Letter IX

Paris, July 3, 1656

SIR,
I shall use as little ceremony with you as the worthy monk did
with me when I saw him last. The moment he perceived me, he came
forward, with his eyes fixed on a book which he held in his hand,
and accosted me thus: "'Would you not be infinitely obliged to any one
who should open to you the gates of paradise? Would you not give
millions of gold to have a key by which you might gain admittance
whenever you thought proper? You need not be at such expense; here
is one- here are a hundred for much less money.'"

At first I was at a loss to know whether the good father was
reading, or talking to me, but he soon put the matter beyond doubt
by adding:

"These, sir, are the opening words of a fine book, written by
Father Barry of our Society; for I never give you anything of my own."

"What book is it?" asked I.

"Here is its title," he replied: "Paradise opened to Philagio,
in a Hundred Devotions to the Mother of God, easily practised."

"Indeed, father! and is each of these easy devotions a
sufficient passport to heaven?"

"It is," returned he. "Listen to what follows: 'The devotions to
the Mother of God, which you will find in this book, are so many
celestial keys, which will open wide to you the gates of paradise,
provided you practise them'; and, accordingly, he says at the
conclusion, 'that he is satisfied if you practise only one of them.'"

"Pray, then, father, do teach me one of the easiest of them."

"They are all easy," he replied, "for example- 'Saluting the
Holy Virgin when you happen to meet her image- saying the little
chaplet of the pleasures of the Virgin- fervently pronouncing the name
of Mary- commissioning the angels to bow to her for us- wishing to
build her as many churches as all the monarchs on earth have done-
bidding her good morrow every morning, and good night in the
evening- saying the Ave Maria every day, in honour of the heart of
Mary'- which last devotion, he says, possesses the additional virtue
of securing us the heart of the Virgin."

"But, father," said I, "only provided we give her our own in
return, I presume?"

"That," he replied, "is not absolutely necessary, when a person is
too much attached to the world. Hear Father Barry: 'Heart for heart
would, no doubt, be highly proper; but yours is rather too much
attached to the world, too much bound up in the creature, so that I
dare not advise you to offer, at present, that poor little slave which
you call your heart.' And so he contents himself with the Ave Maria
which he had prescribed."

"Why, this is extremely easy work," said I, "and I should really
think that nobody will be damned after that."

"Alas!" said the monk, "I see you have no idea of the hardness
of some people's hearts. There are some, sir, who would never engage
to repeat, every day, even these simple words, Good day, Good evening,
just because such a practice would require some exertion of memory.
And, accordingly, it became necessary for Father Barry to furnish them
with expedients still easier, such as wearing a chaplet night and
day on the arm, in the form of a bracelet, or carrying about one's
person a rosary, or an image of the Virgin. 'And, tell me now,' as
Father Barry says, 'if I have not provided you with easy devotions
to obtain the good graces of Mary?'"

"Extremely easy indeed, father," I observed.

"Yes," he said, "it is as much as could possibly be done, and I
think should be quite satisfactory. For he must be a wretched creature
indeed, who would not spare a single moment in all his lifetime to put
a chaplet on his arm, or a rosary in his pocket, and thus secure his
salvation; and that, too, with so much certainty that none who have
tried the experiment have ever found it to fail, in whatever way
they may have lived; though, let me add, we exhort people not to
omit holy living. Let me refer you to the example of this, given at p.
34; it is that of a female who, while she practised daily the devotion
of saluting the images of the Virgin, spent all her days in mortal
sin, and yet was saved after all, by the merit of that single
devotion."

"And how so?" cried I.

"Our Saviour," he replied, "raised her up again, for the very
purpose of showing it. So certain it is that none can perish who
practise any one of these devotions."

"My dear sir," I observed, "I am fully aware that the devotions to
the Virgin are a powerful means of salvation, and that the least of
them, if flowing from the exercise of faith and charity, as in the
case of the saints who have practised them, are of great merit; but to
make persons believe that, by practising these without reforming their
wicked lives, they will be converted by them at the hour of death,
or that God will raise them up again, does appear calculated rather to
keep sinners going on in their evil courses, by deluding them with
false peace and foolhardy confidence, than to draw them off from sin
by that genuine conversion which grace alone can effect."
"What does it matter," replied the monk, "by what road we enter
paradise, provided we do enter it? as our famous Father Binet,
formerly our Provincial, remarks on a similar subject, in his
excellent book, On the Mark of Predestination. 'Be it by hook or by
crook,' as he says, 'what need we care, if we reach at last the
celestial city.'"

