Louis XIV and La Grande Mademoiselle, 1652-1693. Arvede Barine
a poor saint whose peasant airs and whose patched soutane caused much laughter when he presented himself before the Queen. Vincent de Paul is easily recognised. Relations with great people had not changed him. It was said of him after years of Court society, "M. Vincent is always M. Vincent," and this was true: men of this calibre never change, happily for the world.
He became the keynote of the impulse which caused the regeneration of provincial life, almost ruined by the wars of the Fronde. Even after the work was ended it would be difficult to decide upon the share of each of these bodies in this colossal enterprise. The society to which allusion has been made was founded in 1627, by the Duc de Ventadour, whose mystical thought had led him, as often happens, to essentially practical works. The name of Compagnie du Saint Sacrement was given it, and without doubt its supreme end was "to make honoured the Holy Sacrament."
Precisely on account of this, the society sought to "procure" for itself "all the good" in its power, for nothing is more profitable to religion than support, material as well as spiritual and moral, distributed under its inspiration and as one might say on its own part.
One passes easily from the practice of charity, a source of precious teaching, to the correction of manners. After comes the desire to control souls, which naturally leads to the destruction of heresies, with or without gentleness.
This programme was responsible for many admirable charitable works, two centuries in advance of current ideas, and, at the same time, for cruelties, infamies, all the vices inseparable from the sectarian spirit in which the end justifies the means.
Once started, the society rapidly increased, always hidden, and multiplying precautions not to be discovered, since neither clergy nor royalty were well disposed towards this mysterious force, from which they were constantly receiving shocks without being able to discover whence came the blows.
It was an occult power, analogous in its extent and its intolerance, and even in the ways and means employed, to the Free Masonry of the present.
The Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement had links throughout France and in all classes. Anne of Austria was included in its sacred band and a shoemaker played in it an important rôle. Vincent de Paul enrolled himself in the ranks towards the year 1635, contributed to the good, and probably was ignorant of the evil to be found in its folds. Dating from his affiliation, his charitable works so mingled with those of the society that it was no longer to be recognised. The society brought to the Saint powerful succour, and aided him effectively in finding the support of which he had need; it would be difficult to say from whom came the first idea of many good works.
As for what at present concerns us, however, the point of departure is known. It was neither Vincent de Paul nor the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement which conceived and put in train the prodigious work of relieving the Provinces. The first committee of relief was founded in Paris, in 1649, by a Janséniste, M. de Bernières, who was also responsible for the invention of the printed "Relations" which were informing all France of the miseries to be relieved. It was the first time that Charity had aided itself through publicity. It soon found the value of this. M. de Bernières and his committee, in which the wives of members of Parliament dominated, were soon able to commence in Picardie and Champagne the distribution of bread, clothing, grain, and working implements. Hospitals were established. They put an end to the frightful feeling of desolation of these unfortunate populations, pillaged during so many years by mercenaries of all races and tongues. But the number of workers was small even if their zeal was great, and the Janséniste community was not equipped for a task of this dimension. From the end of the following year, the direction of the enterprise passed entirely into the hands of Vincent de Paul, who led with him his army of sisters of charity, his mission priests, and an entire contingent of allies, secret but absolutely devoted.
It does not seem as if at first there was any conflict. Mme. de Lamoignon and the Présidente de Herse were the right arms of M. Vincent as they had been of M. de Bernières. When the Queen of Poland,70 a spiritual daughter of Port-Royal and brought up in France, wished to subscribe to the work, she sent her money to the Mother Angélique, telling her to communicate with M. Vincent. But this harmony was of short duration. The members of what the public were going to baptise with the sobriquet of "Cabale des Dévots," not being able to discover the real name, could not suffer the Janséniste concurrence in charitable works. They showered upon M. de Bernières a mass of odious calumnies and denunciations which resulted in the exile of this good man.
This was one of the most abominable of the bad actions to which a sectarian spirit has pushed human beings.
The "Relations" were continued under the direction of Vincent de Paul. One knows through them and through the documents of the time, the details of the task undertaken. The first necessity for the public health was the clearing the surface of the ground, in the provinces in which there had been fighting, of the putrifying bodies, and of the filthiness left by the armies. There was one village from which such an odour exhaled that no one would approach it. A "Relation" of 1652 describes in these terms the environs of Paris:
At Étréchy, the living are mingled with the dead, and the country is full of the latter. At Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, Crosne, Limay, one hundred and seventy-four ill people were found in the last extremity, with neither beds, clothes, nor bread.
It was necessary to commence by taking away the seeds of infection which increased the maladies, by interring the corpses of men, of dead horses and cattle, and removing the heaps of dirt which the armies had left behind. The cleansing of the soil was the specialty of M. Vincent and one of his most signal benefits. He employed for this work his mission priests and his sisters of charity. The missionaries placed themselves at the head of the workmen, the sisters sought the abandoned sick. Cloth and cap died at need "the arms in the hand," said their chief, but their work was good; and finally the work was taken hold of in the right way.
After the dead the living:
The curé of Boult71 [reports another "Relation"] assures us that he buried three of his parishioners dead from hunger; others were living only upon cut-up straw mixed with earth, of which was composed a food called bread. Five tainted and decaying horses were devoured; an old man aged seventy-five years had entered the presbytery to roast a piece of horse-flesh, the animal having died of scab fifteen days previously, was infected with worms, and had been found cast into a foul ditch… At Saint-Quentin, in the faubourgs, in which the houses had been demolished, the missionaries discovered the last inhabitants in miserable huts, "in each of which," wrote one of them, "I found one or two sick, in one single hut ten; two widows, each having four children, slept together on the ground, having nothing whatever, not even a sheet." Another Ecclesiastic, in his visit, having met with many closed doors, upon forcing them open discovered that the sick were too feeble to open them having eaten nothing during two days, and having beneath them only a little half rotten straw; the number of these poor was so great that without succour from Paris, the citizens under the apprehension of a siege, not being able to nourish them, had resolved to cast them over the walls.
Millions were needed to relieve such distress, but Vincent de Paul and his associates had a better dream; they wished to put these dying populations in a condition to work again and to undertake the reparation of the ruins themselves. The enterprise was organised in spite of obstacles which appeared insurmountable, the exhaustion of France and the difficulty of communication being the principal. The Parisians raised enormous sums and sent gifts of all kinds of materials, and found the means of transporting provisions. The committee divided the environs of Paris; Mme. Joly took the care of one village; the Présidente de Nesmond, four villages; and so on. Missionaries were sent outside the boundaries. One of the later biographers of Vincent de Paul72 values at twelve millions of francs, at this date worth about sixty millions, the sums distributed, without counting money spent directly for the work of piety nor for the support of those engaged in it. However this may be, this latter body certainly consumed a large portion. The immensity of the enterprise, and its apparent boldness, gives us an idea of the wealth and power of the middle classes of the seventeenth century. After Vincent de Paul and M. de Bernières, the honour for this work of relief belongs to the parliamentary world and the Parisian bourgeoisie;
Marie de Gonzague.
En Picardie.
M. Emanuel de Broglie.