s that made me wish to be a priest. I showed my mother that
her best means of protection would be to marry my sister, as soon as she
was old enough, to some man of strong character, and to look for help
to this new family. Under pretence of avoiding the conscription without
costing my father a penny to buy me off, I entered the seminary of
Saint-Sulpice at the age of nineteen. Within those celebrated old
buildings I found a peace and happiness that were troubled only by the
thought of my mother and my sister's sufferings. Their domestic misery,
no doubt, went on increasing; for whenever they saw me they sought to
strengthen my resolution. Perhaps I had been initiated into the secrets
of charity, such as our great Saint Paul defines it, by my own trials.
At any rate, I longed to stanch the wounds of the poor in some forgotten
corner of the earth, and to prove by my example, if God would deign to
bless my efforts, that the Catholic religion, judged by its actions for
humanity, is the only true, the only beneficent and noble civilizing
force. During the last days of my diaconate, grace, no doubt,
enlightened me. I have fully forgiven my father, regarding him as the
instrument of my destiny. My mother, though I wrote her a long and
tender letter, explaining all things and proving to her that the finger
of God was guiding me, my poor mother wept many tears as she saw my
hair cut off by the scissors of the Church. She knew herself how many
pleasures I renounced, but she did not know the secret glories to which
I aspired. Women are so tender! After I once belonged to God I felt a
boundless peace; I felt no needs, no vanities, none of those cares which
trouble men so much. I knew that Providence would take care of me as
a thing of its own. I entered a world from which all fear is banished;
where the future is certain; where all things are divine, even the
silence. This quietude is one of the benefactions of grace. My mother
could not conceive that a man could espouse a church. Nevertheless,
seeing me happy, with a cloudless brow, she grew happier herself.
After I was ordained I came to the Limousin to visit one of my
paternal relations, who chanced to speak to me of the then condition
of Montegnac. A thought darted into my mind with the vividness of
lightning, and I said to myself inwardly: 'Here is thy vineyard!' I
came here, and you see, monsieur, that my history is very simple and
uneventful."

At this instant Limoges came i