"Granted," said I; "but the great question is if we will get there
at all."

"The Virgin will be answerable for that," returned he; "so says
Father Barry in the concluding lines of his book: 'If at the hour of
death, the enemy should happen to put in some claim upon you, and
occasion disturbance in the little commonwealth of your thoughts,
you have only to say that Mary will answer for you, and that he must
make his application to her.'"

"But, father, it might be possible to puzzle you, were one
disposed to push the question a little further. Who, for example,
has assured us that the Virgin will be answerable in this case?"

"Father Barry will be answerable for her," he replied. "'As for
the profit and happiness to be derived from these devotions,' he says,
'I will be answerable for that; I will stand bail for the good
Mother.'"

"But, father, who is to be answerable for Father Barry?"

"How!" cried the monk; "for Father Barry? is he not a member of
our Society; and do you need to be told that our Society is answerable
for all the books of its members? It is highly necessary and important
for you to know about this. There is an order in our Society, by which
all booksellers are prohibited from printing any work of our fathers
without the approbation of our divines and the permission of our
superiors. This regulation was passed by Henry III, 10th May 1583, and
confirmed by Henry IV, 20th December 1603, and by Louis XIII, 14th
February 1612; so that the whole of our body stands responsible for
the publications of each of the brethren. This is a feature quite
peculiar to our community. And, in consequence of this, not a single
work emanates from us which does not breathe the spirit of the
Society. That, sir, is a piece of information quite apropos."

"My good father," said I, "you oblige me very much, and I only
regret that I did not know this sooner, as it will induce me to pay
considerably more attention to your authors."

"I would have told you sooner," he replied, "had an opportunity
offered; I hope, however, you will profit by the information in
future, and, in the meantime, let us prosecute our subject. The
methods of securing salvation which I have mentioned are, in my
opinion, very easy, very sure, and sufficiently numerous; but it was
the anxious wish of our doctors that people should not stop short at
this first step, where they only do what is absolutely necessary for
salvation and nothing more. Aspiring, as they do without ceasing,
after the greater glory of God, they sought to elevate men to a higher
pitch of piety; and, as men of the world are generally deterred from
devotion by the strange ideas they have been led to form of it by some
people, we have deemed it of the highest importance to remove this
obstacle which meets us at the threshold. In this department Father Le
Moine has acquired much fame, by his work entitled Devotion Made Easy,
composed for this very purpose. The picture which he draws of devotion
in this work is perfectly charming. None ever understood the subject
before him. Only hear what he says in the beginning of his work:
'Virtue has never as yet been seen aright; no portrait of her hitherto
produced, has borne the least verisimilitude. It is by no means
surprising that so few have attempted to scale her rocky eminence. She
has been held up as a cross-tempered dame, whose only delight is in
solitude; she has been associated with toil and sorrow; and, in short,
represented as the foe of sports and diversions, which are, in fact,
the flowers of joy and the seasoning of life.'"

"But, father, I am sure, I have heard, at least, that there have
been great saints who led extremely austere lives."

"No doubt of that," he replied; "but still, to use the language of
the doctor, 'there have always been a number of genteel saints, and
well-bred devotees'; and this difference in their manners, mark you,
arises entirely from a difference of humours. 'I am far from denying,'
says my author, 'that there are devout persons to be met with, pale
and melancholy in their temperament, fond of silence and retirement,
with phlegm instead of blood in their veins, and with faces of clay;
but there are many others of a happier complexion, and who possess
that sweet and warm humour, that genial and rectified blood, which
is the true stuff that joy is made of.'

