Chapter XXVIII: In Italy — Winter at Pisa

The Conference in Florence — Authorisation — Notre Dame de Pisa — Historical works — The ascent of life — The sacrifice
1853

Ozanam visited, first, Pisa’s Notre Dame, and then turned his thoughts to distant France: “Join with us in thanking God,” he wrote to Cornudet, “for having guided and guarded us; ask Him to continue to do so, and to lead us back safe; this enchanting land has not made us forget our own country.” Another letter said: “I have great hopes that I may be restored to health in the spring. But whatever be the will of God, I must receive it with love, for He has mixed much sweetness with the bitterness of the chalice.”

It was on the 13th January that Ozanam wrote the above lines. He took advantage of the lull to go to Florence which is about fifty miles from Pisa. The interests of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul drew him thither. In 1847, as he himself says, he had, when crossing Tuscany, sown the seed of a Conference, which had been very slow to germinate. In other parts of the country new ideas and new social needs had justified the Society, and Conferences had sprung up. “The ecclesiastical authority accorded it protection, religious recommended it, fervent laymen joined it.”

But in Florence, as well as in Pisa and in Leghorn, the Society had not succeeded in getting the authorisation of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who regarded it as tainted with liberalism. The coldness, which he showed the growing group, froze the society in the bud. Ozanam’s arrival at Pisa awakened new hope. His work Dante et sa philosophie, which had been translated several times into Italian, had made the author more popular n Italy, the land of Dante, than any other French writer. The Grand-Duchess could not ignore him.

One of her ladies-in-waiting was the mother of the young Canon Guido Palagi, the holy priest who had thrown all his energy into the service and propagation of that charitable society.

Ozanam had been only a few days there when he was informed that the Dowager Grand Duchess, who was passing through Pisa, wished to receive him that evening. “He was feverish that day,” M. Cornudet relates, “his breathing was laboured, and his body was swollen.” His friends vainly opposed his accepting that invita­tion: “I feel pretty bad,” he admitted, “but it is probably the last service which I shall be able to render the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. It has done me far too much good, that I should not try to do the last thing that I can for it, if God gives me the strength to accomplish it.” The Grand Duchess, a woman of good faith and generous heart, received him with kindness and with marked distinc­tion. But she did not conceal the very decided prejudices of the Duke against the Society generally, and against the Society in Florence in particular. He regarded it as a species of political secret society, which he could only authorise if certain members, whom she named, ceased to belong to it. Ozanam explained politely the origin and spirit of the Society, the express exclusion of politics by its Rule, the necessity of welcoming without exception everyone who desired membership, on the condition that he was an honourable man and a practising Catholic. He spoke warmly, animated rather than depressed by his feverish condition. The Grand Duchess heard him with attention and emotion. She thanked him, but made no reply. Some days later the Society in Florence, in Pisa, and in Leghorn received official authorisation.

A General Meeting of the Conference was called for the 3oth January to celebrate and inaugurate the new order of things. Ozanam gave an accurate but modest account in a letter to Lallier, making no mention of his visit to Her Highness, nor of the results of that visit: “In this capital of Josephism,”¹ he wrote, ” a young Canon, whose mother is a lady-in-waiting to the Grand Duchess, devotes all his energy to developing our Society. I had the pleasure of being present at one of their meetings, just as I had on other occasions met our Brothers in London and Burgos. Tears of joy well to my eyes when I find our little Society at such far-flung points, our Society, little indeed in the obscurity of its work, but mighty in the blessing of God. The languages may be different, but it is always the same hand-grip, the same fraternal welcome. We can recognise ourselves by the sign of the early Christians, ‘See how they love one another’.”

