with chains, and sold into slavery at Tunis. In this desolate condition he remained for more than two years, enduring many hardships and much cruel treatment; but learning at the same time inestimable lessons of personal sympathy with human suffering and sorrow; displaying a wonderful example of humility, fortitude, and resignation to the Divine will; and effecting in the end the conversion of his master, a hardened renegade from Christianity. In company with this man, who thus became the first fruits of his missionary zeal, Vincent made his escape from Tunis, and returned to Europe; and after spending some time at Rome, he arrived at Paris in 1609. He was charged with an important confidential mission from Pope Paul V to Henry IV. He was now gradually brought into contact with most of those distinguished and devoted persons who were labouring in various departments for the reorganization of the Church in France. With De Bérulle, who at that time was laying the foundations of the Oratory, he contracted a close friendship, and resided under his roof for two years, not precisely as a member of the new congregation, but for the sake of retirement and study under the direction of the Superior. After discharging for some time the duties of parish priest in the suburban village of Clichy, Vincent de Paul was recommended by de Bérulle to the count and countess de Joigny for the responsible post of preceptor to their sons. This nobleman, Philippe Emanuel de Gondi, was the head of a branch of that ancient family, and held the office of Général des Galéres de France. His wife, a daughter of the Comte de la Rochepot, was one of the most accomplished, intellectual, and religious women of the time. They had three sons, of whom the eldest became Due de Retz, and general of the Galleys on the resignation of his father; the second died in early boyhood; the third was Jean FranÇois Paul, the demagogue of the Fronde, coadjutor to his uncle the Archbishop of Paris, and at length his successor in that see. Vincent accepted the appointment, and his admirable conduct in this new sphere of duty soon won for him the warm esteem not only of the Count and Countess and their family, but of all with whom he had intercourse. While thus employed at the Count’s chateau of Folleville, he was one day requested to attend the death-bed of a peasant in the neighbouring village of Gannes, who had expressed an earnest wish to see him. So skilfully did Vincent deal with the burdened conscience of this dying sinner, that he was induced to make a general confession of the errors of his past life, including certain secret griefs which he had never hitherto had the courage to reveal. This afforded him inexpressible relief, and he expired in peace and hope. The occurrence sunk deeply into the mind of Madame de Gondi, and at her suggestion Vincent de Paul delivered a discourse in the church of Folleville, in January, 1617, exhorting the villagers to avail themselves of the same method of cleansing their consciences and making their peace with God. The result was marvellous. The preacher “bowed the hearts” of the congregation “as the heart of one man”; they were drawn by a simultaneous and irresistible attraction to the tribunal of penance; and so great was the throng of applicants, that Vincent and another priest who assisted him found themselves unequal to the task of hearing their confessions, and were compelled to send for aid to the Jesuit college at Amiens. Such was the first of those parochial “missions” for which Vincent de Paul became so famous. But his lowly spirit shrunk from the éclat which followed, as from a dangerous snare ; he felt it necessary to relinquish his office in the household of the Comte de Joigny, and retired to an obscure town in the district of Bresse, where he devoted himself to the humblest duties of the pastoral care among a rude, ignorant, and vicious population. Even here his reputation had preceded him, and ere long he found himself the leader of a religious movement in the neighbourhood, which was destined to bear solid and permanent fruit. It was at Chatillon en Bresse that Vincent founded an association to which he gave the name of “confrerie de la Charité,”—the first type of a multitude of similar institutions which at no distant date were to overspread France. Its members were females, whose duty was to minister, according to a fixed rule, to the necessities, temporal and spiritual, of the sick poor, under the direction of the parochial clergy. They were called originally “Servantes des pauvres,” a title afterwards exchanged for that of “Soeurs de la charity.” These sisterhoods were soon appreciated, and multiplied rapidly. In the course of a very few years Vincent established them in upwards of thirty country parishes; and with the co-operation of a benevolent widow lady, Louise Legras, they were introduced into the metropolis in 1629.