"You see," resumed the monk, "that the love of silence and
retirement is not common to all devout people; and that, as I was
saying, this is the effect rather of their complexion than their
piety. Those austere manners to which you refer are, in fact, properly
the character of a savage and barbarian, and, accordingly, you will
find them ranked by Father Le Moine among the ridiculous and brutal
manners of a moping idiot. The following is the description he has
drawn of one of these in the seventh book of his Moral Pictures. 'He
has no eyes for the beauties of art or nature. Were he to indulge in
anything that gave him pleasure, he would consider himself oppressed
with a grievous load. On festival days, he retires to hold
fellowship with the dead. He delights in a grotto rather than a
palace, and prefers the stump of a tree to a throne. As to injuries
and affronts, he is as insensible to them as if he had the eyes and
ears of a statue. Honour and glory are idols with whom he has no
acquaintance, and to whom he has no incense to offer. To him a
beautiful woman is no better than a spectre; and those imperial and
commanding looks- those charming tyrants who hold so many slaves in
willing and chainless servitude- have no more influence over his
optics than the sun over those of owls,' &c."

"Reverend sir," said I, "had you not told me that Father Le
Moine was the author of that description, I declare I would have
guessed it to be the production of some profane fellow who had drawn
it expressly with the view of turning the saints into ridicule. For if
that is not the picture of a man entirely denied to those feelings
which the Gospel obliges us to renounce, I confess that I know nothing
of the matter."

"You may now perceive, then, the extent of your ignorance," he
replied; "for these are the features of a feeble, uncultivated mind,
'destitute of those virtuous and natural affections which it ought
to possess,' as Father Le Moine says at the close of that description.
Such is his way of teaching 'Christian virtue and philosophy,' as he
announces in his advertisement; and, in truth, it cannot be denied
that this method of treating devotion is much more agreeable to the
taste of the world than the old way in which they went to work
before our times."

"There can be no comparison between them," was my reply, "and I
now begin to hope that you will be as good as your word."

"You will see that better by-and-by," returned the monk. "Hitherto
I have only spoken of piety in general, but, just to show you more
in detail how our fathers have disencumbered it of its toils and
troubles, would it not be most consoling to the ambitious to learn
that they may maintain genuine devotion along with an inordinate
love of greatness?"

"What, father! even though they should run to the utmost excess of
ambition?"

"Yes," he replied; "for this would be only a venial sin, unless
they sought after greatness in order to offend God and injure the
State more effectually. Now venial sins do not preclude a man from
being devout, as the greatest saints are not exempt from them.
'Ambition,' says Escobar, 'which consists in an inordinate appetite
for place and power, is of itself a venial sin; but when such
dignities are coveted for the purpose of hurting the commonwealth,
or having more opportunity to offend God, these adventitious
circumstances render it mortal.'"

"Very savoury doctrine, indeed, father."

"And is it not still more savoury," continued the monk, "for
misers to be told, by the same authority, 'that the rich are not
guilty of mortal sin by refusing to give alms out of their superfluity
to the poor in the hour of their greatest need?- scio in gravi
pauperum necessitate divites non dando superflua, non peccare
mortaliter.'"

"Why truly," said I, "if that be the case, I give up all
pretension to skill in the science of sins."

"To make you still more sensible of this," returned he, "you
have been accustomed to think, I suppose, that a good opinion of one's
self, and a complacency in one's own works, is a most dangerous sin?
Now, will you not be surprised if I can show you that such a good
opinion, even though there should be no foundation for it, is so far
from being a sin that it is, on the contrary, the gift of God?"

"Is it possible, father?"

"That it is," said the monk; "and our good Father Garasse shows it
in his French work, entitled Summary of the Capital Truths of
Religion: 'It is a result of commutative justice that all honest
labour should find its recompense either in praise or in
self-satisfaction. When men of good talents publish some excellent
work, they are justly remunerated by public applause. But when a man
of weak parts has wrought hard at some worthless production, and fails
to obtain the praise of the public, in order that his labour may not
go without its reward, God imparts to him a personal satisfaction,
which it would be worse than barbarous injustice to envy him. It is
thus that God, who is infinitely just, has given even to frogs a
certain complacency in their own croaking.'"

"Very fine decisions in favour of vanity, ambition, and
avarice!" cried I; "and envy, father, will it be more difficult to
find an excuse for it?"

"That is a delicate point," he replied. "We require to make use
here of Father Bauny's distinction, which he lays down in his
Summary of Sins.- 'Envy of the spiritual good of our neighbour is
mortal but envy of his temporal good is only venial.'"

"And why so, father?"

"You shall hear, said he. "'For the good that consists in temporal
things is so slender, and so insignificant in relation to heaven, that
it is of no consideration in the eyes of God and His saints.'"

