t of his personal property,
but of the funds of his seminary. He finds that his successor, whom the
ten years which he had passed at court as king's almoner could not have
trained in parsimony, allows himself to be carried away, by his zeal and
his desire to do good, to a somewhat excessive expense. With what tact
and delicacy he indulges in a discreet reproach! "_Magna est fides
tua_," he writes to him, "and much greater than mine. We see that all
our priests have responded to it with the same confidence and entire
submission with which they have believed it their duty to meet your
sentiments, in which they have my approval. My particular admiration has
been aroused by seeing in all your letters and in all the impulses of
your heart so great a reliance on the lovable Providence of God that not
only has it permitted you not to have the least doubt that it would
abundantly provide the wherewithal for the support of all the works
which it has suggested to you, but that upon this basis, which is the
firm truth, you have had the courage to proceed to the execution of
them. It is true that my heart has long yearned for what you have
accomplished; but I have never had sufficient confidence or reliance to
undertake it. I always awaited the means _quae pater posuit in sua
potestate_. I hope that, since the Most Holy Family of our Lord has
suggested all these works to you, they will give you means and ways to
maintain what is so much to the glory of God and the welfare of souls.
But, according to all appearances, great difficulties will be found,
which will only serve to increase this confidence and trust in God." And
he ends with this prudent advice: "Whatever confidence God desires us to
have in His providence, it is certain that He demands from us the
observance of rules of prudence, not human and political, but Christian
and just."

He concerns himself even with the servants, and it is singular to note
that his mind, so apt to undertake and execute vast plans, possesses
none the less an astonishing sagacity and accuracy of observation in
petty details. One Valet, entrusted with the purveyance, had obtained
permission to wear the cassock. "Unless he be much changed in his
humour," writes Mgr. de Laval, "it would be well to send him back to
France; and I may even opine that, whatever change might appear in him,
he would be unfitted to administer a living, the basis of his character
being very rustic, gross, and displeasing, an