Overcome by the urgent solicitations of the Count and Countess de Joigny, Vincent de Paul took up his abode in their family a second time in December, 1617; but his tutorial duties were now scarcely more than nominal, and he was enabled to dedicate himself almost entirely to that which he regarded as his special vocation, missionary work among the people of neglected rural districts. With the assistance of other priests of congenial spirit, he visited various parts of the dioceses of Paris, Beauvais, Soissons, and Sens, where the house of Gondi possessed estates. As the sphere of these operations widened, Vincent and his friends formed a plan for perpetuating them, by founding a distinct institution for the purpose; and the project was realized in 1625 by the munificence of the Countess de Joigny, who by a legal deed of assignment gave the sum of 46,000 livres for the support of a community of missionary clergy, of which Vincent was named the first Superior. The new foundation received the sanction of the Archbishop of Paris, a brother of the Count de Joigny, on the 24th of April, 1626; and the ancient College des Bons Enfants was made over to Vincent as a residence for himself and his associates. Letters patent were obtained from the Crown, and Pope Urban VIII, by a bull dated January 12, 1632, erected the society into a congregation by the name of the “Congregation of Priests of the Mission.” The charter of foundation, which breathes throughout the characteristic humility of its author, provides that the ecclesiastics thus incorporated shall renounce all thought of dignified preferment and fixed benefices, and shall devote themselves exclusively to the work of evangelizing country towns and villages,—preaching, catechising, hearing confessions, and ministering to the spiritual needs of the inhabitants, without recompense of any kind whatsoever. They were to pay special attention to prisoners under sentence of travaux forces; and they bound themselves not to exercise their functions in towns where there existed a metropolitan or diocesan see, or a ‘‘presidial” court of justice.

Vincent de Paul had only one companion, Antoine Portail, when he established himself at the College des Bons Enfants. Six other priests joined him in the following year. Looking back, at the distance of twenty years, on these modest commencements of his work, he says, “We went forth in all honesty and simplicity, commissioned by our superiors the bishops, to preach the Gospel to the poor, even as our blessed Lord had done; this is what we did, and God, on His part, did what He had foreordained from all eternity. To some extent He blessed our labours; and perceiving this, other good priests entered our Society, not all at once, but at many different periods. O Saviour! who could have imagined that the work would ever reach the state in which we behold it now? If anyone had told me this when we began, I should have thought he was mocking me; nevertheless that was the commencement from which it has pleased God to raise up our great community. Well! can that be properly called human which no human being could ever have conceived? Certainly neither I nor my poor friend Portail ever dreamed of it. Very far indeed were we from cherishing any such idea.”