"But, father, if temporal good is so slender, and of so little
consideration, how do you come to permit men's lives to be taken
away in order to preserve it?"

"You mistake the matter entirely," returned the monk; "you were
told that temporal good was of no consideration in the eyes of God,
but not in the eyes of men."

"That idea never occurred to me," I replied; "and now, it is to be
hoped that, in virtue of these same distinctions, the world will get
rid of mortal sins altogether."

"Do not flatter yourself with that," said the father; "there are
still such things as mortal sins- there is sloth, for example."

"Nay, then, father dear!" I exclaimed, "after that, farewell to
all 'the joys of life!'"

"Stay," said the monk, "when you have heard Escobar's definition
of that vice, you will perhaps change your tone: 'Sloth,' he observes,
'lies in grieving that spiritual things are spiritual, as if one
should lament that the sacraments are the sources of grace; which
would be a mortal sin.'"

"O my dear sir!" cried I, "I don't think that anybody ever took it
into his head to be slothful in that way."

"And accordingly," he replied, "Escobar afterwards remarks: 'I
must confess that it is very rarely that a person falls into the sin
of sloth.' You see now how important it is to define things properly?"

"Yes, father, and this brings to my mind your other definitions
about assassinations, ambuscades, and superfluities. But why have
you not extended your method to all cases, and given definitions of
all vices in your way, so that people may no longer sin in
gratifying themselves?"

"It is not always essential," he replied, "to accomplish that
purpose by changing the definitions of things. I may illustrate this
by referring to the subject of good cheer, which is accounted one of
the greatest pleasures of life, and which Escobar thus sanctions in
his Practice according to our Society: 'Is it allowable for a person
to eat and drink to repletion, unnecessarily, and solely for pleasure?
Certainly he may, according to Sanchez, provided he does not thereby
injure his health; because the natural appetite may be permitted to
enjoy its proper functions.'"

"Well, father, that is certainly the most complete passage, and
the most finished maxim in the whole of your moral system! What
comfortable inferences may be drawn from it! Why, and is gluttony,
then, not even a venial sin?"

"Not in the shape I have just referred to," he replied; "but,
according to the same author, it would be a venial sin 'were a
person to gorge himself, unnecessarily, with eating and drinking, to
such a degree as to produce vomiting.' So much for that point. I would
now say a little about the facilities we have invented for avoiding
sin in worldly conversations and intrigues. One of the most
embarrassing of these cases is how to avoid telling lies, particularly
when one is anxious to induce a belief in what is false. In such
cases, our doctrine of equivocations has been found of admirable
service, according to which, as Sanchez has it, 'it is permitted to
use ambiguous terms, leading people to understand them in another
sense from that in which we understand them ourselves.'"

"I know that already, father," said I.

"We have published it so often," continued he, "that at length, it
seems, everybody knows of it. But do you know what is to be done
when no equivocal words can be got?"

"No, father."

"I thought as much, said the Jesuit; "this is something new,
sir: I mean the doctrine of mental reservations. 'A man may swear,' as
Sanchez says in the same place, 'that he never did such a thing
(though he actually did it), meaning within himself that he did not do
so on a certain day, or before he was born, or understanding any other
such circumstance, while the words which he employs have no such sense
as would discover his meaning. And this is very convenient in many
cases, and quite innocent, when necessary or conducive to one's
health, honour, or advantage.'"

"Indeed, father! is that not a lie, and perjury to boot?"

"No," said the father; "Sanchez and Filiutius prove that it is
not; for, says the latter, 'it is the intention that determines the
quality of the action.' And he suggests a still surer method for
avoiding falsehood, which is this: After saying aloud, 'I swear that I
have not done that,' to add, in a low voice, 'to-day'; or after saying
aloud, 'I swear,' to interpose in a whisper, 'that I say,' and then
continue aloud, 'that I have done that.' This, you perceive, is
telling the truth."

"I grant it," said I; "it might possibly, however, be found to
be telling the truth in a low key, and falsehood in a loud one;
besides, I should be afraid that many people might not have sufficient
presence of mind to avail themselves of these methods."

"Our doctors," replied the Jesuit, "have taught, in the same
passage, for the benefit of such as might not be expert in the use
of these reservations, that no more is required of them, to avoid
lying, than simply to say that 'they have not done' what they have
done, provided 'they have, in general, the intention of giving to
their language the sense which an able man would give to it.' Be
candid, now, and confess if you have not often felt yourself
embarrassed, in consequence of not knowing this?"