He spoke to them in Italian. His address is to be found in his printed works. He first expressed his pleasure at finding himself at home with them in Tuscany, as he had already found himself at home in England and in Castile. But he was at pains to make it clear that, if he is Vice-President of the Council-General, it is not because of his own merits. His only claim is his length of time in the Society. He described its humble beginning and was impressed by its marvellous expansion. “Instead of eight members, it num­bers 2,000 in Paris alone, who visit about 20,000 people. It possesses 500 Conferences in France alone, besides those in England, Spain, America, and even in Jerusalem.” He emphasized the aim of the Society: a work of spiritual rather than of corporal charity, particularly appropriate to the needs of the present time, and to the actual political condition of Italy. Then he referred to the spirit of the Society: a spirit of humility, charity and peace. Such is indeed also the spirit of that address which was of evangelical simplicity. He closed thus: “I shall soon return to Pisa where I have, as here, Brothers in St. Vincent de Paul. I hope to see you again in a few months before I return to my own country, and to be again edified by that Christian fraternity which prepared such a kind welcome for me here. I shall carry away in my heart an imperishable memory and I shall not fail to tell our Brothers in Paris that the Society of St. Vincent de Paul has, under the beautiful Italian sky, branches worthy to be ranked among its most flourishing members.”

The story of that meeting and address had its sequel. Great was the amazement of the speaker on finding his address reproduced,  word for word, in the Catholic press of the city. He was very upset by it: “It is altogether opposed to the practice as well as to the spirit of the Society which does good silently.” Ozanam stated that if he had anticipated publicity, he would not have spoken. Having been asked a little later to speak again, he consented only on the express condition that such an indiscretion would not be repeated. The following day, however, some influential members appealed to him to release them from their promise. He held out three days and yielded only on the command of his confessor, who assured him that his address would probably lead to a new foundation at Loretto. He gave permission for one hundred copies to be made. They made twelve hundred: a second piece of deception, which the speaker could only bring himself to forgive when he saw the fruits in the foundation of Conferences at Macerata, Porto Ferrajo and even in Sardinia, where the address of the “celebrated French Professor “produced a great effect.

It did not need that extra exertion to break down the already shattered strength of the Professor. I read in his correspondence some days later the following lines to M. Foisset: “My health is almost altogether gone; that is why I pray, and ask my friends to pray, that it may please Heaven to deliver me. So many prayers cannot remain unheard; but it seems also that my sins cannot remain un­punished. Since I left France, the fatigue of travelling has broken my strength, and I am here suffering, tottering, but without falling, almost like the leaning tower before which I pass daily. That example should reassure and instruct me; for leaning as it is, it has not ceased during some seven hundred years to serve God in its own way, by celebrating Him with the chime of its bells.”

He wrote as above on the 4th February. On the 28th he blamed the eternal rain, which is suffered under the beautiful Tuscan sky, for the delay in his recovery. On the 4th March it is still the same story, inclemency of weather and confinement to the house. But in return, he has the consolation of visits to the Art Gallery and to the Cathedral, where he finds rest and happiness. That is the subject matter of those letters to the Abbé Maret, in which the scenes, persons, and events are made to live again.

“You will have learned, my dear Reverend Father, of my Odyssey, my journeys by land and sea, and how I have taken up my winter-quarters in Pisa for the last six weeks. Then, doubtless, you have pictured your traveller leading a life of delights under a cloudless sky, idly floating on the waters of the Arno, carried off to the beautiful mountains of San Giulano; or else in dreamland on the marvellous square of Pisa under the pale moonlight, wandering in the Campo Santo, calling forth the shades of the former inhabitants of Pisa in the open porticoes painted by Giotto and Benozzo Gozzoli. Oh! How far removed all that is from the reality! Of all the sacred subjects which Benozzo treated, I see but one here and it is ever the same: the Deluge. For close on forty days we have been living enveloped in rain which occasionally turned to snow hurled along by howling winds. Happily, in default of the open porticoes of the Campo Santo, I can take refuge in the Cathedral and pray under the noble arches erected in 1063 by Crusaders who preceded Godfrey de Bouillon. They erected this incomparable Church with booty captured from the infidels.”

Again: “On good days we take a closed carriage and drive to the Cathedral. There all memory of the deluge is gone and we are truly in Paradise for an hour. Ah Those old masters well understood that the Church is to be a celestial Jerusalem. They constructed this one with such incomparable elegance, that it is difficult to say whether it is built from the earth up, or simply rests there, having been deposited from heaven. The twenty-four columns, carrying the five naves, are tall and slender like the palm-trees in the eternal gardens. Angels, who are believed to be the work of Guirlandajo, but who surely are alive, ascend and descend the great arch which opens the sanct­uary, and at the end of the apse is the Christ sitting and crushing the lion and dragon under the feet of His throne. It is in presence of this new transfiguration that one cries out from the depths of the heart, “Lord, it is good to be here, let us build three taber­nacles.”

