Venerable Philippine Duchesne Part 1

Venerable Philippine d.u.c.h.esne.

by G. E. M.

PREFACE.

There have been many heroic figures in the history of American Catholicity. The sowing of the faith in our beloved land was not accomplished lightly. Anguish of soul and weariness of body were required of our pioneers, no less than of those of other lands. Our predecessors in this portion of G.o.d's vineyard left home and kindred and friends and cast themselves on a strange sh.o.r.e, wanderers for G.o.d's cause, giving their lives in labor and anguish of spirit, that the glad tidings of salvation might be spread far and wide.

Some of these folk were martyrs in very truth. Through the mercy of Christ their heart's blood has sanctified our soil. Others by living their length of days in the midst of privations and sorrows, that Christ might be known and glorified, fell little short of the martyrdom of blood itself. The memory of these still lives, enshrined in hearts that love them for their tireless zeal and their dauntless courage. Of such pioneers was the Venerable Philippine d.u.c.h.esne, a truly valiant woman, to whom the American Church owes a debt of grat.i.tude too great for payment.

The following pages are too few to give more than a glimpse of her heroic labors, but they have caught inspiration from their subject, and something, too, of her fragrant piety. No one will read them without admiration for one who was so weak and yet so strong, so humble, and yet so daring in work for G.o.d.

Mother d.u.c.h.esne has a lesson for this age of softness and indolence. She has shown us the way to heroism and offers us motives for entering thereon. For this grat.i.tude is due. This sketch is conceived in a spirit of thankfulness, a tribute of appreciation that will speak a clear, forceful message to sad hearts and selfish hearts and timorous souls, inspiring all with great ideals and holy ambitions to do a mite for the leader, Christ.

R. H. T.

CHAPTER I

VOLUNTEERS FOR THE AMERICAN MISSIONS

In the early annals of the Catholic Church in this country, no name stands more preeminent than that of the Venerable Philippine d.u.c.h.esne.

She was one of the first, and altogether the greatest, among the spiritual daughters of the Blessed Madeleine Sophie Barat, so well known as the Foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart. The pioneer of that Inst.i.tute in the New World, it was in the midst of sorrow, and penury, and strenuous toil, that she cast the seed of the harvest whose plentiful sheaves are carried with joy by those who have come after her.

She was a valiant cooperator in the work of the Catholic missionaries during the early part of the last century, and American Catholics can scarcely fail to be interested in her story.

She was born in Gren.o.ble, France, August 29, 1769, the same year as Napoleon Bonaparte. Her father, Pierre Francois d.u.c.h.esne, was a prosperous lawyer, practising in the Parliament, or law court of Gren.o.ble, the capital of the Province of Dauphiny, while her mother, Rose Perrier, belonged to a family of wealthy merchants of the same city. Pierre Francois d.u.c.h.esne had adopted the false teachings of Voltaire and his school, but his wife was very pious, and carefully brought up her children in the love and fear of G.o.d. Philippine was the next to the last in a family of six. From her earliest years she was noted for her serious turn of mind. One of her chief pleasures was reading, but even this had to be of a serious kind. Roman history was an especial favorite, but what she loved most of all was the lives of the saints, particularly the martyrs. Another of her pleasures was to a.s.sist the poor. All of her pocket money, with everything else that she could dispose of, went to them, and she loved to distribute her alms with her own hand.

At the age of twelve she was placed as a pupil at Sainte Marie d'en Haut, the Visitation Convent of her native city, to be prepared for her first Holy Communion. The remarkable spirit of prayer, of which she had given very early evidence, developed itself here, and her happiest moments were those she was permitted to spend in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. A diligent and conscientious student, so ardent was her piety, that she was allowed by the kind nuns the privilege of making her morning meditation and reciting the Office in choir with them. The year after her admission into the school she made her First Communion, and it was on this happy occasion that she heard the call to a perfect life. Her parents, suspecting what was in her mind, removed her from the Convent. She silently acquiesced in this decision, keeping her own counsel, and continuing her studies with great success, in company with her cousins, the young Perfiers, who were afterward at the head of a great banking business in Paris, under the rule of the first Napoleon.

After four years of patient waiting, in the hope of obtaining her parents' consent, and convinced at last that they never would grant it, she decided that it was time to act, and entered the novitiate of the Visitation. Her family became somewhat reconciled to her choice, after striving in vain to induce her to return home; but when the time for her profession came, her father absolutely forbade her to make it, on account of the dangerous political conditions of the time.