The “priests of the Mission” had not long plied their calling in the outlying townships and remote hamlets of provincial France, before they discovered that the pastors stood in scarcely less urgent need of reformation than the flock; and that if the people were sunk in ignorance and vice, the main cause lay in the negligence, incapacity, and unedifying example of the clergy. I have already spoken of the general relaxation of discipline which followed the civil and religious distractions of the preceding century; and of the state of degeneracy with regard to learning, zeal, and morals into which the parochial priesthood had consequently fallen. All the leading churchmen of the day were anxiously employed in devising remedies for this most serious evil. The Jesuit colleges were beginning to supply candidates who had undergone a regular course of training for the ministry with considerable care and success; the Oratory, under the direction of De Bérulle, had taken root at Paris, and was gradually extending itself into the provinces by means of affiliated branches; some two or three diocesan Seminaries had been opened, and the bishops seemed disposed to favour similar institutions. But the agencies hitherto attempted were manifestly insufficient to meet the case. Vincent de Paul suggested the experiment of retreats, as methods of preparatory discipline for those about to undertake the pastoral office. He submitted his plan first to the Bishop of Beauvais, Augustin Potier de Gesvres, an enlightened and conscientious prelate, who gave it his cordial approval; and it was announced that none would be ordained in the diocese of Beauvais without first passing through the course of exercises proposed by the Superior of the congregation of the Mission, under his personal direction. The bishop received the candidates in his palace, and here, in the Lent of 1628, Vincent de Paul, with the assistance of two priests of his Society, conducted the Retreat, which produced the happiest fruits. The scheme, with the encouraging result of its first trial, was next laid before the Archbishop of Paris, who on many occasions had testified his high esteem of the character and labours of Vincent de Paul; and the retreats for ten days previous to the general ordinations were adopted in the metropolitan diocese by a mandement of February, 1631. The first was held in the Lent of that year at the Colège des Bons Enfans, where Vincent de Paul was then residing. At each subsequent ordination from seventy to ninety candidates were received in the same institution; and here the priests of the Mission provided them with board and lodging, and all other reasonable comforts, without requiring any payment in return; this being laid down as an essential feature of the system. The daily work was divided into two portions; in the morning the instructions turned upon points of moral theology, and the practical functions of the sacerdotal office; upon laws divine and human; the Decalogue, the Creed, the Sacraments in general, the nature, varieties, and effects of sin, the duties of the priest in the confessional, the Eucharist as a sacra­ment and a sacrifice, and the various details of the ritual system of the Church. The evening was spent in considering the virtues, qualities, and graces peculiarly necessary to the ministers of Christ, and the means of cultivating them; special stress being laid upon vocation, upon the priestly life, upon the habit of mental prayer, and upon the distinctive character of each order of the ministry. After the lecture, the candidates were assembled in groups of ten or twelve, as nearly as might be of equal capacity and attainment, each under the guidance of a priest of the Mission, for the purpose of conferring together familiarly upon the topics which had been brought before them, and thus storing up in the memory materials for future improvement. Every effort was made by Vincent de Paul and his colleagues, in the general arrangements of the establishment, to render the sojourn of the candidates among them not only edifying in the highest sense, but also socially agreeable. They were treated not as strangers, but as friends, on a footing of cordial sympathy and brotherly affection. Their wants and wishes were assiduously studied; the members of the Congregation, with their staff of lay assistants, devoted their whole time and thoughts to the comfort of their guests. That under such circumstances the scheme was eminently successful, and assumed proportions of extraordinary magnitude, cannot excite surprise. From every diocese into which priests had gone forth with the recommendation of having been trained at the College des Bons Enfans, encouraging testimony was received to the signal benefits conferred by this means upon the Church. The Bishops of Poitiers, Angouleme, Noy on, Chartres, Saintes, and others, wrote to congratulate Vincent de Paul upon the zeal and ability of the labourers whom he had formed for the Lord’s vineyard, and to assure him of the high estimation which they had won from the faithful of all classes. Applications poured in from all parts of France for a larger supply of well-qualified pastors; demands with which the Congregation of the Mission found itself quite unable to comply while restricted within the narrow bounds of its original home. Most opportunely the way was opened, in 1632, for their removal to a much more spacious abode, namely the Priory of St. Lazare in the Faubourg St. Denis, which was in ancient times a hospital for lepers, but had passed into the possession of the Canons Regular of St. Victor. The prior of this community, Adrian Lebon, offered to cede the whole establish­ment and its dependencies, upon very favourable conditions, to Vincent and his priests. They accordingly took possession of it in January, 1632, the Archbishop of Paris presiding, at their installation; and it was from this new acquisition that the members of the Congregation derived the appellation by which they were afterwards most commonly known, that of Lazarists.