"Sometimes," said I.

"And will you not also acknowledge," continued he, "that it
would often prove very convenient to be absolved in conscience from
keeping certain engagements one may have made?"

"The most convenient thing in the world!" I replied.

"Listen, then, to the general rule laid down by Escobar: 'Promises
are not binding, when the person in making them had no intention to
bind himself. Now, it seldom happens that any have such an
intention, unless when they confirm their promises by an oath or
contract; so that when one simply says, "I will do it," he means
that he will do it if he does not change his mind; for he does not
wish, by saying that, to deprive himself of his liberty.' He gives
other rules in the same strain, which you may consult for yourself,
and tells us, in conclusion, 'that all this is taken from Molina and
our other authors, and is therefore settled beyond all doubt.'"

"My dear father," I observed, "I had no idea that the direction of
the intention possessed the power of rendering promises null and
void."

"You must perceive," returned he, "what facility this affords
for prosecuting the business of life. But what has given us the most
trouble has been to regulate the commerce between the sexes; our
fathers being more chary in the matter of chastity. Not but that
they have discussed questions of a very curious and very indulgent
character, particularly in reference to married and betrothed
persons."

At this stage of the conversation I was made acquainted with the
most extraordinary questions you can well imagine. He gave me enough
of them to fill many letters; but, as you show my communications to
all sorts of persons, and as I do not choose to be the vehicle of such
reading to those who would make it the subject of diversion, I must
decline even giving the quotations.

The only thing to which I can venture to allude, out of all the
books which he showed me, and these in French, too, is a passage which
you will find in Father Bauny's Summary, p. 165, relating to certain
little familiarities, which, provided the intention is well
directed, he explains "as passing for gallant"; and you will be
surprised to find, on p. 148 a principle of morals, as to the power
which daughters have to dispose of their persons without the leave
of their relatives, couched in these terms: "When that is done with
the consent of the daughter, although the father may have reason to
complain, it does not follow that she, or the person to whom she has
sacrificed her honour, has done him any wrong, or violated the rules
of justice in regard to him; for the daughter has possession of her
honour, as well as of her body, and can do what she pleases with them,
bating death or mutilation of her members." Judge, from that specimen,
of the rest. It brings to my recollection a passage from a heathen
poet, a much better casuist, it would appear, than these reverend
doctors; for he says, "that the person of a daughter does not belong
wholly to herself, but partly to her father and partly to her
mother, without whom she cannot dispose of it, even in marriage."
And I am much mistaken if there is a single judge in the land who
would not lay down as law the very reverse of this maxim of Father
Bauny.

This is all I dare tell you of this part of our conversation,
which lasted so long that I was obliged to beseech the monk to
change the subject. He did so and proceeded to entertain me with their
regulations about female attire.

"We shall not speak," he said, "of those who are actuated by
impure intentions; but, as to others, Escobar remarks that 'if the
woman adorn herself without any evil intention, but merely to
gratify a natural inclination to vanity- ob naturalem fastus
inclinationem- this is only a venial sin, or rather no sin at all.'
And Father Bauny maintains, that 'even though the woman knows the
bad effect which her care in adorning her person may have upon the
virtue of those who may behold her, all decked out in rich and
precious attire, she would not sin in so dressing.' And, among others,
he cites our Father Sanchez as being of the same mind."

"But, father, what do your authors say to those passages of
Scripture which so strongly denounce everything of that sort?"

"Lessius has well met that objection," said the monk, "by
observing, 'that these passages of Scripture have the force of
precepts only in regard to the women of that period, who were expected
to exhibit, by their modest demeanour, an example of edification to
the Pagans.'"

"And where did he find that, father"?

"It does not matter where he found it," replied he; "it is
enough to know that the sentiments of these great men are always
probable of themselves. It deserves to be noticed, however, that
Father Le Moine has qualified this general permission; for he will
on no account allow it to be extended to the old ladies. 'Youth,' he
observes, 'is naturally entitled to adorn itself, nor can the use of
ornament be condemned at an age which is the flower and verdure of
life. But there it should be allowed to remain: it would be
strangely out of season to seek for roses on the snow. The stars alone
have a right to be always dancing, for they have the gift of perpetual
youth. The wisest course in this matter, therefore, for old women,
would be to consult good sense and a good mirror, to yield to
decency and necessity, and to retire at the first approach of the
shades of night.'"