If, as we leave the basilica, the rain should cease for an instant and allow a tour of the place to be made, behold the façade with its Byzan­tine cupola, and at the rere, the boundary walls of the city which have witnessed such assaults! Then one returns, the soul charged with poetry, to support without murmur long days of captivity, even as the saints bore with greater patience the troubles of life after their ecstasies and visions.

Those winter days, during which Ozanam kept a diary, were indeed a time of captivity. He rose at nine o’clock, as an invalid, in obedience to the guardian angel who was very amiable, but who was very exact in seeing that the order was obeyed: breakfast, close to the fire: about eleven, if the north wind blew less violently, Mass at a Church near by: then the library, which was only a step away, and where he could forget himself without the salutary fear of the same guardian angel. Back to the flat to write a letter and give a lesson to Marie. Dinner afterwards, still closer to the fire, because it grew colder as night advanced. A little reading ended the day, during which there was plenty of time to miss the companionship of the friends who cheered the fireside of the Rue Fleurus. “Please tell me if I have not described a winter in Berlin or in Munich?”

Those, who have not seen Ozanam in prayer, will find his picture in those letters. Passing the bronze doors of the Cathedral and coming to the end of the forest of columns which divide the five naves, he is there face to face with the colossal figure of Christ in mosaic. He contemplates Him sitting between the Blessed Virgin and St. John. He calls forth all the historic memories of the place and lays them at the feet of the King of Ages: the words of the most beautiful psalms spring naturally to his lips to express his fervour. “Face to face with, and overwhelmed by the divine majesty, I felt happy that our Lord had inspired a people to build a temple which was almost worthy of Him. Fear of God, the feeling of the nothingness of man, the legiti­mate pride of a Christian, all those emotions are awakened at once, and the words of the psalm are understood: How beloved are Thy tabernacles, 0 Lord of Virtues.’ ”

Ozanam expressed his happiness at meeting in that, and in other churches, poor people who edified him: “The masses of the people, at least here and in Florence, fill the churches. Unlike France, the altars here are attended, even on week-days, not by well–to–do people, but by artisans, coachmen, peasants, and market-women, with whom you must rub shoulders, if you wish to sit on the benches, which take the place of our chairs. I attend eleven o’clock Mass nearly every day; Saint-Simon would call it ‘ the mob Mass.’ Holy Communions are more numerous than I expected.”

He returns to that subject again: “The people here have deteriorat­ed, but they have at least preserved the faith, and they do not leave the cathedrals of their ancestors empty. I say the people, that is to say, especially those who, in France, do not frequent the church, but who haunt the inns and public-houses. You would not believe in what good company I often find myself at eleven o’clock Mass, petty artisans, coachmen, apple-women, beggars, every class, my dear friend, that revolts our delicacy, but yet the poor whom the Saviour loved.”

Ozanam received a very warm welcome at the Library of 6o,000 volumes, which was near by, from M. Ferrucci, “a most charming librarian.” He made him free of his own private room by the cosy fire, at the same table at which M. Ravaisson, of the Institute of Paris, had been working the previous year. The Professors of the University showed him like respect. “We have here,” he wrote, “a miniature Athens, if I may so term a hundred Greek students. But I must admit that those disciples of Aristides and PhilipEemon are less attentive to the schools than to the theatres; and that they think badly of paying their debts.”

In that Library Ozanam began his research into the foundations of the Italian Republics, in fulfilment of the mission with which he had been charged by the Minister. His work L’Emancipation de la Commune de Milan au XI` siecle provided him with the subject-matter as well as the documents, bringing him face to face with Gregory VII and Peter Damien: “In returning via Milan I shall take a last impression of those scenes, which will give life and colour to the his­tory; I shall draw up the work after the style of M. Augustin Thierry. It is a work which the sick man of Pisa can do, particularly if the Italian sun will only shine into his window from the Lung Arno and warm his imagination.”

