Chapter XVIII: Family work — Charitable activity

As a father — Hard work and happiness — Ancient Germany — M. Gossin — Workermen’¡s club
1844-46.

From the beginning of 1844 Ozanam had the pleasure of the company in Paris of his two brothers, one a priest and the other a student, who shared his home with him in the Rue de Fleurus. On the 14th January he informed Lallier that he had brought up to Paris his old nurse Guigui. “After sixty years’ service she could not make up her mind to leave the children of her masters. You see therefore I have, as it were, assembled the walls of the old home to reconstruct it in Paris; all the family portraits, and some antique pieces of furniture belonging to my grandmother. So many relics to which memories cling! We have thus peopled our rather lonely existence, and we feel more firmly established in our home, which is not without gaiety.” A piano from the firm of Pleyel contributed to the charm of this home of artists. Ozanam was not a musician, but he had an apprecia­tion of the beautiful in everything. Madame Ozanam threw her soul into her playing in order to reach his.

Ozanam mentions the names of sofne friends who called regularly: the contributors to the Correspondant; Wilson the director, Dr. Gou­raud, Count Caine, M. de Champagny. He invited Foisset. Young authors like Maxime de Montrond, Baron Montreuil, Jourdain (Charles de Sainte-Foi), Amedee Gabourg, the illustrious Cauchy. Ernest Lelievre, the student, also called occasionally.

Is there any need to state that Ozanam went little into society? While he was studying in Paris, Ampère, junior, had intro­duced him to the celebrated salon of Madame Recamier. He visited there very rarely and finally ceased altogether. When reproached gently for his absence, he replied modestly and quietly: “I am too young, Madame, for such grave and learned society. When I shall have carved out a career for myself, six or seven years hence, I shall come and pay you my respects regularly, if you will allow me.” When he returned to Paris as a Professor, one of his first calls was to the renowned lady of the Abbaye-aux-Bois. “Ah!” she exclaimed as he entered, “how strictly you have kept your word! It is exactly seven years since your last visit.” Ozanam had really forgotten, but he had kept his word.

Ozanam was anxious to share his happy family life with all belonging to him. So he wrote: “Longings continue to agitate us. We per­ceive that, no matter with what care we arrange for happiness here below, God sees to it that we still feel a want.” His desires for a happy family reunion were fulfilled in April, 1845, by the arrival of M. Soulacroix, to take up a position which would establish him and his family permanently in Paris. Yet even then a dark cloud hung over that perfect felicity; it was the sad state of health of their son Theophilus. Ozanam, as a true brother, charged himself with the task of dispelling the ennui and filling up the wearying days of his enforced inactivity. He initiated him into, he even associated him with, his Germanic studies. “He knows German perfectly,” he wrote to M. Leon Bore, then in Munich. “God, Who deprived him of many things, endowed him with a beautiful mind. It is particularly desirable that he should not feel useless in the world, and he would be very glad to make known in France some good foreign books, for example, Guido Goerres’ Jeanne d’Arc. Would you be so kind as to make out for me a list of good healthy German works for translation, from which he could make a selection.”

The youth was pious, the whole family environment was quite Catholic. Ozanam admitted finding in its midst examples of faith and hope in God which he blamed himself for imitating so badly. It was while with them at Oullins that he had written previously: “Why do I feel myself more and more troubled and weak, I who have been enriched by God with so many favours? Why is my mind so unsettled that I cannot find the refuge and repose which others find in the Crucifix? I have around me so much cause for encouragement, such excellent example! I have indeed had a happy experience of that Providence which is watching over us. Only for this sweet calm within I should be lost in the storms from without.”

To the interior calm and the peace of family life was added the joy of joys. On the 7th August, 1845, Ozanam was able to write to M. Foisset: “After a succession of favours which deter­mined my vocation and re-united my family, yet another is added which is probably the greatest that we can have on earth: I am a father.”

Before the little cradle the supernatural grandeur of paternity appeared to him with all its happiness and all its responsibilities: “Ah!” he exclaimed, “what a moment that was when I first heard the cry of my child, when I saw for the first time the tiny but im­mortal creature, whom God has placed in my hands. What happi­ness and what responsibility has she not brought! . . . I cannot behold that sweet little face, all innocence and purity, without seeing the image of the Creator more clearly mirrored in her, than in us. I cannot think of the imperishable soul for which I shall have to render an account, without feeling my own responsibilities more keenly. How shall I preach if I do not practise? Could God have selected a sweeter means of teaching, correcting, and placing me on the road to Heaven?