Four years later, in 1792, when the revolutionary storm was at its height, religious communities were being everywhere expelled from their homes, and Monsieur d.u.c.h.esne withdrew his daughter from her convent, which was soon converted into a prison, and went to reside with his family in the Chateau of Granne, situated in a retired part of the country. By this time all her sisters were married, except the youngest, a child in her 'teens; and when her mother was overtaken by her last illness, she it was who cared for her with devoted affection, and finally closed her eyes in death. After this the family possessions were divided among the children, and Philippine surrendered her share to the others, reserving only a small pension, barely sufficient for her needs.

This business being settled, she removed to a modest apartment in Gren.o.ble, in order to be able to devote herself to works of mercy. Her ardent charity and intrepid energy found a wide field of action in those calamitous times. She visited and succored the unfortunate victims doomed to the guillotine, with whom the prisons were crowded. She ministered to the sick, and sought in their hiding places, the devoted priests who would not abandon their posts, to bring them to the bedside of the dying. She did all this at the constant risk of her life, often hearing sounds and witnessing sights that made her shudder with horror.

As soon as the revolutionary storm had spent its fury somewhat, she was enabled to turn her attention to the neglected boys she found in the streets, a.s.sembling them in her own lodgings to teach them to read and write, and above all, to prepare them for the Sacraments.

At last, when the advent of Napoleon to power restored political and social order, Philippine d.u.c.h.esne who, during all these years, had considered herself as irrevocably consecrated to the service of G.o.d, observing the rules and customs of the Visitation as closely as the adverse circ.u.mstances of the time would permit, resolved to reestablish in their old home the surviving members of the community of Sainte Marie d'en Haut, and resume a religious life with them. She obtained possession of the convent through the influence of her cousins, the Perriers, but her attempt to reorganize the community was not successful. In the meantime, however, several companions had gathered around her, forming a little community with the t.i.tle of "Daughters of Faith," under the direction of the Vicar General of Gren.o.ble, the Abbe Rivet. This was in 1803 and the following year.

In the meantime, Madame d.u.c.h.esne had heard, through the Abbe Rivet, of the Society of the Sacred Heart recently founded by Mother Madeleine Sophie Barat, under the guidance of Father Joseph Varin. It was through the latter that she applied for admission into the new Society. Father Varin, in reporting the case to the holy Foundress, declared that Madame d.u.c.h.esne was a soul worth seeking for even to the end of the world. Lack of s.p.a.ce does not permit us to dwell upon the beautiful humility, submission and childlike docility this valiant woman displayed in her intercourse with her new superior, who was ten years younger than herself, or her joy at finding herself under religious discipline and obedience. Nor can we stop to describe her heroic devotedness, zeal and charity toward all; her incredible activity, her self-immolation, the wonderful spirit of prayer that held her motionless the livelong night before the Tabernacle, when holy obedience allowed her the privilege.

The ten years that followed her profession were spent at Sainte Marie d'en Haut, toiling with an unflagging energy vivified and made fruitful by her intimate union with G.o.d. It was during that interval that the death of her father occurred. In his last illness, she surrounded him with the most loving care, and had the consolation of bringing him back to the faith of his baptism, and seeing him atone for the errors of a lifetime by a sincere repentance and an edifying end.

In the depths of her heart, Mother d.u.c.h.esne had felt from the first an intense longing to devote herself to the evangelization of the barbarous tribes still sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death; but hitherto she had not seen any opening in that direction. So she was patient and put out her hands to all the strong things that Divine Providence placed in her way. One day, however, the ill.u.s.trious Dom Augustin de Lestrange, Abbot of La Trappe, visited Sainte Marie d'en Haut, on his return from a tour among the North American missions. It was on the feast of Pentecost, a circ.u.mstance that did not escape the piety of Madame d.u.c.h.esne; and the account he gave of the labors, dangers and fatigues endured by the missionaries in the New World, communicated a new and almost uncontrollable intensity to her apostolic yearnings.

After this, she was possessed by one thought and one desire, that of devoting herself to the conversion of the savages of America. A few days later, she wrote to Mother Barat to tell her of Dom de Lestrange's visit and of the ardent desires his discourses had aroused in her heart for the missions of America in particular. Mother Barat was delighted, but insisted that she must school herself to patience, until some providential opening should offer. For this she waited twelve long years, but with what burning desires, what tears and prayers! It would take too long to relate the circ.u.mstances which led to the visit of Mgr.