The sun was slow in coming. The weather during Lent was terrible. “Torrential rains have swollen the waters of the Arno so that they threaten the marble bridges; a few steps from our place the snows whiten the hillsides of Lucca.”

Another work which charmed his weary hours, without however curing his malady, was the preparation of his Odyssey, as he called his Pelerinage au pays du Cid. He worked at it under his wife’s eyes who, “dreading lest he should become worse, was bold enough to argue that the barren mountains of Old Castile had not the beauty of the Roman Campagna, that he was making too much of the Huelgas and Miraflores, and that she would not give three maravedi for St. John’s Tomb, etc.—But I am standing by all my notes,” the husband wrote to M. Ampère. “I propose, on my return to Paris, to deliver some lectures on the poem of the Cid, if God gives me the strength to do so, to make some use of my trip to Spain and to write a little account of it, of which you will not be ashamed.”

The memory of the Sorbonne continued to abide and to sadden him: “Ah! My poor Sorbonne,” he wrote, “how often do I return in spirit to your smoky halls, which I found filled with a noble band of young men! My dear friend, next to the infinite consolation which a Catholic finds at the altar, next to family happiness, I do not know any greater pleasure than to address young men who have intelligence and spirit.”

That letter was written to M. Benoit, a Christian like himself, who was filling his place in his absence, congratulating him and thanking him for his beautiful lectures on German Literature.

His thoughts wandered at other times to the distant home of some friend. He wrote to M. Lenormant: “The place which you keep for me in your thoughts recalls that which I found in your home, when Madame Lenormant welcomed my wife and myself with cordiality and grace. I do not know what God will expect from me, but He has certainly done much for the honour and happiness of my life in the choice of friends. However poor an opinion I have of myself, I cannot believe that I have been created for nothing, when He has made me acquainted with the best Christians and the chosen spirits of my time.”

Nearly all Ozanam’s letters to friends in France during that Lent were letters of thanks. Nobody was more exact than he in discharging the duty of thanking men, as well as God, for favours received. Having received the appreciation of the Pales franctiscains which Ampère had contributed to the Revue des Deux-Mondes on the 15th May: “My dear friend,” he wrote him, “you have overwhelmed us both, myself and my dear Franciscans. I wish to thank you for the picture you have drawn of the pious mendicant Friars, whom you appreciate with such kindness, and who live again in your articles. Your three pages have the warm colour and the sweet perfume of that convent garden which you outline, with the jasmine trailing along its cloisters. Amelie and I, as disinterested critics, agreed that it was one of your most delightful sketches. May I add that our regrets for the absent were not altogether coloured by concern for ourselves, and that such feelings are deeply engraven in our hearts.”

Ozanam’s faculties, natural and supernatural, would appear to have surpassed themselves in those last two years in spite of suffering, perhaps indeed because of it. It is indeed the ascent of life to the highest elevation of spirit. Kindheartedness and sensitiveness show supreme delicacy and tenderness. He explains: “In this peaceful city, in this life of repose, I seem to drink deeper in the well of my family’s affection, to dwell with greater fondness on the memories of my friends. I have more time to enter into my heart, and I find much to improve in it; but I believe that I also find faith and peace, which is sufficient to ensure much happiness.” Elsewhere, speaking of those around him he said: “You see, my dear friend, that if our Lord invites me to bear with Him His Cross, He gave me what is given in Rome, a very tiny cross, enclosed in a beautiful shrine; that is to say, with consolations and infinite sweetness. I have my good, tender Amelie by my side, who cares for me with love and sympathy. I have my darling Marie, who is ever merry, and is beginning to enter­tain us with her childish prattle in Italian. For my conscience, I have a priest full of charity and wisdom. God has given me new friends, while I know that I am not forgotten by the old.”

