His Conversion and Retreat

Immediately after this experiment, and when he was not yet twenty-four years old, Providence having brought about an occasion that led him to read works of piety, God so enlightened him through this reading that he understood perfectly that the Christian religion obliges us to live for God alone and to have no other object but him; and this truth appeared to him so evident, so necessary and so profitable that it put an end to all his researches: so that from that time he renounced every other kind of knowledge, to apply himself solely to the one thing that Jesus Christ calls needful.

Until then he had been preserved, by a particular protection of God, from all the vices of youth; and, what is stranger still in a mind of that temper and character, he had never inclined to free-thinking in matters of religion, having always confined his curiosity to natural things. He told me several times that he added this obligation to all the others he owed to my father, who, having himself a very great respect for religion, had instilled it in him from childhood, giving him as a maxim that whatever is the object of faith cannot be the object of reason, and much less be subject to it. These maxims, often repeated to him by a father for whom he had a very great esteem, and in whom he saw great learning joined with very clear and powerful reasoning, made so great an impression on his mind that, whatever talk he heard from the free-thinkers, he was not in the least moved by it; and young as he was, he regarded them as people who held the false principle that human reason is above all things, and who did not know the nature of faith; and so this mind, so great, so vast and so full of curiosity, which sought with such care the cause and reason of everything, was at the same time as submissive as a child to all the things of religion; and this simplicity reigned in him all his life: so that, even after he resolved to make no other study than that of religion, he never applied himself to the curious questions of theology, but put all the strength of his mind into knowing and practising the perfection of Christian morals, to which he consecrated all the talents God had given him, doing nothing else for the whole rest of his life but meditate on the law of God day and night. But although he had made no special study of scholastic theology, he was not ignorant of the Church's decisions against the heresies that have been devised by subtlety of mind; and it was against inquiries of that kind that he was most roused, and God gave him from that time an occasion to show the zeal he had for religion.

He was then at Rouen, where my father was employed in the King's service, and there was at that same time a man there who was teaching a new philosophy that drew all the curious. My brother, having been urged to go by two young men who were his friends, went with them: but they were much surprised, in the conversation they had with this man, to find that in setting out the principles of his philosophy he drew from them conclusions on points of faith contrary to the decisions of the Church. He argued that the body of Jesus Christ was not formed of the blood of the Holy Virgin, but of another matter created for the purpose, and several other such things. They tried to contradict him, but he remained firm in this opinion. So, having considered among themselves the danger of leaving the freedom to instruct the young to a man who held erroneous opinions, they resolved first to warn him, and then to denounce him if he resisted the warning. And so it happened, for he scorned the warning: so that they believed it their duty to denounce him to M. du Bellay, who was at that time performing the episcopal functions in the diocese of Rouen by commission of the Archbishop. M. du Bellay sent for the man and, having questioned him, was deceived by an equivocal confession of faith which the man wrote out and signed with his own hand, M. du Bellay moreover making little of a warning of such importance given him by three young men.

However, as soon as they saw this confession of faith they recognised its defect; which obliged them to go and find the Archbishop of Rouen at Gaillon, who, having examined the whole matter, found it so serious that he wrote letters patent to his council and gave M. du Bellay an express order to make the man retract on all the points of which he was accused, and to receive nothing from him except through those who had denounced him. This was carried out accordingly: he appeared before the Archbishop's council and renounced all his opinions; and one may say that he did so sincerely, for he never showed any bitterness against those who had brought this affair upon him: which leads one to believe that he himself had been deceived by the false conclusions he drew from his false principles. Indeed it was quite certain that no one had had any design in this of harming him, nor any other aim than to undeceive him in his own eyes and to prevent him from leading astray young people who would not have been able to distinguish the true from the false in such subtle questions. Thus the affair ended quietly; and as my brother went on seeking more and more the means of pleasing God, this love of Christian perfection was so kindled in him from the age of twenty-four that it spread through the whole household. My father himself, not ashamed to yield to his son's teaching, adopted from then on a stricter way of life, in the constant practice of the virtues, until his death, which was altogether Christian; and my sister, who had quite extraordinary gifts of mind, and who from her childhood had enjoyed a reputation that few girls attain, was so touched by my brother's words that she resolved to renounce all the advantages she had until then so loved, in order to consecrate herself wholly to God, as she has since done, having become a nun in a very holy and very austere house, where she made such good use of the perfections with which God had adorned her that she was found worthy of the most difficult charges, which she always fulfilled with all the faithfulness imaginable, and where she died a holy death on the 4th of October 1661, aged thirty-six.