Vincent no sooner found himself amply provided with space and other material appliances, than he expanded his field of action to a degree which he had never before contemplated. One of his first steps after establishing himself at St. Lazare was to set on foot a series of Conferences meetings at which the clergy of Paris and other dioceses might consult together on the difficulties of their ministry, and impart the advantage of mutual experience. This, it need hardly be remarked, was a project which required peculiar delicacy of handling, both with regard to organization and execution. But the character of Vincent de Paul, combining the deepest humility and the tenderest charity with that lofty gift of wisdom which, more surely than any merely intellectual endowment, sways and subdues minds of a lower order, was precisely adapted to such an undertaking ; and the results of the attempt were in the highest degree satisfactory. The first Conference was held at St. Lazare on the 16th July, 1633; and for many years they were regularly continued on the Tuesday in each week, becoming celebrated far and wide as the Tuesday Conferences of St. Lazare. A code of rules was drawn up for the association by Vincent de Paul, of which the following were the principal features. That the main object proposed by the members was to honour the incarnate life of the Son of God, His everlasting priesthood, His holy family, and His love towards the poor; to this end they were to study to con­form their whole life to His, to labour for the glory of God in all the details of the ecclesiastical career, and especially by diligent ministrations among the poor. The design of the Conferences being to support and build up in practical godliness those who should frequent them, their ordinary subject-matter should be the virtues, functions, and occupations specially appro­priate to men dedicated to the service of the Altar. That the members sought by means of this Association to become more closely knit together in Jesus Christ; and with a view to promote this sacred union, they were to be assiduous in visiting and consoling one another, especially in times of sickness and affliction; that these offices of sympathy were to be continued not only during life, but, so far as possible, after death; that the members were to assist at the funeral obsequies of their departed brethren; they were to say three masses for them, or to com­municate for their intention. Systematic directions were also given for the employment of each portion of the day. The priests were to rise at a prescribed hour; to devote at least half an hour to mental prayer; to say Mass, and afterwards to read on their knees a chapter of the New Testament; to engage in certain spiritual exercises before each meal; to spend a definite time in external works of charity; and to conclude the day with a general examination of conscience.

The biographer of Vincent de Paul enlarges on the incomparable unction, the noble simplicity, the surprising power of Scriptural illustration, the touching pathos, the almost super­human eloquence, displayed by this eminent servant of God at his Conferences. Nor does his picture appear to be at all over­coloured. It is borne out by the concurrent evidence of numbers of ecclesiastics who were present at these exercises; and the general influence for good accruing from them to the Church is the common theme of the historians of the time.

The effect produced by the “Tuesday Conferences” of St. Lazare, in raising the tone of feeling and the practical standard of duty among the French clergy, was truly astonishing. It was not long before they attracted the attention of the all­ powerful Richelieu, who with his usual penetration at once appreciated their importance. He sent for Vincent de Paul, and desired him to give a detailed account of the nature and progress of his work, of which he expressed his approval. The minister, moreover, took with his own hand a list of the members of the Association, and invited Vincent to mention any whom he deemed peculiarly qualified to be advanced in the Church. A few were accordingly named; and the Cardinal did not fail, as opportunity offered, to recommend them to the king for promotion to vacant sees. After Vincent had retired . on this occasion, Richelieu is said to have observed to his niece the Duchess of Aiguillon, “I have always had a very high opinion of M. Vincent; but since my last interview with him, I regard him as a totally different character from what I first imagined.”

Among the earliest and most notable members of this clerical association were Adrien Bourdoise, afterwards founder of the seminary of St. Nicolas du Chardonnet; Jacques Olier, founder and first superior of the Seminary of St. Sulpice; Jean Duval, Bishop of Babylone, founder of the Congregation des Missions Etrangères; Nicolas Pavilion, the saintly Bishop of Alet, so conspicuous in the Jansenist controversy; Antoine Godeau, Bishop of Grasse; and Louis Abelly, author of a well-known ‘Life of St. Vincent.’ The institution could reckon, even during the lifetime of Vincent de Paul, the names of thirty-three prelates, whose life and ministry had been moulded upon its system; besides a multitude of dignitaries of lower grades—vicars-general, archdeacons, canons, directors of diocesan seminaries, superiors of religious houses, and parochial clergy.