He cannot thank God sufficiently for his wife’s devotion: “The lady of the house sends you her kind regards. The good little woman has had very many bad days. But she smiles again with the first rays of spring sunshine. Certainly if I recover it is she who will be mainly responsible for it.” Again “You know her whom God gave me for a visible guardian angel, you have seen her at work. But you would not credit her resourcefulness, not only in easing but in consoling me since my illness became serious. What ingenious, patient, indefatigable tenderness surrounds me at all times, and anti­cipates my every desire!” He exclaims at the end of another letter: “What have I done to deserve from the hand of God such a loving family and such good friends I”

He loved them in God, the God of the altar at which he prayed, Whom he received in Holy Communion, the God of the Heaven to which he aspired: “When I have not been able to be with you on the great feast-days, I have found you at the altar. I believe firmly that, when I am receiving, I am in close touch with my friends, all united to the same Saviour. Why is it that so soon after leaving that holy company I sink again into despondency? When shall we see that place where there shall be no divisions among Christians, nor public injustice, nor disgrace for mighty nations 1”

He confided the future of his dearest in this world to the friendship of a priest of great merit: “Farewell, dear friend,” he wrote to the Abbé Maret, “it is a source of frequent comsolation to me to think that when I die, you will be the friend of my little family as you have been mine. Thus all this family will love you dearly, but none more dearly than yours, etc.”

He was thinking of his death towards which he was making his way, carrying his cross. He replied as follows to Dr. Franchisteguy, who told him of the sudden death of a member of the Society in Bayonne, who died after a long illness and who had done much good in his lifetime: “He has been called suddenly, but not unpreparedly. When I see Christians visited with long and severe suffering in this world, I regard them as souls who are having their purgatory here, and who are entitled to the pity and regard which we owe to the souls of the Church Suffering in Purgatory. Ah! If God is willing to accept the suffering borne here below in expiation for sins, how happy are they who are purified at such a cheap price, purified by suffering which is infinitely less than that in the life beyond, a suffering which has the consolations of religion, friendship and family, in the company of a wife who spends herself in tenderness and care, surrounded by glad children who would bring a smile to the lips of the most desolate! Would that not be a happy lot, to suffer thus for two or for ten years, and then to enter straight into the joy of the Lord!”

It was thus that Ozanam was preparing himself to die.

The sacrifice had been already begun by the voluntary surrender of pleasure. He wrote to Lallier: “Do you know, my dear friend, that during the last three weeks of Lent I have devoted my thoughts seriously to holding myself ready for the final sacrifice. It was a hard business for human nature; but it seemed to me, that with God’s help, I was beginning to give up everything except those who love me, and whom I can love up there as well as here. I gave up first the project of accompanying my mother-in-law to Rome, which meant the ceremonies of Holy Week, the Catacombs, the Easter Mass, which is for me the greatest of all visible sights, the consolation of kissing again the feet of Pius IX, and of visiting once again the tomb of the holy Apostles.”

Easter had come. After two months’ continuous rain, the sky had brightened, and with it, his heart. “This day my hopes awaken with the sunshine which calls the flowers from their long sleep,” he wrote on the 15th April to Ampère. “I commence to live since Easter: should the improvement be maintained, what a great happiness it will be to see you in Paris at the end of May. But will God allow it? Let Him be thanked for all that He has already done for me. Let us hope that He will complete the work. But His will be done. Where can I better learn submission to His holy will than in this land of Tuscany, which can show many artists, but a still greater number of saints?”

One thing that did him good, body and soul, was the progress of Catholic action in those same lands of Tuscany and Liguria, through the Conferences of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Easter Monday’s letter to Lallier mentions five new flourishing branches “on this soil where Catholic life was languishing, as if stifled under the golden shackles of Josephism.”² Similarly in Genoa and its environs, the Catholic spirit, struggling with Mazzinism, Socialism, and Protestant­ism, had mustered its forces around the same banner: “The spirit of Voltaire still flourishes among the middle classes, but the Faith sur­vives in the mass of the people. Here, as indeed nearly everywhere, many good people have not the Faith; but the greatest minds are proud to be believers.”