Meanwhile my brother, whom God was using to work all this good, was afflicted by continual illnesses which kept on increasing. But as he then knew no other science than perfection, he found a great difference between it and the one that had occupied his mind until then; for whereas his infirmities had held back his progress in the others, this one, on the contrary, perfected him in those very infirmities through the admirable patience with which he bore them. To show this I shall content myself with relating one example.

Among other ailments, he could not swallow anything liquid unless it was warm, and even then he could do so only drop by drop: but as he had besides an unbearable headache, an excessive burning in his bowels and many other ills, the doctors ordered him to take a purge every other day for three months; so that all these medicines had to be taken, and for that they had to be warmed and swallowed drop by drop: which was a veritable torture, sickening to all who were near him, yet he never once complained of it.

Continuing these remedies, together with others that he was made to follow, brought him some relief, but not perfect health; so that the doctors believed that to recover entirely he must give up every kind of mental application and seek as much as he could occasions for diversion. My brother was reluctant to accept this advice, because he saw danger in it: but at last he followed it, believing himself obliged to do all he could to restore his health, and he supposed that respectable diversions could do him no harm; and so he went into society. But although, by the mercy of God, he always kept himself free from vice, nevertheless, as God was calling him to a great perfection, he would not leave him there, and he made use of my sister for this purpose, as he had once made use of my brother when he wished to draw my sister away from the ties that held her in the world.

She was then a nun, and was leading so holy a life that she edified the whole house: being in that state, it grieved her to see that the one to whom she owed, after God, the graces she enjoyed was not himself in possession of those graces; and as my brother saw her often, she often spoke to him of it too; and at last she did so with such strength and gentleness that she persuaded him of what he had been the first to persuade her—to leave the world absolutely; so that he resolved to give up altogether the society of the world and to cut away all the useless things of life, even at the risk of his health, because he believed that salvation was to be preferred to all things.

He was then thirty years old, and still in poor health; and it was from that time that he took up the manner of life in which he continued until his death.

To carry out this purpose and break all his habits, he changed his quarter of the city and went to live for some time in the country; and on his return from there he showed so plainly that he meant to leave the world that at last the world left him; and he founded the rule of his life in this retirement on two chief maxims, which were to renounce all pleasure and all superfluity; and it was in this practice that he spent the rest of his life. To succeed in it, he began from then on, as he always did afterwards, to do without the service of his servants as far as he could. He made his own bed, he went to fetch his dinner from the kitchen and carried it to his room, and he took the dishes back; in short, he made use of his household only to do his cooking, to run errands in town, and for the other things he absolutely could not do himself. All his time was spent in prayer and in reading Holy Scripture, and he took an incredible delight in it. He used to say that Holy Scripture was not a science of the mind but a science of the heart, which was intelligible only to those whose heart is upright, and that all others find nothing in it but obscurity.

It was in this disposition that he read it, renouncing all the lights of his own mind; and he had applied himself to it so intently that he knew the whole of it by heart; so that no one could misquote it to him; for when someone spoke a word to him on the subject, he would say positively, “That is not from Holy Scripture,” or, “That is from it”; and then he would point out the exact place. He also read the commentaries with great care; for the respect for religion in which he had been brought up from his youth had now changed into an ardent and heartfelt love for all the truths of the faith, both those that concern the submission of the mind and those that concern practice in the world, in which the whole of religion issues; and this love led him to work without ceasing to overthrow everything that could be set against these truths.