Not satisfied with these labours for the regeneration of the priestly order, Vincent de Paul commenced the practice of holding retreats at St. Lazare for the laity of all classes and conditions, and threw open his gates with indiscriminate benevolence to all applicants. Within a brief space the antique halls of St. Lazare were more densely crowded with patients tainted with moral leprosy than they had ever been in former days with sufferers under physical disease. Vincent compared his abode to Noah’s Ark, where animals of every form, species, and character were lodged together indifferently. It was, indeed, a singular spectacle. This motley assemblage, frequenting the same hospitable board, and listening to the same salutary instructions, consisted of noblemen of the highest rank and of the humblest sons of toil and penury; of enlightened magistrates and simple artisans; of courtly men of fashion and rude unlettered peasants; of masters and servants; of old men heavily burdened with the sins and follies of the past, and of youths seeking by timely self-discipline to fortify themselves against the struggles and temptations of the future. Vincent spared no pains to render these retreats lastingly beneficial to his guests, whom he called Exercitants. He impressed upon them, as a fundamental principle, that the object to be kept in view by each was to render himself a perfect Christian according to his appointed vocation; a perfect student, if called to a life of study; a perfect lawyer or magistrate, if engaged in the profession of the law; a perfect soldier, if trained to arms; and so with all other walks of life. Scrupulous caution was observed with regard to those who seemed disposed to enter on a conventual life. Vincent never permitted such persons to be determined in their choice of a religious order by anyone under his control; and under no circumstances were they to be encouraged to join the congregation of the Mission. It has been calculated that during the latter twenty-five years of Vincent’s life, near 20,000 persons availed themselves of the privilege of making a “retreat” at St Lazare; so that his visitors averaged about eight hundred in each year. Some few of these paid their own charges during their sojourn, either in part or in full; but the majority contributed nothing at all, either on account of insufficient means or from a mistaken idea that the Lazarists were bound by their statutes to receive all comers gratuitously. Large expenses were incurred in consequence; and many were the remonstrances made to the Superior against what was deemed an extravagant and imprudent outlay. But Vincent was proof against such considerations. “If we had thirty years to live,” said he, “and if by our labours in this work of Retreats we should shorten that space by one half, we ought still to persevere in the same course. It is true that the expense is great, but our funds cannot be better employed; and if our house should become involved in debt, God can find the means of extricating it, and His infinite goodness gives us every reason to believe that He would do so in case of need.”

The institution of the “Filles de la Charité,” already mentioned, was entrusted by Vincent de Paul in 1633 to the direction of his devoted coadjutrix Madame Legras. This order was originally intended to minister to the sick in country parishes, where there were no hospitals at hand, and medical aid could not be easily procured; but in process of time the sisters were led to undertake other departments of charitable labour among the poor. They were gradually introduced into the hospitals, both in Paris and the provinces, as nurses for the sick; they took charge of the education of foundlings, and conducted female schools; they systematically visited the distressed and destitute; and they performed certain offices of compassion even among prisoners condemned to the galleys. Their constitutions, framed by Vincent de Paul, abound with wise regulations and weighty admonitions. The founder points out that although, from the nature of their employment, they cannot lead a recluse life like other religious societies, they ought nevertheless to be as strict in their conduct as the most austere of cloistered nuns; more so, indeed, inasmuch as they were more exposed to external perils than those who are altogether debarred from intercourse with the world. Their monasteries, he reminds them, would be in ordinary cases the houses of the sick; their cells, a hired lodging; their convent chapel, the parish church; their cloisters, the streets of the city or the wards of hospitals: their vow of seclusion, submission to their superior; their grate, the fear of God; their veil, a holy and rigid modesty. The other provisions of the Rule are conceived in the same spirit of practical wisdom and elevated piety. After having been tested by the experience of twenty years, it was formally approved by Cardinal de Betz, Archbishop of Paris, in 1655, and the letters patent were registered by the Parlia­ment in the following year. The soeurs de la Charité,—or “soeurs grises ” as they are sometimes called,—undergo a probation of five years before they are admitted to their office. On this occasion they take the three customary vows of religious profession, to which a fourth is added, pledging them to labour for the poor. These vows are made for the space of one year only, and are renewable annually on the 25th of March, with the previous permission of the Superior. The refusal or suspension of this licence is regarded in the Order as the gravest of all penances, and instances of its infliction are extremely rare.