“April smiles but to deceive,” the invalid wrote soon after, in re­porting a relapse. “I know that my malady is serious although not necessarily fatal. I know that it will take a long time to be cured, and that perhaps it will not be cured; but I force myself to be resigned with love to the will of God and I say, I am afraid more with the mouth than from the heart: Volo quod vis, volo quando vis, volo quomodo vis, volo quia vis.”³ He repeated it unceasingly.

The reading of the Holy Scriptures, which had been the nourishment of his life, became the daily food of his soul during that sad winter in Pisa. The Psalms and the Gospels divided his attention: “During the long weeks of lassitude the Psalms have scarce left my hands. I never weary of those sublime plaints, the loud cries of hope, the petitions laden with love, which are applicable to all needs, and to all forms of human distress.” Not only did he mark the most beauti­ful passages, as he had been accustomed to do, but he requested his wife to copy them out for him, so that he could have them before his eyes the whole day, and also that others would find in them solace and refreshment in their grief. Translated and collected into one little volume under the title Livre des malades with a Preface by Pere Lacordaire—a worthy introduction,—those pages, divine rather than human, are dedicated to all who labour and are heavy laden.

The 23rd April, 1853, was his fortieth birth-day. It was a solemn date: would he see another year? He opened his Bible at the Can­ticle of King Ezechias and read what appears below; it was the answer from on high. He transcribed the passage; then on the same page, in the presence of God, he poured out all his grief and offered up all in terms of heroic and sublime grandeur. It is the Ecce venio. It must not be condensed:

Pisa, 23 April, 1853.

I said in the midst of my days: I shall go to the gates of death.
I sought jor the residue of my years: I said, I shall not see the Lord God in the land of the living.
My life is swept from me and is rolled away as a shepherd’s tent. My life is cut off as by a weaver: whilst I was but beginning he cut me off: from morning even till night thou will make an end of me.
My eyes are weakened with looking upward.
Lord I suffer violence, answer thou for me. What shall I say, or what shall lie answer for me whereas he himself hath done it.
I will recount to thee all my years in the bitterness of my soul.

” That is the beginning of the Canticle of Ezechias. I do not know if God will permit me to apply the end of it to myself⁴. I know that I complete on this day my fortieth year, more than half of the way of life. I know that I have a young beloved wife, a charming daughter, excellent brothers, a second mother, activities brought to a point at which they could serve as a foundation for a work of which I have long dreamed. I know also that I am attacked by a deeply-seated and serious malady, which is all the more dangerous in that it means probably a complete collapse.

” Must I leave all those good things which Thou hast given me? Wilt Thou not be satisfied, Lord, with part? Which of my ill-re­gulated affections shall I sacrifice. Wilt Thou not accept the offering of my literary self-sufficiency, of my academic ambitions, of my plans for research, which are animated perhaps rather by pride than by zeal for truth? If I sell one half of my books and give the proceeds to the poor, if I confine my activities to the duties of my official position, and devote the rest of my life to visiting the poor, teaching apprentices and soldiers, Lord, wilt Thou be satisfied, and would’st Thou leave me the happiness of growing old by the side of my wife, and finishing the education of my child?

” Perhaps, my God, Thou dost not will that. Thou wilt not accept offerings which are not disinterested, Thou refusest my sacrifice. Thou wilt have myself. It is written at the commencement of the Book that I am to do Thy will? I said: I come, Lord!

” I come. If Thou callest, Lord, I have not the right to complain. Thou hast given me forty years of life. Let my family not be scandalised if Thou wilt not work a miracle to cure me. Hast Thou not led me a long way forward in five years, hast Thou not granted me that respite to do penance for my sins, and to become better? Oh! All the prayers that were then offered to Thee on my behalf were heard: why will those that are now uttered in greater volume be lost?”

” But it may be, Lord, that they will be heard in another way. Thou wilt give me the courage, the resignation, the calm of soul, the inexpressible consolations that accompany Thy Real Presence. Thou wilt give me the grace to make my sickness a source of merit and blessing: the blessing, Thou wilt shower on my wife, my child, on all belonging to me, to whom my works would be of less avail than my sufferings.

” If I recount to Thee all my years of bitterness, it is because of the sins with which I have stained them. But when I consider the graces with which Thou hast enriched me, Lord, I recount to Thee all my years in the gratitude of my heart.