Louis Valentin Dubourg, the newly consecrated Bishop of Louisiana, and describe the touching scene, when Mother Barat, in presence of the humble yet ardent entreaties of her strong-souled daughter, recognized the will of G.o.d, and gave the consent she implored, to let her have a share in the missionary labors of the zealous prelate in the far-off region of Louisiana.

In the hearts of G.o.d's saints, joy and sorrow are in close alliance.

Mother d.u.c.h.esne was overwhelmed with joy on seeing the realization of her ardent and long-cherished desires; but a midnight blackness settled upon her soul, when she found herself about to sail away from the sh.o.r.es of sunny France, leaving behind her all that her loving heart held so dear, and with the conviction that the parting was final, as far as this life was concerned. But her strong spirit did not flinch for an instant, and the world would never have known how keenly she felt the sacrifice, were it not for a few lines in one of her letters to Mother Barat. Her companions were Madame Octavie Berthold, a fervent convert, whose father had been secretary to Voltaire; Madame Eugenie Aude, a young lady whose grace and elegance had been admired at the court of Savoy, and two lay sisters of tried virtue. After a tedious voyage of ten weeks in a small sailing vessel, they reached New Orleans on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, May 29, 1818, and as soon as it was possible, they set out for St. Louis in one of the primitive steamboats of the time, a trip of six weeks, with numberless inconveniences and a very rough set of fellow-pa.s.sengers.

CHAPTER II

FIRST SCHOOLS IN THE NEW WORLD

Mgr. Dubourg cordially welcomed them to his Episcopal city, but the best he could do for them was to a.s.sign to them a log-house, which he had leased for their use at St. Charles, a village on the Missouri River, at a distance of thirty miles from St. Louis. Here they opened a boarding school which at first was only very scantily attended. They also opened a school for poor children, which immediately gathered in twenty-two pupils. As the nuns could not afford to keep a servant, they themselves had to cultivate the garden which, when they arrived, was a wilderness of weeds and briars. They also had to care for their cow and milk it, to chop wood for their fires, to bake their bread, to do the cooking and was.h.i.+ng, besides teaching the two schools. For their supply of water, they were compelled to depend upon the muddy current of the Missouri River, brought to them in small bucketfuls, for which they had to pay an exorbitant price. The summer was very hot, and the cold of winter was so intense, that the clothes, hung up to dry near the kitchen stove, froze stiff. They had to be careful in handling the tin plates, etc., which served for their meals, lest their hands should adhere to them. The white fingers of Mesdames Aude and Berthold soon became hard and grimy.

As for Mother d.u.c.h.esne her hands had become rugged and h.o.r.n.y long ago, from the hard, rough work to which she had devoted herself, especially after her reentrance into Sainte Marie d'en Haut. Indeed, it had always been her custom to reserve to herself, as much as possible, every kind of work that might be most painful or fatiguing for others. These particulars offer but a faint idea of the sufferings and privations endured by these refined and accomplished ladies, during those hard beginnings of the Society of the Sacred Heart in the New World.

During this trying time, Mother d.u.c.h.esne's desolation of heart was extreme, and her sense of loneliness indescribable. Whatever labors and austerities she had imposed upon herself hitherto, she had always had a circle of friends of the choicest kind and spiritual directors with whom she felt at her ease, but now all this was a thing of the past. Neither did she find any consolation in prayer. Her soul seemed dead within her, and yet, besides keeping up her own courage, she had to sustain that of her young companions, less inured to suffering and without her granite endurance. Still they were very brave and Bishop Dubourg could not but admire the valiant spirit and the cheerfulness of all.

But the establishment at St. Charles was only a temporary arrangement to last for one year; and, as the house that was building at Florissant was not yet ready when the lease expired, Bishop Dubourg gave them the use of his farm near that village during the interval of waiting, with the log house upon it built by the consecrated hands of the bishop himself and of his heroic fellow missionaries. Toward the middle of September, 1819, followed by the intense regrets of the Abbe Richard, Cure of St.

Charles, and by the tears of the children of the free school, Mother d.u.c.h.esne moved to the farm which had been thus placed at her disposal.

The boarders, now increased to about twenty, accompanied them to their new home. Here one room and a garret was all that the nuns had for themselves and their pupils; but they had also a poor little chapel, where they were able to keep Him, who was the source of all their strength, and whose presence among them sweetened their life of toil and privation.