A kindred association, also originated by Vincent de Paul, and styled the “Compagnie des Dames de Charité,” acquired great reputation and influence at Paris by its energetic labours in the service of the sick and poor. Its members were chiefly ladies of high rank; the Marquise de Magnelais, a daughter of the house of Gondi, sister of the Archbishop of Paris; the Princess of Mantua, afterwards Queen of Poland; Madame d’Aligre, wife of the Chancellor of France; the “Presidente” de Goussault, who became the first superior of the society; Marie Fouquet, mother of the unfortunate finance minister of Louis XIV; Madame de Lamoignon, wife of the famous magistrate of that name; Madame de Herce; and the favourite niece of Richelieu, the Marquise de Combalet, afterwards Duchess of Aiguillon. At the meetings presided over by these noble matrons benevolent schemes of all kinds were discussed and organized; but the principal duty for which they made themselves responsible was that of visiting the inmates of the Hotel Dieu, or central hospital of Paris. In this undertaking they were zealously seconded by Madame Legras and her Filles de Charité; and a detachment of the latter community was established for this purpose in a house adjoining the hospital. On the recommendation of Vincent de Paul, the ladies formed two divisions, the first having for its province the religious instruction and consolation of the patients, while the second ministered to their temporal necessities. Fourteen members were elected every quarter, in the Ember week, to compose each section; they attended two and two, by rotation, at the Hotel Dieu, every day in the week; and at the end of their term of service they made a report to the general meeting of the Society, recording’ the course of their proceed­ings, with any circumstances which might be useful for the guidance and encouragement of those who were to replace them. It may be well imagined that the spectacle of such self-devotion in those whose birth had placed them on the highest steps of society, and who were accustomed to every luxury that wealth can procure, made a vivid impression upon the inhabitants of Paris in general, independently of the direct benefits conferred upon the sufferers in the hospital. The gentleness, tenderness, and persevering patience displayed by the Dames de Charité in the discharge of their functions was followed by a signal reward. If we may credit the biographer of Vincent de Paul, their success in the work of conversion was such that in the course of a single year, and that the first year of the Society’s existence, no less than seven hundred and sixty heretics of different persuasions abjured their errors and em­braced the Catholic faith.* The annual outlay of the institution in acts of corporal charity exceeded seven thousand livres.

Volumes would be required to give an adequate idea of the multifarious labours of Vincent de Paul. New establishments of “Priests of the Mission” were gradually formed in most of the large ton ns of France, and earnest application was made for their services in various foreign countries. In 1639 they planted a colony at Annecy in Savoy; in 1642 they passed the Alps into Italy, and were installed under the patronage of the Duchesse d’Aiguillon in a spacious college at Rome; three years later they were summoned to Genoa by Cardinal Durazzo; and subsequently the Queen of Poland, Mary of Gonzaga, the same who has been mentioned as one of the Dames de Charité, ex­pressed a desire for their ministrations at Warsaw, where she assigned them a house and sufficient revenues.