He had a natural eloquence which gave him a wonderful facility in saying what he wished; but he had added to it rules that no one had yet thought of, and he used them to such advantage that he was master of his style; so that not only did he say all he wished, but he said it in the way he wished, and his words produced the effect he had intended. And this manner of writing, natural, simple and forceful all at once, was so much his own and so peculiar to him that as soon as the Provincial Letters appeared it was plain they were his, however careful he always was to conceal it, even from his own family. It was at that time that it pleased God to heal my daughter of a lachrymal fistula which in three and a half years had advanced so far that pus came out not only through the eye but also through the nose and mouth. And this fistula was of so malignant a kind that the most skilful surgeons in Paris judged it incurable. Yet she was healed in a moment by the touch of the Holy Thorn; and this miracle was so well authenticated that it was acknowledged by everyone, having been attested by very eminent physicians and by the most skilful surgeons in France, and having been confirmed by a solemn judgement of the Church.

My brother was deeply touched by this grace, which he regarded as done to himself, since it was done to a person who, besides being his near kin, was also his spiritual daughter in baptism; and his consolation was extreme to see God manifest himself so clearly at a time when faith seemed almost extinguished in the hearts of most people. The joy he felt at it was so great that he was filled with it; so that, his mind being wholly taken up with it, God inspired him with a host of admirable thoughts on miracles, which, giving him new light on religion, redoubled the love and respect he had always had for it.

And it was this occasion that brought to light the intense desire he had to labour at refuting the chief and most false arguments of the atheists. He had studied them with great care and had employed his whole mind in seeking every means of convincing them. To this he had given himself entirely. The last year of his work was wholly taken up with gathering various thoughts on this subject: but God, who had inspired him with this design and with all these thoughts, did not permit him to bring it to completion, for reasons that are unknown to us.

Yet the withdrawal from the world that he practised with such care did not prevent him from often seeing people of great intelligence and high rank who, having thoughts of retirement, asked his advice and followed it exactly; and others who were troubled by doubts on matters of faith and who, knowing that he had great light on such things, came to consult him and always went away satisfied; so that all these persons, who are now living very Christian lives, still testify today that it is to his advice and counsels, and to the explanations he gave them, that they owe all the good they do.

The conversations in which he often found himself engaged nevertheless gave him some fear that there might be danger in them; but as he could not in conscience refuse the help that people asked of him, he had found a remedy for this. On such occasions he would take an iron belt full of points and put it on next to his bare flesh; and whenever some thought of vanity came to him, or he took some pleasure in the place where he was, or something of the kind, he would strike it with his elbow to redouble the sharpness of the pricks, and so make himself remember his duty. This practice seemed to him so useful that he kept it up until his death, and even in the last period of his life, when he was in continual pain, because he could neither write nor read: he was forced to remain doing nothing and to go out walking. He was in continual fear that this lack of occupation might turn him aside from his aims. We learned of all these things only after his death, and from a person of very great virtue who had much confidence in him, to whom he had been obliged to tell it for reasons that concerned her herself. This severity he exercised on himself was drawn from that great maxim of renouncing all pleasure, on which he had founded the whole rule of his life. From the beginning of his retirement he did not fail, either, to practise exactly the other maxim, which obliged him to renounce all superfluity; for he cut away all useless things with such care that he had gradually brought himself to having no more tapestry in his room, because he did not think it necessary, and moreover was not obliged to it by any propriety, since the only people who came there were those to whom he constantly recommended self-denial; so that they were not surprised that he himself lived in the way he advised others to live.

That is how he spent five years of his life, from the age of thirty to thirty-five: working without ceasing for God, for his neighbour and for himself, striving to perfect himself more and more; and one might say in a manner that this is the whole time he lived: for the four years that God gave him afterwards were nothing but a continual languishing. It was not properly an illness that had newly come upon him, but a redoubling of the grave infirmities to which he had been subject since his youth. But he was then attacked by them with such violence that at last he succumbed to them; and during all that time he was not able to work for a single moment at the great work he had undertaken for religion, nor to help the people who came to him for advice, either by word of mouth or in writing: for his sufferings were so great that he could not satisfy them, although he greatly desired to.