” The mother, who is better in health, has the pleasure of nursing her baby. It is a troublesome but a very real pleasure. We shall thus enjoy the first smiles of our little angel.” The Christian adds: “I awaited the day of Baptism with great impatience. We have given her the name of Marie, which was my mother’s, after the glorious Virgin, whom we thank for the happy birth. We shall begin her edu­cation at the same time as she shall begin ours, for I am already feeling that God has sent us our baby to teach us many things and to make us better.”

Owing to his close friendship Lallier was to be the godfather. On the announcement of the birth he had hastened to Paris. The family picture which was presented to him is that which Ozanam depicted on the 27th August: “I do not know anything more delighful on earth than to return home in the evening and find my beloved wife with my darling child in her arms. I form the third figure of that group; and I should remain for hours in admiration if, sooner or later, loud cries did not recall the fact that human beings are very fragile, that over the little head many dangers are hovering, that the joys of pater­nity are given only to sweeten its responsibilities.”

His thanks to the godfather, which must not be omitted, were for a heavenly favour: “Allow me to thank you for your good wishes and prayers for our little angel. She owes you in some measure her wings, for terrestrial angels have none other than those of Faith and Love, which are conferred on them in the Sacrament of Baptism. . . Your name is one of the first which shall be formed on her lips as soon as she will begin to pray. I am anxiously awaiting that time, which I pray may come soon. I think that, when that dear little creature, so sweet and so innocent, will be able to lisp a prayer, there will not be anything that Heaven can refuse her.”

A short time after the birth, Ozanam took his wife and baby for holidays to Nogent-sur-Marne. He said he was happy: “A holiday in the country gives me leisure which I have not had for ever so long. We are three-quarters of an hour beyond Vincennes on a slope which commands the Marne. The garden is large, the air pure, the weather beautiful. My wife is regaining her strength rapidly and my daughter is developing like a little blossom. It is one of those rare moments of happiness in life which bring God’s goodness closer to us.”

With the intention doubtless of placing in the cradle a present on paying his call, the Dean of Literature, M. le Clerc, selected that moment to propose Ozanam for civic honours. Ozanam heard it and animated with a sense of delicacy, asked the Dean to postpone the matter for the present. Such a proceeding would, closely following his nomination to the University Chair, and his father-in-law’s appointment to a high administrative post, look like a greed for University and civic honours. The delicacy of the suggestion was appreciated. On the 4th May, 1846, the following year, Ozanam was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.

Those were indeed happy years from 1844 to 1846, all of them passed in the fulness of family life and in his beloved labour of research. Ozanam brought to that domestic environment a simple poetical taste with which he embellished the most every-day occurrences. For instance, though usually so absorbed, that he did not notice what was placed on the table, he was particular that something extra should appear there on Sundays and Feast Days. It was he himself who frequently provided the surprise. He set great store on a bunch of flowers, and he liked to have one on his desk. He never failed to present his wife, on the 23rd of each month, the date of their marriage, with some flower of his fancy; and he kept up the custom to the very eve of his death. I have already said that he appreciated Art. There were not any happier evenings than those on which Madame Ozanam interpreted at the piano the classical masters whom he appreciated as a poet.

All that happiness was purchased by hard intellectual work, which was a further cause of joy. The holidays at Nogent-sur-Marne were not spent in idleness. All his free time was devoted to the editing and preparation of “his interminable volume on the ancient Germans,” as he himself called it.

The opening of the Session in 1846 found his work anything but lightened. In a letter dated the 6th January, to the learned and pious M. Leon Bore, a correspondent in Bavaria, he describes it as over­whelming: “To answer half-a-dozen urgent letters lying in my drawer; to interview candidates for the different Degrees in the University; to put something in the empty hands of the printers, who keep shouting for proofs, and at the same time to deliver my lectures regularly: Monday’s and Thursday’s lectures are inexorable.” He wrote to the same correspondent on the 26th February as follows: “I find myself this year with a double load. On the one hand, I am working up a course of lectures on Early English Literature, or rather on the His­tory of Breton, Irish, and Saxon Literatures up to the Norman Con­quest. On the other hand, you will find in the Correspondent two contributions from my pen on the Laws, Language and Poetry of the Ancient Germans, which will complete the representation of Ancient Germany up to the Roman Conquest. . . My whole life is thus a continual and dour struggle for time to devote to my obliga­tions, my societies, my works, my poor and my friends.”

Neither had his collaboration in the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith ceased. In the report of May, 1845 (Vol. 17, p. 161), he states: “that the interest which he finds in that work compensates him for any trouble, and that he feels his soul better and nearer to God as a result.” The contemplation of the martyrs of Oceania brings back to him the memorable martyrs of Lyons in the and century. “The same scenes are enacted before our eyes: the prxtorium is not closed, the axes are still bloody: letters from missionaries bring before us the torture and death of our brothers. Do we not feel Faith quickening in our hearts, and, inspired by the triumph of our co-religionists, shall we not also cry aloud: “We are followers of Christ.”