Mother d.u.c.h.esne's presence and supervision had hastened the work upon the new home, that was going up on a piece of ground given to them by the bishop; and by the end of December, it was sufficiently advanced to be habitable. Before leaving the farm, a great consolation was granted to the devoted nuns, in a retreat given by Father de Andreis, the saintly Lazarist missionary, who in 1900 was placed on the list of candidates for canonization. He cleared up Mother d.u.c.h.esne's perplexities on various points, and between those two kindred souls, there sprung up a holy friends.h.i.+p, which was for her a consolation and a support. Unfortunately, less than two years later, a malignant fever carried away this great servant of G.o.d, in the midst of his fruitful apostolic labors.

On Christmas Eve, the removal to the new house took place. Mother d.u.c.h.esne and Aude were the last to leave the farmhouse, and it was late when they reached their destination, for they had made the entire way on foot, through deep snow, and in the face of a freezing wind. The little community set at once to the work of preparing their small and humble chapel for Midnight Ma.s.s, at which nuns and pupils, and also the workmen employed on the house, a.s.sisted and received Holy Communion. With regret we find ourselves compelled to pa.s.s over many interesting and touching particulars, such as the blessing and encouragement sent by the Sovereign Pontiff then reigning, the saintly Pius VII, and the gift of several relics and pictures from Bishop Dubourg, among the latter one that Mother d.u.c.h.esne had greatly longed for, that of St. Francis Regis, her special patron, whose name is so intimately connected with her own.

At Florissant, a new field was opened to her charity. Bishop Dubourg's farm was intended by him as a quiet and healthful retreat, where his missionaries might, for a while, rest and refresh themselves after their toilsome apostolic journeys, or when their health required particular care. Madame d.u.c.h.esne was a mother to them, furnis.h.i.+ng them with their meals at any hour of the day, as they dropped in, often three or four at a time, was.h.i.+ng and mending their clothes, and replacing them when needful, giving them the best of everything she had in the house. This occasioned a great deal of work and no small expense, and money was very scarce with her, to say nothing of the debts which had been incurred for the building of the house. But this valiant woman counted upon the Providence of G.o.d which never failed her, though its gifts were usually bestowed upon her so sparingly, as barely to keep her afloat. It was a great joy to her to help and serve the missionaries, and she declared that she would consider her life happy and well-spent, could she do nothing more than cook their meals for them. This generous hospitality was all the more heroic from the precarious condition of her own finances. Besides the debts, very heavy for the time, which were pressing upon her, and which she had been obliged to incur for the building of her house, a great business depression throughout the country reduced the number of her pupils, thus diminis.h.i.+ng the small returns from the school, and, in 1820, a prolonged drought dried up the wells and compelled her to send to the river for all the water they needed.

Toward the end of 1820, when matters began to improve, the community was visited by sickness. Mother d.u.c.h.esne's turn came last, and so serious was her illness that it brought her to the verge of the grave. She recovered, however, and was able to resume her work at the end of two months.

It was just after this that vocations began to come in. The first were Emilie Saint Cyr, one of her pupils, and the sisters Eulalie and Mathilde Hamilton, of a very distinguished family related to the Fenwicks of Maryland, and also two lay sisters, Mary Layton and Mary Ann Summers. These five formed the nucleus of a novitiate whose numbers increased by degrees.

CHAPTER III

TRIALS AT FLORISSANT

In 1821, the little community of Florissant sent out its first offshoot.

With the consent and approbation of her Superior General, Mother Barat, Mother d.u.c.h.esne made her second foundation in Lower Louisiana, as it was then called, at a place known as Grand Coteau, in the Opelousas region.

Mother Eugenie Aude and Sister Mary Layton were sent to begin it. A little later, Mother d.u.c.h.esne was able to send them valuable help in the person of Madame Xavier (Anna) Murphy, who had just arrived from France with Madame Lucile Mathevon, another valiant woman, who had a notable part to play in the early history of the Society of the Sacred Heart in America.

The school at Grand Coteau had soon filled up, but ere long Mother d.u.c.h.esne heard of the distressing condition to which the new community was reduced, through sickness and overwork. With the uncalculating charity that characterized her, she at once determined to go in person to their a.s.sistance, though it was in the middle of summer and the journey must necessarily be long and painful, as well as expensive. She took with her Madame St. Cyr and a lay novice to leave at Grand Coteau, and Therese Pratte, whose family had so hospitably entertained her and her companions during their two weeks' stay in St. Louis, after their arrival. The young girl was one of her pupils, who had obtained her father's consent for a visit to Mother Aude.