"A most judicious advice," I observed.

"But," continued the monk, "just to show you how careful our
fathers are about everything you can think of, I may mention that,
after granting the ladies permission to gamble, and foreseeing that,
in many cases, this license would be of little avail unless they had
something to gamble with, they have established another maxim in their
favour, which will be found in Escobar's chapter on larceny, no. 13:
'A wife,' says he, 'may gamble, and for this purpose may pilfer
money from her husband.'"

"Well, father, that is capital!

"There are many other good things besides that," said the
father; "but we must waive them and say a little about those more
important maxims, which facilitate the practice of holy things- the
manner of attending mass, for example. On this subject, our great
divines, Gaspard Hurtado and Coninck, have taught 'that it is quite
sufficient to be present at mass in body, though we may be absent in
spirit, provided we maintain an outwardly respectful deportment.'
Vasquez goes a step further, maintaining 'that one fulfils the precept
of hearing mass, even though one should go with no such intention at
all.' All this is repeatedly laid down by Escobar, who, in one
passage, illustrates the point by the example of those who are dragged
to mass by force, and who put on a fixed resolution not to listen to
it."

"Truly, sir," said I, "had any other person told me that, I
would not have believed it."

"In good sooth," he replied, "it requires all the support which
the authority of these great names can lend it; and so does the
following maxim by the same Escobar, 'that even a wicked intention,
such as that of ogling the women, joined to that of hearing mass
rightly, does not hinder a man from fulfilling the service.' But
another very convenient device, suggested by our learned brother
Turrian, is that 'one may hear the half of a mass from one priest, and
the other half from another; and that it makes no difference though he
should hear first the conclusion of the one, and then the commencement
of the other.' I might also mention that it has been decided by
several of our doctors to be lawful 'to hear the two halves of a
mass at the same time, from the lips of two different priests, one
of whom is commencing the mass, while the other is at the elevation;
it being quite possible to attend to both parties at once, and two
halves of a mass making a whole- duae medietates unam missam
constituunt.' 'From all which,' says Escobar, 'I conclude, that you
may hear mass in a very short period of time; if, for example, you
should happen to hear four masses going on at the same time, so
arranged that when the first is at the commencement, the second is
at the gospel, the third at the consecration, and the last at the
communion.'"

"Certainly, father, according to that plan, one may hear mass
any day at Notre Dame in a twinkling."

"Well," replied he, "that just shows how admirably we have
succeeded in facilitating the hearing of mass. But I am anxious now to
show you how we have softened the use of the sacraments, and
particularly that of penance. It is here that the benignity of our
fathers shines in its truest splendour; and you will be really
astonished to find that devotion, a thing which the world is so much
afraid of, should have been treated by our doctors with such
consummate skill that, to use the words of Father Le Moine, in his
Devotion Made Easy, demolishing the bugbear which the devil had placed
at its threshold, they have rendered it easier than vice and more
agreeable than pleasure; so that, in fact, simply to live is
incomparably more irksome than to live well. Is that not a
marvellous change, now?"

"Indeed, father, I cannot help telling you a bit of my mind: I
am sadly afraid that you have overshot the mark, and that this
indulgence of yours will shock more people than it will attract. The
mass, for example, is a thing so grand and so holy that, in the eyes
of a great many, it would be enough to blast the credit of your
doctors forever to show them how you have spoken of it."

"With a certain class," replied the monk, "I allow that may be the
case; but do you not know that we accommodate ourselves to all sorts
of persons? You seem to have lost all recollection of what I have
repeatedly told you on this point. The first time you are at
leisure, therefore, I propose that we make this the theme of our
conversation, deferring till then the lenitives we have introduced
into the confessional. I promise to make you understand it so well
that you will never forget it."

With these words we parted, so that our next conversation, I
presume, will turn on the policy of the Society. I am, &c.

P.S. Since writing the above, I have seen Paradise Opened by a
Hundred Devotions Easily Practised, by Father Barry; and also the Mark
of Predestination, by Father Binet; both of them pieces well worth the
seeing.