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul continued to occupy most of his thoughts. M. Bailly had resigned the Presidency on the gth May, 1844, in a touching letter, which M. Ozanam and M. Cornudet as vice-presidents, brought to the notice of the members. It concluded with the following words: “Farewell, my dear Brothers, and let this farewell, which is not an act of separation, unite us more closely in Jesus Christ. I shall conclude by quoting what I said to our Brothers at the time the first Conference had to divide on account of its growing membership—Courage, united or separated, together or apart, let us love one another. Let us love and serve the poor. Much evil is being done; let us do much good.”

When the Council-General, after a week’s prayer to the Holy Ghost, had offered ap in common the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on the 15th, 18th and 21st of May for their intention, they deliberated on the choice of a successor. Many eyes were naturally directed to Ozanam. But it was not to be thought of. The true service rendered by him to the Society at that time was to enable it to meet successfully the awkward and dangerous crisis which had been brought about by the resignation of its first President. Ozanam and Cornudet had M. Gossin elected. When Ozanam was subsequently invited to accept, or to continue the Vice-Presidency he agreed. It meant of course work but more obscure work, in continual devotion to his “dear little Society,” as he termed it. As Vice-President he was constantly and actively concerned in its working, a position he was only to relinguish with life.

The circular which Ozanam sent to the Conferences, introducing M. Gossin, who was sometime Counsellor at the Royal Courts of Paris, founder and President of the Society of St. Francis-Regis, President of the Conference of St. Suplice, stated briefly: “His name is known to the poor, is beloved by Catholics, is respected by all. His mature energy—he was then fifty years of age—will be able to cope with all our works, and his noble heart will suffice for all our needs.”

If Lallier, who had been next to M. Bailly, was no longer there, Ozanam never writes him a letter without mentioning the Society. “Do you remember,” he wrote in August, 1845, “how we stormed, when you led poor de la Noue into our Conference, thereby bringing our number up to nine? To-day we number about nine thousand!”

Lallier had founded in January, 1844, the first Conference in Sens in a little room near the Notre Dame gate; “It’s membership,” he reported, “consisted of two; the meetings, for a period of three weeks, were occupied in prayer, pious reading, and bag collection. We kept asking each other if it would be possible to find a third brother in order to form one of those gatherings which our Lord promises to bless, and in which three form a quorum.

The third brother duly arrived and enabled the growing body to live its normal life. On the 13th February, 1844, the Conference in Sens, with a President, Secretary-Treasurer and one member constitut­ing the meeting, wrote its first minutes. Five months later, on the 26th July, the Conference presented to His Grace the Archbishop, eighteen active, seventeen honorary members, with sixteen families visited in their own homes. It was one day to total as many as fifty members.

Ozanam’s correspondence mentions a higher subject for congratula­tion: Pius IX had just been given to the Church! “Concerning our Society, you know that the Council-General has written a letter to our Holy Father, Pius IX, congratulating him on his glorious coming, presenting him with a copy of the Manual, and asking him to bless our Society. It is your humble servant, who composed the letter in his choicest Latin. I have the honour to be the Latinist of the Council as I happen to be occasionally the theologian of the Faculty. I rather think that my penchant for acting many roles ought to be satisfied.”

At this time he used also to appear on Sundays at the workmen’s meeting of the Society of St. Xavier in the crypt of St. Sulpice. He was the lecturer. His address was fraternal, spontaneous and familiar and at the same time full of charm. Its principal art consisted in bring­ing him down to the level of the workmen in order to bring them within his reach: “You see friends, each has his trade in this world. Mine is to examine old books. I find sometimes in the dust of libraries delightful incidents buried in beautiful histories. Let me tell you one that charmed our ancestors sitting by the fireside in the evening time.”

Then with a grace, which was natural to him, he related and explained some Irish legend; he reconstructed the scene, reproducing the heroes and their deeds, all leading, where it should, to eternal rewards and punishments. “It is we ourselves,” he explained, “who are working out our destiny on earth unknown to us, exactly as the craftsmen of the Gobelins work at their tapestry. Docilely following the design of an unknown artist, they devoted themselves to arranging the several colours indicated by him, on the reverse of the woof, not knowing what the result of their work was to be. It was only afterwards, when the work was completed, that they could admire the flowers, pictures, figures and marvels of art, which then left their hands to adorn the dwellings of kings. Thus, friends, let us work on this earth, docile and sub­missive to the will of God without knowing what He is accomplishing through us. But He, the divine Artist, sees and knows. When He will show us the finished work of our life, of our toil and of our troubles, we shall then be thrown into ecstasy and we shall bless Him for deigning to accept and place our poor works in His eternal mansion.”