The voyage was long, full of difficulties and endless interruptions and delays, and marked by very dramatic and even tragic incidents, especially on the return trip, of which alone we will give a brief account. Among other particulars, she had to go from Plaqumine all the way down to New Orleans to find a boat for St. Louis. In New Orleans she was stricken with malarial fever, still the physician advised her departure by the first steamer, because at the time yellow fever was epidemic in the city. Scarcely, however, had the steamer started on her voyage, before the dread disease broke out on board, the captain being the first to die of it. Mother d.u.c.h.esne, though reduced to a state of great prostration, gathered up the remnant of her strength to take care of one of the yellow fever patients on board, to whom no one else seemed to give any attention. She not only ministered to his needs, but converted and baptized him before he died.

Weak and exhausted as she was, foreseeing that under the existing conditions the steamer would scarcely be able to reach her destination, she determined to trust in Providence, and land with her young companion at Natchez. But the quarantine excluded her from the town, nor would any one in the neighborhood take them in, for fear of the prevailing epidemic. Providence came to their a.s.sistance, for, as they sat by the river bank upon their trunks, alone and friendless, a young man chanced to pa.s.s by, and seeing them so forlorn, offered his services and went in search of shelter for them. Soon he found an honest German who willingly took them in, but he had no bed to offer them, except the one in which his wife had died of yellow fever a fortnight previously, and of which not even the sheets had been changed. From this place Mother d.u.c.h.esne found means of making her distress known to the Abbe Maenhaut, Cure of the church in the town, and in later years Rector of the Cathedral of New Orleans. He came promptly to her a.s.sistance, and had her removed to the hospitable home of a family of the name of Davis. Complete rest and change of air restored her health, and in a few weeks she reembarked for St. Louis on the steamer Cincinnati. On their way up they pa.s.sed by a steamboat tied up and partially wrecked, in charge of three men. It was the Hecla, the boat from which she had landed at Natchez. Then it was that she could see how providential had been the change she had made.

The yellow fever had continued its ravages on the unfortunate boat, and on a little island nearby could be seen the graves of thirteen of its victims. Moreover, the boilers had exploded and several men had been severely injured. At last, after another delay of two weeks, caused by the grounding of the Cincinnati, Mother d.u.c.h.esne and her companion reached St. Louis, after an absence of five months. The account of this terrible journey contained in Mother d.u.c.h.esne's letters to Mother Barat is such as might come from the pen of a saint. There is not a word of complaint, and no regrets for herself, save for the Communions and Ma.s.ses she had lost.

On her return to Florissant she found the school greatly diminished and in a state of insubordination; this latter condition prevailed not only among the pupils, but also among the orphans, of whom she always had several in the house, and whom she educated and provided for entirely.

Her firm hand soon reestablished order, but it was not in her power to remove what had been the cause of the state of disturbance, in which she had found the school. The times were very hard; there was little money in circulation, and Bishop Dubourg had been obliged to borrow in order to finish his new cathedral, which the rapid increase of the population rendered necessary. The great bishop's administrative ability was above question, but the resources he had counted upon failed him, through the dishonesty of an agent, and this, with the difficulty of the times, made it impossible for him to meet his obligations; while his creditors, finding themselves in much the same situation, were clamorous against him, breaking out into abuse and menaces. They were even threatening to seize his residence and have it sold for their benefit.

As a matter of course, Mother d.u.c.h.esne and her community shared largely in the odium that had fallen upon Bishop Dubourg. She was afflicted, but chiefly on account of the indignities offered to the great missionary prelate, and the harm done to religion by the nature of the difficulties in which he found himself involved. After a time the storm subsided, leaving, however, in the public mind a feeling of rancor and resentment, one of whose effects was a settled enmity with regard to Mother d.u.c.h.esne and her community. Soon, of the pupils left to her, there were only two whose schooling was being paid for. Still her courage and her reliance upon G.o.d never wavered, and her confidence was rewarded. She does not say how it happened, but she affirms that she was never less pinched by poverty than at this time. She met this crisis in her usual heroic fas.h.i.+on. Disregarding the idle talk of which she was the subject, she refused to dismiss any of the boarding pupils who were being educated gratis. She already had a free school for girls, and she opened another for boys, as also two cla.s.ses, one for the poor women of the village and one for the grown-up girls.

And how, with such scanty resources, did she manage to make both ends meet? By her own thrift and ingenious industry, which enabled her to turn the least trifle to account, with an occasional remittance of a few hundred francs from her relatives, and such a.s.sistance as Mother Barat could spare out of her own penury. But her surest a.s.set was her confidence in Divine Providence, which always came to her a.s.sistance, often in the most remarkable manner. With these she covered the expenses of her convent, extinguished by degrees her indebtedness, and at the same time was prodigal in her charity toward the missionaries, and very liberal toward the poor.