The Lazarists were also entrusted with the management of diocesan Seminaries in various parts of France; besides the noble college at their head-quarters at St. Lazare, they successively undertook the direction of similar institutions at Saintes, Le Mans, St. Malo, Agen, Tréguier, and Narbonne. This became one of their most fruitful fields of labour; and the names of St. Vincent de Paul and the Lazarists are inseparably identified with the vital work of clerical education. The impulse of their zeal raised up many earnest co-operators in the cause; among the most distinguished was Jean Jacques Olier, a man scarcely second to Vincent himself in saintly virtue and energetic devotion to the duties of the ministry. Olier was one of those pupils and associates of his early days for whom Vincent had always cherished special affection and unreserved sympathy. On being ordained priest in 1633, he undertook an important mission in connexion with the Abbey of Pebrac in Auvergne; and such was his reputation for ability at this early age, that Richelieu offered him soon afterwards the appointment of coadjutor to the Bishop of Chalons-sur-Marne. Olier, however, declined it, from a strong conviction that he was called to exercise his ministry in a different capacity, namely, as a founder and director of Seminaries. Encouraged by Vincent de Paul, Father Condren, Superior of the Oratory, and other experienced advisers, Olier commenced in 1641 an institution of this kind at Vaugirard, near Paris; and in the following year, having accepted the charge of the parish of St. Sulpice, he transferred his college to that locality. Here he ere long found himself surrounded by a band of zealous associates, many of whom rose in due time to the highest stations in the Church. Among those who are best known to fame were Francois de Caulet, Bishop of Pamiers, De Gondrin, Archbishop of Sens, and Claude Joly, Bishop of Agen. Besides his chief establishment at St. Sulpice, Olier became the founder of provincial seminaries at Clermont, Le Puy, Viviers, and Bourg St. Andeol; and an offshoot of his congregation was planted even in the French colony of Montreal in Canada. He abridged his life by his excessive labours, and by unsparing asceticism; his death occurred in 1657, in his forty-ninth year. Olier has always been reckoned among the most illustrious sons of the Gallican Church. Bossuet styles him “virum praestantissimum ac sanctitatis odore florentem”; he is eulogized by Fenelon as vir traditus gratiae Dei, et plane apostolicus; and in a letter from the Assembly of the Clergy to Pope Clement XII, we find him extolled as eximium sacerdotem, insigne cleri nostri decus et ornamentum. The congregation of St. Sulpice possessed, at the epoch of the Revolution, five affiliated seminaries at Paris, and twelve in the provinces.

Another successful labourer in the same department of Church restoration was Claude Bernard, commonly known by the title of the poor Priest. From the time of his ordination he dedicated himself exclusively to ministrations among the poor, and sacrificed for their benefit a fortune of 400,000 livres which had been bequeathed to him. In 1638, on the auspicious occasion of the birth of Louis XIV, Bernard instituted a college for the education of priests at the Hotel d’Albiac, in the Rue de la Montagne Ste. Genevieve. Anne of Austria was a munificent contributor to this seminary, by way of thank-offering for what she regarded as a signal token of Divine favour both to herself and to France. The new establishment was entitled the “Semi­nary of the Thirty-three,” in commemoration of the thirty-three years of the Redeemer’s life on earth. It was confined to the reception of young students in needy circumstances, who would not otherwise have been able to meet the expense of systematic preparation for the ministry. Numbers of exemplary priests were trained in this establishment for different posts of labour in the Church; many of them devoted themselves with remarkable success to the work of missions, both at home and abroad. Claude Bernard closed his career in March, 1641, at the age of fifty-three. He was succeeded in the government of his seminary by his faithful coadjutor Thomas Le Gauffre, nephew of the well-known Ambroise Le Gauffre, professor in the University of Caen and canon of the Cathedral of Bayeux, who had formerly followed the legal profession, and was one of the masters of the Chambre des Comptes, but was won over by the influence of his friend Bernard to embrace a religious life and enter the priesthood. Le Gauffre died in 1646, when he had just been desig­nated to the see of the new French colony of Montreal. He possessed a considerable fortune, and left by his will large benefactions to the Seminary of the Thirty-three, as well as to other charitable institutions at Paris.

CHAPTER IX.

REVIVAL OF THE BENEDICTINE RULE