There was also the Literary Conference of the Catholic Study Circle, or of the Catholic Institute, as the general organisation of Branches had been named in 1843. The Institute embraced Science and Art as well as Literature and Law. The lectures were given by an equal number of groups of eminent savants in each branch of knowledge, formed into Committees with a view to checking the effect of the anti-Christian lectures delivered in official courses of instruction. M. Cauchy had introduced the Institute in the following terms:

” Serious young Christians desire that the experience of their elders in each career should be made available. They hope that the Masters of Science, men of world-wide reputation and of known loyalty to the Catholic Faith will not refuse to act as their guides. That hope will not be disappointed. The members of both committees will rival one another in zeal in that service. All will ask, all have already asked God, to deign to bless that Association which cannot fail to redound to His glory.”¹

Literature was ably represented in that group by Ozanam’s weekly lecture. It was in his hands the lever with which he raised Christians to great things. It is recalled that, trembling with emotion, he spoke as follows: “Gentlemen, day by day, our friends, our brothers, are killed as soldiers in Africa or as missionaries in the land of the Man­darins. What are we doing the while? Can you believe that God has assigned to some the duty of dying in the service of civilisation and of the Church, and to others that of standing idly by or reclining on a bed of roses? Ah! Gentlemen, as Christian workers in the fields of Science and of Literature, let us prove that we are not so cow­ardly as to believe in such an allocation of duties, as would be an accusa­tion against the God Who would have made it, and a shame for us who would have accepted it. Let us be prepared to prove that, we too, have our fields of battle on which we know how to die.”

Ozanam fell ill. Was it any wonder? He had an acute attack of fever in the month of August, 1846, and he himself refers to the alarm­ing nature of it: “I should probably not have recovered,” he wrote subsequently, “but for the excellent care and skill of our mutual friend, Dr. Gouraud, and Amelie’s watchful tenderness and courage. She was a wonderful support to me during that awful attack.”

” It is true,” he confesses, “that I have been long overwhelmed with business matters, to the excessive number of which my sickness has even been attributed.” Could he deny it? “God deigned to preserve my life in order that I should become more worthy. As if the better to keep me in mind of my illness, the convalescent stage, now lasting over a month, leaves me in such a state of weakness that any physical exercise or mental application is utterly impossible. I have never appreciated so well what a poor thing man is. I cannot tell you how humiliated I am to find that though I eat well and sleep well, an hour’s light work suffices to trouble my head and to force me to rest.”

It was to obtain complete rest, with orders to do absolutely no work, that “he was taken and consigned to the woods of Meudon, to distract his attention from books and men.” But his strength was not return­ing. A stay on the heights at Bellevue, near Paris, was then tried. The state of prostration persisted to such a degree that he could not even come down to visit his beloved poor. To ease his mind on that point he daily purchased a supply of bread which he gave to those calling at the door, asking each one to pray earnestly for him.

There could be no question of an immediate resumption of lectures. The doctors ordered a year’s complete rest. But rest for him could not mean inaction. A journey was determined on as being at once profit­able and agreeable, calculated to occupy the mind and fortify the body. M. de Salvandy, Minister for Education, met that difficulty by entrust­ing him with a mission of investigation and historical research in Italy. The question of research was in his benevolent intention secondary to that of health. But would Ozanam’s conscience so interpret it, would it be a party to that arrangement?

This much is certain, that the six months’ tour in Italy made the deepest impression possible on his mind. The journey was made under the most favourable conditions. He was recovering from illness, and was beginning to enjoy life again. He had with him the two beings he loved best in the world, his wife and his child. He had made a name, he bore a title, he was undertaking a mission which would prove an “Open Sesame” to the sanctuaries of Science and Art. That time was for Europe, and particularly for Italy, a solemn one beyond all others in the century. The pilgrim of history was about to assist at one of those turning points in the life of nations, when the appear ance of new and brilliant horizons dazzles all eyes and fills men’s minds with enthusiasm and hope. Ozanam’s ardent and noble soul was to come completely under the magic of that spell.

1. These two committees consisted, one of Physical and Medical Science, at the head of which was Cauchy; with him were M. Binet, M. Beudant, Dr. Teissier, Dr. Cazol, Dr. Recamier, Dr. Cruveillier, etc.; the second of Law and Literature with M. Pardessus, M. Berard de Glajeux, M. Fontaine d’Orleans, M. Henri de Riancey, M. Frederic Lauras. Later a committee of Arts was added to the above under the direction of M. Raoul Rochette, permanent Secretary of the Academy of Fine Arts, etc.