” If Thou wert to chain me to a bed of suffering for the rest of my days, it would not suffice to thank Thee for the days which I have lived. Should these lines be the last that I shall write, let them be a canticle to Thy goodness.”

Ozanam thanks the divine goodness for having given him such an excellent father, such an admirable mother, for the education which he received. He closes: “You who will pray for me, when I am gone, pray also for my father and mother. The blessing of God is on those families in which parents are remembered.”

Those beautiful lines had their complement. Ozanam that same solemn day took advantage of the short absence from the room of his wife whom he did not wish to grieve, to sketch out his will in the following short form, which he intended to revise and complete: “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.

” This day, the 23rd of April, 1853, on completing my 4oth year, in great physical sickness but sound in mind, I express here in a few words my last wishes, intending to set them forth more fully when I shall have more strength.

” I commit my soul to Jesus Christ my Saviour, frightened at my sins, but trusting in His infinite mercy.

” I die in the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church. I have known the difficulties of belief of the present age, but my whole life has convinced me that there is neither rest for the mind nor peace for the heart save in the Church and in obedience to her authority.

” If I set any value on my research, it is that it gives me the right to entreat all whom I love, to remain faithful to the religion in which I found light and peace. My supreme prayer for my family, my wife, my child, and grandchildren, is that they will persevere in the Faith, despite any humiliation, scandals, or desertions which may come to their knowledge.

” I bid a farewell, short as the things of earth, to my dear Amelie, who has been the joy and the charm of my life, and whose tender care has softened all my pain for more than a year. I thank her, I bless her, I await her in Heaven. There, and only there, can I give her such love as she deserves.”

” I give to my child the benediction of the Patriarchs, In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. I am sad that I cannot labour longer at the dear task of her education, but I entrust her absolutely to her virtuous and well-beloved mother.”

Ozanam then mentions his two brothers, his mother-in-law, his relatives, his friends in Paris and in Lyons, embracing them all in his thoughts, and promising to meet them again with his other dear ones. The Abbé Noirot, M. Ampère, Henri Pessonneaux, Lallier, Dufieux, have a place to themselves. He asks pardon of all for his levity and his bad example.

He asks the prayers of each, and especially the prayers of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul: “Do not allow yourselves to be stopped by those who will say to you, ‘He is in Heaven.’ Pray always for him who loves you dearly, for him who has greatly sinned. If I am assured of these prayers, I quit this earth with less fear. I hope firmly that we are not being separated, and that I may remain with you until you will come to me.

” May the blessing of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost descend upon you. Amen.”

As soon as the warm weather permitted, and indeed required it, the doctors ordered the invalid to the seaside. We shall see him at Leghorn, at San-Jacopo, at Antignano, successive scenes of a struggle in which the soul retained mastery over the body; a struggle which began in hope, which followed its course in patience, which was con­summated in the love of the will of God. It closed at Marseilles where the body and the soul were separated, each to return whence it had come, one to the heaven which welcomed it, the other to the earth which took it to its bosom.

1. Though traces of the tendency were evident for some centuries previously. Josephism is identified with the name and reign of Joseph II of Austria (1741­90). It was the development of the craving of secular princes after a territorial Church, and in its operations was not unconnected with Jansenism and Gallic­anism. Joseph II erected the following maxim of Kaunitz into a principle of government: “The supremacy of the State over the Church extends to all ecclesiastical laws and practices devised and established solely by man, and whatever else the Church owes to the consent and sanction of the secular power.” Adopting that maxim, Joseph II, “our brother sacristan,” as he was called by Frederic the Great, treated ecclesiastical institutions as public depart­ments of the State. The State was made the administrator of the temporal property of the Church: all religious funds and endowments were merged into one large fund, the Religionsfond. The fund failed to bear the charges that naturally fell upon it and the scheme collapsed.
2. See previous note.
3. I will what Thou wiliest, when Thou wiliest, in whatever way Thou wiliest, because Thou wiliest.
4. 0 Lord, save me and we shall sing our psalms all the days of our life in the house of the Lord.